struggling to believe

My silly mind is making things up again, allowing itself to be overrun with lies. The truth is he loves me. I'm his queen,, his empress, is princess, his one and only. He told me so, and he wouldn't lie about these things. He's strictly monogamous, and this comes naturally to him, for he told me so, and he wouldn't lie about these things.

He may or may not be afraid, but what he thinks and feels is not my concern. He loves me; he wants me; he adores me and respects me. He loves my beautiful body and my spankable butt, and my silliness, and especially my perfect breasts. He told me so, and he wouldn't lie about these things. My intellect, my creativity, my artistry, but most importantly he loves me, my heart, my soul, my depths. My job is to take care of me and my needs, do what makes me feel good.

I deserve happiness, love, beauty, freedom, trust, admiration, respect. I deserve to be loved and adored. I imagine beautiful, warm sunshine touching me, caressing my skin, each and every pore coming alive with sensation. it warms my heart, my spirit, and soul. It fills me with so much love.

I embrace the pain and the sadness inside.
It aches, and it pulls my heart open wide.

I welcome the tears though it hurts me so,
For this is the way to freedom I know.

Joy and happiness are always at hand,
Though I feel somewhat abandoned.

It's only for now; I know this is true.
Until it passes, I must revel in the blue.

I strive for peace and serenity.
Love can thus grow with purity,

Of heart and spirit and soul, so full,
So together we can be better, so beautiful.

I can see us bound together inseparable yet spiritually unique. We have so much love for each other. It flows between us. It pulsates. It throbs. It's spiritual. It's sensual. It's sexual. It dances peacefully through and around us.

We love to be together in quiet solitude, in riotous silliness, in laughter, in tears, in jubilation, in bliss, united as one, reaching the peaks of ecstasy, in orgasm and in love. We explore. We adventure. We love. We make love.

We are like rainbows exuding a myriad of prismatic colors all around us. We are special, and together we're better. Our colors blend to create hues never before seen. We are a rare and special pair.

deep angst

8/29/2005-12/31/2005
I'm having a difficult time accepting that this is not a reflection on me, that I'm more than enough, as he said. I've been working slowly, steadily at a pace apparently I could handle on my still unresolved feelings of inadequacy. I know I have a tendency to cling. It seemed to be fading away until this.

I feel like I've been plunged way back into my fears, my old "security blanket" though it's hardly secure and certainly not comfortable. All I can do is to continue to work on myself. There must be some very good reasons for all of this, some I know full well, others I have yet to uncover. It has been so painful, and it continues to hurt.

I can't seem to rid myself of the images of him looking, wanting, lusting, feeling so inadequate and not enough. He would rather jerk off to images of those little chippies. Is he doing that? I don't know.

Are men aroused by any female body? If so then what's so special about me? Why me at all? Is he tired, bored of seeing the same body, me, everyday? Why would he want to be aroused by another woman's body if he loves only me? I give him everything he wants and then some, so why? I'm always ready and available and more than willing, so why?

He says I'm cute, adorable, special even. He says I have a beautiful body and perfect breasts. He says I'm his one and only, that he's mine completely. Is this his way of saying he loves me? He says he thinks it's sexy when a woman ages gracefully. It's a turnoff when they try to look like a twenty year old. He says he wouldn't want a twenty year old, yet it's twenty year olds he likes to look at on the internet. I'm confused.

Why does he say so little? It's incredibly painful to find beautiful prose written by him to another albeit a long time ago. I've received almost nothing. He's had his heart broken. Maybe he's afraid of voicing things, for then it might go away and/or hurt him.

It could mean I'm not special enough to warrant pretty words, but maybe he's not ready. Maybe he's scared too. Is any of this true? I really don't know. I don't know if he's still looking. I really don't know anything. He asked me for my pictures before he left. He made a point of having them with him. What does it all mean?

What is it you want from me? From a relationship? What's happening with us? What's happening with you? I wish I could know what he's thinking, feeling. How does he feel about me? Us? Our life? His life? He feels sad to me. Maybe it's my sadness being projected. He feels unsure, questioning, disconnected. Maybe it's all my feelings.

My life has been turned upside down and inside out. I'm in turmoil. I so desperately want to open myself up to love for the first time ever, real love, no holding back, no walls, fully open, fully love, fully loving, fully in love. I so want to reconnect with him on an even deeper level. I want to feel love. I want to love myself that I may love him. Yet I feel love aching to be released. I miss the deep connection that likely never was. I feel moments of it, but my fear interferes. Or is it his fear? My fear? Both of our fears?

I'm trying so hard to keep the curtains that surround my heart from closing altogether, but I'm hurting. I'm not numb; at least I feel, but I have fear. What is wrong with me? Why do I keep feeling as if I'm falling into a bottomless abyss?

I don't want to be numb, but all I seem to get instead is a big ball of ache. Why do I keep have recurring bad thoughts? Why do I keep putting this icky face on him? I want the negative pictures to leave me alone. When images of him looking pop into my head, I feel hurt. I feel angry. I feel insecure. I feel not good enough. I feel so sad. Is any of this true? My demons are lying, making things up. I feel sad because I lose connection with myself, and I lose connection with him.

Why do I feel so fucked up? But I'm perfect just as I am. You told me so. I'm in a great deal of pain. My heart aches. It feels like it's going to break. I'm scared. I miss you. I miss feeling close to you. I'm so confused. I feel lost. Why did this have to happen? I wish I could forget. I wish this would all go away. I wish I could feel at peace. I wish I could feel love. What is it going to take to get me through this? I wish it would all go away.

is this possible?

6/28/2006
I cannot know or understand how men are, how they work inside. I can accept and embrace them and their differences, at least this is what I strive to believe.

They have an ability to compartmentalize that most women do not, that most women would find incomprehensible. We connect emotionally to everything, especially women like me who are so sensitive, so sensory, so self-aware physically and emotionally and spiritually. I am acutely in tune with my being in all ways, and this has become more and more marked more recently, this past year, this past month.

In turn I have become even more aware and able to touch surrounding energies, others and their feelings. I can feel a person even through a photograph. I can connect with a person's spirit instantly, and my instincts in this regard are immensely accurate. This ability is mostly inconceivable to men. A man can empathize with another, but feeling them as many women can is mostly impossible. Their emotional connection lies with us. We facilitate this in them if we allow it within ourslelves. This is their path to peace, love, and freedom, through our hearts.

I am K's vehicle on is journey to love and in love which defines itself as peace and freedom and contentment in his mind and heart. The journey within my own heart and more deeply my soul is cruial to his. As we walk our respective paths, they will merge the more, the more I allow myself access to my depths, my deepest darkest secret places, my well of brimming love where my angel goddess resides. The farther I venture forth, the deeper and closer we will grow together, dance together in a love for each other so profound. It really is up to me.

This is the love dreams are made of, poets wax rhapsodic about, a few special beings have the honor and the wonderful, blissful, immeasurable delight in experiencing.
This is my dream.

no man

6/26/2006

"No man worth his salt wants to be told to rein himself in on a personal subject like this that involves his feelings of personal freedom." (I would add that any man who does quickly loses the respect of the woman he loves. )

I'm in complete agreement with this. I cannot control him in any way, and I don't wish to. That would feel awful to him, and that would feel awful to me. It would not be conducive to the kind of relationship I desire.

I only brought this subject up twice since the discovery, and I never once asked K to stop or do anything differently for that matter. It's not my place. It would be wrong. It's negative energy for my spirit and for the relationship. He has to do whatever it is he has to do.

As long as it doesn't affect how he is with me which it hasn't, then I have to trust him. This is my goal, to trust myself and him so much, have confidence in myself so much that it doesn't matter to me if he does it or not. I don't want to care anymore.

No one is harder on me than me. My first thought as my first thoughts always are is that it's my fault, whether that might mean that I drove him to do it or that I'm naive about this subject.

What has saddened me and caused me to feel so discouraged and hopeless at times about this is that I immediately put up a wall against K as instinctive protection, and this hurts. I've been having trouble feeling him, in my heart I mean.

I'm never volatile, a little moody sometimes which manifests as quiet and introspection, but that's it. He's not accustomed to someone who is as even tempered as he. I know he likes it, but he may not fully trust it yet.

I also believe that K has been going through some huge personal, spiritual growth during this time as have I. He has not been in a relationship this long before or one that meant this much to him, one that has been this intimate and this open, sexually yes but also spiritually, especially now that I have some tools to help me communicate better and the courage to utilize them.

Though I have been in long term relationships, the rest holds true for me too. The porn discovery has forced me to go into places inside I didn't know existed but also places I would not have dared go before had I even known of their existence and had I not been placed in the situation I was. This is all very, very good.

I'm feeling things I've never felt before. As for K, I believe he's been upending some of is belief systems as well. If he still looks, it could not be very often and if it's present, it's been kept well away from me which I really, really appreciate. I am grateful that he respects my discomfort with it.

It's in part thanks to him though that I've let go and opened up enough to where I felt so comfortable, it compelled me to explore my sexuality with him, and a whole wonderful world that I had only dreamed of has opened up to me in turn, and it continues to do so the more vulnerability I allow myself.

it hurts so

9/14/2005
I'm so uncomfortable. I cannot seem to shake this feeling of dread. I cannot seem to be able to work it out within myself. I've tried going into the bad feelings, for maybe resisting it is causing more pain, but this doesn't seem to work for long if at all. The hurt and the pain and all my bad thoughts keep flooding back.

I can't talk about it with K. I don't know what to say. I'm afraid. I don't know how to express how bad I feel, wondering all the time if he's looking. I've tried asking myself, "Is that true?" ala Byron Katie, to any of the voices inside that whisper to me, yell sometimes, but this too doesn't seem to work for long if at all.

Can I live with a man who looks at photos of other women on the internet? I want to say I can, but I just don't know. It hurts so much. I can't seem to stop thinking about it, thinking about why? what's missing in me? I know intellectually I'm enough, more than enough he told me, but I don't own it.

He told me the images are like a piece of peppermint candy, whereas I'm the gourmet meal, but this doesn't really make sense to me. I still don't understand. I want to, I really, really do, but I don't know how. Nothing seems to help. I feel such despair sometimes.

I know this situation with K has created an opportunity for me to deal with emotions that have long been buried and issues I thought had been cleared up, but I ask myself, what next? How can I do this? Can I even do this? Are my fears and insecurities so deeply ingrained I will never be able to resolve them? Will I ever feel love? What is love? Will I ever be the vessel of love I dream about? Will I ever find peace with this and within myself?

this is now

letters written to:
1. a woman who specializes in sexual healing who I saw regularly between 8/2006 - 1/2007
2. my personal coach, my savior whom I consulted with weekly for a year and a half following the discovery
3. a dear friend who lives overseas

June 14, 2008
Dear H,
I know you're busy and may not have the chance to respond, but if you could, I would be so grateful. Some big congratulations and big hugs and kisses would be nice too. I asked him to show me, and we ended up sharing the experience sexually.

It was fun, and I finally got to see for myself why it is, what it means, or really what it doesn't mean. I told you yesterday that since I can't be in ignorance of it anymore, and I can't tell him what to do, and I wouldn't want to, and I can't pretend it doesn't exist as many women do because for me, it would creep back out from under the carpet eventually as it has, so I had to understand and make friends with it.

I suppose I had to reach a place in my growth where I could do what I did today. The white elephant has finally stopped telling me horrible stories, has finally stopped squeezing me so hard I can't breathe, has stopped fighting me and pinning me down helplessly. He has left the room.
Love, D

August 10, 2008
Dearest R,
I would love to talk to you. Three years almost to the day we first spoke, I have healed. Three by the way is my life path number. I feel a huge weight has lifted from my heart and soul. I feel a lovely sense of freedom, and the energy between K and me is so soft, easy, intense, amazing, and sex has expanded to incredible heights and depths. I did it. I really did it.
Love, D

August 12, 2008
My dear J,
I feel like a new person. A huge load has lifted. A new wonderful communication has opened up between K and me beyond the porn. It has been quite an experience sharing it with him, opening myself to it and just opening myself.

I can talk to him now about anything. I've continued to ask him questions about this topic when they arise, and he's been open, honest, and loving, generous. It's all very clean. I feel an ease I've never felt before with him or any man for that matter.

Sex is even more amazing if that's possible, and apparently it is. He feels so much happier and not I think entirely because of the porn but because my energy has cleared. I've relinquished the barriers I kept to protect myself. I'm allowing him in. What an incredible thing, all of it. Now I'm helping my friend with the same problem.
Much love, D.

that was then

WHY! WHY! WHY!
6/12/2006
When I discovered what I did almost one year ago now, porn on his computer, I felt as though my world was coming to an end, crashing down around my ears, my little bubble of sweet illusion torn and tattered, burst just like that in a brief moment. I felt my heart clench up and be torn from my chest in one hardened lump and dashed to the ground.

It's not that I felt completely at ease with you. I've never felt completely at ease with anyone, not even myself. All my life I've been filled with anxiety, and now it's not only about me, it's you, us, life, love. I did feel secure in my attractiveness with you and how you felt about me, but in that moment, I felt that I knew nothing, not about you, me, or us.

I also knew in that moment that there was a very good reason why this had happened and that I had some deeply serious lessons to learn, belief systems to reconsider. Regardless, it's hard not to feel that it's my fault that you look, that I'm not good enough, not pretty enough, not young enough, not sexy enough, not anything enough.

A speech carefully composed, one of my first heart to hearts - oh so hard for me then

10/20/2006
I don't feel there's anything wrong with our relationship other than we both have trouble opening up and talking about our feelings and deeper issues. I haven't known how before. I've never done it before. It's new to me, but it feels like keeping secrets when I keep things to myself for whatever reason, and this feels awful.

I'm sensitive in that I feel it when you are troubled. I sometimes ask if there's anything you would like to say or tell me and when you say no even though I feel otherwise, it feels like secrets too, and that also feels awful. I'm also sensitive in that I often take it personally and feel it's me, and again that feels awful.

I've been learning ways to open up a little when things are on my mind, share deeper parts of me and when I do, it feels so good. I feel so much closer to you.

I want to tell you why I went into therapy over a year ago and didn't tell you until now. I was afraid and embarrassed that you would see what a mess I felt I was, but I also couldn't tell you because it was because of you and what I had discovered about you, when I found the porn.

I felt my world was coming to pieces around me. I felt I was going to lose myself, and I felt I was going to lose you too. I felt betrayed. I felt like I had been cheated on.

I'm grateful that this happened though because it made me realize how guarded I still was, how shut down, so much I still had to release, so much I still had to give to me and to you.

This past year I've been working mostly on releasing and opening up, and I have in all ways. Even though we have always had a good sex life, great you said, I know now that there is more, that I can open up, expand even more sexually, and this has been the easiest and the funnest. I've also opened up more energetically and spiritually. My heart has been slower, the words too. In so many ways I feel so much better.

I've also been working so hard to release the issue with porn. I've been working on it and working on it, trying to come to a place of acceptance, embrace it even, but I'm not there yet. I may never get there. I don't know why it triggers me so horribly, but it still does. It still hurts.

I feel miserable when my thoughts go to imagining you looking at pictures on the internet or at magazines. I've wanted to ask you not to look at that stuff or tell me you have already stopped. I don't want to have suspicions anymore. I don't even want to think about it anymore.

I want to know in my heart that you're not doing it, but herein lies my dilemma. I don't want to impose on your freedom. Asking you this feels to me like asking you to give away a little piece of your freedom, and I don't know if I have the right to ask that. I don't know if it's okay, but I'm suffering, so I'm asking.

I will continue to work on this, but if I could know that you're not deliberately seeking it out, I feel I would have some peace with this piece. I realize that there's no way for me to know what you do when you're alone, but if you told me in all sincerity that you wouldn't do it, I would believe you. I trust you.