weddings suck

predictably, i have come to really recoil from the idea of weddings and marriage...

i recently found it necessary to attend one, since my boyfriend's brother married.  i found the experience to be like suffocating under a pile of heavy wool blankets.  bearing witness to this 'commitment' that these two people were making together, observing all the effort they made to create their special day, watching them celebrate with their loved ones, made it very difficult not to think back to my own wedding day...

when i think about all the many hours, and the many, many dollars, that were spent planning and creating that day, it makes me nauseous.  none of it meant anything, in the end.  all the tiny details i labored over, the fancy private club, the flowers and pumpkins everywhere, the Italian silk gown, the platinum rings, the vows written and spoken for all to hear, it was all folly.  we were two people, clinging to one another out of fear -- nothing more -- and we engaged willingly in this charade of commitment.  it was like, the bigger and more elaborate the affair, the more we believed it was true and right.  it wasn't...it really never, ever was, and yet, onward we marched.

despite my realizing that i was not meant to be with my ex husband, its difficult not to allow myself to become incredibly jaded about marriage...and even love.  my experiences thus far have demonstrated to me how fickle it all is, how love can be turned on and off like a light switch, even in two people who really do care deeply for one another.  any day, any moment, one of the two can decide it no longer suits them...that its easier to run away, than to stand by one's heart.  it doesn't seem fair.  i think its the universe's cruelest joke...

maybe its why i ended up being drawn into the BDSM lifestyle...i wanted to be truly considered by my partner, deeply understood and appreciated for who i am.  a Dominant or Master chooses his submissive or servant, and not for just any old reason.  she is selected for her obedience, her ability to serve, her willingness to please, her impressionable nature, among other things.  she is cherished...and yes, she is used.  there is a contract, and a collar, and the bond is not dissolved unless it is agreed upon by both parties.  the more i explored the various dynamics within the culture, the more it appealed to me.  

discovering my submissive qualities was no surprise to me, but it was thrilling to me, because i felt as though i had finally found myself...like looking in the mirror for the first time and really seeing who you are.  i understood myself within the context of BDSM almost immediately: i was a type A perfectionist, overachiever who's parents directed her every move in her early life.  the only physical affection or contact i ever got from them was an exasperated grab of my arm, a spanking, or a slap across my face.  my experience of love was that it was violent and extremely conditional.  it came as no surprise to me that i responded so strongly to these kinds of expressions of love...it all made perfect sense to me.

my ex husband is a submissive, but not for the same reasons i am.  he is merely weak and lacking any will.  his submission is automatic and natural.  mine is complex, and almost paradoxical -- i've spent my life waving the flag of feminism and striving to be an independent woman in a patriarchally oppressive world, and here i am, getting moist because a big strong man could come along and tell me to drop to my knees in such a way that i can not help but obey.  and its not just any man who can trigger such a response in me.  he must be worthy -- of me, and of my submission.  my ex husband was never worthy, of either, and to be fair, he never asked or demanded my submission outright.  instead, he found subtle ways to exert control over me, manipulating parts of my life or my psyche so that i had no choice but to rely upon him.

i hated him for that...for all the little ways he tried to keep me underneath him somehow.  it is what i look back on and have the most acrimony about with him.  for instance, the household maintenance was my job, naturally.  getting him to participate in the upkeep of the house was like battling a child to clean his room, only this was a grown ass man with a mortgage.  i was not allowed to use the bank card, and therefore had to rely upon him for almost every necessity.  he would go to the store with a written shopping list, and he would purposely return with only half of my requested items, or the wrong ones entirely.  repeatedly.  sex, of course, was expected.  i could be fondled and accosted at any moment, in the midst of any task, so that he could take five minutes to get off and go back to what he was doing.  i would have to beg for money for the smallest things, and yet he would go out with other girl friends for expensive dinners at Left Bank.  and then, there was the way in which he would emotionally beat me down, any goal i set, any task i set out to do, was derided for some reason.  it was clear that i was not good enough for the good old, Doctor Kxxxxxx.

so why did he marry me?  i never pressured, in fact i invited him to move along if he wasn't sure about me or any of it.  i made it clear that i did not plan to have children, and so he should part ways if that was important to him.  he and i came to so many crossroads over the years, and each time, we chose to move forward together.  

better yet, why did i stay?  what was i so afraid of?  because surely, being alone had to have been better than what i endured for so long with him...

i want to believe that love is real, and it can be pure and good.  i want to believe that it is possible for two people to come to regard and care for each other so deeply that no force can tear them apart.  i want that bond with someone.  i want someone to wake up each day with me, just wanting to make each other smile and laugh, even when life is shitty...because how shitty can it be if we're together, right?  i want to be someone's reason, and i want our love to be epic and eternal.  i don't want to have to kneel and beg for it, or be humiliated into it, or degraded for it.

and i certainly don't need a wedding, or even a ring, to know that i have it.  

Honeymooning with the Boston Red Sox

my ex husband and i had a storybook wedding...

we chose to marry in the fall of our intern year of residency, because the season and halloween was our favorite time of year (and it is to this day for me, at least he didn't ruin that on the way out).  we knew what kind of affair we wanted to have to celebrate the occasion:  something classic, elegant, and very 'us'. 

my ex husband was quite actually an eager participant in the planning from the very beginning, choosing song lyrics for programs and putting together our wedding favors (a cd compilation of 'our' songs).  we even re-wrote the entire civil ceremony, including our vows, so it was a true reflection of us and what we wanted for our marriage together.  there were tons of little details that were uniquely expressive of our very long relationship up to that point, and he was there participating every step of the way...

we took a full year to plan our wedding day, handcrafting each and every detail.  we created our own Trivial Pursuit cards for each table, with questions that highlighted our story for all our guests (it was a game we played a lot, especially with his family.  in fact, every one of his family gatherings was not complete without a long and heated game of Trivial Pursuit amongst family members, and Jxxxxx loved brandishing his smarts whenever he could.  and if he lost, it was always accompanied by a little temper tantrum and some snarky excuse for why someone else on his team brought him down.  he is the worst of sore losers.).  we carved tons and tons of pumpkins, for the tables and the bars and the mantles of The Buffalo Club where we were married.  we had a special first dance to Dean Martin's 'You're Nobody til Somebody Loves You'.  the entire day and evening were filled with magic and excitement, and neither of us demonstrated any doubt that we were embarking on a very long, and happy life together.  i remember those moments standing in front of everyone we knew, looking deep into his eyes, and feeling like if we could just capture this moment of earnestness and affection between us, we would be successful.  

the day was a huge success, our families and guests were so impressed with what we did, and i still hear about how beautiful the day was from people whenever i bump into them.  i should have known it was too good to be true, because the tone seemed to change immediately once it was over.  when the night ended, we walked next door to our suite at The Mansion, where he proposed to me, and i recall that he didn't even reach for my hand when i went to hold his.  it was odd and i know i recognized it, but i let it go to the back of my head, thinking that it had been a long day, we were both tired, and maybe i was just looking too hard at what was really nothing.  by the time we arrived up to our room, that barely noticeable quirk was hard to ignore, because all he wanted to do when we got back to the room was count the envelopes and go to sleep.  NOT go to bed so that we could consummate our marriage, but go to bed so that he could sleep.  i stood there in my wedding gown, my veil still attached to my head, and i wasn't sure what to think.  i had read somewhere that no wedding night sex is not uncommon amongst newlyweds, simply because of the stress of the day, but we weren't your average newlyweds...we had been conducting our life as a common law married couple for many years prior to our nuptials, the ceremony and party were just formalities, at least for me.  

as we prepared to leave the next morning for our honeymoon, my heart could not help but sink deeper and deeper, from my chest into my gut.  my 'new' husband was all sweetness, basking in the glow of being a newlywed to be sure, but the occasional touch of hands and a peck on the cheek was as far as our intimacy went.  there was no signal from him that he was at all interested in getting me into bed.  there was great interest, however, in the World Series that year, since his precious Boston Red Sox had finally beaten their century long curse by making it to the finals.  the days and nights of my honeymoon revolved around the viewing of Sports Center and catching innings of games.  we would be out walking, and he would be fixated on finding the latest score or standings.  i tried to be as understanding as i could, not wanting to ruin the week with whining or frowning on my part.  i was a new wife, so i softened my attitude and realized what a big deal it was for him.  i smiled and even feigned happiness for him as the Sox got closer and closer to their trophy.

on our first night of honeymooning, i was determined to make it impossible for him to ignore me.  as he settled into a chair near the tv, i slipped into the bathroom and into the silkiest and most suggestive of lingerie, made sure to spray his favorite perfume behind each ear and between my breasts, and back out to introduce him to his new Wife...when i slinked up next to him, he barely turned his head.  i was met with a quick glance and a smile, and a plea to let him finish watching the scores.  i kept my cool, and tried to maintain my mood, and settled back onto the bed to wait for him to take me.  

when my eyes opened three hours later, the room was dark, the television off, and my husband was sound asleep across the bed from me.  he never woke me.  he hadn't even pulled the covers up over me for the night. 

i hid my disappointment, shoved it waaay down deep, as we boarded the plane to return home to our 'new' life as Man & Wife without consummating my marriage to the Doc.  i unpacked the hundreds of dollars of lingerie i selected for him, and placed it gently back into the tissue paper, and shoved it to the back of a drawer.  i smiled for my family and for his as we went through picture after picture of us doing everything but actually making love.  i tried to nurse my self esteem, and tell myself that we were 'not your average couple', and that we would find our groove again.  i tried not to wonder why our nuptials prompted such a change in his motivations toward me sexually, for we had a very healthy sex life prior.

i woke up each morning, and i tried to squash the little voice in the back of my head that kept whispering to me that i had just made the biggest mistake of my life by trusting my heart to this boychild that stood next to me.  it was more than two months later that we finally consummated our marriage.  soon thereafter, my previously healthy husband, sexually vigorous and fun in bed, began to have problems prolonging his climax, and he stopped even trying to satisfy me at all...

post script.  when i embarked upon my divorce, upon hearing this story, my lawyers wanted to know if my husband could be gay...as metrosexual and obsessed with his appearance as he was, i had never once really considered it possible, mainly because we had never had a problem connecting sexually, and in fact knew how to satisfy each other rather well.  it can be quite disorienting when a stranger holds a mirror up to your life, and you suddenly see something in a totally different light.  the more i considered it, the more it seemed a credible theory, though it is one that warrants its very own post, and therefore, you'll have to wait to hear all about the emotionally closeted Doc...