The Good Girl

The wife:

All my life I’ve been a good girl. No, seriously…I really was a good girl. In my first post I alluded to the fact that I didn’t experiment in High School. The fact was, I was living a version of myself that people expected from me and in turn, I expected from myself.

My older sister is what my family labeled as a “slut.” She slept with every guy she dated. No, seriously. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. She got pregnant in High School twice and had an abortion TWICE. I knew what my family thought of her. Remember, SLUT?! So, of course, I made my path completely opposite of my sister.

I was a “good girl.” I didn’t date. I didn’t smoke. I didn’t party. Simply, I didn’t live. Not saying that being bad is living. But I realize now as a 30 something adult, that I didn’t experience the things that normal teenagers experience. I didn’t come out of my shell until college, and even then, I held back.

I’m not saying that I’m into the “kink” that my husband is. My holding back isn’t about just sex. It is about living life to the fullest in general. Worrying about making everyone happy and not worrying enough about my happiness.

Not only did my family expect me to be a good girl. I expected it from myself. My mom and dad didn’t make me not date. They didn’t make me not party. I made those decisions on my own. I simply didn’t want to be like my sister. 18, single, pregnancy number three and then a mom. I just didn’t want that for myself.

So, meeting my husband to be, falling in love, threw me for a loop. I was experiencing all these feelings that I repressed or simply just didn’t “live” before. I know I was sheltered but part of that was my own fault. My family didn’t deny me my right to live. In fact, they encouraged me to be the person I wanted to be. All the sheltering was on me…ALONE. I expected a lot from myself. I wanted a career. To be an individual. Not be married with kids by the time I was 25, like many friends and family.

So when my husband and I got hot and heavy…I just knew this was going to be forever. I gave him my virginity, so we were going to be each others one and only’s. That’s a lot of pressure for two people under the age of 21. Were we really in love? We’re the feelings just lust?

We were together for a few years before we got married but we still got married really young. Our sex life, I thought, was fantastic, even after the marriage. But then two years after we were married the husband started pulling away. Of course I automatically think “what’s wrong with me? Is he not attracted to me anymore?”

The truth is at the time, I had no idea what was wrong with us. We turned into roommates. ONE YEAR later he finally came out and told me what was bothering him. ONE FRICKING YEAR!!! Of course I know now that he wanted me to figure it out on my own. But I’m more like a dude in this regard…you need to spell it out for me! He was resentful that we had a family member living with us and the time and effort I spent with them to make them happy. He was right. I worried about my family members happiness more than my husband and our marriage. When he told me what was finally bothering him I immediately asked the family member to move into their own place. But there was more to his feelings then what he admitted…

Things were much better. For awhile.

9 months after we had our first child my husband dropped the bomb on me that he had “kinks.” I immediately thought “how could you do this to us? We have a family and now we’re over?!!” I didn’t even consider we could get through this at first. Him wanting to share me with another person. No freaking way! How could someone who claims he loves me want to share me. Nothing he could say could make me think this was okay. So of course I made him feel guilty and told him I wasn’t having sex with him until he could stop thinking that way.

Of course I know now you can’t stop your fantasies. In fact it can be dangerous to try to repress your feelings. But it took me a LONG time to understand this. Hopefully in the next few posts you can come to understand my feelings towards this and how we are still dealing with our differences and the compromises we have come up with SO FAR.