One of the most continually amazing things to me about living
with David is our physical relationship. The wonderful thing is how much it has
helped me to be with someone who is more concerned about me and my needs, even
though his are not completely fulfilled. David and I can be physically
intimate, but not have sex and my need for intimacy is met. He never expects
me to fulfill his needs or desires. Not that he isn’t tempted and not that I haven’t
offered, there are times when we both would have liked nothing better, but we
know it isn’t right so we’re careful about how far we go, David more so than
me. My experience with men has been that they want their needs and desires
fulfilled, period. They may try to fulfill mine, but they are always concerned
with theirs.
One man in particular, Randy, got
upset with me one night when I was too tired to have sex with him. We’d had sex
that morning, even though I had a bad headache and by the end of the day I was exhausted.
So much so that the mere thought of having sex was tiring. After I refused, he
thought about it for a while and finally realized that I’d given all I had to
give that morning. He apologized, but it still hurt. That wasn’t the first time
he’d insisted on having sex when I was too tired. That was simply the one time
I truly put my foot down and said, “No, I really am too tired.”
David is the exception to the rule
when it comes to his needs and desires. He is almost always there for me when I
need him. If something makes it impossible for him to be there, we talk about
it. It’s also surprising to me just how important our intimacy is to me. The
intimacy that happens between us is more than a physical thing; it is an
expression of my emotional state. It almost always happens as something new in
me opens up and becomes free. Being intimate with David means being free to be
me and express myself in ways I’ve never been allowed to. If that means I need
to lay in his arms and cry, then I lay in his arms and cry. If I need to be
physically intimate, then we’re physically intimate except for having sex. By
giving me the emotional freedom to be me, David unlocked the door to my real
self, which had been locked up for way too many years. I used to wonder if I
would ever find out what was really under all the emotional junk I’d gotten
buried under.
I’ve also learned that just cuddling
with David can make me want to be more intimate with him. There have been times
when I’ve gone into his room and laid next to him in bed, solely for the
comfort of cuddling. As I lay there with him, I will feel my desire flare up.
It surprised me the first couple of times it happened as I wasn’t expecting to
feel that way.
Another interesting thing to me is
that as I’ve opened up and allowed all my emotional stuff to come to the
surface and be expressed (even when I don’t understand it or know what it is),
I’ve become less needy. This means I don’t have such a strong need or desire to
cuddle or be so intimate with David because for the first time in my life, a
lot of those needs are being met. Not that the physical side our relationship
is any less important: I still want and need to be hugged and kissed on a
regular basis, it’s just that I don’t need as much of the more intimate type of
touch.
Another thing about being intimate
with David is that we almost always talk afterwards and sometimes during our
intimacy, about what being intimate does for a woman and how it affects her
overall. It was during one of these discussions that I fully realized that
Dennis, the young man I had once had a crush on, had raped me as child. For
years, I thought that because I gave in to him, I had “consented” to having sex
with him, even though I felt pressured and didn’t really want to. David and I
were lying side by side on his bed one afternoon talking after being intimate,
and he asked me an interesting question. He asked what it was like for a woman
to freely give herself to a man for the first time. I started to cry because it
was then that I realized I had never been allowed to freely make that choice.
David just held me and let me cry it out. I will someday know what it means to
give myself freely without reservation both physically and emotionally to my
next husband, but unfortunately, the first time I gave myself physically I
didn’t make the choice freely.
Often the talks David and I have
during and after our intimate moments open up whatever area is on the surface
at the moment. More than once David would say something, which would set off a
chain reaction in me that opened something up. He also frequently talked about
how different women would be towards their husbands and life in general if they
were as satisfied with their relationships as I am with David. Another time he
asked me what I thought I would have been like if I’d known I was so easy to
please. The first thought which went through my head was, “I would have become
a nympho.”
This led to the realization that I
would probably have had sex with even more men and been used by them in the
process therefore piling on even more hurt. I started crying. David quickly
realized what was happening and just held me. He has never made me feel like I
can’t cry immediately after being intimate with him or even during. If I start
to cry, we stop and he lets me cry. Often in those instances, we continue our
intimacy at another time.
The intimacy David and I shared gave
me an environment in which I felt loved, respected and most of all safe in ways
I had never experienced before. Not knowing who I am made me uncomfortable in
virtually any social situation and as a result, I never felt truly safe with
anyone, till I moved in with him.
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