It seems like someone I know, or barely know, or someone who just happens to blog in the same corner of the Internet as I do is wishing that she could squirt. She wants to manipulate her G-spot so she can gush like the pornos or, maybe, just so she can experience something new. I totally respect that. In fact, I once was that woman. Not any more.

You see, I can squirt now. You better believe I was excited when I first discovered it. Then, I became better at it. I excitedly relayed my experiences to my then-husband, while he was deployed. We excitedly awaited the day when I would be able to squirt with him.

But it just isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. I quickly discovered that I needed a specific kind of stimulation in order to prepare for ejaculation, and without it, my urethra would become sore, and I wouldn’t want to continue sex. Unfortunately, the kind of stimulation I needed just wasn’t the kind of stimulation he was used to giving, nor was it the kind of stimulation that I enjoyed during sex.

Enter problem number two. Stimulating my G-spot so I can squirt is not physically pleasurable. In many ways, it’s like a doctor hitting your knee with a reflex mallet: it gets the job done, but it’s all very mechanical. G-spot stimulation is the same for me. The expulsion of female ejaculate does not accompany an orgasm. It quite simply happens or, if it doesn’t, I become uncomfortable.

I may become uncomfortable if I can squirt, anyway. The texture of my ejaculate is not good for lubrication. In fact, it even has the opposite effect some days. No matter how hot it may be to squirt on someone’s cock or thighs or face, it’s just not the right kind of wet for the rapid and steady thrusting of penis-in-vagina intercourse.

Unfortunately for me—and I know that I must sound like an ungrateful wretch when I type these words—I’ve become really good at squirting and I can’t really hold back. Sex is going to stimulate my G-spot and, as much as I shudder at the idea of only being able to have sex in one way, it will become problematic if I don’t go at it in just the right way. So, do I want my sex painful or boring? Neither, thank you very much.

And that is precisely why I cannot help but roll my eyes and chuckle when people revere me for my squirting talents, and wish with all their hearts that they, too, could squirt.

It’s been so long since I’ve had sex that I can’t remember what it’s like. No, that’s not entirely true but I bet it got your attention, right? It has been a while. I’m talking months and I miss it but sometimes I can’t remember exactly what it is that I miss—and I’m okay with that! It’s not that I’m having amazing solo sessions. I’m not and sometimes, right before orgasm, I really yearn for another’s touch. Yet, I’m enjoying the fact that no sex means sex cannot be used for unpleasurable and unhappy purposes. You see, I’ve figured out that I have better things to do.

It started like this: I turned 18, moved out and bought my first sex toy. I mean, it took a few months so don’t think that my ultimate plan was to move out just to buy a vibrator but it did enable me to do so. My first vibrator was a standard, purple insertable thing with a dial base. As far as I know it still works but it will soon be recycled. In the quest for orgasm, I moved on to the rabbit habit and broke first one, then a second. I was unhappy about the circumstances but the glimpses of pleasure afforded me by my then broken rabbits made me all the more determined to find the perfect sex toy. From there, I invested into one of those small dual stimulates with the thumb-like shaft (like the Butterfly Kiss) and I made it work for me.
These first few toys made up the bulk of my collection for a couple of years and I was enjoying fairly consistent clitoral orgasms (although, it did take me a bit to recognize the fact) from my meager collection until I stumbled upon the concept of sex toy reviewing. They give you toys. For free. All you have to do is talk about them. Hell yes, sign me up! And I did. Even then, I asked to review toys which I would use for external stimulation – a bullet here, a strap on butterfly there (yuck!) and, of course, numerous rabbits – all of which I used to achieve clitoral orgasm.
This was fine by me because I’d had such a hard time recognizing any orgasm at all that I was happy to be having any (well, mostly, they still aren’t all that powerful). I had been reviewing for a few months when I had to opportunity to try my first non-rabbit dual stimulator (the Rock Chick) which was somewhat enjoyable if it didn’t have one hell of a learning curve. Still, it didn’t stimulate my G-spot. I began requesting G-spot toys at a fairly frequent rate, all to no avail. I would wonder what was wrong with the toys or sometimes what was wrong with me as I tossed them in drawers where they would remain dormant (and some I haven’t touched since) for months.
I took a break from G-spot stimulation because I just wasn’t feeling much of anything. I would position toys exactly where my G-spot should be but if I felt anything at all, it was usually pain and, unless you’re a masochist, pain isn’t much of a good thing. I did take the time to read a couple of books about the G-spot. The literature schooled me on the history of the G-spot and reiterated a bunch of techniques and advice that had already failed me.
During that time, vaginal exercisers like Luna Beads caught my attention. I wasn’t too impressed with Lelo’s Luna Beads but I opted for another set by Ophoria anyway. Now, one of the many complaints of vaginal balls is that they are simply too large and, it’s true, there is a lot of material to shove into the vaginal canal (how do babies do it?!). Yet, I found the specific shape of the K-balls to fit my anatomy much better and, what’s more, the fact that they demanded room in my vagina meant they were constantly stimulating areas which were otherwise missed.
That was when I began to feel it, an oddly familiar feeling creeping back into existence. I remembered how aroused I would get before I had either sex or sex toys and I finally put one and one together; the feeling that I would once rely on as an indicator of my arousal had actually been my G-spot. I have never been quite sure why that sensation faded or why I forgot about it but suddenly, it all made sense. I continued to experiment with the vaginal balls, even going as far as to blast them with the force of an electric vibrator which induced one the first noticeable amount of female ejaculation. I also did a little manual exploration with the help of a little book entitled Female Ejaculation & the G-spot which help me put my finger on (quite literally), the different aspects of my G-spot. It was then that I realized that my spot is not traditionally located; rather, it’s quite shallow and rarely needs a curve to be stimulated.
It was as though my G-spot had been forced to awaken. At first it was sleepy but it’s definitely wide eye and bushy tailed these days (thanks, in part, to Ina). I have yet to experience a G-spot orgasm but squirting has become so commonplace it’s almost boring, some days. I have even broken out some of the toys which seemingly failed at stimulating my G-spot so many months ago. Now, some of those toys can do it effortlessly, especially now that I know where to focus them. Sometimes when I’m not even trying to stimulate my G-spot, a clitoral vibrator is strong enough to do it through the bone. I’m not kidding.
Was it simply a matter of finding something to force my G-spot out of hibernation? I’m not sure. After all, the location is one which is easy to stimulate with even straight insertables. Almost too easy. Perhaps the fact that I was using a vaginal exerciser to tone my muscles also heightened sensation. Maybe my G-spot just needed time to come around; it is common for women to more easily achieve G-spot orgasm in their 30s, even though I am not very close to that milestone. Maybe there is some other entirely visible but important factor that I will never know.

Regardless, I can tell you now that some of the things which had absolutely no effect even a year ago, now have a profound effect on my G-spot. If I could travel back in time and let myself in on this knowledge, I wouldn’t believe it but I can assure you that, yes, I do have a G-spot.

A Google search of the term “sexual assault” turns up an onslaught of results (8.82 million to be exact). There are more than 15,000 – yes, fifteen thousand – news articles alone for the past month. If you view further back in time, fifteen thousand starts to sound like a small number. Between the years of 2006 and 2009 there are nearly two hundred thousand articles. Browsing from 1920 to 2010 turns up a whopping 667,00 news pieces pertaining to the phrase “sexual assault”. Currently, the front page contains only articles about incidences of sexual assault in which persons of interest are being investigated or suspects have already been charged.

Now, I know that these numbers aren’t really statistically accurate. It is difficult to make any sort of judgment based on the number of articles but it is all too easy for me to start thinking. For instance, I know some of those articles speak of the same incidences and even making a wild guess at how many individual occurrences of sexual assault show up in the results is a task too daunting for this girl. Even after weeding through duplicate content, there are articles which are not about episodes of sexual assault. Certainly some might talk about rates of crimes (and the optimist in me hopes the rates are plummeting) or what is being done to prevent sexual assault from happening. Perhaps some articles talk about punishments given for crimes of a sexual nature and some might even be discussing the latest episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, for all I know. So even though these numbers are frightening, they cannot easily be taken at face value.
But still, I cannot help but think that even one article about a professional athlete assaulting a woman in a bathroom while his “posse” guarded the door is one article too much. I am sure I am not alone in this thought because who wants to know that people are molesting children, let alone read it as a sensationalized headline?

And yet. And yet, I know that no matter how many duplicate or non-incident articles there are, what may be most important about those results is what is not there. I am talking about years worth of sexual assault cases which may never be digitally archived. Files and folders which are covered in dust in some small town government basement. Cases which have been kept on the down low by manipulating attorneys. Information which has been lost to the abyss of time and which may only linger as some distant memory by an aging victim or law enforcement officer – if that. But that is only the tip of the iceberg.

As many cases which may have been brought to the public’s eye (if only the local public) and as many cases in which justice has been “served” (and some in which the system may have failed), I know there are so many more cases which have gone unreported or, just as worse, cases which have gone unbelieved by the authorities or even a victim’s own family. I cannot imagine the guts it must take for a person to admit that he or she has been sexually assaulted, especially when someone has drilled into the victim’s head that it is his or her own fault. And then to be told that you are mistaken or wrong? It must be the most difficult, trust and life shattering experience to exist. Somehow, amazingly, many of these victims learn to live productive lives. Are you one? I am not sure that I could. Or could I?

My point in all this? I’m not even sure I know except that just as frequently we run across articles like the ones I found online, we gloss over them. Perhaps we say that we don’t want to read all the bad news but isn’t it just as likely that we would prefer to think of this as “someone else’s problem?” But, if anything, the frequency of these cases and the occurrence of sexual assault which I know happens, even if I do not read it in a newspaper, seems to indicated that this is not someone else’s problem. This is a problem that is everywhere, a problem with infiltrates every neighbourhood, every cultural group and every financial class. It is a problem which affects people I know and love (or have known and loved or will know and love) and not just the victims, either. It is a problem which has a causative relationship with other problems. It is a problem of society and a problem which will continue to plague society until we all stop ignoring it.

So maybe it’s a good thing that sexual Assault Awareness Month is upon this April. Most of us could probably use a reminder that no matter how far away we turn our heads, sexual assault still exists and in abundance. I am sure that others will post their personal experiences with sexual assault (and I commend them for doing so) and I am sure we will be all reminded that not all of us have the luxury of forgetting about it, either.

Although my life has not always been easy, it seems as though I have constantly been plagued by unhappiness. It is only recently that I have realized happiness is a choice that we make, something which comes from within us as opposed to something which we glean from external forces. Indeed, sometimes we must choose to be happy despite our situations and the opposition we face. If I had known this all along, I would have appreciated what I had instead of taking it for granted (for years to top it off). Although, some of that was surely teenage hormones, I was not consciously making the choice to be happy and, by failing to do so, become a saboteur of my own happiness.

With this newfound knowledge, I can look back on my life and view it in a far less critical perspective than I had at the time. I feel a tinge of regret for not holding my life, myself, my friends and my family in a higher esteem and, instead, choosing to focus on the negatives (not having a father, our financial situation, the death of my sister). I never once thought to recognize and appreciate the positive aspects (having a loving and supportive friends and family, a roof over my head and doing well in school). By being proactive about my own happiness, I might have even been able to find more satisfaction in the most mundane of tasks (who loves cleaning anyway)?; although, it is more likely I would have at least kept grumbling to the minimum when washing the dishes or doing the laundry. Instead, I let myself fall victim to the world, a world which surely is not looking out for me because only I can do that.

The result of this was a lingering, albeit mild, depression that I never really quite worked up the guts to deal with. My life never seemed ridiculously tragic but my days were usually bleak while I was operating just under healthy conditions. I had been taking the people and things in my life that could have been giving me satisfaction, for granted for far too long and this is partially the reason that my husband was unhappy in our relationship. Now that I have come to this realization, I have made it my goal to take control of my own happiness because I realize that no one or nothing else can truly make me happy but me. Despite my current situation and the frustrations which have arisen from it, I am still happier than I otherwise would have been when I was shirking responsibility for my own happiness. Now, everything seems a little brighter, the future seems a little more optimistic if not unsure (although, I am not an optimist really) and I can fall asleep at night knowing that I do have a say in my life even if sometimes I will be a leaf in the wind to luck or timing.

I would not be honest if I were to try to tell you that making this change is easy, even though I know it if for the best, especially when you consider that it took my husband wanting to end our marriage for me to open my eyes. There are minutes and hours and sometimes even entire days when I would much rather play the victim and blame my feelings on things that are happening to me, instead of recognizing that while I cannot control everything, I do have power over the way I view and react to outside influences. It is much easier to give up in the face of diversity and perhaps that is why so many people do is so frequently but I have also come to appreciate that what is easy is rarely right. And I would much rather set a difficult goal knowing that it is right for myself, than aim low but continue to be miserable with no one to fault but myself.

It is definitely easier at some times than others to recognize and then put a stop to destructive though processes. Sometimes it is takes every bit of will power I possess to replace a negative thought with a positive one and there are times when all I can do is replace the thoughts with an “at least”. More often than not, I have to repeat the positive thoughts in my head like a mantra until I can force myself to believe them. My brain is probably printed with phrases like “At least I have dishes to wash and food to eat off them” or “At least my husband is talking to me at all”. They are phrases which I need to remember and instill into myself, regardless.

Yet, I have found that even making a goal (however I may stumble on the journey of reaching it) has buoyed my spirits unexpectedly. It has been so long since I had a worthy goal that I feel rejuvenated and that has had a twofold effect. Not only have my initial efforts to improve my perspective been a little easier because of this sudden realization but my elevated spirits alone can help when I am in an especially deep thought rut. The initial high has started to fade and I have noticed it takes more out of me or it takes longer for me to stop a negative or unproductive train of thought than it did when I first set off on this journey but I am still hopeful. After all, hope is one of the more important ingredients when it comes to taking control of one’s own happiness.

I have developed a night time ritual in which I search for inspiring quotes about happiness, perspective and responsibility to encourage my progress and keep the goal fresh in my mind. It is touching to know that other (and usually much brighter and deserving) minds have shared the same struggles and come to the same conclusions. Before I fall asleep, I send off these helpful tidbits about happiness to Twitter in as much of an effort to enlighten others as myself.

When I was finishing up elementary school, my sister fell ill and eventually succumbed to a blood disease. It was around this time that I came to know that she was only my half sister (we shared the same mother) and that her father was not my father. Up until this point, this was a man whom I had called “Dad” and I had never thought much about it. Some children would have been devastated but I felt an immense wave of relief wash over me to know that this man, for whom my scorn had been growing continually, was not in fact my father. I did not know anything about my biological father but I knew that it had to be better than being the child of my mother’s ex husband.

Over the next few years I would ask my mother questions about my real father and, at first, it seemed as though she was giving me answers. She told me stories of a man who was married but had gone back to his family instead of staying with her. Yet, the next time she would tell me about a guy who had died in a car accident, even going so far as to give me a name. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that these answers were, in actuality, lies and that my mother had been picking and choosing facts about real people she may have known at one time in her life. And the man who had died in the car accident? He had actually been a friend of my mom’s brother, a friend with whom my mother had never been involved.

At one point, I had hope that I would meet the man who helped to give me life. I imagined him walking into my life, happy to have found the daughter he may have never known he had. I would daydream that he would want to make up for the lost time and be in my life forever more. He might have a family and I would have siblings who would become my friends. Yet, as my mother’s stories piled up, my questions faded until I simply was not asking anymore. I learned not to question her about the truth. For whatever reason, she could not or would not be able to tell me the truth about my father. Perhaps she was trying to protect herself (maybe she did not even know who my father was) or me (maybe he was an abusive loser from whom she wanted to protect me) but my only source for the truth had dried up.

I was angry for a few years. How could I not be? I felt as though I couldn’t be whole without knowledge of my father and, even if he was a horrible person, I wanted to make that decision myself, not have it made for me by my mother. And while I know many successful families are nontraditional, it simply seemed as though I was missing out on the “real” family experience. As my teenage years passed, so did my anger. I was able to let go of my anger as the hormones of adolescence subsided and I learned that, justified or not, holding on to that emotion was not productive and damaged the relationship I had with my one parent.

When I met the man who would become my husband, I had slight hopes that I would be able to develop a loving relationship with my future father in law, finally enabling me to have a positive father figure (by then my mother was long divorced from her first husband and the role had been obviously, painfully empty for quite some time). If you have read my posts regarding my in laws, you will know that such has not been the case. In fact, the interaction I have with my father in law could barely be called a relationship at all. In some ways, I feel as though even my last resort has failed.

It has been many years since I have asked about my mother about who my father is and, although I sometimes still daydream about meeting him and having him be apart of my life, I have more or less given up on the idea. The truth is, even if I met this man and he turned out to be a good man, someone whom I would gladly called “father,” it would still be an incredible change which would evoke intense feelings. And that is only the best possible scenario; in all likelihood, the truth may be something much more difficult to handle. At this point in my life, it is much easier to accept that I have only one parent and not have hope at all (so that it cannot be dashed). That is just the way it is and I hardly bat a lash when someone inquires and I reply “I do not have a father.”

In Hollywood productions, men are stereotypically looking for a woman with “the whole package,” you know, both beauty and brains. Men comiserate with their buddies about how easy it is to find an attractive (and usually sexually adventurous) woman or someone who has just the right amount of sensitivity to be emotionally healthy and, of course, would make a good mother but the woman who is both is nearly impossible to find. While the world is not quite as black and white as Hollywood makes it seem – even in its colour productions – I have found myself looking at potential partners in a similar way. Specifically, I was looking for the guy (or girl) with both the looks and a nice personality. Although other aspects of a person are certainly important as well, like a sense of humour, these much simplified characteristics had the focus of my attention when I was on the market, at least initially. While I know generalizing can be dangerous, it is easy to do and can become easier to do after life throws you a few curve balls. It didn’t take much for me to start wondering whether all attractive men were only looking out for themselves or whether all sensitive men were ugly. In fact, it is a mindset which runs rampant in movies and on TV, where stereotypes make for good ratings, but is probably one we have all had at one time or another.

And so, I was incredibly relieved (to say the least) when I met and clicked with a person who I found to be extremely attractive to me physically but who also had feelings. While knowing that my boyfriend-turned-husband loved me, was committed to our relationship and was not about to use me as a conquest then throw me away has provided me with immense happiness and a sense of security in my relationship, I have also come to know the difficulties that can come with a sensitive guy. As it turns out, a relationship (and life in general) can be more difficult than you bargained for when your sensitive guy has issues realizing and expressing his feelings.

For example, my husband has never had a difficult time saying “I love you” and, while he does not recall it, actually said it first (just one of the many upsides to loving a sensitive and caring person). We have also said those three little words to eachother more frequently than most couples I know but this is perhaps because they are an established way to describe a feeling which is particularly hard to miss. When it comes to other feelings or even just showing his affection in other ways, he has always struggled. Sometimes he feels as though he is being corny (even though I love that he tries anyway) and other times he simply says nothing at all. But I don’t need to hear “I love you” in a million different ways. Hearing it at all is quite wonderful.

The problem is not at all with how he expresses his love but with how he expresses (or, rather, does not express) negative emotions which, whether or not I like or want to hear it, needs to be done. Right now he feels as though he has been unhappy for a while and the best way to remedy the situation is for us to divorce. What he does not see is that while he was busy ruminating on those feelings and not discussing them with me, or anyone else, his resentment grew while he could have been doing something to make himself happy. While he expects divorce to magically solve his problems, the truth is that he will still have to take responsibility of his feelings in order to find the happiness he seeks.

It is hard not to view the situation with some amount of sadness. As the one person who has gotten close to this guy, I can see a sensitive person who was never taught how to channel that sensitive in a healthy manner. Perhaps his parents expected him to toughen up as a child, as boy children are often taught. He argues that this was not the case, however. Regardless, the message that feelings are acceptible to have and can be had without being detrimental was never one he learned. Now, it seems as though the fact that he does care and have emotions makes him angry because he does not know how to deal with it. At this point, you would probably not be surprised to hear that he does some some anger issues. Unfortunately, while he can recognize the anger, he has difficulty pinpointing the source or what might be considered the “important” underlying emotions. Thus, he never really addresses them.

I could tell you that dealing with a person who has developed these counterproductive habits is straining and, while that is the truth, it is not my whole truth. Honestly, I didn’t open my eyes to the negative impact that his sensitivity had until now. I hadn’t realized why he was so disproportionately angry and how he struggled with the emotions he has. Many people would not blame me; after all, if he could not realize this how could I? Perhaps I was keeping myself from seeing the entire picture. Now that I do, and I may be the only person who does have this insight, I can see how he will be miserable for the rest of his life if he doesn’t take the initiative to change. In these stressful times, I not only worry about having to start over again, both emotionally and financially, but I worry about the person I love most in this world never being able to find happiness.

Of course, when I try to discuss the issue I am either met with flat out denial (“I’ll be happier after we divorce”) or he tells me not to worry about him because I have enough on my plate as it is. That is entirely true but it’s also true that it is nearly impossible not to worry about the one you love, especially when the conflicts that person faces could be the very thing which tears apart your relationship. Even if I wanted to ignore the issue, it would only continue to plague my marriage.

As I draw this to its conclusion, I can only say that my husband’s sensitivity has turned out to be both a wonderful blessing and a heart breaking curse. It is, like many things, a double edged sword but despite the hardship it has caused us both, I would rather have him with his issues than not at all – because I love him.

It never really occurred to me that I had eloped when I married my husband. I mean, we hadn’t run away to Vegas. Then again, we hadn’t had a big celebration to which we’d invited all our friends and family either. One day, when someone described our low key, jeans-and-tee courthouse wedding as an elopement, it suddenly occurred to me “Hey, I guess it was.” Unfortunately, it was also another difficult lesson learned.

To be honest, I expected our engagement to be open ended, to last a while. Sure, I wasn’t happy with the idea of my new fiancé being stationed overseas for several years but neither did I think we could reasonably have the wedding of my dreams – whatever that was – until after he returned from his assignment. When he first suggested that we marry before he left so that I would be able to move there with him, I balked at the idea. Absolutely not. We weren’t ready and I told him so without much hesitation. He dropped the suggestion for a while but, as days passed, the idea planted itself firmly in the back of my mind. Before I knew it, it was actually starting to sound like a good idea. Sure, I may not have the perfect wedding but couldn’t I do that later anyway? I mean, it wasn’t like the wedding changed the fact that I was marrying (to me) my perfect match. I began to envision myself as his wife. I had changed my mind.

Amusingly, during those days, he thought better of his initial suggestion and also changed his mind. I don’t think we knew we’d actually be getting married until three days before we said “I do” in a mostly empty courtroom. Even, then, I nearly had to drag him in but we said our vows – I stumbled through mine for some reason – and before I knew it, I was changing my name to his despite the fact that I’ had always wanted to hyphenate. In that moment, my name didn’t matter; my marriage did.

I suppose it is pertinent to mention that there were only three other people with us in that courtroom: my two friends (and witnesses) and one of their husbands. In hindsight, I know my husband and I made some grave errors in failing to include our parents (and just about everyone we know and love) in our wedding. The repercussions violently sprang up shortly before we were due to be married and, unfortunately, I am still dealing with the residual side effects with my in laws – not to mention that fact that we don’t have a single “wedding photo.”

Why did we head off to the courthouse? I have no good excuse. I can only say that we were young and stupid and, quite probably, more than a little lovedrunk. I had convinced myself that if my family, especially my mother, knew I wanted to wed, she would somehow destroy every shred of happiness I had worked so hard to achieve. In her defense, my mother doesn’t usually have ill intentions, she just doesn’t always think before she acts or speaks; I had grown exhausted of being the victim of her thoughtlessness. So, whenever I saw my family, my engagement ring suddenly appeared on my right hand. My husband has never quite owned up to the fact that he had met, fallen in love with, flown across the country to see and proposed to a girl her met on the internet, either. He knew his parents would be disapproving and try to persuade him out of this decision. I suppose he really got the “short end of the stick” in this and, knowing his family, I am certain his fears would have come true. And so we intended to be married with no one the wiser.

Except, as is so often the case, we did tell some people and those people told some people even while they swore to keep our secret and eventually my parents found out (although, no one will ‘fess up to telling them). In fact, they found out just hours before my fiancé and I were headed to pick up our marriage license and schedule our wedding appointment. Colour me more than a little surprised when I received a phone call from my mother’s husband demanding to know what the hell I thought I was doing and how I do this to him? To this day, I’m not quite sure why he felt he was in the position to feel so self-righteously when my mother barely seemed to have a response. Nevertheless, he gave me the silent treatment for months and we were more than little shaken to experience such sudden rain on our parade. We forged ahead and were married several days later; my parents were neither invited nor present as I retaliated against this perceived attack against my marriage.

Over time, I have grown sorry for not including my family in my plans. I do wish I could have a memorable celebration, surrounded by loved ones and, although it took some time, I have taken responsibility for the hurt caused by my family. Still, my family is adaptable and forgiving and the days of the silent treatment are long gone. If there ever was any resentment about the fact that I eloped, you couldn’t tell now and, for that, I appreciate my family more than they could know.

I wish I could say the same about my in laws, especially as my husband and I struggle through an especially rocky part of our marriage but I know better. I know that the way we broke tradition is part of the reason my mother in law has never accepted me, despite the way she pretends otherwise. You would have to be blind to not see that she wishes I was never a part of her son’s life; I never quit fit into her view of how he should be happy and she continually encourages him to divorce me. Even when our marriage is strong, she is a nuisance at best, overbearing most of the time and sometimes downright spiteful. To put it plainly, when I read A Child Called It, I imagined my mother in law as the abusive mother in the story.

As a result, any relationship I try to develop with anyone else in the family has been tainted by her influence. When I chose to spend a holiday with my husband’s aunt during his deployment, the backlash was phenomenal. I felt as though my existence had created a chasm in the family; although, I was reassured it only widened an already existing canyon. My husband to waste a call home to tell his mother to leave me alone, all for spending time with the family.

At this point, I know there is no repairing this relationship with my mother in law, especially if my husband and I do repair ours. As much as I can look forward to a lifetime of happiness with him, I also dread a lifetime of misery from her. Could my relationship with my mother in law ever be pleasant? No, I don’t think so but could it be bearable had we involved her in our wedding? I don’t doubt it. I’d love to blame her incredibly warped sense of family and tendency to insert her nose on everyone else’s business but there is also no denying that had a large hand in bringing it on myself.

At this point in my life, the cards have fallen where they will remain. I am grateful my family was able to accept my poor decisions, burdened by the resentment of my in laws and more than a little regretful that I did not do more to share my happiness with others. Yet, I also know that sometimes the hardest lessons in life are able to show us what is most important and eloping did result in me being married to the man I love.

When my husband was just my boyfriend and he proposed to me, I immediately said “yes.” He immediately decided that his impromptu proposal was not good enough, rushed out of bed to dress and go down on knee for proposal 2.0 but, by then, it didn’t matter because I was already busy considering life as his wife and he was ruining the moment which, to me, had already been perfect. Since then, four and a half years have passed and while those years have ultimately been the happiest in my life and my husband has provided me with more joy and even serenity than anyone to ever cross my path, those years have also included countless mistakes – many of which were avoidable. Now, as we consider a life altering and heart breaking decision (divorce), I have come to realize that sometimes the only way to learn is the hard way.
I suppose it’s accurate to say that I began learning my lessons in love long before I met my husband. I had a string of exes, all of whom I’d thought I’d been in love with and all of whom I gave immense power over myself. I made myself vulnerable to them, not because I was seeking a positive connection but because I was afraid to be alone and because I didn’t know better than to protect myself. I never had a relationship role model and I constantly watched my family members precede through bitter divorce battles as the people I had known as family became nothing more than people I knew in a previous lifetime. It would come as no surprise that as soon as I caught the eye of a member of the opposite sex and flirting became anything more, I became dependent and hung on for dear life.
I became increasingly skillful at some self defeating habits. I became the girl who was blind to the truth. It wasn’t that these boys were necessarily lying to me, they didn’t even have to; I simply didn’t want to imagine that anything unsavory might be going on behind the scenes so no explanations were necessary. Of course, had I been more truthful, I would have seen that one ex was constantly flirting or fucking other women and that our on again, off again relationship was doing nothing but pulling me under. Every time we’d break, I’d beg him to come back. It didn’t matter that he was the problem or that I was hurting. I simply couldn’t stand the idea of being alone and I forgave all his trespasses against me, countless times.
It’s not like I wasn’t warned. It came to a point where none of my friends liked or trusted this guy and they would try to eloquently point out the holes and cracks in his never ending stories. Despite the fact that they were obviously right, despite having all the clues dangled in my face, I never put together all the pieces of the puzzle. I ignored the parts of the picture that didn’t portray my happy ending. Unsurprisingly, our vicious cycle continued for at least a year – a tumultuous year at that – until, one day, instead of breaking up with me, he simply stopped talking to me. At that point, it dawned on me (and quite painfully) that nothing would ever change with him and I was only enabling him to hurt me. I put the entirety of my heart there and he, as jerks are so likely to do, tore it to shreds not once but dozens of times.
I wish I could say that, after this guy, I wised up but, if I did, I’d be a liar. Perhaps I thought I did and the guy I dated throughout my sophomore and junior year of high school wasn’t as loose with his body or heart but he was no saint, either. Although we’d been friends for years, I guess we were never close enough for me to become acquainted with his drug using and promiscuous past. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been as angry as I was when I found out he was still using drugs when we were dating. Yet, I never questioned why he was expelled from college and when he found himself incarcerated for larceny, I found myself 16 and writing to an inmate. Now that he was no longer able to provide me with the attention and esteem boosts that I had come to rely on. I pondered, about my situation for months before I would realize that while I thought I was in love with him, I was only in love with the idea of being in love. The actual subject of my adoration was exactly the sort of person who had nothing productive to offer my teenaged self.
I waited until he was released to break the bad news about us breaking up. I felt I owed him that much but I know better now. I owed him nothing. In many ways, I feel like I got out just in time and. for the first time, I was the one calling the shots. My newfound sense of power enabled me to have confidence without needing someone else to give it to me. I enjoyed being single for a while and it was then, when I wasn’t looking for someone, that I met the man who would become my husband. A few years down the road, my ex’s new wife would accuse me of having his children and when I learned that several other women also had his children (up to seven of them), I knew I’d made the right decision. At the time, it had been hard. Although my mind had been made up for quite some time, it hurt me to be the one hurting someone else and there no way to honestly and kindly tell him he wasn’t the kind of person I wanted to be with… ever. As he cried, I found myself understanding why people say things like “it’s not you; it’s me” and I hung up as quickly as possible.
Perhaps I could have avoided some of the sticky situations I found myself in as a teenager has I used my head more than my heart. Perhaps if I had learned to be comfortable with myself and accepted that I was complete without another person or that life wouldn’t end if I single (even if I was always single), I would have valued myself more and made decisions which reflect that – like protecting myself from these toxic people. Of course, then I would not have been where I was to meet my husband or have become the person I am now. I suppose that is the ultimate truth about learning things the hard way.