A Moment in Book Six: Trying to Hold On 2019

On Saturday and Sunday I wrote (or started to write) a specific entry.

Monday morning, I pulled up Prosebox and the entry was still there in New Entry. I figured, “Awesome. I’ll work on this while writing another entry.” However… I did not save “New Entry” into Drafts. I simply opened a new tab of New Entry, and began anew.
I should have seen it coming as it is bloody obvious in retrospect.

By starting over on “New Entry” in another tab; the program by which Prosebox now creates backups continued to create backups of the entry I was writing. Thereby deleting and overriding the “New Entry” I had worked on previously, despite that entry being open in a different tab.

To explain it another way… it was rather like opening a Photograph in two Internet Windows in order to photoshop one… and while you are photoshoping one picture the original is also receiving those edits.

A mere technical issue and flub on my part but I figured something to share on the off chance that someone else might make the same mistake as I.

I won’t recreate the entry I worked on over the weekend. A lot of it was based on emotional context at the time and an attempt to re-write it after the emotions have ebbed would be disingenuous.
Merely to summarize: I was flabbergasted to the point of being kept awake by some of the notes I had received. I understand that sex before marriage isn’t an issue in today’s age and I understand that we live in a time of shifting sexualities and genders and all that. But the sheer number of people (and the vehemence of their responses) that believed that sex and marriage had no overlap or connection was… disturbing, worrisome, and seriously life-affecting. I had a conversation with my wife about it to see if, at least as far as our situation, if I was the asshole. And, as limited to OUR marriage, we see eye to eye. Sex and Sexuality have a connection to marriage. If you are a homosexual and you marry a heterosexual; and there is no discussion that you are a homosexual… it is reasonable for the heterosexual partner to believe that there is a sexual attraction present. In a fair, honest, loving relationship… if the homosexual partner comes out to their heterosexual partner, three things should be expected. (1) Hurt on the part of the heterosexual partner; (2) support, you got married because you care about each other… support your spouse in this difficult time; (3) divorce, because if the marriage was entered into with an understanding of monogamy; allowing your heterosexual partner to have Sexuality Consistent Relationships is as important as allowing your homosexual partner to have Sexuality Consistent Relationships. And this exact scenario happened all the time in the 1980s and 1990s. “I married you because I felt societal pressure to try to be someone I’m not. Your love and support has made me feel like I can be who I am now.” Divorce.

I understand that there are couples in the world who do the Polygamy thing or do the Never Sex thing and, unless I’ve completely gone off my rocker… those elements would also be a portion of (1) sexuality and (2) agreement in the marriage. Unless we genuinely live in a world now whereby one partner in a marriage is allowed to have multiple other partners without telling their spouse? Unless we genuinely live in a world now where a spouse isn’t allowed to feel angry or hurt if the other spouse is seeking a sexual relationship of any kind outside of the marriage?

What it breaks down to, I guess?

Everyone who has ever known me in real life knows that I view sex and marriage as inextricably linked. Anyone who dated me knew that I wanted to wait until I was with the woman I was going to marry and knew for certain before I would engage in the activity of penile penetration of the vagina. The woman I was with for 6 years who agreed to be my wife knew that physical intimacy (up to and including sex) were important parts of marriage to me. Now… if I were being a shitty husband… if I were some monster person… if I were the kind of guy that Lifetime makes movies about… then, yes, I certainly see it as reasonable why intimacy and sex aren’t a part of my marriage. But I’m not that guy. I’m the guy that works a full time job that involves a lot of stress, goes home and helps cook dinner, does the dishes, and helps do the laundry, and then sits down and talks to Wife about her day. I go out of my way to try to be a good husband.

So… entering into a marriage with a woman who (1) to this day claims she is a heterosexual and not a lesbian or asexual; (2) knows that I view marriage and sex as linked; (3) expressly does not want me seeking sexual release outside of the marriage; (4) has honestly expressed that I do a good job as a husband… I guess, all things considered… I don’t see why people are so hostile that, in that specific and limited scenario, I’m a little upset that I don’t have any physical intimacy with my wife. Like… really? A heterosexual man marries a heterosexual woman, expects a marriage that involves physical intimacy… and I’m the bad guy? How the hell does that work?