infidelity

November 28, 2022

The Soundtrack of My Life – 40 – Typical / Beautiful Mess

I’m sad that this band didn’t have any other hits after this one. The whole album is incredible and I fail to find a song that doesn’t rock or hit an emotional nerve.

The first time I heard “Typical” was by a “dedication” from my husband to me. This song climbed to popularity (on our local radio station) on the heels of yet another one of Charlie’s and my break-ups. However, this time was different. We may have “broken-up” but we continued to live together, sleep in the same bed, etc… Basically we created the life we have now. Except we were “broken-up.” My husband chose this route because he didn’t want to do an “open relationship.” He and I were of the same mind, at the time, and thought that those types of relationships were beneath us. They were stereotypically gay and we weren’t the norm. (Yet ever the typical fags…)

During this time the idea was for me to work on myself. I had cheated on him repeatedly over the three year relationship. I was meant to take this time to reflect and figure out if I wanted us to stay together or not. It was also at this time when I entered into the SAA program as part of “working on myself.”

Despite societal belief that it isn’t a real addiction, I firmly believe that it is. It’s received such a negative perception because it appears to have been used as justification for the infidelity of high profile celebrities. While the validity of that assumption can go either way, I tend to think there is truth in it.

For most addicts they have to go to a source to get their high. They have to drink, smoke, shoot, snort, and eat their demons. While sex addiction is an obsession over the chemical rush that forever resides in our brains. That overpowering sense of euphoria that fills our bodies from head to toe after ejaculation. Sometimes it’s purely the heightened state of mind that one may get caught or the danger of the action itself. In those cases it may be more of an “adrenaline junky” than sex addiction. Either way… these are substances we don’t have to go anywhere to abuse. We have it at the ready on a moments notice.

To this day I use sex as a way of coping. Whenever I feel disgusting about my body image or self-worth I head to some cruising spot or use the apps to find someone to want me, because at that moment I sure as shit don’t. Their approval gives me the go ahead to feel good about myself. And the reinforcement of the euphoric rush just rewards the behavior. Afterwards I feel nothing but shame and guilt in my actions and thus begins the addictive cycle.

For years I ran SAA meetings, after having the responsibility to find us a new location thrust upon me. I was invested. I had a few sponsors try and get me through the steps and even took on the responsibility sponsoring two people. However, I wasn’t what they needed. I have a more “it’s your responsibility not mine” approach to it. I will get one the info, be an anchor to keep one centered, or be a shoulder to cry on, but I will not be your parent. That is not my job. I also require people to be relatively self-aware and that isn’t something you cannot force someone into. You can’t even lead them to the it. They have to discover that on their own.

Even though I love my husband more than anything, I will be by his side until the very end, but this song is one that I use for emotional cutting. Even now… It’s one I can put on, as a joke to recount how someone one time called me a whore, but in reality it’s my way of harming myself. Because I am nothing more than a typical whore.

I think it doubly hurts because he has only ever “given” me one other song, and I derive so much worth and love from a song “dedication.” It’s truly bizarre.

It should be noted that at the same time as this song he gave me another one that… It encapsulates everything we had gone through at that time, and even still go through. It was so uplifting and beautiful for me and was the perfect balance that this song brought. “Typical” cut me down but “A Beautiful Mess” built me back up. To this day, if I’m alone, I will ugly cry to it.

At first listen it sounds like an insulting song, but it 1,000% is not. So, I will leave you with Jason Mraz.

January 22, 2022

The Soundtrack of My Life – 3 – All Too Well

I will do my best to limit the amount of Taylor Swift songs that end up in this year long project, but I can’t make any promises. I love the bitch and her songs resonate with me on so many levels. My husband likes to joke that I am a 14 year old girl. (Although she’s in her 30’s now, so that no longer applies.) However incorrect the statement, it’s true. Gay men are notoriously immature and tend to romanticize any interaction with a person they find attractive. It’s just how it is.

I chose this song because of my visceral reaction to one particular part of the song. Ever since I first heard it, when I got to/get to this portion I immediately began/begin to cry. Every time. Without fail. It didn’t really occur to me until the re-release of Red (Taylor’s Version) that I react this way because of one specific memory. One in which still is very vivid in my mind no matter how much time passes.

Well, maybe we got lost in translation
Maybe I asked for too much
But maybe this thing was a masterpiece
‘Til you tore it all up
Running scared, I was there
I remember it all too well
And you call me up again just to break me like a promise
So casually cruel in the name of being honest
I’m a crumpled up piece of paper lying here
‘Cause I remember it all, all, all

They say all’s well that ends well, but I’m in a new Hell
Every time you double-cross my mind
You said if we had been closer in age maybe it would have been fine
And that made me want to die
The idea you had of me, who was she?
A never-needy, ever-lovely jewel whose shine reflects on you

There is no doubt that when I got into a relationship with my husband I was not emotionally, mentally, or mature enough for one. I had just got out of a bad break-up and I was so young. I had just come out… I wasn’t looking for anything serious. He was. That’s where we got lost in translation.

Instead of verbalizing any of this, I was unwilling to let go of a person I knew loved me, who (at the time) I was not emotionally vulnerable enough to return his affection. I kept him for selfish reasons. The thought of losing another boyfriend was too much for me, so I became secretive. I was a liar and a cheat. I snuck around on him and justified it in my mind by saying I needed it or somehow deserved it. No one deserves that.

Everything began to unravel when he went through my cell phone and started reading my texts. He saw messages with this dude who I said was my friend Mike but was in fact an entirely different one. These explicit messages began to sow seeds of doubt. I explained it all away that we were just flirting but it was nothing more. He accepted that because he said he would sometimes do that with guys on AOL.

That’s when he read my e-mails.

Rookie mistake when cheating is not clearing out your trash can. That’s where he found the messages proving my infidelity.

He was enraged. But the kind tied to emotional pain. He kept asking me how I could do this and I had no answers. At this point I was caught. I owned up to it and he told me to get out of his house. He never wanted to see me again.

I was dumbstruck the entire drive home. I didn’t know what to say or think.

What should have happened was he should never have spoken to me again. It is the only way I would have learned my lesson. And I’m sure in some alternate reality he never did call me up, however this is not that timeline. When I answered his call he said simply, “Get back here,” and hung up.

I sat there wondering whether I should. What was going to happen?

I couldn’t imagine a life without him and so I went.

When I got there, he had devised “the plan.” I either agreed to these rules or we just were going to separate. Before he even told me what they were I had accepted. I knew I had fucked up and there was nothing more I wanted to do than to fix it.

Even though we got to a better place, the night was far from over. He banished me to our bedroom while he drank. He couldn’t look at me that night, and I don’t blame him. I had betrayed him. The hurt I caused… I have never seen anything like it. I truly destroyed him and I hated/hate myself for it.

There is one moment that haunts me. I was in our bedroom, the lights on, staring at the ceiling and I begin to hear his footsteps thundering through the house as he storms down the hallway. The heel of his palm hits the bedroom door and it flies open. He was drunk, tears streaming down his cheeks, and has a flurry of new questions. I sit up and try to defuse the situation that had quickly escalated. Fear courses through my veins like ice. I’m almost certain he’s going to make me leave again. I just knew it.

But he didn’t ask me to leave. And we worked through this event.

I wish I could say that I learned my lesson and didn’t cheat again. But that would be a lie. I was genuinely the worst person to him. I regret every horrible moment to this very day and wish I could take it all back, but what’s done is done.

These moments you must not forget. You must keep them fresh and learn from them. Study them. At least, I do. I pick each moment apart, trying to decipher why did all of this occur. What was the purpose of all of this? Why?

Am I just a horrible selfish person? Yes, I am. I have been. But knowing this I can be more conscious of the choices I make, the things I am willing to accept. It comes with experience. I was much too young. I knew nothing of myself or what I wanted. I didn’t deal with the grief that lived inside of me. I instead chose sex and liquor to try and heal the wounds.

This isn’t a good memory, but it’s one I can’t let myself forget. It humbles me because I know that I am the wrong in all of this. I was the problem.

The verse above is an abbreviated conversation between me and my husband. The bold words are his and the others are mine.