I saw a movie about a happily married woman who was a sex addict. She had it all… Great family, great career, great everything. While I was never a sex addict, the movie brought me back to the 90s and some of the shit I went through back then trying to get more sex from Tom only to feel rejected in the end. Also, trying to conceive the child I once wanted so badly. There is nothing more humiliating than knowing you were considered attractive by society’s standards (would I have been a T&A dancer if I wasn’t?) just to have to practically beg your husband for sex. 

Although I knew deep down from a logical standpoint that he was the one with the problem, it really has a way of making a woman feel less than attractive. I could have gotten just about any man in those days, not that I would want them, but the one person I loved enough to marry, definitely left me feeling deprived and neglected in that department a lot of the time until I got older and my own appetite began to fizzle out as my aging hormones died off. I know the Hashimoto’s has affected it as well. 

There is nothing more frustrating and depressing than wanting something so bad that you can never have. Knowing that it was such a normal, everyday fact of life made me want to beat my head into the wall all the harder. I wasn’t asking for a million bucks. I wasn’t asking for a mansion on a private island. I just wanted a normal sex life and a child. That, on top of a lot of other shit I went through in life, is what convinced me that I was absolutely nothing in the eyes of God, should one actually exist. The legal revenge sought on me 15 years ago was the final straw. The poverty trip of the '00s really slammed the nail into the coffin as far as me ever forgiving any possible God up there. No matter how many good things await me in my future, I will always loathe the hell out of God. There is only so much we can forgive. He could’ve prevented a lot of what I went through, yet He chose to sit back and let it happen. Again, this is if he even exists. I understand that there is still a chance that there may be absolutely nothing up there and that the things that happen to us are simply random events. 

If Helen hadn’t shown me that literature to prove that Tom really did have a genuine sexual problem, I may still believe to this day that he purposely allowed himself to get hard but made sure he didn’t cum most of the time. I totally believe without a doubt that he truly did have this problem; I just think that it was a problem he was glad to have. I think it was hard for him to say no to something he knew I wanted, and that if you wanted a kid as bad as I once did, he would’ve sought help for his problem. But the fact that he knew he had a problem and wasn’t willing to do anything about it, well, that pretty much tells you something right there. 

I’m glad in the end that my desire for a child faded with time and age, but I will forever resent what I had to go through. Random event or a punishing God at work, it was utterly depressing and frustrating and it had a way of making me feel like a real freak at the time, no matter how much you know it’s not your fault. Tom led me to believe that it was at times, intentional or not, but I know it was nothing I said or did. He was the one who had a physical problem that affected him sexually. I’m sure he’s always had this and always will. Kudos to you, however, if you have a problem you’re okay with because I would think most people would go out of their minds if they could get excited but not get off. That would leave me personally feeling beyond frustrated and teased to hell and back. 

It was like I swapped roles once I got with Tom. My exes wanted more sex than I wanted, and it was just the opposite with Tom. No matter whom I may or may not lust for, Tom is definitely the only one I have ever truly loved. You’ve got to love someone to stay with them given the way our barely existent sex life was. I think most people would have left him over it. Sex is more important to most people than it is to me. Sure it was much more important to me when I was younger, but I guess I just don’t see the world through the same eyes that most people do. 

Tom and I have been more like damn good friends for many years now and I don’t know that I could ever get myself interested in having sex with him again if he suddenly wanted it. I don’t even know if a gorgeous woman (the gender I’m still predominantly attracted to) could do the trick for me. Sometimes it bothers me that that doesn’t bother me. But I guess in the end I’m just a little more willing to accept myself as I am than most people would be. 

Later… 

My dreams have taken a very negative turn and have been filled with lots of desperation. It’s the usual hotel and poverty bullshit. In the first dream, I didn’t know Tom and I was on disability again and about to be kicked off. But this time I had no loving husband to fall back on. 

I asked to meet some guy over the phone that I knew as a neighbor-friend, but when he insulted me by asking if I just wanted to “hound” him, which I knew to mean burden him with my troubles, I didn’t bother meeting him. 

My mother was in one part of the dream and I was also living in a hotel. The last of my money was running out fast and I knew I had to find a job and then miraculously figure out a way to hold my schedule so I could keep the damn job. I talked to one of the hotel staff (probably in the housekeeping department) and asked if she could help me out by giving me a job. She said, “What are you going to do? Expect to save enough to get a place of your own?” 

I told her that I was planning on staying indefinitely at the hotel, knowing that the job wouldn’t pay enough to support a place of my own. I asked again if she could help me out and she said, “Yeah,” but before she could give me any details, someone came up to her with something urgent they needed to discuss with her. 

At this point, I woke up for a bit, and then when I fell back asleep the damn dream continued. This time, however, I knew Tom. He was staying in the same hotel, just not in the same room for some reason. My body was getting weak with hunger and I went to the room in which I thought he was staying. I pushed the unlocked door open, but when I saw that both beds were occupied, I realized that wasn’t his room. I then ran back to my room to call Tom, but the call wouldn’t go through. Instead, I kept getting these weird messages. Frustrated and hungry, I went to the hotel’s restaurant and just as a waitress came to take my order, I managed to get ahold of Tom. I told the waitress to wait a bit, and then I was walking with Tom to his room an instant later. “Ever feel like something’s trying to keep us apart?” I asked him. 

“Yes,” he said. 

Then I said something like, “All for trying to make things better.”