I'm Back, and I haven't really changed all that much.

[RomanticBride]

If you read my post history (and it's very brief) I was a 15 year old girl who fell in love with a 25-year-old man who lived in England. Everyone except my wonderful parents was opposed to the idea. Thank God they weren't, because he came over for my 16th. We went to parks and museums and gardens and out to dinner and had a wonderful time. He came over that Christmas and spent the holidays with us, too. And the following summer, he proposed. The summer after that was my 18th, and we went to England to meet his family and ask their blessing. They took to me right away, though they said I put unholy amounts of sugar in my tea.

 

We got married in September 2011, in the US, and he moved here under a fiance Visa. On and off I had thought about coming back, about saying "HA! I told you so!" but I decided you wouldn't have believed me anyway.

 

We have been married for almost 3 years. This may I am to be 21. My views on what love is and is not have changed a little bit, but my views on what love is meant to be haven't changed even slightly. I still write poetry, and I'm a fairly good Opera singer to boot. The Opera turned out to be the only place where my particular breed of melodrama was welcomed and embraced. Love is... confusing, and a little bit sad, and lately it hasn't been what I'd always dreamt it would be. But when I ask my mother and several of my mentors if this is what love is meant to feel like, if it's meant to change this way if I am meant to grow so contented, so complacent... they all said that yes, it was natural, and that true loves takes work, and it's not always work you want to do. I don't understand. I never imagined a day when I wouldn't adore writing poetry and singing songs to my Eternal Beloved... Now poetry and songs just depress me, particularly when they're about him. I wrote this one and shared it with him very recently...

 

Here below

The lilacs die and sparrows' song

Is never more than short refrain.

In the silence

I dream of springtimes sweet and long

Which bloom and forever remain.

 

Here below

Where kisses are but memories

That bear no signs of love maintained

In solitude

I dream that passions never cease

Embraces that forever remain.

 

Here below,

In vain do men and women weep

And lovers hearts are only pain.

In my grief

I dream of love that's strong and deep

Whose promises forever remain

 

It's not as though our relationship is all bad, or even mostly bad. If I had a decade, I wouldn't be able to list all the things he has done for me, all the ways he has truly given it 110%, all the things he's bought me and places he's taken me and things he's tried to please me and countless hours he's held me and kissed me and caressed me and loved me. I tried a few nights ago, in a love letter, and I kid you not I injured my hand from the strain of all the writing. We have a million little inside jokes, and stupid little things... but it just seems to me the fire is fading, and time is taking its toll. And further, there's been infidelity in the relationship.

 

So, about last month, I was feeling really "romantic" so to speak and as my husband and I both have medical conditions that make sex hurt a LOT, we both tend to be asexual. We've been to see doctors about our lack of a sex life, to little avail. We do engage in foreplay a couple times a month but we have very low sex drive due to our conditions, and penetration is definitely out. We were both virgins (apart from one incident involving clothed foreplay and a summer vacation home!) before our wedding night and the next morning we both kind of looked at each other and said, "Let's not do that anymore". We've had a hundred heart-to-hearts as I tried to gauge what needed to be done to improve matter, but we really are both happiest when he doesn't try to penetrate me. But this night I begged him to have sex with me... He was unaware that I had another guy on Skype's webcam who could hear us if we went into the bedroom. I had left the cam on on purpose so this dude would stop accusing my husband of being bad in bed. If I had to fake an orgasm or six for my husband's honor (and, okay, my own inner exhibitionist!) so be it.

 

Turns out, Skype crashed just as we got into it, and whether that's good or bad I'll leave open to your interpretation. I was racked with guilt because I can't hide a secret from anyone- let alone my husband- if my life depended on it. I'd have to tell him about the webcam incident. I fretted and worried he was going to leave me and had panic attack after panic attack

That was the night I reconnected with an old Skype friend named Leto. Leto was absolutely made of compassion. He knew how to soothe someone through a panic attack in a manner that really could blow a psychologist out of the water. I told him I was dead without my husband, emotionally and financially.

 

Leto said I didn't have to worry about anything... if my husband left me, he would drive across country with a moving van for all my worldly possessions, and take me to live with him and his bisexual, polyamorous girlfriend, where I'd be treated like a queen.

 

Yep. He began telling me about all of his various BDSM-type fetishes, and how he was a firm but very compassionate Dom and a bunch of all this other stuff I didn't really want to know about at the time. I was bloody terrified but, if my husband left me, for the first time in my life I didn't see throwing myself off a bridge as the only course of action. I asked him to tell me more about himself, his house, his girlfriend... and my potential new life. It comforted me as I shook and trembled and was repeatedly ill throughout all that night and into the day.

 

The night and morning came and went, and presently my Eternal (Eternal??) Beloved came home. I told him about the webcam incident and he thought it was nothing and forgave me, but because I can't keep a secret like I mentioned earlier, I had to tell him about Leto too. I tried to play him off as just a creep, but the truth was I was becoming captivated and was in denial about it even to myself. I continued speaking to Leto. Suddenly, life without Eternal Beloved wasn't literally the end of the world. It would be traumatizing to be sure... but I realized for the very first time in my life that there were potentially other paths I could take. I never really made plans to leave my Beloved, but I would by lying if I said I didn't consider it, if for no other reason than it was different. I was having a quarter-life crisis.

 

Last week, Eternal Beloved finally confronted me and asked if I really thought it was normal that I hung out with him. I saw the light and realized it wasn't. I mean, even men whom I had considered my abusers (another really long story for another day) hated the dude.

 

So I have stopped talking to Leto. I will never speak to him again. And though I realize Leto may well have been an axe murderer, I still missed the deep and very-quickly-established emotional connection we'd had. And ever since I met Leto, I'm not sure I love Eternal Beloved, at least not as I once did... I know I'm very fond of Eternal Beloved, and sometimes it even melts my heart a little bit to think that he still puts up with me through all of this and actually blames me very little, saying that I was enthralled with Leto because of naivete, and that my cooled-down feelings for him are a natural sign of the relationship maturing, and that every honeymoon phase ends...

 

Tonight I told him flatly that I did not deserve him and neither did he deserve such a punishment as an adulterous wife. His reaction was to APOLOGIZE TO ME for not paying enough attention to me over the last couple of days. I was, and remain, completely floored. It's obvious he man loves me, though the reason why utterly escapes me. He's forgiven me completely -with the caveat that i never make contact with Leto again. To satisfy my lust for adventure and newness, he has planned a romantic vacation- a week at a resort, complete with dinners on cruise ships, live shows, and ziplining. Once again, above and beyond. I'm floored- there's really no other word for it- that he's anywhere near me, and I'm equally floored that in spite of it all, the flames are cooling down...

Edited April 15, 2014 by RomanticBride

[hoping2heal]

So,

 

in other words everyone was right when they said you 2 shouldn't have gotten married?

 

I guess it's a good thing you decided against what would have been a premature "I told you so".

[RomanticBride]

Not really, in fact not at all. I'm still happy I'm with him and I feel my life has been in all aspects greatly enriched by having married him. My friends and parents constantly tell me how lucky I am. I know I'm lucky. And for whatever reason, he still thinks he's lucky too. He has fully supported me throughout my quarter-life crisis and has met my every request with eagerness, and the patience of a saint. At this particular moment in my life I am not always infatuated with him, even though I have every reason to be, and that really does scare me. I'm afraid I won't be able to re-ignite the spark by waxing poetic about him and his love, which is the only way I know how. But lately I'm certain it's just a phase of some sort, the inevitable consequence of living a ridiculously sheltered adolescence and not having a chance (or even a desire at the time) to experience life.

 

My infidelity is something of which I am deeply ashamed and I feel even now that he has every right and reason to leave me. I breathe gratitude that he does not believe this is an option, as he told me, "even if he ever wanted to". He doesn't even believe I technically cheated. He tells me he loves me even more than he did on our wedding day... and remembering how his jaw dropped in absolute awe as he saw me walking down the aisle, I almost find it hard to believe. In light of all of this, part of me wants to cry out to the heavens, "Yes! I love him! I love him now and forever!" And yet, often within the same day, I find myself wondering if I ever loved him or anyone. Love does not do what I did, think what I thought, and feel what I felt. Life is confusing. Even from the most sterile and pragmatic sort of view, one should never regret one's life story, one's past, because those events and how you handled them make up who you are and who you will be. To wish away the past is to spit on your whole life. Objectivity aside, I am very glad I am with him. He obviously cares a great deal about me, and has, as I said, enriched my life in a myriad of ways. I would be infinitely worse off without having known him, worse off in ways I can neither imagine nor put into thought.

Edited April 15, 2014 by RomanticBride

[SJS]

I'm still happy I'm with him.

Really? Because I read the exact opposite in your OP.

 

 

Happy people don't cheat on their spouses or have a "back up plan".

 

 

I think you have over-romanticized marriage and now that you know it's not rainbows and kittens everyday, you find yourself questioning it.

 

 

You started dating very young. You're still very young. You've probably grown up quite a bit, and that's ok...you're supposed to! I wouldn't be surprised if you just went a different direction than him. I can tell you from experience, it does take work to grow WITH someone (hubby & I had crushed on each other at 15, started dating at 16, and are now 36). You have to work to keep that connection, and sometimes it just won't be there. I believe relationships have periods of highs and lows, and you're in a low...you just need to figure out how to work through it and keep a connection. I think you also need to figure out if you're truly in love with him, or the idea of being married...

[RomanticBride]

So considering you've gone through it before, what do I do to maintain it?

 

Any advice would be appreciated, because the amount of cynicism on this forum in general really does scare me. "Ah so, you don't really love him?"

 

Well... I don't know.

 

I ask myself what I would have done in a perfect world, that even if Leto weren't a sadist or an axe murderer or whatever... would I have been happy with him? My answer is probably not, not in the long run, because biologically speaking the chemicals that cause one to feel "in love" only last about 2 years, give or take. And I can't chase after a high forever. And even if I could make such a decision, I wouldn't, because I do not trust myself right now. I have suddenly become impulsive and flighty, which makes for a very dangerous situation for me when you factor in my naivete. In marrying my Beloved, I made the promise to entrust my life to him... physically, emotionally, mentally. And I do not believe myself to be mentally capable of making major life choices. At one point I told this to Leto, and explained that I was not able to choose between him and E.B., that the choice would have to be made for me. And since he didn't show up with a moving van the next day I'm going to assume that all those promises to me were false. The choice has been made for me. I will remain with E.B.

 

It's terribly unromantic, but devotion means doing things your heart regrets today, so you won't do things your heart regrets tomorrow.

 

All that said, I do have moments, a few times a day even, in which I get warm fuzzies for E.B. I fondly remember the days when those feelings were constant and so acute that I cried myself to sleep every night. Not out of sadness, but out of pure, raw EMOTION. I miss listening to Disney love songs on loop and feeling giddy. I miss love.

[veritas lux mea]

Quarter of a life crisis at 21??? Honey, you're just growing up. I know people who have married young and doing well. Maybe not as young as you but before 21. The key is to not think that the grass is greener. I also think you are taking your husband for granted that he will alwys be there and always forgive you. Don't take advantage of that. Choose to be a good wife and stop shopping. Focus on your music and other hobbies.

 

And please do not think you need a child right now. Wait on that at least for a couple of years.

[RomanticBride]

No worries in that department. We both agreed on 10 years of marriage before we'd even start trying.