Roller Coaster Rides

It been an interesting roller coaster ride this last week. Well really for the last year, but I can only handle things in small chunks, so we'll just discuss the last week or so.

After I discovered the email from TOW, I pretty much shut down emotionally. DH didn't know what was going on, ignored it for a few days, and then tried to fix it with sex. Which works temporarily, but never lasts.

I didn't realize at first that that's what was going on, and I'm sure he didn't either, but we both do that. We try to fix emotional issues with sex.

Back while DH was having his affair, before I realized that TOW existed, I knew something was wrong. There were little inconsistencies in the stories he would tell me, but they always were easily explained away. But after every conversation like that, I could feel DH subtly pull away from me emotionally. How did I try to fix it? I would randomly initiate sex, focusing in on the things that I know he likes best. I would blow him, I would offer anal sex, I would acquire new lingerie.

For a day, maybe two, after each encounter like this, I would feel like we were connected again, but then I could feel us slipping apart again. So I would step up the frequency of the sex. Unfortunately, it doesn't work long term, and the rest is history.

So, back to this week, after several days of emotional egg shells in our house, on Monday, DH initiated sex, focusing on the things I like. I enjoy having my hair pulled, being spanked, being submissive, light pain mixed with lots of pleasure. (It's really all very vanilla.) It seemed to realign us emotionally - for about a day, but nothing had changed, so we started to drift again. So for the next several days, there was more really very good sex.

We have always had an effective sex life, but there is something about the desperation involved in this "emotionally fixing" sex that makes it even more incredible.

That was the status quo until Friday, when I mentioned to DH that I had made an appointment to see a therapist this coming Tuesday. I tried to break it to him gently, but it still seemed to hit him like a kick to the stomach. DH hated every minute of the couples counseling that we did last year. He felt like the therapist was going to berate him at any moment. He would rather have had root canals without pain medicine than go to our appointments.

I - wrongly - assumed that my going to therapy by myself wouldn't bother him nearly as much. After all, he doesn't have to do anything. Nope. He still thinks the therapist is going to be out to get him, only now he's worried that it'll be said behind his back.

But he's not about to tell me that I can't go to a therapist, so what does he do? He pulls back emotionally. Which makes me wonder if he's going to contact TOW so that he has someone to talk to about how he feels. (I realize that sounds paranoid, but I still don't know what he is doing about that email from TOW, so I am paranoid.) Which makes me pull back, too.

Which is exactly the opposite direction of what I want to have happen. I want to feel connected to DH. I want to feel that emotional bond. So what do I do? Last night, I put on a very thin nightie, climbed into bed, and started to blow him. Then I proceeded to encourage him to do whatever he wanted to me.

In the afterglow, I felt much more connected again, but in reality, I know that we are still just riding in circles on that same roller coaster.

Only problem is, I don't know how to stop. It has its own momentum, and it just keeps taking us up and down those same hills.