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Posts Tagged ‘divorce’

  1. Turkey, Bees, and Boobs

    December 1, 2012 by Nikki Blue

    I think it’s fair to say that sex is a substantial part of my life. I talk about it throughout the day, I think about it nearly as much, and I have it as often as logistically possible. I know you’re thinking this is no revelation, that I’ve made this statement a thousand times before, but work with me here.

    As I scrapped the first draft of this blog post this morning, I realized that when it comes to my life as a whole, sex makes up a very small portion of it. It’s not always about sex, and that’s okay. Sometimes it’s about self-evaluation, or finally finding a way to let old wounds heal, or rediscovering pieces of me that I thought were lost forever. Sometimes it’s simply about being an emotional, and on occasion, a ridiculously irrational woman.

    Take last Thanksgiving, for example. I’d rather stand naked and covered in honey under a swarm of angry bees than relive that day. A little dramatic? Maybe, but my marriage was unraveling at a rapid pace, and so was my husband’s grip on his perfect life. He wouldn’t speak to me, or even look at me if it could be helped. But when it did happen, the booze-inspired hate in his eyes was unmistakable. I could hear it when he spoke. Hell, I could hear it when he breathed. And I was alone with him, except for the children, because our families chose to stay away. I couldn’t blame them. I didn’t want to be there either, but I had no choice. I spent the day going through the motions just as I had in the years past, preparing one dish, then the next. I put on a happy face for the kids, because that’s what parents do. But the lump in my throat was a constant reminder of how miserable I really was.

     This year was different. I was alone most of the day, which I admit took a little adjusting to at first, but it was time I needed to reacquaint myself with my grandmother’s cornbread dressing and giblet gravy. Don’t even get me started on her apricot glazed turkey. Anyway, they were things that were attached to memories of my childhood, things I loved. I had cast them aside early on in my marriage to please my ex. Instead, I cooked what he wanted, the way he wanted it, regardless if I liked it or not. My feelings on the subject weren’t important to him, because compromise was something he didn’t seem to understand. I didn’t realize how much I would come to resent him for it later. Being southern, cooking was part of my identity, but it no longer gave me a sense of pride. I felt like I had no heart left to pour into it, and I eventually stopped altogether.

    As I pulled out my grandmother’s recipe book, I was determined to make cooking fun again. I chose my playlist, and I belted out Blinded by the Light while I peeled sweet potatoes. I may have even used the peeler as a microphone, but there’s no proof of that. My neighbors probably hate me now, but that’s okay because I hated them first. I consider my selection of 80’s hair bands payback for that yappy dog they throw outside every fucking morning before dawn.

    I’ve reclaimed more and more of myself in the months since I made the decision to end my marriage. I know I’ve still got a long way to go, but this Thanksgiving added another piece to the puzzle. I made the things I wanted, the way I wanted them without anyone looking over my shoulder, or challenging my culinary skills. But my emancipation was about much more than being able to have green bean casserole on my menu again. It was about me taking back another chunk of control I’d given up so long ago. And tweeting pictures of my boobs.

    Category Divorce | Tags: ,, | 8 Comments

  2. The Time I Wanted to Punch Yoda

    October 3, 2012 by Heather Cole

    Luke: All right, I’ll give it a try.
    Yoda: No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try.

    I’ve almost broken myself of the habit of saying, “I’ll try.” Most of the time I say, “I’m going to do my best.” This practice is manifesting itself in my life in some incredible ways. I’m doing work that I love, my daughter is healthy and happy, and I’m dating a wonderful woman. I’m making friends and connecting with fellow writers, and every night I’m thanking the universe for the abundance in my life. Oh it’s not roses every day, but I’m creating the life I have always wanted. So why the hell am I punching Yoda, you ask? Because I’m afraid and punching a short jedi makes me feel better. Just kidding. I don’t really want to punch him, but I would like to borrow his light saber for a couple hours.

    Most days I’m not afraid. Most of the time I don’t worry that my ex-husband is going to discover our blog and haul me to court to fight for custody. Just writing that, however, spurs the monkeys in my brain to chatter fearfully. I’ve read about that happening. A sex-positive, kinky woman came out on her blog and put a face to her words. She wanted to stop hiding and embrace her identity wholly, and her ex-husband suddenly sued her for sole custody of their child as a result. They battled it out for five years until he finally dropped it. Reading her story was like watching my worst nightmare come to life. I work damn hard to keep my Vagina Antics work and kinky life separate from my daughter. I work even harder to keep my life secret from my ex-husband.

    Last night my mother said, “I didn’t know how bad it was until I visited you before you moved out. I had no idea how he was treating you.” Her words managed to push me right back into the feelings of that time and the constant fear that accompanied me. I spent most of my marriage afraid of what that man could do, and then ironically, he did even worse than that when I told him I was leaving. All the horrible things he said to me meant nothing in comparison to the threat of taking our daughter. The sheriff, the subpoena, the formal language sprawled over eight pages of thick paper detailing an investigation of my life… thinking about that time still makes me cry. It’s like my body can’t help but remember the terror despite my mind reminding me that it’s over.

    Yoda is right, dammit. I’m not trying. I’m consciously refusing to let that anxiety consume me again. I work hard and save my kinky social life for the evenings that my child is with the ex. I keep moving forward, meeting new people and telling them about Vagina Antics when I feel safe to do so. I’m sorry if I keep some things hidden, but there’s that nagging voice of worry in my head. What if they know him somehow? What if he finds out? What if he comes after me again?

    The balance of good here is much greater than my fears, and someday way down the road, I hope to be able to post my smiling face next to my writing. In that far off future, I want to be able to talk frankly with my daughter about my journey. I’ll skip the details of the naked parts, of course, but I want her to know that I didn’t hide because I was ashamed. I would rip the heart out of anyone who hurt her, and I don’t want my choices to limit hers in any way. But I probably won’t tell her about threatening Yoda. Hey, we all have our secrets.

    Category Divorce | Tags: ,,, | No Comments

  3. The Death of Desire

    July 12, 2012 by Nikki Blue

    I love sex. I always have. It never occurred to me that there would be times when I wouldn’t crave it. I couldn’t imagine not wanting to feel hands roaming my body or soft lips trailing the curve of my neck. But it happened when I got married.

    The pressure of marriage was hurled at me from all directions as I approached my mid-twenties. I fought it at first, refusing to settle for a partner who couldn’t give me everything I needed. But I eventually gave up on my notion of the ideal mate. I ended up marrying a man whose manhood was threatened by a vibrator. I knew from the beginning that he was very straight laced sexually speaking, but I thought I could adapt. I watched how he treated his mother. He adored her. I knew then that he would be a caring husband and father. I felt we could make a good life together. He gave me everything I wanted. Just not what I ended up needing the most. The freedom to be me.

    I traded in nights of amazing sex for a house in the suburbs and Thursday morning playgroups. Little by little, I began to change. I started to cover my body in front of him, I got used to having sex with the lights off, and I found myself making excuses on the rare occasions he turned to me. The days of dripping wet excitement were long gone and lube became a necessity.

    I was sad for awhile and began to mourn the loss of the sexual being I once was. I missed multiple orgasms and the thought of the night ahead soaking my panties. I missed that feeling of anticipation as I waited to be touched. I missed the ravenous look in a man’s eyes as he watched my every move.

    Sadness eventually gave way to denial which is where I stayed for most of my marriage. I downplayed the importance of a sexual relationship. I told myself that it was normal to have a husband who rarely initiated intimacy yet expected it of me. I convinced myself that I could live my life without it and eventually stopped wanting sex altogether.

    I listened to my friends talk about how much they loved sex with their husbands. They talked about vibrators, orgasms and feelings of need. I felt nothing. Not even a spark. My desire was officially dead. It was a thing of the past and it was time to let it go. I decided I didn’t need it and would be fine without it. I was a housewife with two kids. I felt like I didn’t have much of a choice.

    Then I started to get angry. I was angry because I’d given up so much of who I was for a person who gave me nothing in return. I listened to him condemn people for their sexual orientation and judge others for enjoying the things I once loved. And as my hostility towards him grew, my sexual urges slowly began to resurface.

    The orgasms I gave myself with the shower head were nice. And I often wondered if he ever noticed the handprint on the glass that I left on purpose. But, that was only the beginning, and I soon wanted more. I graduated to bringing myself to orgasm with my fingers as he lay sleeping on the other side of the bed we shared. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out in the middle of the night. Still, I needed more. I paid cash for the vibrator that stayed hidden in the bottom of my underwear drawer in the closet. I cried when it broke. Then all of the needs that I’d suppressed during my marriage slammed into me full force, knocking me off balance. I saw a future without him in it and I knew there was no going back for me. I was done hiding.

    My marriage lasted for fourteen years, and for nine of them, I felt dead inside. I asked myself if it was karma. Was I being tormented for my sexual exploits in the past? For trying to be someone I wasn’t? What better way to punish me, someone who had so few sexual boundaries, than to dwindle my desire down to nothing. The last year of our sexless marriage, I realized I was partly at fault for the breakdown by not being upfront about who I was. I was a woman who loved sex. All kinds of sex. I wanted it. I needed it. And I swore on a stack of Southern Living magazines that I would never sacrifice who I am again.

    Category Divorce | Tags: ,, | 6 Comments

  4. Unhappy Wife, Unhappy Life

    April 2, 2012 by Nikki Blue

    My life has been littered with seemingly innocent moments that have moved forward with the alarming speed of an unmanned bullet train. Don’t get me wrong, the ride is a thrill in the beginning. Sometimes I’m even able to fool myself into thinking it’s what I want, but I inevitably lose my sense of direction. When I’m finally able to open my eyes after I’ve propelled forward with no safety net in place to protect me, I’m paralyzed and dry heaving in the middle of a horrifying wreckage of my own making that leaves me asking, “What. The. Fuck?”

    I don’t know why I thought my wedding day would be any different. I chose a form-fitting ivory gown because scarlet would’ve been a bit too obvious to wear on the day I would officially lay to rest the person I was in a shallow, unmarked grave. Beads of perspiration began to form above my lip as I leaned forward in the chair I was sitting on in the Bride’s Room while my dad knelt in front of me reminding me to breathe. His 3rd wife handed me a small glass of whiskey saying, “Drink it, sugar” because we’re all about class in my family. When I handed Mr. 3rd-Time’s-a-Charm the empty glass, he told me that it was ok to call it off if I had doubts and that marriage doesn’t always turn out like we expect it to. Boy, he wasn’t fucking kidding.

    But it turns out that I didn’t completely bury who I was in hopes of having the charmed life I thought I wanted. The only portion of my personality that I was able to excise was the part that encouraged my intense sexual appetite. My submissive disposition remained, and before I knew it, I had become a mindless android with only one function.

    The strong man I vowed to love until death do us part was dominant in every way but the way I needed him to be. All I wanted to do was please him, and the mere thought of his disappointment sent me crashing face first into a wall of self-degradation. He fed hungrily on the power that I gave him, never appreciating it or giving any in return. I found myself silently begging for something that my husband wasn’t capable of giving me.

    It wasn’t long after I accepted my undervalued role as my husband’s less than equal partner that I decided it was time to try my hand at reproduction. I traded in my daily chairside banter with patients who saw me as witty and charming for puzzling conversation with messy short people who clung to my legs and ate oatmeal with their fingers. I retreated into the fortified cocoon of motherhood hoping that one day I would receive validation for the complex creature that I was.

    That acceptance never came. Partially because the man that I married so many years ago really had no idea who I was. I never felt that all-embracing trust that allowed complete honesty, so I kept things to myself. I wasn’t honest about the number of sexual partners I’d had. I always figured if I didn’t have to hold up all of my fingers during the tally, he wouldn’t see me as damaged goods. I wasn’t honest about my feelings for him. I loved him, yes, but I was never head-over-heels in love with him. I wasn’t honest about my propensity to please, and I didn’t tell him that the lack of a power exchange in our relationship only escalated my need to gratify someone else.

    I’m just as much at fault in the collapse of the life we had together as he is. I realize that it wasn’t fair to him when I said, “I do, sorta,” and I’ve learned a lot from the fallout that left me bruised and bloody. I’m also thankful. I’m thankful for the children he gave me who think I’m the coolest mom ever, and love me no matter how many times I embarrass them by wearing an AC/DC T-shirt to a school fundraiser, or kick their ass playing Just Dance. Despite my flaws, and there are plenty, they think I’m pretty awesome.

    I’m still learning too, but there are a few things that I know for sure: When I race ahead at warp speed not paying attention to the voice in my head screaming, “What the fuck are you doing?” I’m not the only one who gets hurt. And I will never again give someone the gift of my submission who doesn’t understand it enough to know that a back and forth flow is vital for success or downplay the magnitude of my sexual compulsion. Most importantly, I will never ever compromise who I am for another’s approval. I am who I am, and if you don’t like me, well, fuck off.

    Category Divorce | Tags: ,, | No Comments

  5. The Aftermath: Sex After Divorce

    March 23, 2012 by Nikki Blue

    Like Heather wrote in Busting Out, we had plans for when we were sprung from the joint. Big plans. And we spent hours and hours on the phone discussing them as our soul-sucking marriages crumbled around us. Our unholy unions seemed to mirror each other’s. We were both frantically clawing our way to the surface from the hole of unhappiness we were buried in, and we were covered in resentment and bitterness. But we were evolving. We still are and those conversations were our release, they were our hope. We perfected our diabolical laughter, and we schemed about all of the ways we were going to fuck when we escaped our self-made prisons. The explicit scenarios we rattled off sounded like scenes ripped straight from the pages of a hardcore erotica novel. We meant business. Wait, we weren’t planning to fuck each other. Well, not at that point anyway.

    Unlike Heather, I didn’t have the added worry of my kinky desires affecting the custody of my children so I created a profile on FetLife and OKCupid in addition to my Ashley Madison account. They became the gateway to getting what I’d been missing for so many years, and I admit that for a short time, the word “no” disappeared from my vocabulary altogether. I came (literally), I saw, and I conquered.

    And then one day, I abruptly woke up from my orgasm hangover and realized I had been thinking with my vagina and started thinking with my head. As I sifted through the trash heap of messages from men who claimed they were the solution to what I needed, things were suddenly different. I no longer felt the rush of planning my next orgasm. The outlets I was using to rediscover the deeply sexual being I was once upon a time transformed into more of a nuisance than an answer. Every day life took precedence again and I grew less tolerant of bullshit. I judged grammar and typos harshly, and swore if I saw one more LOL scattered throughout another trumped up profile, I was going to scratch my eyeballs until they bled profusely and stab the next man I saw with a rusty butter knife just for the principal of it. I knew then that I had reached the point where it was time to find my pants and delete my profiles.

    The harsh reality is that life doesn’t wait for you to get off of your back or sober up after divorce. It doesn’t change speeds according to what is going on in your world, and it doesn’t politely give you time to adapt. It punches you in the throat with the precision of a ninja and moves ahead whether you keep up or not. I had to re-prioritize my life without the security of a unaware husband backing me up. I got pickier. I chose quality orgasms over quantity, and I chose real life over a fantasy one. The day to day tasks are still there and new ones have been added. My book still needs to be finished, bills still need to be paid, and kids still need to be taken care of, now more than ever.

    I am now officially a divorcee, a single mother, a statistic. I’m the woman, the writer, the full-time student drinking coffee in a Barnes & Noble on Saturday night while my offspring pick out books to help them reach their reading goal. I’m a survivor, and I emerged on the other side of “divorce sex” a more judicious person. I’m happy, and I smile for multiple reasons. I smile because I’ve accomplished things that I never thought I could, I smile because I’m proud of the person that I am today, and I smile because I still have lots of orgasms.

    Category Divorce | Tags: ,, | No Comments

  6. Busting Out

    March 19, 2012 by Heather Cole

    During the final months of my marriage, Nikki and I developed a ritual. Every morning we’d talk on the phone, sharing the day-to-day details of being mothers and women coping with the end of their most significant relationships. Inevitably at some point in the conversation, one of us would start the list. As with almost every other person going through the breakup of a long-term relationship, we had a list of things we were going to do when we “got out.” Two items stood out in particular: we wanted to start this blog, and we wanted to fuck. Let me be specific, we wanted to fuck a lot.

    You’re surprised, right? Oh, hush.

    I was starved for physical affection. I would have given my right arm to sit beside someone and have them hold me, brush their lips over mine or squeeze my hand. I felt like the desert, parched and yearning for a single drop of physical intimacy. I promised myself that in my new life there would be openly affectionate partners who would love me just as I was. As I struggled through the final days, trying to protect my child and my heart, I dreamed about my new life. But that was the romance novel part of the list. The rest was more explicit. In my ivory tower of the guest room, I plotted and schemed about how to get as much penis as possible.

    Tumblr helped, as did upgrading my phone for a better camera. I had sexual fantasies about everyone who crossed my path, from the guy who bagged my groceries to the woman with the beautiful hair at the post office. Not my neighbor, Greg, though. He wore black dress socks with sandals. I can forgive a lot, but not that. At one point I entertained the idea of hanging a map on the wall, complete with little red pins, marking a road trip to meet all the people I flirted with on Twitter. That would have been a long damn trip.

    Around that time a close friend of mine predicted that I would go crazy after I separated. She told me that her other divorced friends went through a period of acting out, of fucking and drinking and doing all the things they hadn’t been doing while married. I remember the women she referred to and how I had shaken my head about their outrageous behavior. Then, suddenly, I became that woman..

    I was standing at the cusp of something big and wondrous and scary as hell. I was millimeters away from  beginning something entirely new, a life that was solely my own. The interminable feeling of waiting for that moment when every part of you is screaming to break free, the pressure of that contradicting action vs inaction, was a pressure cooker inside me. I was ready to blow. In more ways than one.

    I will not lie. After I separated, there was a man and a hotel room and the first oral sex I had in eight years. I didn’t know him well, but I was greedy and impatient. The room held the smell of clean sheets and a whiff of tobacco. I wore my favorite heels and panties the color of raspberries. As clothes were unbuttoned and hastily shoved aside, I reveled in the fierce joy of touching him. The texture of his skin underneath my fingertips, the taste of his kisses and the glorious sensation of his lips on my clit. As I lay there basking in an incredible orgasm, gazing unseeingly at the ceiling, I knew it was only the beginning of what I could have. Followed rapidly by the thought, “holy fucking shit what the hell am I doing?”

    The months afterwards were intense and there was a lot of fucking. There are still days when I am a big ball of sexual need. The key is not always acting on it. (Nikki, stop laughing.)  I have a child and bills and a new life that I’m creating that takes a lot of energy and attention. I’m writing a novel and honing my craft and settling into a new city. Real life and responsibilities often leave me with little extra energy for a Twitter road trip.

    To those women and men who go a little nuts after the breakup, I get it now. We all have our version of “crazy.” I empathize with what you’re going through, and I hope that you’re using condoms. Just don’t let it go on too long. At some point soon you should rehydrate, pull up your big girl panties and get on with real life. Because that shit don’t wait.

    Category Divorce | Tags: ,, | 1 Comment

  7. Two Girls, A Guy and The Twitter: Heather

    January 5, 2012 by Heather Cole

    Part 2 – Heather

    I was a late bloomer and a nerd. (I’m still a nerd despite trying for years and years and years to change that.) I grew up in the middle of nowhere with a traditional rural upbringing. The message was grow up straight and strong, get married, have children and BE GOOD. And holy fuck was I a good girl. Until I discovered sex.

    I went from losing my virginity at seventeen (“Um…why is your hand down my pants?”) to maximum sex overdrive in the blink of an eye (“You want your best friend to watch? Sure!”). I made a career out of dating Bad Boys, the type that you never ever want to bring home to mother. I seduced employers and co-workers, friends and their friends’ friends. And the entire time I was thinking I was wrong somehow. Wrong for loving to fuck. Wrong for loving the connection between people getting hot and naked and sweaty. Wrong for falling, every damn fucking time, for the silver-tongued, golden-boy jock while secretly making out with his girlfriend underneath the bleachers. Luckily for me, I had my Good Girl disguise firmly in place and most people had no clue about the raunchy things I did. I was an under-the-radar sex fiend.

    Then, like Nikki, I felt like the thing missing in my life was the Right Man. So that’s what I did. I found a Right Man and married him. I even had a baby. I buried my sexual side and devoted myself to being the best wife and mother I could be, and damn, was I good at it. So good that for a very long time I forgot about that crucial missing piece.

    Just like Nikki I wrote a book and joined Twitter to learn about indie publishing and find writing friends. The last thing I was looking for was an online affair. In fact, the first time I interacted with Nikki was in a tweeted conversation, albeit a sarcastic one, about our kids. Oh, and then there was The Guy who was fucking her who also entered the conversation. And later entered me. (That story, though, is an entirely separate post because it gets kinky. Kinky in a BIG way.)

    When Nikki and I met we had a situation that could have pitted us as rivals, but all we could see was the similarities between our lives. Now we are both experiencing an amazing rebirth which includes incredible fucking. We love sex, and we’re willing to talk about it. Our kind of sex may not be your kind, but surely we can all agree that we love it. Think of us as your very best girlfriends that you can call up the morning after and laugh about taking a load of semen in your eye. (For the record, I’m the High Priestess of Rookie Mistakes.) We laugh because we know how that feels, and we LOVE to talk all about it. We particularly want to talk about this sex stuff with you.

    So leave us a question or comment, and we’ll respond. Promise! To quote one of the cheesiest lines ever, “we’ve only just begun fucking.”

    Category Soulmateclone | Tags: ,, | 1 Comment

  8. Two Girls, A Guy and The Twitter: Nikki

    January 3, 2012 by Nikki Blue

    Part 1 – Nikki

    Sex isn’t something one should be ashamed of. It’s natural. It can be sweet and gentle, or just fucking hot.

    I discovered sex at a very early age, fourteen to be exact. Once I had a firm grasp on what I was doing, the orgasms followed and I spent a good part of my young adult years on my back, my knees and various other positions that require a great deal of yoga to tolerate. I was proud of my ability to please men, always leaving them wanting more. I loved sex, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I did, however, question the normalcy of some of the desires that I had. I didn’t understand them and had no one to talk to about it. I was labeled a slut by the women while the men were ripping off my panties and throwing my legs over their shoulders.

    I eventually reached a point where I assumed I was supposed to settle down and do what was expected of me, so I married and reproduced. I suppressed my sexual needs and morphed into the happy homemaker I thought I wanted to be, losing bits and pieces of myself every day.

    14 years later, as feelings of unrest and unclaimed orgasms began to surface, I wrote my first book and created a Twitter account to learn as much as I could about publishing from social media. My voice eventually grew louder, my mouth got trashier, and my confidence blossomed, along with my sexual frustration. There was no denying it any longer. I needed to fuck again. Really fuck, as often and as dirty as I could.

    Through a mutual  fanfuckingtasticly cool tweep, I met Heather and we began to interact here and there. It took us both entering a torrid online affair with the same man to realize that we had a lot more in common than unruly kids and bad marriages. The affair opened my eyes to what I was missing, and I busted out of my suburban candy-coated shell with orgasm after screaming orgasm, always wanting more. I knew at that point there was no going back for me. Oh, and did I mention she took him from me? Yeah, she did. Snatched him right out from between my legs, but I’m ok with that because she gives him something I’m not capable of.

    So without him between us muddying the waters, our relationship grew into what it is today. We discuss everything from orgasms, to genital hair removal debacles, to divorce nightmares. We share pictures of facials, bruises and hot footwear. We have no secrets and we don’t judge lascivious behavior. In fact, we encourage it.

    Category Soulmateclone | Tags: ,, | 2 Comments