The lowdown

This is the email I sent to my friend Jo (who works at my gym) after she'd asked me to give her the details of my marital problems. I don't know how much insight it will or won't give the ten of you, who obviously know me better and know more about the situation to begin with, but I keep promising to fill you in, and copy-pasting seems easier than writing it all out again.

So basically... And this is going to be a lot all out of order...

Thanks to governments and visas and etc, Lui & I were forced to get really serious really fast. We've lived together since we got together - never actually "dated", and we'd decided within 3 weeks of being together (after 4 months of friendship, but still) that we'd get married. We had a ring within 6 months.

Also, in college, I was in a string of bad relationships - I'd been the other woman, the rebound, the one-night stand... been date-raped a few times... etc. Before I left for France, I'd just started dating this really great guy who actually, you know, respected me (W). So I told myself I deserved better, and resolved not to go out, drink, party, hook up with random guys (took a personal vow of celibacy, actually) while I was in France. I told a part of my personality that it wasn't going to exist anymore and let the other part - the grown-up, stays home and studies, thinks it's too much effort to go out every night part - take over completely.

Then I met Lui. And like I said, we were friends. I wasn't necessarily attracted to him, I didn't get butterflies, but we got along really well and could tell each other everything, and one night he told me he liked me, and I turned him down. A few weeks later, he'd met a girl and was planning on going on a date with her, and I was just jealous enough, didn't want to lose him, so I kissed him the night before his date with her, and that was that. It was romantic at the time, I guess, but also (I realize this mistake now) the moment that I kissed him in was when he was telling me about his grandmother who'd just passed away 6 months earlier, and he was all upset and maybe even crying.

So on the one hand, our relationship was probably founded on too much emotion. I feel like he's not a man, and now, three years later, find myself wishing I had a macho guy, a typical asshole, instead of this nice, polite, little momma's boy (and he IS - when our relationship started going downhill a few months ago, he told his mom first - worst thing he could've done), who wants to come home and cuddle and emote. I feel like he can't protect me. During the fires, he was panicking and it was making me panic - and I just wanted to get away from him, because without other people making me panic, I was fine. Sometimes I really think I'm a stronger person than he is, but deep down, I still want to be the girl, you know?

So basically after two years in Europe, playing house with him and telling myself that 2.3 kids and a golden retriever really WERE what I wanted out of life, I moved back here and the part of me that I'd rubbed out started to come back. So now I want to go out and have fun and flirt and drink and make bad decisions, and he feels like I'm not the "girl he fell in love with" anymore, but for some unknown reason, still loves me and wants to get her back. And here I am, tired of nice - from me (because it wasn't really me in the first place - I mean, I'm nice, but I'm not little-wife-nice), and from him.

In the meantime, he brought a bunch of his own issues to the table, having been cheated on by like every single previous girlfriend. So he doesn't trust me, or anyone really, and tries to pull me closer when I try to get away. Bad combination.

Plus we didn't have sex before we got married - because we were STUPID - and are now finding out that we're not really sexually compatible... Something that really we did know already from doing everything else, but figured would get better once we started actually doing it. Not true. And I hate to say this, but I think if we had right away, the relationship wouldn't have lasted.

And I'm having an emotional affair with this guy from my work (Irish). Like, technically, I'm not cheating on Lui, but I am completely attached to this other guy, and we hang out too often and too late at night and hold hands and talk about how in a parallel universe we would date each other. And with him, I get butterflies and all these other things I sort of just realized I haven't felt since I was dating W, before I left for France. Maybe I equated those feelings with bad relationships. Who knows. But I think I hardly ever felt them with Lui, if at all. And I know the first step is to stop seeing that guy in those circumstances, but he's also totally filling an emotional need for me right now, as I'm sure I am for him because he's also laden with baggage (but at least is more macho about it), so it's hard to let go of it. Also, how bad is it that I'm never as turned on while having sex with my husband as I am when this guy does something as simple as putting his hand on my knee?

And here's the really shitty thing - my sister told me last night, while lecturing me about how we need to go to counseling, both individually and as a couple, that she and her husband have known for a while that Lui & I probably weren't right for each other, but didn't know what to say or how to say it, and - much like we were ourselves - were too wrapped up in wedding planning to step back and be like, "Whoa, you guys have serious issues, maybe this isn't the right thing to be doing right now." And if she could see it, probably other people could see it, and the worst part is that I could see it and didn't stop anything either. I've known for over a year now, and I just kept telling myself it would get better...

So that's all of it, pretty much. Sorry if this was more than you thought you were getting. Your turn :)

So, blogging public... Before I start counseling tomorrow... Any questions?