Saddened

One thing I have noticed over and over and over as I browse around the world of sex journals is that there are an awful lot of unhappy or unfulfilled people. In unhappy marriages, unhappy relationships, unhappy life situations. Their husbands won't talk to them, or their wives won't have sex with them anymore, or they're horribly depressed or confused about the raging drives inside them.

This saddens me. I'm a cynic, but I would like to believe that people are smarter than this. I have to wonder how much of this is due to upbringing and my culture's repressed views on sexuality in general (most of the journals I've added so far are written by people based in the United States, where sex is sold on every street corner but rarely taught or explained properly). Is it a cultural thing? Or are there just as many sad and confused people in (say) China or Ecuador and Russia? I have seen journal after journal talk about how they got married after only one or two partners and then discovered that they weren't sexually compatible with the one they married. I've seen so many people talk about how their sex drive is so radically different from their partner's. Hell, I'm even one of them. My own relationship is struggling because I have trouble getting her to talk to me about anything in general, much less our sex life.

Communication has to be a factor in all relationships. Over and over I read about problems that could be solved by communicating, but over and over I read that the writer has tried time and time again to communicate with their partner and they just aren't listening, or aren't receptive, or don't seem to have any interest in working out the problems. Relationships have to be two-way for them to work, people. If you can't talk to your partner or they won't talk to you, there's lots of other trouble afoot besides whatever may be wrong with your sex life. And that saddens me too, knowing that there are so many disintegrating relationships out there.

Yes, I realize that people grow and change, expand and contract, slide sideways or forwards or away from what they were months or years ago. Good partners don't mind that, or can expand and contract and slide along with you. But I know there's a point of no return, beyond which you have to say "enough is enough". Some people change to the point where you barely recognize them anymore, and the person that you fell in love with is no longer the person you wake up next to every day. And then it's all over but the tears and recriminations. What's worse is when you want to love them still -- when you don't want to give up what you had with them -- when you try to apply bandages and spackle and duct tape to hold together the structure that's creaking and toppling. Sometimes a clean break is better. But what if you break off and then discover it was the worst mistake of your life? That you were never happier than when you were with them, even during the sad times?

One of the reasons I started this journal was to explore and question. I read journals from people who are cheating without their partner's knowledge. This one is tired of talking to him because for years he hasn't listened to a word she's said. This one is so starved for attention of any kind that he furtively posts on adult sites, meeting for rendezvouses that he admits leave him sexually fulfilled but emotionally empty. This one has been to counseling more times than she can count but her partner won't reach out to bridge the gaps or won't admit there are issues; so she meets her lover in secret weekly and is never happier.

Others cheat with full knowledge of their partner. Which raises the question, is it really cheating if you have permission? Here's a couple in a completely open relationship, who hold nothing back, not even their sweaty trysts with the multiple other lovers they share; yet they still come back to each other time and time again, stronger and renewed. Here's a husband whose wife has given him permission to go find sex somewhere other than with her because she loves him, but doesn't care about sex anymore. Here's a wife whose hubby gets off on the idea of her with other men and likes to watch them, but has no interest in outside sex at all. She's all he needs.

Differences, differences. The world spins, and people interact, and everyone's different. How can you possibly know when you're getting involved with someone if that same magic and excitement is going to still be there years down the road? Are we constructed to find a life partner and stick with them forever? Or is it in human nature to be happier with successions of relationships, changing needs and circumstances? Or are "open" relationships, with one primary partner and several other secondary satellites, really models that work?

I don't have any answers. I don't even have any idea where these philosophical rumblings came from, but hell, this is my space and I'll muse if I want to. Nyah.

-- PB