Meandering Mind - Eva Dillner [34]
I explored his ideas about sex and what they were about and why he wanted to wait. Well it made sense that he wanted to respect the wedding vows that were so sacred to him. Then I wondered, what if we weren't sexually compatible? What a horrible thought to discover that on your wedding night.
Finally one night, I think it might even have been New Year's Eve, I brought the subject up, “we have to talk about this.” I remember being nervous and eating a whole bag of chocolate covered raisins. I launched into the conversation with, “I need to understand your thinking about sex and I don't want to wait until our wedding night.” He explained to me that sex was something special, not just some animal thing you do. In his head, sex in marriage was “Honey, let's make a baby tonight.” The realization of what he was saying sunk in, he didn't just want to wait until marriage, but then sex would only be for procreation! He wasn't even catholic! Oh dear I thought, we really need to sort this out.
“Do you really think that is reasonable?” I said, “to only have sex when we want to make babies? What about all the other times we feel tender and heaven forbid just plain horny and full of lust?” Poor Jerry was so indoctrinated by his church teachings that he couldn't conceive of having sex with me unless we were married and about to make a baby.
It dawned on me that I was waiting for very meager satisfaction of my rather healthy lusts. As we talked, Jerry got more and more upset. I was challenging everything he stood for and believed in. His conclusion was angrily, “you want me to screw you” and then he broke up with me. Left me high and dry. Stunned into silence, I vowed something that isn't quite released yet. But he taught me unequivocally that if I make my needs known, he would leave. I was not allowed to have any needs, no sir. No wonder that set me up for later disasters.
I was really hurt but didn't process it at the time. I think I was too stunned to be able to. That's what happens when you are in shock. You go numb and can't deal with the emotions and you end up carrying them with you.
These beliefs I've carried with me into other relationships. Beliefs like “if I tell him how I feel I'm afraid he'll leave and not come back” or “if I show my needs, he will think I'm being difficult and break off the communication.”
I have a friend who says my needs are so overwhelming that no one can meet them. I think she is talking about herself and her own experience that she can't get her needs met and if she shows the slightest neediness people leave. Yes my needs are surfacing, and for some people that is scary but it's also a cleansing process of relationships. I am practicing stating what I need but it doesn't mean that others have to fulfill them.
Unconsciously, I have chosen partners where I can't get too close and who aren't into meeting my needs. Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone could get therapy on a regular basis and we could work through issues like these as we go along instead of filing them in bags and carrying them with us for years and years and years.
I would love to see therapy taught from a perspective of giving you the tools to use for your own healing and to practice with the other members of the class. As issues come up we could help each other. We would take turns and would come together as equals. Many people trained and certified in alternative therapies have done the training for their own inner process, not to make a living at. Why not teach it from that perspective to begin with?
Jerry blamed me for our break-up. He laid the guilt on me and left me a message that my sexual needs were way out of line. Boo-hoo, it used to be my favorite pastime. I am experiencing an intense anger towards Jerry and very deep hurt. Guilt and shame as well. Like my sexual needs were not ok, something dirty we shouldn't talk about.
He projected his shit onto me. Why couldn't he have said we have different opinions about this? Why couldn't we have recognized