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74 – Memoir 3 – CHANGE… ME or YOU?

Written by Marie on . Posted in Uncategorized. No Comments on 74 – Memoir 3 – CHANGE… ME or YOU?

After that (almost completely) fateful night…. the only “real” change in our marriage for ALMOST A FULL YEAR was that I was tracking his phone, watching his email, scouring the credit card and phone statements, for the express purpose of looking for trouble. I never found any, which really made me wonder if he was just better at hiding it, or if it was truly not happening. I had NO way of knowing what “truth” was anymore.

In short: I didn’t trust him!

i know you are thinking, “what? NO change? Why?” Well…. it is harder than you think and it’s a lot easier to talk about it when you aren’t in the middle of the emotional part of it too!It took a lot of time to even decide if we wanted to try, then work up the effort to make it happen, and then what does this so-called “change” even look like?!?

But after almost another year of me being hyper vigilant and watching him like a hawk, we were both miserable. He got mad at one point and said, “I can’t live with you watching my every move. I can’t prove the negative… THAT is not even possible! What will it take to move past this? I’m still HERE. With YOU. What can I do to prove that YOU are who I want???”

That was the first sign of outward fatigue for either of us. I knew I was already SO very tired of trying to figure out if I should stay, should go, how to make things better, feeling good AND bad…. and ultimately….. I was tired of ….being in control. This was NOT sustainable!

C-H-A-N-G-E was becoming the word of the day and I simply had to stop running from it and start embracing it.

Now you may wonder, “WHY did you stay?” Ultimately, it was because I didn’t know if I should leave.

My parents divorced when I was 5. I remember my Dad and Mom having this vicious pattern where Dad would live at our house for months at a time where we were a “Family” again… and then he’d leave. And then he’d be back and repeat. This went on for many years. And I vowed to NEVER do that wish-washy thing to my kid. I decided to stay, “Until I knew I was ready to leave. For good. Forever.”

So every day for more than a year, I prayed the EXACT same prayer EVERY-SINGLE-DAY, “Lord, I don’t know if I should stay or if I should go. But I do know, I need you to be in charge and be in control. If today is the day I should leave, I need you to give me a sign. But if today is the day I need to stay, I will listen and wait on you Lord. Either way, direct my path in the way you want me to go”.

So my decision to STAY was an active decision. It was NOT simply “by default”. Making no decision is ultimately a decision, but I HAD made a decision. Daily!

And that was when the movie “Fireproof” by Kirk Cameron came out. And “The Love Dare” was a thing that sprung from the movie. It wasn’t the best made movie, but when I went to see it (with my mom and sister), it spoke to my heart.

The next day, I bought The Love Dare Book. And it was a 40-day challenge to reign down love on your spouse in a Christian/biblical way …. before you decide to leave/ divorce. And I didn’t tell him at all what I was doing.

The first day said:

I admit, I did NOT do this entire Love Dare with an “all-in” heart. I did this from a “I want to say I tried. And I’m tired from all the other things I’ve done already so maybe this is the thing. So, I’ll try.” So i did it with a Fake-It-Til-You-Make-It mentality.

And holding my tongue that first day was a REAL chore! To which he didn’t even notice. I was not surprised, but I was disappointed.


Day 2 said:

On this day, I bought him a gift. One that was more about the gesture than the gift, but he was surprised. He asked me what prompted it. And thanked me. (He noticed! Progress!)

And this SERVING-HEART continued for many days. I never made it to the end of the full 40-days because we started talking, really talking (!!) somewhere around 10-days in and we started changing……. but more importantly, I started changing!

I no longer saw the problem as HIS fault, but OUR fault. I realized I had done a lot to contribute to David’s unfaithful spirit. I realized I did nothing to bring him home to me and yet he came home anyway. I decided I had to change myself if I was going to expect our marriage to change. And in the end, if I changed but our marriage didn’t, then it was in the Lord’s hands and that would be my “sign” and probably time to go then.

From that point and for Several years forward…… we went into a “sexual discovery” mode of sorts. We started this because I was still angry. He got to have fun, so I should be able to too. But I wanted to do it together, and not behind anyone’s back. (This all sounds crazy to me now, but honestly, I was hurt and mad and sad and unclear and needed to “find a new way” …. to C-H-A-N-G-E). I was unclear if I wanted to be dominant/submissive, sadist/masochist, swinger, tied up/ do the tying, polyamorous, bisexual, homosexual/ (lesbian), heterosexual, and every combination you can think of!

We joined a few dating sites and proceeded to try it all! We went to swinger clubs, we met individuals/groups, we did things alone and together.

And the whole time, I scoured the internet asking questions that started with…. “is bisexual forbidden in the Bible?” And “how do i know if I’m a lesbian?” And “how to have a successful open marriage?” and “is polyamory legal?” And “Is swinging morally wrong?”

And we tried out ALL these things! And I do mean, ALL!

Then we started to find what we liked and didn’t….. through all this discovery, I found that I didn’t like being tall, or Capitalized, or In control…. so i went to being the little i, the submissive, the one being handed orders and not giving them, the one who listened and obeyed. And we ultimately confirmed that David did NOT want to give up control nor was he submissive!

THIS was when i discovered DD. And specifically it was Jennifer’s blog that showed me some of the how-to’s. And how to get it into our marriage fully. i followed her blog and “lurked” for about a full year before i knew this was what i truly needed, with our own twist on it too.

That’s when I started googling things like “is it right to like to be spanked?” And “is spanking your wife biblical?” And “why does the Bible say to submit to your husband?” And “What is DD?” And “What’s the difference in BDSM and DD”.

It was also then that i realized that God answered my prayers. He allowed me to explore with my husband, but never leave him. He allowed me to be with my husband, while discovering who i am. (The little i).

And strangely enough, all that control i tried to hang onto in the start was freeing to give up. i was hanging on so tightly to the sand, that i was crushing it in my hand and it slipped through the cracks. Giving into it freed me. And allowed our marriage to experience the true change we both sought!

Now …. all that was left…. while David basically knew what i needed, we hadn’t actually decided or talked about “this being our way”. Not had i any clue if he’d actually willingly spank me for discipline, and not just for sexual/kink! But i knew… i had to talk to him. And the overwhelming thoughts of “what if he says no?”… loomed large!

i will end this memoir series with the final post tomorrow …. talking about how we specifically talked about THIS thing we do with D/s and DD consequences.

Hugs,

Marie

73 – Memoir 2 – “No, I don’t want a divorce…. I want change”

Written by Marie on . Posted in Deep Thoughts, Marriage, Submission. No Comments on 73 – Memoir 2 – “No, I don’t want a divorce…. I want change”

Change. It’s a simple word with a powerful punch. Why is change important? Or needed? And why do we fear it so much?

i did a simple google search on “change”, and one of the first things to pop up was this:

On an individual level, change is important because it is the precursor to all growth. We don’t grow by keeping things “safe” – by preserving the status quo (even though that may seem more comfortable). All personal growth comes from meeting the challenge of change. By dealing with life challenges we learn that we can.

So maybe these words above wasn’t what i knew about or thought about all those years ago…. but it was definitely what we needed!

And now… he wanted change. I couldn’t have agreed more!

Ahh buddy, yes indeed… we WILL be changing alright! If you don’t want a divorce, you will indeed be changing! There’s no doubt about that! And I will tell you now how that’s going to happen…..

All i knew for sure was my husband of 10- years, friend for 15 (we dated for 5 before marriage), and father to our only child, was indeed unfaithful. He had broken our marriage vows. He had broken my heart. And my whole life was about to change… whether i wanted it or not!

And that’s when we proceeded to have the biggest fight of our entire relationship! We yelled, cried, threatened to leave…. and yet…. still stayed. If either of us had really given up on “us”, we wouldn’t have fought. We would not have even cared enough to fight.

The opposite of love is NOT hate. It is apathy. When you don’t care, you have no feelings at all. And we clearly did. How much either of us ultimately cared or if it was enough to carry us through the process of what it would take to fix what was broken, i didn’t know.

That’s when I told him how it would be. I told him, “you will break it off with her…NOW. You’ll tell her you love me and only me. You’ll tell her you are committed to your wife and son. And from now on, you are NOT to delete any texts, any emails, and I will check the phone bill to confirm. And this is the way it has to be to rebuild the trust! Are you ready to break it off with her??”

Yes (ma’am). i put that word (ma’am) in parenthesis because while he did NOT say it out loud, i was absolutely in control that night and we both knew it…. at least in that moment anyway. (And did you also notice i put the I in caps?? I was in charge now. I was the one who was taking control!)

I dared him to call her and tell her RIGHT THEN. I wanted to hear it!

And he did.

After just a minute of talking to her, he put her on speaker and said, “Marie, she wants to talk to you” (WTF….. no F’ing way do I want to talkkkkkk to her!)

She said, “I’m sorry. Can I come over and we talk through this?”

Me: Seriously? You want to talk? In MY house? You tried to ruin my life, while betraying our friendship by sleeping with MY husband for a YEAR! And now you are “sorry”? We are never speaking again! I want you GONE!

Her: Please, just hear me out.

Me: fine.

Ding dong. The doorbell rang.

She was at our house! He had apparently told her before he even got home that i knew, it was over, and she had notions of “wanting to make it right”. She had driven to our house and was sitting in the car working up the courage to knock on the door when David called her.

I answered the door. She asked to come in. I was SO pissed that I was like, “FINE! SURE! Come on into MY house tonight since you’ve been lurking in the shadows for a year! At least now I know you are being honest and in the light!” (At this point it was almost 9pm and getting quite dark… and we had NO lights on in the house! So the pun of the light was quite literal at that moment. But no one was laughing though either).

She came in and I looked at David, shaking my finger at him and barked orders to him, “she came to talk to ME. Not you! Don’t say a word!”

She sat down and we yelled, cried, fought.. and wore ourselves out. David did talk, but only in the strategic places he felt he could.

And after we were exhausted and (mostly) out of words, she reached her hand out to mine (we were on opposite sides of one of the couches, while David had been ostracized to his own couch)…. she touched my fingers, she covered the back of my palm, she squeezed and said, “I’d like to make this up to you …..in the shower….. together.”

And she grabbed my hand, pulled upward, and stood up. And said, “let’s go get naked together. David has seen me naked. He’s seen you naked. But we’ve never seen each other naked. Let’s make him watch us have sex together.”

I was so numb and wanting someone to love ME that this sounded stupid, crazy, and completely insane…. and yet, exactly what I needed too!

So I did it.

She went down on me in the shower.

And I felt like David was right… he and I were NOT sexually incompatible… and maybe all those pent up, “bad girl” ideas I had were just “bad ideas”.

While I was trying to find the answer to rid ourselves of this contagion “virus” from my home, I had opened and invited it further inside. Literally, inside ME. And it felt GOOD!

That’s when it morphed into more….we all 3-had sex…. together… in OUR bed… the virus had fully infected everything!!!

And we put all our sexual parts everywhere ….but …. when he put his cock inside her, I saw. I saw how she wasn’t “just” a girl he fucked… it was someone he was passionate with. And I was the 3rd wheel. And I freaked out!

I almost threw up. Literally. The virus made me sick! And I threw on the first thing I saw (one of David’s long t shirts) and ran out of the house. No shoes, no pants, no keys, no phone, and nowhere to go…. and I ran… yes, RAN. On bare feet, I wanted to feel the pain of the road against my feet. I wanted my body to be torn up on the outside to match how I felt on the inside. And I wanted to get AWAY. Not just away from the house, but my life, him, her and well…ME.

What was I thinking allowing her in our house? What did I really expect to see after they’d been fucking each other, behind my back, for an entire year? But they weren’t “fucking”… they were making “love”!!

I ran. With no awareness of how far or fast…. I was so lost in my head I wasn’t sure I wanted to come out of it either. It was midnight. And I ended up at the neighborhood park. On a swing. (Oh The irony… swinging in the bed and now swinging alone at the park!)

I dared him to come get me. I knew if he didn’t, I was filing for divorce the next day. And yet, I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to come or not! I prayed “God let YOUR will be done!”

And he did. God’s will was done. And that was for David to come. He cane and got me. He’s always wanted ME!

He just wanted more now too. He wanted change.

And then we cried in each other’s arms in the park. He tried to get me to go back to the house and I said “not until she’s gone. I can’t have her there anymore. We have to find a new way forward, and it can’t be with her”

He said, “she’s already gone.”

And that’s when we started to talk …. over MANY months and really YEARS forward…. what we wanted this new “change” to look like……

So coming back full circle on this post…. all growth starts with change. You can’t expect anything to improve if you aren’t willing to change. You have to go all-in, you have to embrace change, you have to want to change…….

I’ll tell you more in Memoir 3 …. about how we’ve morphed from that night to where we are now.

And now I’m off of here … to EDGE. AGAIN! I’M SO FRUSTRATED. I NEED RELEASE! I’M NOT GOING TO LAST 7-DAYS! 😩

Hugs,

Marie