Erosion. Not really a ‘big’ word, but not a ‘little’ one either. In my mental word association game, ‘erosion’ makes me think of the Grand Canyon which correlates with the definition: “The process of eroding or being eroded by wind, water, or other natural agents.” However, I think the definition is missing an important point, i.e., it takes time – a lot of time.
It took a lot of time for my marriage to El to erode. El & I making our kids the focal point of our lives drained our relationship. We forgot who “we” were. In retrospect, putting “us” first would have been a failure too. I’ve since learned that the relationship between a husband and wife has to put God first.
Back to erosion. Bear with me while I play a little word game; divide erosion into Eros and ion. Leave Eros by itself, and clone the ‘s’ and put it with ‘ion,’ while dropping the ‘o’ – to get “sin.” So now we have Eros which is a concept in ancient Greek philosophy referring to sensual or passionate love, from which the term erotic is derived. I think you know what sin is. So put the puzzle back together for erotic sin or my subterranean porn addiction. Porn was a cancer, a syphilitic worm eating through my brain, my heart, my marriage; an unknown killer of epic proportion.
ICQ was the equivalent of ‘strike 3 you’re out.’ I sought out a plethora of people who I didn’t know, but yet I took their advice as meaningful because their situation paralleled mine; at least that’s what they said at the time. Funny how you’re always drawn to answers that you want to hear. That you’re normal, you’re not alone, “I feel that way too,” “My spouse doesn’t understand me,” “My spouse doesn’t like sex anymore.” It’s always good to ‘know’ that you’re right, that you’ve got it all figured out.
ICQ was truly a double-edged sword, like the atomic bomb. I drew false comfort from my ‘new friends’ and I got introduced to ‘cyber-sex.’ At least that’s what it was called back then; I guess it’s referred to as sexting now. Going from printed porn to pictures on newsgroups, and then graduating to interacting with a live person via a keyboard poured lighter fluid on the fire of my sex drive like nothing before. Well, that was until I was asked by one of my repeat cyber sexers if ‘she’ could call; thus my introduction to phone sex.
All this time, El was oblivious and I was such a convincing, lying actor. As we were pulling further away from each other, EL wanted to try for a daughter or adopt. I was happy with the two boys. I even scheduled an appointment for a vasectomy. Wouldn’t you know it, the woman that rarely wanted sex anymore became pregnant and that was her 3rd strike too. The doctor told her no more c-sections; of course, I canceled my vasectomy.
You might think that I didn’t believe El in that it was just pure luck that she conceived. Honestly, I did believe her – for some reason. I also had no issues loving our third son. Each son is so unique. Each such a blessing (although I didn’t know that B-word back then). Yet the doomsday clock was ticking. I was skating down the downward spiral to divorce and I didn’t really know why, but I sure thought I did.
Or back to the previous blog Pandora’s Box.
Off to the next chapter…in Nuclear Family Fission.
babychristian55 