Tag: massage parlors

Beware the Ides of March (Part I)

For all the decades I have gone to the gynecologist and dutifully gotten my PAP and HPV tests, everything has always been negative. Last year, after our first DDay, I promptly scheduled an appointment with my doctor for every STD/ STI test imaginable. All were negative. She performed my annual PAP test but said that she wanted to wait until this year to do an HPV test as my last negative HPV test had been within the last 5 years. At the time, of course, we did not know that Handsome had more than just one affair partner, and that he had acted out in massage parlors and with prostitutes, as well as with a laundry list of other skanks and randos. We did not know how high my risk actually was.

I returned for my annual exam two weeks ago. This year, my PAP was negative, but my HPV test came back positive. More specifically, I tested positive for HPV-16, one of the more virulent strains associated with the development of various forms of cancer. My doctor is lovely and kind and gave me every shred of information she could impart (how my body may clear the virus on its own – although the likelihood of that apparently decreases with age; how we can test aggressively to stay on top of any changes; and how it’s a good thing that we are flagging the issue early; etc.). The logical side of my brain is good. I have a nasty but not unexpected problem, and there is a proactive plan of action in place with a caring and trusted medical professional. The emotional side of my brain, however, is a complete and utter mess.

If I can just vent for a moment… how is it remotely fair that Handsome had really expensive orgasms, and I get an aggressive virus? How did he seriously not know that condoms aren’t magic shields? Did he not read any of the literature when he took our daughter for her HPV vaccination a few years ago? He had to sign a consent form. Did he seriously have her vaccinated for something he knew nothing about? In what way was this outcome unlikely or unpredictable based on his behavior? I am really f’ing hurt, sad, crushed, dismayed, and enraged that he put me in this position. (Insert deep, cleansing breaths here…)

But that’s not the half of it. When I tearfully shared the news with Handsome, he looked stunned and crushed (as he should). And then he opened his mouth. What came out? Not “oh, God, what can I do?” or “you must be so upset, and I am so sorry.” Nope. He turned around and walked away from me and said under his breath to himself “I can’t take any more of this.” Seriously.

He did, shortly thereafter, come back to me and hug me and very briefly say he was sorry. And then…? Nothing. I have been living with him in complete shut down mode for the last two weeks. He is sulking and pouting and barely able to hold a conversation with me. He has stopped making his SA calls. I haven’t seen him journal. He has been to one and only one SA meeting.

At the same time this is going on, I have been dealing with very bad news about my elderly mom’s health. She has a pituitary brain tumor for which the course of action is to ensure it doesn’t grow or bleed. That has been going fine except that she just recently developed atrial fibrillation, the treatment for which includes blood thinning agents to prevent clotting. That treatment is completely counter to the treatment for her tumor. She is receiving the best medical care available, but hers is a difficult situation and there are no good or easy choices. Virtually any treatment option she chooses comes with high risk for one condition or the other. I feel as though I am watching her rapidly decline on a daily basis.

So, when I absolutely need my husband to show up and be there for me, he’s off in some bizarre woe-is-me Victimville, moping about and avoiding all of his recovery resources. If I put on my empathy hat, I can imagine that me testing positive for HPV is hugely painful for Handsome. I can guess that he sees it as a reminder of how dirty his actions were and how careless and irresponsible he was and – perhaps most troubling for him – as evidence of how he not only failed to protect me, but he actually exposed me to harm. That all has to be terrible for him. Fine.

I can put myself in his shoes, but he still needs to dig out his big boy pants and spend a day on my side of the equation. I am stuck living with the consequences of his actions. Those consequences may have been unintended, but they were far from unpredictable.

More to follow…

A Week of Brutal Honesty – #4 – L is for Loser

Image result for loser meme

This is the fourth post in my week of soul cleansing. You can find the first three posts here,  here, and here.

There really is no easy way to diplomatically address this, so I’m just going to dive right in. There are girls/ women who date broken and damaged men because they either like the drama involved in trying to get them to change, or they enjoy the project of trying to spiff them up, or they think it’s the best they can hope for in a relationship. That has never been me. With one particular exception (it was a brief, 6 month bad-boy phase right after college) I’ve dated guys who were squared away. I’ve never liked drama. I dated men who seemed to have confidence and were secure in who they were and what they wanted out of life. Some of them were selfish assholes, to be sure, but they were far from secretive or apologetic about their lives or their goals and dreams.

I had one long-term (10 year) relationship prior to Handsome and he was not a project in any way, shape, or form. Neither he, nor any of the men I dated, were into porn or escorts or massage parlors. They openly mocked the men who utilized such services. They referred to the women involved as dirty, skanky, trashy and a host of less printable names. Mind you, none of these guys were chaste. Every one of them was completely into sex, sometimes overwhelmingly so, with their own unique takes on kink. Every single one of them was reasonably adventurous, but they wanted that adventure with someone “clean.”  That matched well with my sexual background and experience.

I came into my relationship with Handsome fully believing that men who paid for sex or sat in their basements self-pleasuring to porn were losers. Who pays for sex when you just go out and find someone you like and get it on?

If guys who watch porn and pay for sex are losers, what is my husband?

🙄

I struggle with this. Handsome has been a sex addict for decades… long before he met me. His pattern is to start a new relationship sober, and then after several years fall back into a phase of acting out until he walks away from the relationship (he tries to leave first so he isn’t dumped). Our CSAT calls this the “rinse and repeat” cycle.  If I knew the truth about Handsome, I never would have dated him. I certainly never would have married him. And yet here we are. I find myself married to a man I deeply love, but now struggle to respect.

That’s a tough spot to be in. I used to look at him with admiration. Now, all too often I see him through glasses colored by sadness and pity, generally with a dose of resentment thrown in as well. When he would walk into a room pre-DDay, even when I was tired, or ticked, or hungry for that matter, I would smile and get a warm fuzzy feeling. Now, I often look away. There is still love there, but it has a lot of hurt and disgust piled on top of it.

And yet this result was very predictable. Nothing in my background would suggest to Handsome that I wouldn’t be violently disgusted by his behavior. His boss is (allegedly) a complete male whore and Handsome and I used to talk about his antics disparagingly all the time and discuss how sorry we felt for his wife. More than half of that time Handsome was doing the same or worse things. (Transference, perhaps?)

Handsome certainly knew that when I found out that he’d been going down on the town syphilitic whore, it would turn my stomach for him to do that to me. He had to realize that knowing that he came inside women who were basically smashed by a steady train of paying guys all day long, having him inside me would be a lot less meaningful or fun or intimate. He must have known that the knowledge that he trolled for anonymous pussy online – and that he’d essentially fuck anything – means that whatever he says to me about wanting me is kind of a moot point. Why wouldn’t he want me after what he’s been fucking?

Of all of the issues I’m covering this week, this may be the one that is most difficult to overcome. Handsome has to work – hard – to regain my esteem and respect. So far, a year in, his record is lackluster. Yes, he has made strides, but then he undoes everything with a giant helping of lies or trickle truth or gas lighting. That can’t continue forever.

I want desperately to rebuild trust and respect for him, but only Handsome controls whether or not that is possible. I want to look at him and be proud of all of the hard work that he is doing to heal himself and us. I have had that at fleeting times throughout the last year, and then it vanishes when he undermines and self-sabotages his own hard work. I’m willing to do everything I can to help him, but he also needs to help himself.

Tomorrow – A Week of Brutal Honesty – #5 – Handsome’s Clock is Ticking