The Strangest Night I Ever Had

I was supposed to go out to dinner for business. I bailed, partly because the temperatures are in the single digits and it makes me want to hibernate like a bear, and partly because I was hurt. La homme said something that I'm sure he thought was fairly innocent, but it ripped an old, deep wound open wide.

When I arrived home unexpectedly, my husband was really surprised to see me, but he seemed pleasantly surprised. I admitted that I got my feelings hurt, told him what was said but changed who said it, and he told me that it was a stupid comment made by someone who doesn't know me well enough to truly appreciate me. Interesting.

I've been "unavailable" for nine days now, so I knew that he had been online all day surfing porn. It's a good guess when I'm not bleeding and a sure bet when I am.

He started out by telling me about a dream he had the night before. For some reason, he felt compelled to ask me if I was seeing someone, so he did. A look of pure shock and terror flashed across my face (not unlike what might really happen- I'm a horrible liar), and I was busted. He said that I remained really calm about the whole thing, and he was freaking out and asking me questions inbetween yelling at me. He asked me who he was, and I said Darren (so incredibly close to the real story that it was all I could do to keep my fucking eyeballs in my head), and he asked me if we fucked, and I said "Not yet, but only due to a lack of opportunity". (Are you creeped out now? Cause I was!!)

Then he told me that he knows that he has a lot of sexual problems, that he's addicted to porn and that being raised in such a sexually oppressive home, he's never felt comfortable sharing his true sexual desires with anyone else. He then said that it seemed like I had given up completely in trying to get his attention. I told him that yes, I had, that I quickly lose interest in trying to play a game I have no way of winning.

We then agreed that anything that had happened before today, all of our sexual history- the shame, the rejection, the misunderstandings and the lies and the berating- is in the past. We're starting over. We're being more honest, more open. He's concerned about our ability to last as a couple if we're both going outside of the relationship to fill our sexual needs. (He's referring to his porn habit on his side, and my rapt reading of all of your lovely and naughty blogs, which he was *super-ultra shocked* to find out I was reading, when I told him.)

We're now discussing our new ground rules and the possibilities they provide us. We're discussing bringing a third party (female, of course) in, with strict boundaries.

He nearly fell over dead when I started being open and honest with him about what turns me on, about what I'm willing to do. He thought that I was very prim and proper and timid, and he felt really stupid and ashamed to find out that I really only feel that way with him, because he's been so critical of me and my body and my needs. He realized last night that by destroying my trust in him, he's missed out on my naughty side. For the past twelve years.

What does this mean for la homme? I don't know. On one hand, it seems very wrong and foolish to carry on an affair while we're entering this new phase in the marriage and trying to redefine our sexual relationship. On the other hand, I'm still a little skeptical. On the first hand, it seems like he knows what I've been doing, if only on a subconscious level. On the second hand, he must not really know (or he does and has been cheating as well), or he would have been at least angry, if not hurt.

I'm just still in shock, and a hell of a lot happier than I've been in a long, long time. If any of you readers have any insight about this, I would love to hear it, please....