The Tipping Point That Pushed Me to Leave My Husband

Chapter 2 of "F-Girl: A Midlife Dating Memoir."

Photo by Adrienn.

Thanks for your interest in reading “F-Girl: A Midlife Dating Memoir.” This is the story of my dating life after I left my husband—seven years ago now. I went out and had a lot of sex after discovering my now ex-husband had cheated on me. Call it revenge. I was also sexually famished after years of no intimacy with my husband.

This is the story of how I used sex to heal from the end of my marriage. No, every experience wasn’t great. Still, I used sex as a way to work through my sadness, disappointment, and my other issues with my father.

It’s free to read this story. All I ask is that you consider donating to my coffee coffers.

Chapter 2: The Tipping Point That Pushed Me to Leave My Husband

I wonder if every person who's ever asked for a divorce reaches a tipping point. They reach that "point of no return" when they realize they can no longer stay married to their spouse. Something happens to push them over the edge. It suddenly dawns on them: divorce is the only option.

I reached a tipping point that pushed me to ask my husband for a divorce. What was it, you might ask?

Simple—I fell in love with someone else.

Let me explain...

When David and I had been married for almost ten years, I took a writing course at a local college. The instructor, a writer named William, was a brilliant, charming, and handsome man. Ten years older than me, he was everything that David was not. He was creative, effusive, and spontaneous. My husband was a logical, introverted engineer.

I was immediately attracted to William. I fell hard. Desire flickered inside me and took flame. I burned with passion. Think of a bolt of lightning hitting a dry brush hillside and sparking. Once that fire was lit there was no putting it out.

About the end of my marriage-- on the day I told David it was over between us, he and I hadn't had sex in two years. It's hard to remember exactly how our sexless marriage began. It simply evolved. 

One argument led to another until David and I hardly spoke anymore. Before that point, whenever we argued, at least we'd always make up afterward. 

Often making up involved making love. But once we got to the point that we were ignoring each other, we stopped doing even that. 

Instead, after a spate of intense bickering, I'd go to sleep by myself in the guest room. The following day, David and I wouldn't even discuss our tiff.

We lived in the same house but led separate lives. We became just another married couple in America who never had sex anymore.

I knew this was unhealthy. Sex is the basis of a happy relationship. But I also didn't know how to fix our problems.

Still, I'd committed to him at the altar. We had two children together. I stayed in my marriage.

We tried marriage therapy. It didn't work. We didn’t work.

To survive our sexless marriage, I put my sex drive into a kind of storage. I went into sexual hibernation. For an entire year, I didn't even masturbate. Yes, that's twelve months of no sex — not even with myself. No sexual release. I didn't even want one.

That's how deeply I'd repressed myself.

Obviously, I couldn't go on like this forever. And I wouldn't. I met William and woke up. This was a sexual awakening. I awakened and realized how famished I was: for sex.

I shocked myself when I became enthralled with William. I began to show up early for each class just so I could sit at the head of the table right next to him. During his lectures, I hung on to his every word. I was always staring at him. I fantasized about staying after class and making a move on William.

Thank goodness I didn't.

It would have been humiliating to be rejected by him. No doubt I would have, as he was also married.

Maybe we could see each other on the sly, but people would still have found out — I'm sure. He'd become a disgraced professor and maybe fired from his position. My peers would lose respect for me.

But the damage was already done to my marriage.

This was my tipping point. Once I reached it, I couldn't stay married to David. At least I couldn’t stay emotionally committed to him. 

Read chapters 3 and 4 by clicking here and here.