Would you still be leaving me if I’d treated you like I treat her, the sex worker I see from time to time?
If, when you came home for our evening without the kids, I’d let my delight at seeing you show on my face, smiling from my eyes into yours like lovers do, would that have made a difference?
Supposing, as I did when I last met her, I’d bought Champagne and left it open in the bedroom for you to help yourself to while you changed and relaxed. Supposing I’d let you take your time with that, let you be ready for me; might that have been nice?
Perhaps my eyes should have opened wide with the thrill of seeing you undressed and my fingers should have traced the boundary between your lingerie and your skin in appreciative delight. If I’d whispered my wonder into your ear; if I’d run my hands over you, stroking and massaging, touching and teasing, lingering when your body responds in that way it used to, would that have made you want to stay?
Would you still be leaving me if, rather than move too soon to penetration, I had learnt how to give you oral sex, letting my tongue linger over your clitoris, running it softly through your folds, adjusting my movements to yours until your orgasm flowed around us both?
And afterwards, if, instead of turning over and going to sleep, I had lain with you, holding you like you might melt away ….
I do all these things for her, but I don’t think I ever did them for you. Is that why you’re going?
Would you still be leaving me if I’d been the lover for you that I’ve learned to be for her?
You see, nobody taught me these things. I started too late and married too soon, and I was too self centered to take the time to find them out for myself.
Why is it that only now, now that I’m paying the person I’m in bed with to enjoy having sex with me, does her actual enjoyment matter more to me than yours seemed to? Sure for the first few years, we were both jumping into bed and delightedly fucking in that slightly desperate way that new lovers have; but later, when that wasn’t enough, then I should have explored what you were looking for; then I should have found out how to be a better lover for you.
Too late, I’ve learned how to be affectionate, how to show a woman that she matters to me.
Too late, I’ve learned how to touch her, how to make her feel good, how to find the beauty in her orgasms.
Too late, I’ve learned how to lie with her afterwards.
It’s too late now, but I think that if I’d been the lover I am now, you might have stayed.
This post from 18 months ago, also written in the form of a letter, provides context for what I have written here.
Ouch – I feel for you, but it does take 2. When you’re introspective like this it is an easy path to lay all the blame at your own door. I gather you have learned and grown on your journey with the sex workers you’ve become close to, but perhaps your OH rebuffed moments when you would have stepped up and been more touch-y feely and giving. I agree with MariaS and melody. Onward and upward B1 – it’s the only way now. x
I know this kind of introspection, but I also know that life runs the way it does. You couldn’t have known these things then because you only learned them later and when you did, it was too late, because the ‘damage’ in your relationship has already been done. It’s natural to think about these things (I think), but sometimes life just have other plans with us…
Rebel xox
She might not have but that time has gone. How lovely that you have learnt these things though. I think that because of it you have the possibility of the best years of your life in front of you x
This is lovely and heartbreaking. Try not to feel too down on yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know. It must certainly be true that while there are things you do now for your lovers that your wife might have enjoyed, there are things they do for you that she didn’t know to do that you would have appreciated as well. You just didn’t have the language to speak to each other in this way, and that is no one’s fault. Well, I know you know all of this, so I don’t need to say it. You wrote a beautiful piece here that captured a particular kind of bittersweet nostalgia and longing. You have such a gift for capturing feelings with words. Love to you, my friend.
I think I now have the melody of the song you have just written above in my head.
“What if’s “ are a long and difficult path to keep following.
Missy x
Intriguing questions. Ones liable to have you banging your head against the wall because you didn’t know the answers back then, let alone the questions themselves.
What comes through is that your time with sex workers has developed the confidence and self-knowledge to be able to pose these questions of yourself.
Too late for that particular relationship, yes. Future ones, who knows.