The Last Bit in Book Six: Trying to Hold On 2019

In Iowa, I’m writing this at around 7:00 a.m. In Hawai’i, it is 2:00 a.m. I can’t sleep. So, here are my notes on the last few days.

On Saturday, I decided that Wife would get until Noon to figure out what she wanted to do. If she couldn’t figure it out, we’d go to one of the Botanical Gardens that we could drive to. She reviewed all of the travel books and pamphlets and “decided.” But it turned out to be less a “here’s what I want to do” decided and more of a “here’s where I want to go” decided. We drove across the Island to Hilo. We had a nice lunch and did some window shopping. Then we hit the Kamehameha Statute and did a little driving sight seeing. All in all, it was still a “sitting around kind of day,” but still sightseeing. Wife did the driving and really seemed to enjoy the whole day. It certainly helps that she was driving a new Dodge Challenger of course, lol. So… on Saturday, I was struggling with whether to approach her about… everything… and ultimately decided that I didn’t want to potentially spoil the day. If it was a good day for her, let’s just see if she can build some momentum. Otherwise, I decided, I’ll have to talk with her about “I love you” and sex and if she can prioritize our marriage in any way sooner than later either way.

Then I checked Prosebox and.... some good, quality, heartfelt stuff that I really appreciated.... amongst the usual “stop complaining, get a divorce, cheat on her, but shut up!” kind of notes. I have to admit that I’m a bit… over that kind of thing, frankly. I get that I do want feedback… and I honestly try to write my heart here… but at the same time? I just feel like.... reading one or two entries a week and then telling me what I should do is… well, like reading a few books in a manga out of order and telling the author why you would do a better job writing their work. The truth? Let me recap some stuff for you. The following is repeated information from a previous entry but… apparently, it was too cryptic?? Somehow.

I am the second born to a Christian family in the United States in the state of Iowa. I was raised from early on that being intelligent and being devoted to Christ were things that really mattered. In fact, I had probably been repeatedly and aggressively told NO SEX UNTIL MARRIAGE more times by the age of 10 than most kids get by the age of 16. I was also told that as we consider God the Father, being a good man and a good husband was the most important thing in the world. By the time I was 13, I had already attended 5 Promise Keeper Conferences with my father. My reading materials as a child? Largely Star Wars novels, which my Dad didn’t like, so I would intermix books from people who spoke at Promise Keepers. I probably read The Four Pillars of a Man’s Heart by Stu Weber three or four times. And a whole host of other books that were similar. So that is often what I refer to as “my programming.” The steady diet of spiritual and intellectual reinforcement that I had to be a good husband and that part of being a good husband was only ever having sex with your wife and how that includes before you even know her. So it wasn’t “no sex until marriage” for me as much as it was “No sex because of marriage” but in a good way? Like… that the most romantic thing I could do for my wife was tell her “I was faithful to you before I even knew you because I loved you before I met you.” I was a kid growing up with that shit getting drilled into me.

Essentially, the primary family values I was given before the age of 12 were:
(1) Be a good husband
(2) Being a good husband means not cheating on your wife… even if you don’t know who that is yet
(3) Sins of the heart/mind are equal to sins of action

Hell, starting at about the age of 7 or 8, I was “looking for a wife” and was directly told (often) that the only reason to date was to find a wife. Yes, messed up. But… honestly… how I was raised. Pretty… uh.... marriage focused.
The primary lessons of my life, it seems, were
(1) Be a good husband
(2) Don’t have sex with someone that isn’t your wife
(3) Looking at porn is a sin of the mind/heart and hurts your relationship with your wife… even if you don’t know who your wife is yet.

I got to the age of 21 as a virgin. Well… that largely depends on your definition. If you count oral sex, hand jobs, or masturbation? Then no. I suppose I wasn’t a virgin until I was 21. But if penile penetration of the vagina or anus is how we define sex for purposes of virginity? Then yes, it can be said I was a virgin until the age of 21. I decided/realized that the whole thing was likely bunk. I still wanted to be a good husband… I wanted to be a romantic, passionate person for my Wife… but wasn’t part of growing up making the mistakes that created a better you? So having sex with someone before being married to someone was just one way of making sure you were a better version of you; thus a better husband! Plus, my brother got married that year… and he and I had discussed what it was to be in his position. He had lost his virginity to a girl in High School… his bride had lost her virginity to my brother’s best friend in High School… what was that going to be like? And we discussed it. And I realized I didn’t have to be controlled by this dogmatic belief. My brother wasn’t betrayed by his bride’s previous sexual history. My sister-in-law wasn’t loved less or differently due to my brother’s sexual history. I didn’t need to hold myself so strictly to that standard. And that’s the year I met my now-Wife.

There’s an additional “Don’t Get A Divorce” influence but it can seem SUPER judgey. I have two families. Mom’s family and Dad’s family. One family has divorces. The other family does not. Mom’s sisters? Got divorces. Sometimes often. And all of them have terrible family lives and financial lives and personal lives. I’m not saying divorce ruined their lives… but I am saying, anecdotally? Divorce really seems to have been a gigantic brass nail in their life ruiney coffin. Dad’s brother? Never divorced. Not even once. And he’s one of the most successful men I’ve ever met. Hands down. I’m not saying not divorced led to his success… but I am saying, anecdotally? Not getting divorced meant that my Uncle did not have legal fees, alimony, child support, schedule-conflicts in child visitation, or any of the other headaches (financial, emotional, personal) that Divorce invariably comes with.

Not to mention that my marriage does have a lot of good to it sometimes… it’s just… Wife lacks ambition, passion, and emotional fortitude. Which are deficiencies that I have benefited from in our marriage. If Wife had ambition, it would have been a challenge to get to where I am in my career. If Wife had passion, well… arguably, Aku was nothing but passion and look how that turned out?!

That being said......

Sunday started out with me being the lazy one. Is is SO hot!! But Cousin’s Wife made us an awesome breakfast and Wife was really deep dive-looking at the Pamphlets and cross-referencing the internet. She actually did a great job, too. She pretty much got our entire last day scheduled with great activities. AND… I have to say.. she looked GOOD doing it!!! She was wearing a black tank top and a blue/white floral skirt… a skirt! My wife in a tank top and a skirt!! NICE. Kind of wound me up a bit. Of course, no sex… but good to see my wife being sexy.

In fact, so sexy that… I just had to bring the topic up. I mean… we’ve been here for six days… Wife bought six condoms… and no sex. Hell, I’ve masturbated three times on this trip! So… I brought it up. “Are we going to have ANY sex on this trip?” And she said.... despite it being vacation, she was feeling super self-conscious. Okay, but that honestly could mean different things so I asked a clarifying question. Are we talking she feels self-conscious because she doesn’t like how she looks? Or are we talking she feels self-conscious because she’s worried about Cousin and his Wife hearing us? She… actually said she didn’t know which she meant. Which honestly? Kind of strikes me as a weak attempt at admitting, “I don’t feel like having sex and I’m just saying an excuse I’m hoping you’ll buy without hurting your feelings.”

Then, she actually said that she wanted to go out and snorkel. GOOD! There’s so much to see out there!!! BUT?

As soon as her foot hit the water; you could see her body go rigid. Panic. Fear. When she got her mask and fins on? AMPLIFY. TOTAL panic. COMPLETE fear. SHUT DOWN. Which resulted in her ripping off her mask, crying, and throwing the mask. Throwing the mask is bad. Bad Bad Bad. That is NOT our mask and even if it was… you threw plastic into a Coral Reef in the Ocean! You are damned lucky I’m a good enough swimmer to have raced to the mas and grabbed it before the waves took it out. So, I calmed myself and swam after Wife. I remember the first time I went snorkeling in open water so… I wanted to do a better job with Wife than my father did with me. So I swam after her and tried to explain what my father didn’t.
First: How are you feeling? She admitted that she was trying to fight being a brat and failing entirely.
Second: Let’s dig into this. You’re feeling afraid and a bit panicked. You’re coping but using BAD coping skills. You’re afraid and panicking. So, you’re falling back on familiar BAD coping skills. Instead, you need to understand that the worst part of this IS the fear. Going out, seeing the wildlife, enjoying the coral… all of that is awesome. You just have to get there.
Third: Let’s just focus on your mask. Get the fit right. Take a deep breath. Submerge the mask in the water to look around a little. Do that a few times.
Fourth: Now add the snorkel. It means breathing just through your mouth. Like you have a really bad cold. Now a big thing is how to clear your snorkel. Breath normally for a while, then take a big breath in and blow out hard. That’s what to do if you find yourself getting water in your snorkel. DON’T PANIC, just clear your snorkel. And if you find that you can’t get a breath to do that; you can turn over on your back to get your head above water and remove your hose to get a breath to clear your snorkel or you can just pop up and do the same.
Fifth: Add the flippers. It is just “kick enhancers” that allow you to cut through the water with your legs/feet instead of your hands so you can take pictures.
There you go. (Honestly, glad I could help but… I felt more like “parent” or “psychologist” and.... I mean, Wife and I discussed that shit when we first started dating. I want to be a partner, a friend, a lover… not her therapist.)

But after that? Wife went out and really enjoyed herself! Saw lots of fish and sea turtles and we even had a sea turtle beach right by where we exit the water so even after we returned to land, she had the opportunity to take lots of awesome very close photos of the sea turtle!

I texted my parents to let them know that Wife finally went into the water and enjoyed it. Mom sent me some awesome photos of Nala. I asked if Nala missed us and, apparently, she does! I mean… she’s getting lots of walks with my parents, lots of love, lots of toys, lots of training… but apparently, she keeps checking the room WIfe and I stay in at Parents hoping to find us. So it is nice to know that she cares and misses us :)

After all of that, Wife and I went to dinner just the two of us. She drove and didn’t bring her phone. It was nice. Nothing spectacular but it was nice.

Then we came back to the house and… Wife looked very good! So I asked “Can we at least make out?” To which she responded: I’m too hot and sunburnt, no.” Then she fell asleep. And I’m here. Unable to sleep. My phone dying but I can plug that in. My concern? My tablet is dying. And for some reason, I haven’t been able to find the charging cable in the last five days. That number is important. That means, specifically, that I’ve had the charger IN Hawai’i and it must be still in this house somewhere.... I just… need to find it.

If I can ever get any sleep today… the idea for Monday so far is to swim out to Turtle Cleaning Station (where the turtles go in the morning to let Yellow Fish eat the algae on their shells). Then we don’t have anything planned until a “nice dinner, early”. So… we’ll see what we do with our day!

Oh, one more thing. Someone asked me about Cheating or Other Women.

I’ve given it a lot of thought.

If Aoife or “an Aoife” happened? It would cross my mind. But it would more likely be something that ultimately helped me make the Divorce Decision.
If Raven or “a Raven” happened? If we consider that cheating, then yes, I likely would engage in that kind of “cheating.” The kind that involves setxing and pictures but no in-person contact. And, as shitty and unethical as it is to say? My rationale for that would be, “My Wife has clearly indicated that she doesn’t want to fulfill certain needs and has, instead, encouraged me to fulfill those needs on-line. Whether watching Commercially Produced Pornography or calling a Sex Line or engaging in elicit conversation with a real person… it feels like semantic arguments. Maybe that’s shitty and bad faith; but that’s where my mind is right now.”