Insular Ruminations of a Brain in a Jar

[Zonestar]

Ah, Truth. My fear of disclosing too much of it is based in a realization that it is impossible to disclose all of it. So anything I present will be an incomplete picture. And people always fill in blanks with assumptions, many of which are false. And it is within that context that they judge and assess.

 

Still, I've decided to start a journal here, and vent the kinds of personal things that can only be safely vented in an anonymous space. My hope is that this will be in some ways cathartic, and will provide some sense of being just a little less alone in my quest for a connection with a soulmate, and the inevitable attending pain and disillusionment. I'm a private person, and have no one in my real-life sphere with whom I have the kind of relationship in which I'd be comfortable discussing these kinds of things. So it all goes here. Lucky you.

 

My brain is too tired at the moment to start with any actual content for this thread, but at least I've staked out a space in which to do it, which will hopefully get me in the flow of writing here.

[Zonestar]

One thing that keeps me from posting here is that I don't know where to start. I guess I want it to make at least some degree of sense to someone reading it. But I suppose that's not really the priority here. The point of this is to write about what I'm dealing with right now.

 

But it still might be reasonable to cover a little background. That would be primarily my past marriage.

 

We'll call her Ally. We met 16 years ago, in college. I was 25. She's smart, an individual thinker, and we "get" some things about each other. She's thin. And very pretty. But there was never an especially strong physical draw for me. But we became close friends, and started dating. This went on for five years. I was hesitant about marriage, because of the lack of much physical draw. But she was by far the best friend I'd ever had, and the only really close friend I'd had. After five years of this, marriage seemed like the reasonable thing. I decided that the lack of me feeling much physical interest wasn't important. So I married her.

 

Never really much of a sex life. Some, but not a lot. We continued a close friendship, and we were both very loyal and faithful to each other. My low interest in sex became an issue. I didn't initiate it often enough. She began to feel undesired, and I began to feel obligated. I liked physical affection, it's just that my sex drive dwindled. And the more I felt like it was something I should be doing, the less drive I had. We both began to wonder if there was something physically wrong with me. All the hardware worked fine; I just had no interest. Had hormone levels, etc., checked, and turned up nothing.

 

She also had very high emotional needs. I was responsive to this, and I cared about her deeply, but moving in that emotional plane so much of the time was exhausting to me. I'm not an especially emotional person, and having to operate like that so much of the time wore me down. I like and need some emotional intimacy, and in fact have a need to provide some emotional support to someone (if fulfills something in me). But I just can't be in that "feeling zone" constantly.

 

Between the sex pressures and emotional pressures, I started to kind of shut down. I shut down and pulled away from every part of my life (not just with Ally). I would get physically ill sometimes. I really cared about her, and I wanted to be what she needed me to be, but I would get exhausted and crash. She was being hurt by the inadequate emotional support, and by not feeling desirable enough physically. I was hating the fact that she was being hurt, and that I couldn't keep up. She felt guilty for me being drained all the time. We both cared deeply for each other, were hurting each other, and hated that. We were married for ten years like that.

 

Towards the end, when she would start to get too close to some guy, IRL or online, she would appreciate the attention and interest, but would feel wrong about it, and tell me. I realized I didn't feel any jealousy, or possessiveness. At all. This hurt her. I began to realize that I wouldn't feel any jealousy no matter what happened. I actually tried to feel jealous. It wasn't there. You just can't make yourself feel something you're not feeling. But understandably, it hurt her.

 

We decided to separate, and she got her own apartment. This was about a year ago. She started to get close to a guy, long distance, and I encouraged her to do so. He's a good guy, and I knew he'd be good to her. I worried about her being out on her own, completely alone (she didn't have many close friends or family), so I felt much better about her being with someone. After a couple months, she moved to where he is.

 

The separation was painful, because she was a very close friend for 15 years. We were never not friends, and we never resented each other or blamed each other for anything. We just couldn't keep hurting each other any more.

 

After we separated, and I finally began to let go of feeling loyal to her, and began to entertain the thought of other women, my sex drive returned. The thing is, I recognize that she's very attractive, but when that physical chemistry isn't there for you, it just isn't.

 

So, anyway. Here's me, single for almost a year now. And not really liking the "alone" thing. And trying to do something about that. Not particularly easy at 41, especially for an introvert who doesn't have any local friends to get out with.