Check the Box for "Human"

After a prolonged family squabble, my mother-in-law asked me to go to lunch with her. This outing soon became a monthly “date.” I was giving her the benefit of the doubt and she was expecting us to have a better understanding of intentions. Although awkward, the first few meetings were just fine, albeit too long for a simple lunch. I had been fighting through some unexpected and prolonged illness at the time and stressed more than I had ever been in my life. I had also suffered several betrayals by people who proclaimed strong friendships and then just walked away. I think the new term is “ghosted.” Whatever you call it, it is cruel and uneducated… but I digress.

Upon our fourth meeting, lunch began as usual; Thai food, pleasantries, then an update on each side regarding health and family events. She said a handful of things that day that caught me by complete surprise and shocked me about who she truly was and her perceptions about my history with her son. She brought up a situation that my husband and I had suffered through and survived. We had come out stronger on the other end, but no one else knew the actual details. No one could. It hurt and I was wounded because I wanted to believe that I could leave the past in the past, that no one would dig up our history and make the sorrow we lived through fresh again.

My husband and I have been together for fourteen years. We met in the music and theatre world where I had always lived and breathed. Our relationship began in a whirlwind of intense love but has been an enormous amount of work, as marriage tends to be. I had had my share of issues in former relationships. He is my second husband and had to deal with the former husband and the children we had together, as well as the mental and physical abuse that I endured at the hands of an ex-boyfriend of mine. I had done my best to heal and move on from the PTSD, depression, and anxiety. I even went back to school to explore my passion for psychology and better deal with my own issues. We had a child of our own together and became a blended family with an intention to thrive.

During our fourth year of marriage, I began to promote myself in my visual artist capacity. I started churning out paintings and sketches and prepared for an art show from our home. During this time, I had been spending a lot of time with a young woman that I met through my symphonic choir gig, where I first met my husband (ironically). She became a friend of the family and I saw her several times a week. This may be a good time to insert the facts about my previous personal preferences and issues that were not resolved at the time of the art show. I had never been interested in sexual intercourse or physical touch of any kind that could be categorized under that “sex” umbrella. Beyond cuddling, I behaved purely out of “obligation” when a situation requiring touch arose.  As a child, I went to Catholic school. It was the 1970s and I was in a very strict family that made several stipulations clear to me regarding what would earn disapproval. They never touched upon sexuality, but it was clear in my mind that anything but the expected norm in our community was unacceptable. When I had flutterings of some kind of interest in people, usually due to intellect, I could put it out of my head, if that person was remotely feminine. I tucked those thoughts in the back of my mind and moved on with life.

I did what I had to do, what I was “supposed” to do. I developed crushes on boys. To be honest, shortly after I turned 7 years old I began a crush on a boy named Jerry that went on from second grade until I was a Sophomore in high school. We were in school together that entire time and I half wonder if my subconscious was keeping me from embarrassing myself with other, strange feelings. As long as I “liked” Jerry, I was a normal little girl. He told me, when I finally had the nerve to confess my feelings on the 8th grade class trip, that he was not the right one for me. Flash forward about 8 years to find that he had come out to his family as gay. If only I had known then why he had repeatedly rejected me. Truth be told, I don’t think he understood it himself. Considering his own feelings and attractions in that environment with nuns, priests, and strict parents everywhere was simply self-destructive to the young psyche. Don’t get me wrong, I embraced my Catholic community, but that sort of expression was not welcome (as many of us already know). 1970s or 2020, there is always someone waiting to tell you that you are wrong/messing up your life with your choices. I won’t stop to rant about having to be your own advocate, etc., etc. I am not here to get on any soap boxes or to argue with anyone who has had a vastly different experience. I am here to tell a story about how societal expectations tricked me into believing that I was ultimately broken or deviant, until I was given the opportunity to rise out of those definitions.

So, let’s return to 2009 and the time in our marriage when an art show at our home was imminent and I was increasingly close with a younger woman from our symphonic choir. I won’t share her name here, so for the sake of storytelling fluidity, let’s call her Lorelei. I did a bit of research and found that it has a very specific meaning of “ambush cliff.” The Germanic translation also goes on to include, “…her singing leads people to their destruction.” Very fitting as I view this in hindsight. We were singing together and there was definitely destruction. I felt something for her that I could not describe. I put it in a romantic category eventually, because I thought about her and wanted to be near her. I had never felt that strongly for a female. Months passed and I cried every night. I prayed and asked God what was I to do with such feelings. I was miserable for nearly two years, fighting off these emotions and trying to be honest with my husband. Let’s call my husband Dilan. It is known in some languages to mean “a loyal embodiment of mercy.” Surely this is an appropriate name for one who endured what he did. Again, we have been through things and been a rock for each other when one was weak. This sacrifice on his part, however, was controversial and remarkable. This story is written to help others who suffer, to purge the guilt that still lives inside of me (Dilan says it lives there unnecessarily), but also to lift up the human spirit that can achieve the impossible, the unexpected, in the name of love and sanctity of marriage in a weary world. Some may say he was foolish, that he should have walked away, but instead, when I came to him in tears and claimed to know I was in love with Lorelei, he offered me a chance to explore those feelings and be who God meant for me to be. He knew that I would eventually find joy in that knowledge and that it may or may not be with him. He had had the opportunity to find his own truth regarding sexuality, when he was younger. I had followed the “should be” path to a fault and never gave myself that chance. I accepted that my lack of interest in sex made me broken and forced myself to conform. I didn’t realize there was another “box” to fit into besides “damaged.” I am a much healthier human being as I write this, but this journey was one of great misery.

Lorelei and I had a relationship. She somehow had developed feelings for me over time, after months of my pining for her. We even went so far as to get engaged at one point. I saved up and bought her a diamond fit for a queen. Dilan stood by and watched silently. He listened to me sob about how I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I felt like such a horrible human being, such a poser to my faith and my love of God. I kept praying and could not stop myself from playing this scenario out. Lorelei lived with us for many months, with my husband and children always around. How could we have lived like that? And yet, it became normal to some degree. I traveled with this woman and made plans, but Dilan and I never made plans to divorce, despite the topic arising out of necessity when an engagement became part of our twisted tale. Eventually, I met another woman, much younger. I had some strong feelings about her, and she spent time with me. Through her actions and words, I began to see how Lorelei had not been an equal partner, that I was still bending over backward to please and be normal, this time as a lesbian. I fully embraced the roll by coming out to extended family and accepting the potential consequences. It caused rifts with people that I loved, but I thought I was being true to myself, that I would be in pain for a while but then living honestly. Now, it seems so ridiculous. I was so confused and still unwilling to admit that I felt no sexual attraction. I was more willing to face the nasty comments about hurting my husband by coming out as a lesbian and taking on a girlfriend, than I was willing to admit to myself and the world that I hated sex and physical intimacy. I thought that was the end of the world. Much later, I learned that one can have sensual feelings that are not sexual. I had those feelings  and convinced myself that it was much more than that, in the name of “normal.” How lost can one person be?

The new girl became my girlfriend after I released Lorelei from our very one-sided “love affair.” She barely seemed to register the break-up. I felt that I had given so much, had lost my scruples and morals for nothing. I felt that I had learned nothing and done so much damage, but with the second girl, I felt that I could be myself. Over time, I began to let her in on my secret about not enjoying physical intimacy, but not with words. It was she that walked out on me one day and asked if perhaps I had considered whether I was asexual. In that moment, she may have just as well called me a murderer. I was mortified and insulted… but, why? She was right. I did research on forums and found organizations online. I spoke to locals and even joined a meetup. Some of us were married, gay, bisexual, you name it. We all had different stories and different levels of interest and function in a highly sexualized world with some ridiculous expectations of how the average person thinks. I was finally able to shed my own notions of being “broken.” The people I met who were under the Asexual umbrella were not broken. They were joyful, real, stressed, working, parenting, everyday people—like me. I am still learning the differences within my own range of emotion, while embracing what asexuality means to me and that it is not a negative thing by any means.

Dilan and I had a period of marriage counseling. For a while, I thought  I would have to let him go and live my “lesbian life.” What I found out about myself, about us, is that we were excellent friends. We knew each other so well after all we had been through. We even got Dilan through a long stretch of Major Depressive Disorder following our ordeal. He lost a job or two in his fight, but then finally landed on his feet and is thriving. I didn’t think twice about turning my back on him. I knew who he was, and I chose to love that person fiercely. I am not straight, lesbian, pansexual… whatever. I no longer concern myself with a label. I realize that in the past I couldn’t understand that we are not constrained by such things unless we choose them, regardless of what is expected of us. What mattered was who we were with each other. I am asexual. I no longer apologize for it. After a bit of question and answer time, Dilan and I decided that we were the best thing for each other, that our love was very real, and that I wanted to be close to the one I had married and he didn’t need any more physicality than I was capable of. We found a place where we could both feel loved and wanted. It wasn’t because he was a man or a woman, or because he looked a certain way, or even because he understood that I was in a new category and accepted it. We just love. I don’t feel broken anymore. I know we are a strong community of people with valid emotions. All of the people, everywhere on the spectrum, are just people. I don’t hide how I identify, even when criticized. I am not ashamed. I sit next to my husband at the end of each day, close by, knowing that we have something beautiful that passed a trial by fire and is stronger. We were forged by the flames that I thought would devour us.