David has also taught me that lovemaking doesn’t have to mean intercourse. That caressing and touching and exploring each other’s body is lovemaking too. Actually, making love doesn’t have to be sexual at all. A man bringing home flowers for no reason and saying, “I love you” is a form of making love. Or a woman who fixes her husband’s favorite dishes just to please him is a form of making love.

Also, because of how intimate we have been with each other and because of how I feel about David in general, I tended to be jealous when he’s gone out with another woman. I didn’t like the way I felt and it certainly didn’t seem logical as he wasn’t my husband or even my boyfriend and never will be. However, it was how I felt.

I knew from the start that there was a woman, Karen, whom he’d met at a second church he attended that he was drawn to. He didn’t know why, but he went out with her a couple of times in an effort to figure it out. Every time he was out with her, I missed him and to some extent, a part of me resented her and the fact that she got some of his time.

One of the best things though, is that as I went through these changes and my emotions came to the surface, David was generally quick to reassure me that what I felt was normal and natural. To hear that after years of being told that my emotions were wrong or I was too sensitive or my emotions were out of proportion to the situation, especially the negative ones, is reassuring. Something I’ve needed for as long as I can remember.

I finally realized why I felt so jealous when David talked about going out with other women, regardless of who. The reason is, that for the first time in my life, I am a priority to someone, as best as they can. Not even my own mother ever made me feel like a priority to her. Neither did my ex-husband or the boyfriend before him.

Before my husband and I married, we had sex. Immediately afterward I started shaking and shivering as if I was cold, but I didn’t know why. It only happened the one time, but after we were married, the first time we had sex, I cried when it was over.  I didn’t know why then any more than I knew why I shook the first time. Pat asked me what was wrong. I told him I thought it had to do with the “beauty” of having sex after you were married. I didn’t know how to tell him I didn’t understand my tears. After our divorce, I waited several months before dating again. When I did get involved with a man again and had sex with him, I shook and shivered when it was over. It happened with every man the first time I had sex with him. Anytime we had sex after that there was no shaking. I never understood why I shook and shivered until one night I had a dream.

I was sound asleep one night when I started having a wild dream. I dreamt that David was angry and frustrated about something. He walked into his bedroom and I followed him so I could listen to him and try to help if possible. We sat on either side of his bed and he had his back to me. I reached out and started to rub his back, as there really wasn’t much else I could do for him. Pretty soon we were kissing and then we were having sex. In my mind I started fighting the dream. I was thinking, “No! This isn’t right. This isn’t what God wants! No! No! No! NO!”

Then I woke up. I looked at the clock and it read about 3:45 a.m. I wanted to tell David about my dream, but he wasn’t going to be up for another 45 minutes or so. I fell back into a restless sleep for another 30 minutes or so. Then I got up to go to the bathroom. The moment I sat up, I started to shake and shiver as if I was cold, but I wasn’t. I did what I needed to do and then crawled in next to David. He noticed me shivering as I adjusted his blankets to cover me. He told me to crawl in and get warm. I crawled beneath the covers, cuddled up and almost immediately stopped shivering. That’s when I realized I was emotionally needy.

When David’s alarm went off, I didn’t even hear it. He got up turned it off, ate some breakfast and came back to bed because he’d realized I needed him that morning. After he satisfied my emotional need I told him about my dream and how I used to shiver and shake like that after having sex with the other men in my life. He told me that it was my body’s way of telling me that my emotional needs were not being met. I knew he was right the moment he said it. Those men had not met my emotional needs. They probably couldn’t have given that I didn’t understand how I needy I was.

It’s not just my emotional need for physical affection that gets met either. David will do things that are just for me. For instance, when I had my 40^th birthday, he bought me a cake at Costco that I’d wanted to try.

For his 60^th birthday, he took his vacation and then he and I went several places and tried new restaurants with just the two of us; and I got to choose the restaurants!

When appliances in the house needed replacing, we went looking together and I made the final choice. I always chose things that cost more, but would last for a long time. Such as the stove: its professional quality designed for the home and I love it. So are my new crock pot and the clothes washer.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute part 48

If you’ve read this far into my story, I’m sure you’re wondering if David and I were physically intimate. In other words, “Did we have sex?”

Yes. A couple of times, but God spoke to David and said, “I understand, but you two need to back down. This is not what I brought you together for.”

We stopped. It wasn’t easy and there were times when we pushed it, but each time God spoke to David to remind him. About the third or fourth time though, God also told him that if we didn’t do as He said, He would pull us apart. God did allow us other physical intimacies to satisfy our natural sexual needs.

Our physical relationship is based on need, not lust or just because we want to have fun. God made that clear early on, as well. That hasn’t been easy, either.

The thing that has impressed me and helped me the most is that David has always put me first in our physical relationship. I have never felt as though he was satisfying me so he could meet his own needs as so many men tend to do. This is turn has made me feel even safer with him than I ever have with any other man, including my ex-husband. Some of the men in my past did try to make sure I was satisfied, but there was always an underlying, “if I take care of her, I can get what I want.” I never truly felt like it was purely for me, whereas with David, I get the sense that’s he’s concerned with my pleasure. His can wait till he knows I’m content. There’s no need to hurry on his account.

Another thing that helps me is that he’s never asked me to do anything I’m not comfortable with or enjoy doing. We discussed those things once and I was pleasantly surprised to learn he didn’t like them either.

I think it also helped that for years before I moved in with him, David had been telling me that he loved me. Not of his own accord or feelings, but because God had given him a love for me that at times he had a hard time containing. During those years, he’d sometimes tell me that he wanted to kiss me, but because he knew I wasn’t ready. he didn’t. He never even tried to violate my boundaries.

God used our physical relationship to help heal part of me emotionally and sexually as those parts of me have been the most damaged. Because of our intimacy God exposed a part of me, which felt like I was a prostitute. I’ve known for a long time there was a part of me that felt that way. Once, when I was in high school, I dreamt that I was in the part of our town where you’re most likely to find prostitutes and that I was wearing a dress, which had been crocheted in such a fashion as to leave huge openings in the shape of sunflowers. On this occasion, we were just starting to become intimate, when David looked in my eyes and saw “her” the part of me, which felt like a prostitute. He stopped everything right there and we sat up and talked about “her” presence in me. The big reason “she” got exposed right then was that I was behind in my rent to David and it bothered me, even though it didn’t bother him. He saw that in my view, I only had one way to pay him, and that was with my body.

Shortly after God exposed “her” presence in my life, “she” was driven out. I sat down and wrote a note to David in a card, which said something about “understanding being a fountain,” and expressed my heart regarding his understanding. This was enough to finish driving “her” out of my life.

Also because of our intimacy, I have opened up to David in ways I don’t think I could have or would have otherwise. I’ve allowed myself to express the pain, shame, disappointment, and anger I’ve felt over different circumstances in my life. I could not and would not have done this had I not felt completely safe with David and able to trust him. The physical intimacy we shared showed me how much he cared for me and respected me, which in turn made me feel very safe. His sensitivity to my needs and wants and his respect for my boundaries and comfort levels during our intimate times are the things which allowed me to know that I was loved and respected in ways which I had never experienced before.

The physical intimacy we share isn’t the most important part of our relationship. It simply allows me to know that David truly loves me and will not take advantage of me, which allows an emotional intimacy to blossom between us.

When a woman is physically intimate with a man, she finds out real quick whether he’s being honest with her about his feelings or he’s doing what he has to do so he can get what he wants. The physical intimacy between David and I allows me to know he loved me as he never seeks to please himself only. This has also been difficult for me because as the woman in me came to life, I found myself becoming more sensitive to being touched, caressed and kissed by a man who really loves me and in turn that makes me want more. Caressing me can now arouse me in ways I never thought possible for me. I’ve heard about women who could be aroused by being caressed but never thought of myself as one of them.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 47

I also came to realize that some of the people in that church, who seemed to care about me, didn’t really care. There was one man named George who loved to have me hug him, but after the church split up, he called me to tell me about another church but didn’t ask me how I was doing. What made this incident particularly sad and revealing was that the last time I’d seen him in church, I’d been on crutches as I was having trouble with my left knee and my doctor didn’t know what was causing the problem.

In fact, most people in the church didn’t really care that I was on crutches. No one offered to come to our house and help me do household chores, not even the person who ran the Helps ministry, which was there for that purpose. I asked the leader, Cindy one day in church for help and the only day she could come was David’s day off and he could do things then. When I told her this, she said that the Helps ministry was only for people who not only couldn’t do things for themselves, but who had no one else to help them. I remember looking at her in surprise and thinking, “something’s not right here.”

It wasn’t until several months later that I realized what wasn’t right. I had been part of the Helps ministry and had gotten a call to prepare dinner for a woman who’d had surgery on one arm, which made her unable cook for her family. When I delivered the dinner I’d cooked, she was surprised because no one had told her I was coming, so her husband was cooking dinner. That’s when I knew that the leader of the Helps ministry didn’t really care and was probably judging me too.

During my time on crutches, the only one who offered me anything at all, was Bill, the elder I’d gone to for help with Caleb’s baby dedication. I went up to talk him one morning after service. Before I could say anything, he took one look at me and said, “Oh, Sweetie, let me pray for you!”

Then he proceeded to do so. He was the only one in the whole church who offered me more than sympathy during that time.

David has said that when I moved in, my emotional meter was buried so far in the red, it’s a wonder I didn’t explode sooner. I know now, if I had not moved out my mother’s house, I would have exploded and the consequences would have been disastrous for both me and my son. I would have assaulted my mother with the intent to kill her.

For the first two years after I moved in, I let loose. I expressed my anger, my rage, my pain, and even my shame, but mostly anger and pain. There were times when this was difficult for me to do. In essence, I was pouring out my anger at other people on David. If I hesitated, he’d encourage me to let it go. Over time it got easier to let whatever I was feeling in the moment come out. I’d cry, scream, or rage in general. I think at first it was about mother’s second husband, Don, who sexually and physically abused me, as well as the men who’d used and hurt me.  

What I didn’t realize at first, was that a lot of my anger was actually directed at my mother. It wasn’t till David told me one day that every time I talked with my mother on the phone, the moment I got off, I’d be going, “Do you know what she did, now?”

Then he told me that if I didn’t start telling her how I really felt about her, he was going to spank me.  He wasn’t kidding. So, the next time I was on the phone with mother, I started telling her how I really felt. It wasn’t easy at first, as she is my mother. As time went on I got more comfortable telling her my true feelings and soon it became a habit. At this point, I’m not speaking with her, unless absolutely necessary. Like the night we met my aunt, her sister and my uncle for dinner. Even then, I kept what I said to her to an absolute minimum.

David and I do not co-habitat in the usual sense of the word. I don’t sleep in his bed as a general rule. Yes, I’ve slept in his bed at times, with him, but not to have sex. It was because I needed to cuddle. I wanted and needed the comfort of being able to lay my head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat. There were times when had it been possible; I would have spent every night in his bed for that reason. There were a couple of problems with that idea.

One of them being that David had never slept next to someone who wanted to cuddle so much. Apparently, his ex-wife, Jan was something of an iceberg. During their 20 years or so of marriage, she showed no real desire to cuddle or be really affectionate. We also discovered early on that we’re both passionate, loving people with a great capacity to love. While those things can be a blessing, they can also be difficult, especially in this kind of situation. The last reason we couldn’t is that we both snore and talk in our sleep, so neither of us would get much real rest.

We did however, finally work out a compromise where I would come in and lay with him to cuddle for a bit without all the problems, although at first that had its problems too. We discovered that I could come in about 15 minutes before David had to get up for work and cuddle with him. At first, I would come in and he would start kissing me. Then we wouldn’t really be just cuddling. On top of that it got my hormones running with nowhere to go. After this had happened a few times, I told him how it made me feel and he quit. At first I would quietly slip in and wait for him to realize I was there rather than just snuggle up thereby disturbing his sleep. As time went on he became aware I was there the moment I entered the room and was ready to snuggle as soon as I crawled in. Not only that, but if I moved as if to move away before he had to get up, he pulled me closer. I cannot begin to express how nice that was.

Thank You for Following & For Your Understanding

If you’ve followed my blog, then you know that I’ve been unable to post for the last few weeks due to computer issues. It turns out I needed a new keyboard.

I have my computer back and it’s functioning nicely. It took longer than I hoped it would, but it’s nice to have it back. The new keyboard feels nice, too.

So, starting next week, I’ll resume my normal blog. I will, of course, be resuming my life story. I’ve started working on it, but it’s not ready for posting even though I hoped it would be this week.

I want to thank you for reading my posts and for your understanding when I couldn’t post.

Apologies: No New Blog Till Further Notice

My sincerest apologies to anyone who follows my blog, but due to circumstances beyond my control, I will be unable to post until further notice.

My computer has developed hardware problems that make typing impossible. In fact, I'm using my roommate's computer to do this short blog.

In case you're wondering, the keyboard on my computer won't type correctly. If I hit the spacebar, I get a "w." If I use shift with my spacebar, I get a "6." The number one acts like the tab button and the function button doesn't work at all. The only keys that do work are the letters and the 10 key pad.

So, while I wish I could continue sharing my life story, that will not be possible for now. I've been told it'll be 10 - 14 days before my computer will be repaired. If it's not repairable, it'll be even longer.

I appreciate all my readers and thank you for your patience and understanding. I hope all in your life is going well.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 46

By the time I left that meeting I was convinced that I needed to move as soon as possible. Steve and Bill did offer to help me in any way they could, including helping me find a low rent place I could afford. How moving was going to be possible, I didn’t know, so I put a “fleece” before the Lord. I told Him that if He wanted me to move, He’d have to open the doors for me to do so. Especially because of the debt load I carried. I checked into low-income housing online and found out I qualified, however, when I called to see if applications were being accepted I got a recording telling me to call back in three months. I guess that was a pretty good sign that I wasn’t to move just then.

I didn’t fully realize until a few days later that I walked out of that meeting with chains on my soul. The requirement that I move before Steve would dedicate my son to the Lord was and is unfair to me. Jesus never denied a blessing to anyone during His time here on earth because of the sin in his or her life. So, I don’t understand why Steve thought he had the right to deny me that. I also learned from a friend that getting approved for low income housing and finding it are two different things. She told me that even with approval, it wasn’t always possible to find a place.

This situation made it difficult to want to go to church. It was difficult to sit there week after week and listen to a man preach, who is unwilling to see that God works in ways we don’t always understand or agree with. This was the first time in my life that I have ever felt like I knew better what God’s will was for me than the pastor. I’ve been taught to respect church authority and so for me to basically disobey my pastor’s wishes felt weird, even though I was sure in my heart that I was doing what God wanted me to.

I talked to Steve after the meeting and told him I’d made effort towards moving out, but he didn’t respond. I tried calling Section 8 housing at the times specified, but to no avail. Whenever I tried to call about getting an application for low income housing, I got a recording telling me the mailbox was full and that if I knew the extension I wanted, I could enter it or wait for a list of people. Given that I didn’t know who would be the appropriate person to talk to and I wasn’t in a position to write down an extension or punch it in, I always had to hang up.

I’ll admit I had no real desire to move either. I’d had to be independent for so many years just to survive, that to be living with someone who can be and is a big help to me, is very nice. It has taken me a few years to learn how to give up my independence and I don’t want it back. I was extremely tired of having only myself to lean on. If I had to move out without getting married, I would have had to regain some of the independence I no longer wanted and fought so hard to lose. Even if I moved in with another woman for a roommate, I would have still had to become more independent. I want and need to stay at David’s house because of the way he helps me. The only way I could do better than that, is if I was married.

The saddest part of this is that I resent the way I was treated in this situation and because I feel like there is nothing I can do about it, I resent Steve and Bill, the elder I went to for help. Not only that, but every time I get near Steve for any reason, even in passing, I can feel the walls he erected. It hurts.

I have come to realize that in Steve’s eyes, my efforts weren’t good enough. He wasn’t willing to do the dedication until either I move out or God tells him to. I’m not so sure he wouldn’t fight it if he felt God telling him to dedicate my son to Him while I still live here.

Now I can’t lay all the blame for my lack of desire to go to church at Steve’s feet. There’s my mother who also attended the church. Her marriage is in such poor shape, she clings to Caleb and me every chance she gets. Not to mention the fact that I would rather not see her at all, if that were possible. Which it wasn’t, so I just tried to avoid talking to her.

There were other problems at church as well. I came to realize that there were people in the church who judged me for living with David without being married to him. The sad part is that no one ever came to me and asked me why I’d found it necessary to move in with him and no one ever offered to help me out other than Steve and Bill.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 45

I did take a day off soon after that as I had a bad headache and I knew that if I tried to go to work, I would just fall asleep on the job, despite having taken pain medication. After getting some rest, I felt well enough to get up, so I decided to call the church office to see if he had an opening. I was told that Steve was only in the office two days a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and this being a Monday he wasn’t in. I was shocked and upset. Steve had never told me that he was only in the office two days out of the week. The next time I had a day off, it was a Thursday and I thought maybe he’d have an opening. Again, he wasn’t in as he’d switched to coming in on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. At this point I didn’t know what to do.

After talking it over with David, I decided to take my case to an elder I knew and see if he could do something about it. I went to the elder, Bill, after service one Sunday and asked if he had time to talk. He did and I poured out the whole story to him from the beginning. I even told him about Steve’s hesitation and why. I also told him about my relationship with David and a little about why I was living here. He said he’d talk to Steve at the next elder’s meeting and see what he could do.

I thought with Bill’s help, Steve would be more willing to dedicate my son. Bill told me a few weeks later that my request had made them realize there were probably others in the church that had young children they would want dedicated. They put a notice in the bulletin and waited for a response. I was the only one who responded to the notice. I thought that would take care of it. Wrong again. Apparently they talked again and Steve still wouldn’t dedicate my son. Bill indicated to me that if nothing else, he would do it. While I appreciated that, I really wanted Steve to do it. Bill also suggested I write a letter to Steve telling him how I felt about the whole situation.

It took me several days, but I finally did. The hardest part of writing the letter was the fact that in some ways I felt like I was chewing out someone in a position of authority. That kind of thing does not come easily to me, even when I know I need to. I basically told Steve that I felt like he had led me to believe that dedicating my son to the Lord was simply a matter of setting a date. He also requested a meeting with me, but failed to tell me that he was only in two days a week and that his unwillingness to see me outside of his scheduled time to be there was unfair to me. I also wrote that if I had asked for an appointment with him, I would have expected to accommodate his schedule, but because he asked to meet with me, he should be more willing to accommodate mine and he clearly wasn’t. I gave a copy of my letter to Bill as well.

The response I got from Steve shocked and hurt me. He called me and left me a voice mail saying that my letter was very discouraging and that under the circumstances he didn’t think he could do the dedication, but if I called his office and spoke with him, maybe we could arrange for some kind of closure to the matter without dedicating my son.

I became furious. How dare he try to shrug me off like that! I talked to Bill again and apparently Steve had told him about my letter and the general contents of it. Bill must have spoken to Steve about it as a few days later Steve found an opening in his schedule to see me one evening.

I went to the meeting with high hopes and determined to get this issue settled once and for all. When I got there I found that Bill was to also sit in on the meeting partly as a chaperone. Steve asked if I minded and of course I didn’t, especially considering that I thought he was “on my side” in this matter. It turns out he was more on “Steve’s side” than mine.

During the course of the meeting, Steve told me he was uncomfortable dedicating my son to the Lord as long as I lived with David. I told him that I carried a large debt load and could not afford to move out at that time, not to mention the fact that I didn’t have any dishes or pots and pans. He asked me about the kind of place I required and I told him that I didn’t expect a palace. As long as it was reasonably clean with two bedrooms that would work for me. I also told him that I couldn’t afford much more in rent than I already paid to David. He asked me how much rent I paid and about how far in debt I was. I told him that I paid David $150.00 a month in rent and him that I was in debt collection for around $10,000 and that didn’t include my school loans. I think that surprised him. But as I told him, the debt in collections was originally credit card debt and boy had I learned my lesson there.

During the meeting, I also told Steve that I felt my living situation was God’s will for me. I told him about how I’d prayed for God to heal me emotionally. His answer to my prayer was to go to David as a man and basically learn to cry on his shoulder. I told him how my initial reaction to the idea of David as the answer to my prayer was basically, “You can’t be serious, Lord.”

Yet every time I prayed, the answer was to see David. I also told Steve about how I came to be living in David’s house.

Steve still told me he was uncomfortable with my living situation, partly because David was recently divorced and I’m divorced. Having his son, Darren and his girlfriend, Angela living here made matters worse in his eyes. He talked about my son and how I had named him after a man in the Old Testament. How the original Caleb would not be living in a “compromising” situation. He also asked me how I could hear God’s voice talking to me directly if I couldn’t hear it coming from a person. I had to admit I hadn’t thought of things that way.