Page 73 of I Almost Do

Clarissa

Jamesisangry.Athimself. If I thought he was overprotective before surgery… well, all I can say is I was a sweet summer child who knew nothing.

It's awful. I don't mean awful in that kind of humble-brag I occasionally experienced in the past. I'd get irritated when he tried to boss me around, of course. But 99 percent of the time, his fussing didn't feel truly intrusive. I just felt loved.

Then it was "Oh, you know how he worries about me." And what it really meant was he loved me. Because I’d been taught that love equaled worry my entire life.

It's not that I don't still feel loved. But his love now is tempered by an equal measure of his own self-hatred, and I don't have a single clue what to do about it. Or if there even is anything I can do about it.

I could always fight James when he tried to tell me what to do. If he said, "Wear a jacket," I'd just shrug. And if I didn't need a jacket, I'd say, “No."

Compared to my father’s need to keep me rolled in metaphorical bubble wrap, James’s “orders” to drink more water or wear sunblock are a breath of fresh air.

I get a little thrill out of refusing to do something he tells me to do. I don’t refuse for the sake of it, but if I’m not thirsty or cold or needing to rest, I’m not the least bit afraid to do what I want.

But I don't know how to fight the way he feels about himself.

When James looks at me, he sees his own failures. And what a god-awful feeling that is, to know he looks at me and hates himself.

I recovered from the surgery just fine. James worked out something with the dean so I could take my finals online. The university mailed me my diploma. My remaining ovary looks great. The cyst wasn't cancerous. So the day the doctor released me to regular activities should have been a happy one.

Instead, I feel lost.

My relationship with James has always been complicated. It started out as a crush, moved into hero worship, and eventually into bone-deep love.

And I have also always considered James to be this wise, infallible god. Even when I was frustrated and arguing with him, he never quite fell from that pedestal.

Even when I recognized he wasn't technicallyperfect, I still always believed he must have some insight I didn't have. He's older than I am, has more life experience.

Even with the lack of intercourse between us, the way he'll only allow mutual masturbation, and the way he won't let us sleep in the same bed since I came home, I convinced myself his reasons regarding my trust fund held validity for him. That he just didn't understand that I didn't care about the money or "needing" him.

But now that I'm here, really here, every single day, I realize James has blinders about a lot of things. And most of those things have to do with me.

I was juvenile to put him on that pedestal in the first place. There are some things in this world that I'm actuallywiserabout than my husband, despite the nine years and vast difference in experience between us.

He carries a tremendous amount of guilt and responsibility that was never his to pick up in the first place. And if he can blame himself for my choices and failures, then he is clearly not always right.

He also puts weight on my shoulders that doesn't belong to me. He says things like "We're not ready for intercourse" and blames my trust fund. He's implied many times that I am simply too young or incapable of knowing my own mind, when what he really means ishe'snot ready.

And while he just happened to be right about me not being ready in those earliest days, the simple truth is he can only decide whathe'sready for. He doesn't get to decide whatI’mready for.

I can't regret a moment of the time it took to get me to where I am now. I learned so much about myself as a result of those experiences.

I'd have learned those lessons regardless of whether we'd been sleeping together. But the lesson, particularly on our wedding night, might have been more painful.

And I was drunk that night. Drunk and grieving my father, though he hadn't passed just yet. Taking every single other thing out of the equation, what kind of man sleeps with a woman under those circumstances? Not my husband, thank God.

If we'd slept together on our wedding night, how long would it have taken me to realize I was trying to win his affection and comfort my own grief through sex? I have no idea. But we didn't, and I didn't.

And I learned to recognize that insecurity in myself and squash the fuck out of it. Because I deserve better than that.

When it came to the gala, while I'd already started to learn to establish my boundaries, those boundaries weren't rock-solid yet. But I don't believe sex would have torn down the ones I'd already built, even for a minute. And I would have continued to get stronger, regardless of whether we were sleeping together.

Our wedding and the gala, and any of the other times James refused when I tried to coax him into intercourse, were never about my boundaries or my readiness.

I didn't understand that at first. I'd believed his words and not his eyes. And so I'd set about trying to lure him to me. To convince him I was ready. But it was never about me in the first place.

So I've backed off on my torment of the man. I don't tease him anymore. I don't walk around half naked. It was never my intention to actually torture him. I just wanted him to recognize that I was more than ready for that part of our lives.

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