Get me on Oprah... or maybe Dr. Phil

I’m going to try and recreate the blog post I was writing in my mind last night as I couldn’t sleep. Now I’m pretty sure that everyone who reads this blog knows me well enough to be able to cope with this post, and I really need to get this stuff out of my head, but if you don’t think you know me intimately stop reading know. There is one person I spent the weekend with recently who won’t know what the hell I’m talking about, and that is purely because I haven’t had the chance to chat to you yet – but feel free to ask the other girlies that we there for the gory details, they have my permission to tell you.

Husband and I didn’t have the easiest pathway to getting married. We split up twice. The first time was for a month after we’d been together about 9 months – so not too bad. The second time was after three years, we were living together, and we split up for about four months, but had to keep living together as we had neither of us could afford to move out. Both splits were instigated by my now husband. The second one was horrible, I really lost it for a while, but somehow managed to pull myself together enough to do some soul searching and work on a way of trying to fix us. Thank God/ess it worked. Two years later we tied the knot and I am 100% certain it was the right thing to do.

There are lots of reasons why we had such a rocky road. I had a massive CFS flare up 3 months after we met, and spent the next 6 months recovering – not conducive to setting up a run of happy times to lean on when times get tough later – and my illness always adds an extra layer of stress to life in general. Husband had a fair few issues to do with relationships (and particularly marriage) and I’m sure I had a few of my own to throw into the mix. We also had various times of fairly high stress involving finances or family.

By the time we were getting married, however, although some of the stress factors hadn’t gone away (and we were living 250 miles apart at the time), we had pretty much learnt to deal with them. That was until “the bad thing” happened. Not going to say here what that bad thing was because I don’t want it floating around in the ether going “whooooh…. I’m bad”. Let’s just say a whole ‘nother heap of crap landed at our doorstep (particularly my doorstep). After an initial analysis of why “the bad thing” happened and deciding we still wanted to get married, we decided to put it in a metaphorical box and stick it in a cupboard until after our wedding day.

The tactic worked, we had a wonderful wedding and a blissful honeymoon. Some of the box got unpacked, and the significance of the “bad thing” has faded with time. But there is a part that remains in me and has an effect on our emotional and sexual life. I figured out that as far as the sex part is concerned my basic emotionally reaction (ignoring the no sex drive problem – now that’s in a really big box) is one of fear. He touches me and I just freeze. Now just to explain, there ain’t no technical problems in the bedroom – this one is all in my head. I just don’t want to let him get that close to me, for us to be that intimate – I just freak out. Sex has always been something that has been important to me (hell I’ve even considered a career as a sexologist) but is something that Husband and I have never found our ‘normal’ at. Not having that experience, combined with the “bad thing” just seems to have thrown me totally off and over the cliff.

A similar thing goes for our emotional intimacy. This has actually got worse for me over the last year as I just feel so disconnected from him – and from most people actually. I take medication for anxiety which I know has a dulling effect on my emotions – but I can’t stop it as I just end up having panic attacks. Being sick with my CFS also doesn’t help. But again the “bad thing” seems to have pushed me past a tipping point and I’m having a hard time crawling back up and over the hill top.

For all those of you who know me, don’t worry, we are ok – really! But this isn’t how either of us wants our married life to be. He is my best friend, gorgeous, and a fantastic husband. I just want to want to connect with him again – then the emotional and sexual stuff will fall back into place again. Our one year wedding anniversary is next weekend, a year’s been a long time to be feeling this way. I just wish I knew what to do to fix me.