Ready for the psychological clusterfuck that is my story? Strap in. It’s a rough ride, but it turns out better than I’d hoped.
This is going to read a little differently than everyone else’s stories; no “skip to the steamy bits” or porn-grade displays of wild abandon. I’m no sex god. I’m just a normal, overly-trusting guy who’s gone through some stuff. While the bad parts lasted longer than half of you readers have been alive, coming out the other end I finally learned that sex can be something that makes you feel happy. This is that story. All personally-identifying details are changed. The story though is very, very real.
Until this point, I had never, even once, been in a healthy romantic relationship. In my family growing up, if you were kind and accommodating then everything always worked out. It always worked. Always. As an adult, I naively assumed that my love life would work the same way, making me a target for girls who take advantage of boys. I tried to resolve conflict by being a better boyfriend, and later, by being a better husband. I fixed things by fixing myself, by admitting that I was the problem, accepting responsibility for everything that was wrong, and changing myself — my behavior, my thoughts, my desires, everything — in response to my girlfriends’ (and then wife’s) concerns. So I never understood that my marriage was full of abuse. For 20 years I had no idea. I confidently believed that the problem was me. I was so certain.