Hey everyone. You might have seen another post or two I've made. I'm feeling overwhelmed lately with all the work I need to do on myself to be who I want to be. It honestly all boils down to taking care of myself, relieving stress, making decisions based on what I want, and loving my husband who's stuck by me for 13 years. But due to anxiety, depression, and religious trauma, sometimes it feels impossible to sort through.
In a nutshell, I've never cared about sex. I actually avoided it. I grew up in an environment where any mention of it was shameful and you were a slut if you talked about it, had it, watched it – anything. I wasn't even allowed to look at the male biology diagram in school. However, it would be my duty as a wife to provide it for my husband when he wanted it. Fast forward about 10 years and we practically have a dead bedroom on account of all that and my refusal to accept it's my responsibility too. It's done a lot of damage to my marriage and caused a lot of hurt for my husband who didn't feel loved because I didn't initiate, barely participated, etc.
We've made a lot of progress the past year. I committed to regularly seeing a sex therapist. I've been taking constant steps, albeit sometimes small ones, towards changing my view on sex and improving my confidence and self-worth. I've also begun changing other things to make myself and my relationship a priority rather than work or chores or whatever else. Our sex life is much better, though it still needs work. Our communication is way better, though it can always be improved as well.
When you spent most of your life doing things for others because that determines your worth, one of the hardest things to untangle is figuring out what you even want. Who am I? What is my desire? When you introduce sex, that leads to a sensitive gray area of how to know what I want from sex when I can't even decide what I want for lunch? I don't feel in any way like my husband pressures me in a harmful way. However, he does pressure me because if he didn't I wouldn't be motivated enough to try. I'd be passive and complacent rather than happy. I want to feel free. I want to be a person who can enjoy intimacy with my husband just for fun and because its a beautiful thing. I honestly want to have the slut phase I never got and embrace everything sexual. But my brain won't let me and that's so incredibly frustrating.
It's all so much sometimes. Sometimes I'm proud of the progress I've made in being who I want to be. Then other times I'm so frustrated at how hard it is. And I'm disappointed when I make a mistake or miss something that seems so obvious and easy to so many other people.
Writing things out, journaling, venting, talking etc all help me process and make progress on myself. I understand the solution lies within communicating with my husband and working on myself and our relationship. It just helps me to work through it all so I know what to say and how I want to say it. It also helps to not feel so alone. Thanks for reading.