Update and reflection – part two

So, I did message in the morning to wish him a good journey, just the once. I didn’t respond when he did because it wasn’t needed.
My calmness was rewarded with messages in the afternoon, a video chat half way on his journey and another when he got home.

Yesterday, his first day back at home, he called me as I was leaving work (which is really early for him), when I got home and then he was messaging me throughout the evening as he visited family.

At one point he called, a silent video, whilst we messaged. We talked about how we had been having amazing sex that time a week before, and it was so hot and exciting to see his guarded but obvious facial expressions as we wrote to each other.

He called again when he got home. Things seemed back to normal. He asked if I missed him. He asked if I loved him. He questioned my feelings, particularly in response to the fact that I have been married.

He struggles with this. He doesn’t believe me when I say that I didn’t feel for my husband like I feel for him. That sex with my husband wasn’t like how it was with him.

I am being entirely truthful when I tell him this. And this, this is the source of my anxiety because it is true. Yes, I loved my husband. We were happy, for a short time. But the majority of our relationship was filled with unhappiness and doubt. I worked so hard to make it work, for years. I told myself: that’s what you do when your married, you work on it. There’s no such thing as a soul mate. You find a good person, accept their flaws and work on it.

The cracks in the relationship with my husband were there in the first year. If I hadn’t got pregnant within the first year, we probably would not have stayed together. But I pulled him along the path of a serious relationship, hoping that each stage would cement those cracks: live together, get engaged, buy a house, get married. They never did. The cracks became a chasm. Years of little or no sexual intimacy. Him sleeping on the couch. An 18 month separation. A third pregnancy from a one-off unprotected sexual encounter in the hope that it would repair the awful sex life we were having following getting back together.

My postnatal depression following the birth of my third child was in direct response to the fact that I knew that nothing had changed. My marriage was over and had been for some years. We stayed together for a couple of years after that, but he slept on the couch, we had no intimacy and we argued continuously.

This feels very different with Wild Card, irrespective of the long distance.

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It was getting late as we talked and I told him I would let him sleep as he was in work the next day. He said no. He told me to ‘come here, next to me’ as he lay down, eyes weary.

‘You want me next to you?’ I asked.

‘Yes’. I lay on my bed too and just watched his face as his eyes closed. I could see the softness of his lips, his dark lashes resting on his face. And I was transported back there, to him. When I closed my eyes I could remember the feel of his body next to mine, the sound of his breathing, his smell, my feelings as I lay with him… loving him, and feeling loved in return.

Eventually we said goodnight, sent kisses and ‘I love you’s and the call ended.

Today has been more of the same. A morning call followed by a longer afternoon call where we played games on messenger – that was fun. He played with my youngest for ages too which earned him even more of my affection. Another call on the way home from the gym. And again this evening…

I love every second. I love the way he looked at me tonight. I even love that my sister asked why we were not talking on the phone and he replied:

“She knows me and I know her. We are talking with our eyes.”

And my goodness, were we…

This is what I have got to try to remember when I’m panicking. Days like today.

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