Not Me Oh

Part 2 of my post

We started counseling in the Spring with the same therapist but an understanding that most everything my wife said would remain confidential. The counselor could only tell me what my wife consented to or give me general impressions.

The way I got to counseling was a bit strange. I was researching on the internet the way I was feeling after the swinging had stopped, & most of the posts I came across were for people that had been cheated on by their spouses. It made me start to wonder if, with my wife's night job and me at work during the day, WAS she cheating? I had never had a reason to doubt her fidelity prior to this, but now these controlling feelings were with me. The resentment was there since she had to stop these activities (swinging and chatting) that made her feel attractive for one of the first times in her life (even though she was at least 130 lbs above her weight loss goal). The guys that my wife was friends with at work became suspect....obviously there WAS the one guy that had asked her to cheat on me and that made me question whether she had encouraged that AND if she had started down that road before she asked for permission to swing! We had a game night with another one of her married coworkers (his wife was there), & this guy was a total pig. Everyone except me was drinking (I was the designated driver and on antidepressants at this point at the suggestion of our counselor). This coworker kept saying things like "I'll take a drink if all you ladies take your top off" or "Hey, ladies let's go upstairs and get naked." I blew these comments off a bit and eventually made a run out to drive home one of the gal's that had gotten too drunk to drive. I came back to the party which was by now just my wife and the couple, & my wife is talking to the guy's wife about how she thought based on her ex's that all guys were that big.........ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME? I wasn't upset that she might be talking about me. What I was upset about was that my wife didn't appear to understand the boundaries that at least I expect her to observe in a marriage. She can't fantasize....she can't have a normal sexual relationship with me...but she wants to talk intimate sexual details with this woman with the husband right there? I came through the door, told her that this was NOT COOL, and said it was time to go home.

Over the next few months we fought about wifey's relationships with guys. I told her that I was okay with her being friends with appropriate guys, but guys that in any way were disrespectful or forward with her were not okay. She thought I was trying to control her...perhaps I was...I said to myself that, if she drifted into one emotional affair at work, what's going to say she won't do that again intentionally or unintentionally seeking that BOOST.
She stopped talking to the guy that had been so inappropriate but that was mainly because he switched shifts.

So back to the counseling. The counselor and I talked a ton, & wifey saw her on her own. We started down on a road where I realized that my wife wasn't physically cheating
but that she was indeed getting most of her need for conversation and emotional support from people other than me. The counselor recommended that we focus our attentions on each other and pretty much drop off the face of the earth...and we complied. It was explained that my wife with her background had the emotional capacity of a guy...let me explain...she was the guy in the relationship and I the chick (something we had joked about for years)...so she didn't have my capacity for talking about problems and fears and working on them. She wasn't in touch with her feelings.

Another road that I started to go down before the counseling (based on internet research) was that my wife had been molested as a child. The counselor even said when asked what books I might read for help, that I should get the Allies in Healing book. It took many more sessions for my wife to clear this one up. She allowed the counselor to tell me that she had not been molested as a kid. Sounds like a load off, huh? Well, that night I pushed my wife further. I KNEW for a fact that there was some deep, dark secret there that my wife ALWAYS refused to clear up. She finally came clean and explained that she had been date raped once in college and repeatedly abused by her fiancee (the last relationship before me)...I would say that was rape too because the guy took sex whenever he wanted it, even if she didn't. He was also very controlling, emotionally abusive, and a drain on her finances.

I entered this marriage with the promise that I would love my wife for better or worse...but man, I felt like she had not been honest with me. You agree to love someone
but shouldn't you have all the facts? I was attracted to the fact that she needed me, but would I have chosen her as my spouse if I had known she was this "traumatized"
I can't honestly say "yes." I love my wife and know that she supports me back. We have a very dysfunctional sex life. I am emotionally in touch, and she shuts things up in side. She has been depressed for much of her life and now has me all f*cked up in the head over the sex and swinging. We have a child that we conceived with a few rounds of medical assistance (regulating hormones) after years of trying the natural way....and in July we got the biggest surprise of our lives...we're pregnant again but this time the natural way. I know from my 2 long posts that this may sound like a bad thing, but I'm in this for the long haul. There's no way I will break up the family and f*ck up our kids lives...and I always said that I wouldn't leave over s*x (as long as my wife didn't cheat on me)...but man, it's hard to stay when you just think your wife is f*cked in the head about sex and isn't making any effort to make things better there.

There are a few more things I'd like to say in a 3rd post that covers what's happened since the rapes came to light and what we tried to improve things emotionally and sexually.