"First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"...Marriage - Living Life Unfulfilled

Living Life Unfulfilled

I am a product of the sixties—and yes, for a short time, my life epitomized “drugs, sex, and rock ‘n roll.”

Then again, maybe not.

Somewhere along the way, a huge aspect of my life, and who I am as a fulfilled woman, got all messed up.

I’m talking about sex.

My adult sexual life has cheated me and I’ve wondered for more years than I can count if it is somehow my fault.

As the oldest in a large farm family, I knew about “the act,” or at least what made babies, since early childhood. What I never learned was how to act around boys. My contact with them was in a one-room country school, or on Sunday mornings.

The next thing I knew, I was a 13-year-old freshman, a sweet young thing straight off the farm, with boys coming at me from all sides.

Mom had never talked to me about sex. She only said, “I trust you.”

For some reason the girls I ran with didn’t talk about specific details when it came to their dates. I drew an unspoken line of my own that there would be no touching below the waist.

A woman never forgets her first love. I fell in love when I was 16. I knew we were going to get married. But he never asked me. He was five years older, he had gone away to college, and he was a man. I had only dated boys.

I can sit here now, 38 years later, and feel the zings he caused when we kissed. I can see his crooked smile. I can see his eyes. I can feel through my whole being how he woke up my body.

But we never went all the way.

We broke up. I honestly don’t remember why. During that time he took my best friend’s virginity.

What did I do a few months later? I took him back. It could have been my imagination, but I thought I heard him whisper, “I love you” during more than one heavy petting session.

He went into the service and I moved away to work in order to save money for college. I was convinced that he was the one for me. We were going to get married. In the back of my mind lurked what had happened between him and my best friend.

But what seems so strange now is that we never really talked. We double dated a lot. The radio was always on. I was usually singing. Maybe that’s why we didn’t talk. When it was just the two of us, we were making out.

And one night things did go too far.

“I can’t!” I said, and pushed him off.

We dressed in silence. He took me home. And I waited in vain for our date the next night. He stood me up. He never called to explain.

Through hindsight, I know he was angry. But he was also a sexually experienced man. Why couldn’t we have talked about it? Couldn’t he have taught me how to relieve the tension without having intercourse?

What his rejection did for my self-worth plunged me into a place that could have turned me promiscuous, but my sexual partners can be counted on one hand.

I was in college by then and at the first opportunity accepted a date with a guy who had quite a reputation. I went with him once, and let him have what I wouldn’t give my one true love.

Not long after that I found myself in lust. Oh boy, was I. That’s where the drugs, sex, and rock ‘n roll came in. Before I got pregnant, I maybe had three orgasms with him. After we married—which he only did because he thought I would harm myself without him—I never had sexual fulfillment.

We were married only a short time because I got scared when he started dealing drugs. Our contact was no mistake, though. Our beautiful daughter is one of my best friends today.

Five years later I remarried, and I have had no orgasms these thirty years of making love, since he pre-ejaculates. My first twinge of arousal hits when he comes. He used to blame it on his high stress job. He’s retired now—and just laughs instead of giving me an excuse. He says he can’t help it because I feel so good.

At one point I insisted on counseling, which we did through a pastor. As soon as the sex question arose, my husband refused to go back. He said it was nobody’s business.
He read none of the articles or chapters in books I found about our problems in the bedroom.

I don’t know when other women reached their sexual peak but mine hit when I was around 35. I felt like I was on fire and it lasted about three years. I never considered looking elsewhere because I do have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. From the Bible I know that adultery is a sin, as is self-sex.

What’s a woman to do?

Sometime during that on-fire time, I checked on my three-year-old daughter who had gone down for a nap. From her bedroom door I saw her riding a pillow and what looked like, having an orgasm!

I’m still naïve—can that happen at age fifty-four?

How ridiculous, I thought, that she could get relief from whatever was bothering her young mind while I stood there burning up.

Life isn’t fair, but I felt cheated.I still feel cheated.

And if my daughter could do it, so could I—with a vibrator. And have I had some orgasmic humdingers.

Yet it makes me wonder what happened to make me this way? Somewhere along the way I became convinced that I’m supposed to be responsible for my own orgasms, so I quit blaming my husband. Am I a sexual failure?

Did I do some irreparable damage to my sexual psyche because I got all hot and bothered and put the skids on things when they went too far as a teenager? If I had given in, I would have found myself pregnant at 16 instead of 19.

I know it’s wrong to question what happens in the life of a believer. God gives us choices, but He also plans our lives. Did he really plan for me not to be sexually fulfilled? I know He’s forgiven me for the sins of my youth. It took quite a while for me to forgive myself.

When I use the vibrator, I can’t help but feel guilty. At times I cry because I have missed out on experiencing the beautiful intimacy that God ordained. After all, He created Adam and Eve, and they were without a doubt created as sexual beings, just like me.