What Is Intimacy Anorexia And How It Tears Marriages Apart

When I first met my husband he was very kind and considerate to me. We walked down streets in towns holding hands.He would kiss me like no other and get my senses aroused. Everything was good.He even came to visit me and hold my hand in the hospital. He would stay until I could hold his hand no longer as the knock out drugs took me under.He would just be the most considerate person.Sure there were things that came up and stuff like that but he wasn’t perfect. They weren’t things that I couldn’t deal with and I didn’t think they were that big of a deal.He had his life still and I had mine.Merging the two I knew would be a task because it always is. I didn’t want to rush into things and we dated for a little over a year and a half.He then asked me to marry him and of course I said yes.So we set the date and life was grand and we were happy. I went through RCIA and we went to Engaged Encounter and all the things we were to do to prepare for this union. Nothing brought up red flags and I was too enamored by him to even take notice if there were. We passed all these things with flying colors.Love was in the air and it felt good for a change.

Things started to get confusing on our wedding night.Now he had a really bad accident 15 years prior to when we meet and he was left for dead and had a closed head injury.He does have an impediment that is confusing to write about.Something about using pronouns and verb tenses in writing but he can do it when reading or speaking and he is slow.No big deal.

You can be sure I was upset when we did not consummate the marriage and he fell asleep while I had gone to the bathroom to change out of my wedding gown.I did try to wake him and I ended up crying in the bathroom that whole night.I did not get any sleep at all. Funny how he would take my hand and we walked around the sites and places we went on our honeymoon. So I just put it behind me and thought he really was that tired, because he still hugged me and kissed me and all the rest.

It was a couple weeks later that I initiated the bedroom scene and we were on the floor and when I went to get on top he brought up his knee and pushed me off. That hurt!! Not the physical because I was sent to a standing position.The emotional implication that he didn’t want me hurt very much and I just looked at him and he didn’t say a word.I gathered myself up and went to take a shower. I was bewildered. I thought that I did something wrong and it was something that I did or said or it was some spark from his head trauma.

Things started to get worse. Oh throughout all this I stayed in the relationship. A few times I did leave and stayed someplace else for a few days. You will say that I am crazy and I should have left but keep in mind I truly thought it was his traumatic accident and brain injury experience that were causing these things.

I noticed when I talked with my hands it would agitate him. When I got upset that he would put the silverware in other places that would agitate him. He would play games with me and hide my purse and I would have to call his work and plead with him to find my purse so that I could pay a bill or go to work myself. The consequences that I would get for talking with my hands or getting upset with him would get me put in the shower, fully clothed, and not let out until he was good and ready to let me out. He would stand there so that I could not get out. Sometimes he would put me on the bed and stand over me until he also thought that I was ready to get up. Most times I would be naked in this position. When I told him that I was ready to get up he still would not let me get up until it was his time to let me up. Ok this was a huge red flag and I had no one to talk to.In my past no one believed me and so no one was going to believe me this time either. His family doesn’t think that he could hurt a fly. No one wants to get involved. A city policeman lived next door and I asked him one day if he had ever heard the screams coming from our apartment and if he would do something about it. All he told me to do was to call the police department and get a restraining order on him. Well I couldn’t do that because my family wouldn’t believe me and I would always be the one to take the blame. So I just stopped using my body to talk and that seemed to help. It was during this time that I forced him into counseling, which made our relationship worse instead of better. My husband always cut me off when I was speaking. He would do things like say “what” when I had only gotten 2 or 3 words out. Of course at the beginning that would mess up my train of thought.I almost stopped talking to him altogether.That was one of the times that we went to counseling together and the counselor saw what he was doing and tore into him.I was surprised at his actions but at the same time relieved that someone else saw what was going on and I wasn’t making it up and/or crazy. I did set one boundary though and that was that he never ever manhandle me like that again, and he hasn’t.

I started my own business there sewing for people and I was happy with that.It gave me a sense of this is mine and no one can take it away and self confidence. I loved working with people and providing a service to them. One time I was making costumes for a parade and it was good and all. The same time this was going on my husband had me do a dinner party for his family. He had reserved the Knight’s of Columbus Hall for the day and he wanted it to be like our first family gathering. Well those people that I was making costumes for changed their minds at the last minute and wanted me to sew up some head dresses that would go with their costumes. It was the day of the Family Gathering! What a tight schedule. My daughter, what a nice person she is, helped me put those headdresses together. My business meant a whole lot to me and keeping my customer happy was important. I couldn’t schedule it another day because the parade was also on that day.It was a deadline that I had to make. Well no one at the Knight’s of Columbus told me how the stoves worked and I thought that I had them on. Come to find out they were on but I couldn’t get them hot enough. It was ½ hour before everyone came that I put the dish in to re-heat. They did not know the dish was supposed to be served hot and they all liked it. Only after they all left and my daughter and I were cleaning up he took me aside and told me how disappointed he was in me. Yeah That Hurt! I wanted to make a good impression on his family and I thought that I did well pulling it all together. I thought that I did well with the change in plans from my customer and getting the dinner party done and yet it wasn’t good enough.

I remember him saying things like he is going to break me. I didn’t know what he meant. I did everything he wanted me to do. I went to church with him, to all of his Knight’s of Columbus functions and other things we did together. I kept the apartment clean even with making messes when I had unfinished sewing projects all over the place. I also put him in a good light. So I really didn’t know what he was going to break me from.

Everyone except my daughters saw only the good and right things in our relationship. On the outside it looked like the perfect marriage. I went to counseling by myself once and it was a women’s group but it was for mostly addicts and I wasn’t one of those so I quit going.I didn’t feel that I was getting what I was paying for out of it. That was then.

When being in a situation like this we are made to jump through many hoops to get attention.. We try to do things better and more of them so that he will notice us. All is in vain. We clean the house better, or wash the car or take the kids to other places, pack lunches, get up early with him, fix him breakfast, stay up late when he gets home and many other things. Some have home schooled and it isn’t enough. My husband asks me things like: how long did it take you to do that. I don’t have any idea.I don’t look at a clock when I am going to write or when I clean the kitchen or the house or anything like that in my day. I just do them. He seems to think that I sit and eat Bon-Bons all day and watch soap operas. I don’t do either. I am quit busy during the day. I am Neighborhood Watch Chairman and the last few weeks that has been hectic. I write and I am an Avon Lady. I quit that in 2012.

Another thing that he has done is wait until the last minute to tell me that he needs me to write a letter for him. I used to do it without a thought but now I can see what he is doing. He thinks that I have all the time in the world and I can just whip up a letter with his thoughts in a few minutes. That just doesn’t happen. I have also noticed in the last year or so that he will bring some work home and I have to type it up for him. I have told him politely that I will not do his work for him.It’s all about setting boundaries. I am learning more and more about them, but first I have to notice the ones that are being pushed before I can do something about them. There is the problem.

Oh and all this certainly messes with your mind. He would tell me something that I said or did when I know that I have not and then call me a liar when I don’t remember saying or doing it. He has told me that we did something together when I know we have not. There is this concept of the “Good Box” and the “Bad Box”. He loves to be in that “Good Box” because it strokes his ego and he likes everyone to see and think that he is all good and can do nothing bad or wrong. Meanwhile I am put in the “Bad Box”. Everything that I say or do is not acceptable and I am the bad person for bringing out anything that is not good about him. I am made to feel guilt about it all and that I am the crazy one. In fact there is something mentioned about this in the workbook that I am going through.

Through counseling I have also found or just begun to realize that what he says means nothing and should be ignored. Instead watch their actions. I thought that I was the cause and that I was the one sabotaging all my work at home jobs that I have had in the last 8 years. When looking back I find it wasn’t me that was doing this, it was him. Oh I am not trying to blame him but put the cause in the right place.There is a reason why we only have one car now. I had my own car and loved it. Then we were given another car, yes given. and I had the choice of getting my husband’s that was paid for or using mine. We live on a wooded mountain on dirt roads and my little Toyota Tercel isn’t heavy enough to drive on the ice and snow so I decided to sell that one and use the one that my husband gave me. Sounds all good, huh? Well his car that was given to him was having some issues and he got in an accident and it was in the shop. He needed a car to get to work and took mine. One day he was coming home from church and we had a freak and fast ice storm and a few vehicles were in an accident in front of the road that we turn on to get to our house. He sees this and decides to go down the hill anyway and he ends up totaling my car. So now we have one car and that isn’t the end of that. We go to get a new car because something is seriously wrong with his car and for safety sake they don’t allow us to take our car off the lot. They sell us a used car—a lemon at that. We still have that car because I made them repair it. So we are making payments on that one and I don’t have a car. Ironic thing about the accident----I was nowhere near him and I was blamed for it. He kept telling that he was just trying to get home, not taking responsibility for his own actions. He was talking like there was someone else in the car with him or that was using his body to drive it. It was only he that was in that car.

His actions are telling me that he wants a 20’s wife or "Stepford Wife" at the same time I am supposed to work outside the home. I went through a really rough time with that guilt and then his sister got on me about that too. Finally I came to my senses and told them all to get a life! I am here because that is where my husband wants me to be—shut up in a box.I feel trapped. Yes, I can get the car but I have to go through so many hoops it is not worth it. I simply cannot be two people in the same body and I certainly am not Wonder Woman.