Friday, April 18, 2014

Separate Beds if You're Married; Should You or Shouldn't You?

Read this Slate article recently: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2014/04/separate_beds_in_marriage_i_love_my_husband_but_i_don_t_want_to_share_a.html

I have some insight on this since my mother & father did this later on. It was mostly because my mother could no longer tolerate my father's snoring and movement in his sleep. He apparently moved a lot, punching and kicking on occasion. Shockingly, I never saw her get injured from it but long after I was no longer living there she said she'd had enough & decided they needed to be in separate beds.

Plus, my father was working third shift and usually wasn't home to sleep until she had to leave for her day job.

Now I feel like their marriage was not on the best grounds considering he was an abusive alcoholic, an "asshole drunk" as I call it. For me personally, I felt like it just sounded bad all around & the separate beds thing was just icing on the cake.

So, about me: I'm probably the best person to sleep with. I don't mean in terms of sex (though no one's ever complained & I've only gotten praise for THAT, thank you). I mean in the fact that I don't snore (jerky ex claimed I did but only sometimes & not loudly), don't move around, don't talk (and if so, not much), am not a light or super heavy sleeper & if a guy I'm with initiates sex, I'll usually submit even if I'm asleep. The ex told me I pushed him away a few times but I don't remember that. I don't recall it being during the 15 months of misery but if it was, I guess that should have been my first clue.

Funny thing is we were sleeping in the same bed up until the very end though after the blowup it was an unspoken "this is my side, that's yours & never shall the two meet" (jerkoff tried to violate that & I fought to keep him away from my turf or taking my part of the blankets; even asleep, we were in conflict). I started not being able to sleep too well, especially when the "let's get separated" boom was dropped. I think the first time I was able to sleep properly was when I got to my semi-permanent housing situation.

My therapist said the new people in my life have shown me more kindness than I probably got in my entire marriage.

The irony is just where I've found this kindness; it's been in some very unlikely places, places that I under my normal mindset & circumstances wouldn't have considered. No, didn't find it with racists or some group like that. More like people under categories I had negative assumptions about & made judgment on with regard to how they'd treat me. Not getting the treatment I expected is a bit of a mind blower but maybe I should be used to it. After all, a friend whose advances I rejected in favor of the scummy ex came through at a time when my perception of who he was dictated that he wouldn't. Seems I'll be spending more time re-evaluating things I believed and my perceptions of people.

Remember that sometimes the things you're looking for come from the last place you'd expect to find them. One thing for sure is that I've got tons of inspiration and material for writing and acting; I can definitely get to pain & down times along with serious complexity (though it's not like I had no complexity to me to start with). If I'd stuck to my previous judgments & not taken some leaps of faith, I wouldn't be where I'm at now & wouldn't have some valued folk in my life.

I've definitely come to value a good night's sleep in my private space. You appreciate little things when you've had your routine broken in dramatic fashion. It also feels like coming out into a post-apocalyptic world & looking for fellow survivors to converse with.

I also personally like touch & having a guy hold me or holding him at night. So unless some guy's snoring is unbearable (as in I won't be able to sleep even if I'm wearing ear plugs) or he's one of those punchers/kickers/consistent talkers/drools buckets all over me, I'm not for the separate beds and rooms thing. I feel like it's too puritanical, too 1950s TV show for my taste. I also like the easy access for certain things like sex at odd hours. Plus, if you've had someone you find chemistry with in your bed & you've been in those early stages there's that charge you get from being in the same bed with him/her. I've been in or had guys in my bed & remember feeling so charged I could barely sleep. Didn't even have to do anything; having the guy in my bed or being in his bed was enough for me.

Perhaps I had & maybe still have some romantic notions about things like that. Indulging stuff like that is a plus with me even though I'm still a cynic, can't do commitments or attachment and probably can't fully love anyone. At least as conventional society defines love, there's no way I can do it. I could never fully give up my independence & feel irked already at having given up so much of it for a marriage that was a total sham. I hate "you complete me" and the ex even said to me once after a brutal counseling session "Why can't you turn to me to solve your problems?" Well, excuse me for being a strong, independent woman. It seems like commitments like that require people, especially women, to give up their independent selves & to that I say "why bother?"

God help any guy trying to break my even harder shell of cynicism and refusal to get attached or committed. At least I can tell you precisely why I feel that way.

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