I have a hole. No, not that one, you pucking ferv! I mean in my heart. In my soul. That hole. There’s an emptiness inside me where Danielle used to be. I’m trying to find ways to fill that space, but it’s really really hucking fard. Right now, dating is merely a distraction. I’m not really ready to date, I’m just going through the motions because other than my daughter, my family and friends, and this book, I have very little that fulfills me. After I met Danielle, she began construction on a place in my heart. In my heart, there was her and me. When Emily was born ten years later, another part of my heart was given to Emily. So it was the three of us in my heart. Sure, I had friends and family in my heart, but the three main compartments were for Danielle, Emily, and me. Now a part of that is gone. It’s a wound. A hole. It was half my life for 10 years and a third of my life for 13 years. I want to fill it. I need to fill it. I can’t fill it. It’s gone. It’s left a void in my life that only time (I hope) can heal. This is why I’m working out more, writing this book, happy houring with friends, Bumbling/OK Cupiding, going to therapy with Dr. Razo (so much better than Dr. Dick), attending meet up groups, and going on meaningless dates just to fill this hole that can’t be filled. Quite frankly, even with all of these things combined it does not fill 1/1,000,000th of this hole. I feel like a deckhand on the Titantic who’s trying to take the water off the deck with a bucket. Or I’m falling down a mountain and grasping for branches to hold onto, but can hold on to nothing. Thinking about our relationship is all I can do. It’s all consuming. There’s nothing. There’s no hope.
Tag: life
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Even though my wife… ex-wife coming out and ending the marriage was a shock, as I reread my therapy notes I can’t say that I was completely blind, deaf, or dumb. There were signs. Significant signs. Not just to the coming out part, but to other things as well. I always was very doting on Danielle. I am an affectionate and extroverted person who tends to wear my heart on my sleeve. Danielle is the opposite. She’s an introvert who internalizes many of her feelings. It’s very similar to my identical twin brother Jason who is much more like Danielle than I am. Jason lacks the spontaneity, the fun, and the impulsiveness that I have. I lack the discipline, analytical reasoning, and patience that Jason says. If Jason and I could go back into the womb and stay as one person, we’d be a perfect person. With Danielle and I, it’s the same thing. Since we’re opposites, together we make a strong team. I do the bills, she sets up for parties. I do the cooking, she plans the vacations. It’s pretty cool. But on the flip side, our needs are different. I’m a physical guy who desires affection, love, and company. She’s an introvert who desires alone time and Netflix. I show a lot of affection and her affection is a lot with our daughter, but not with me. So what happens when two opposites meet and fall in love. I am passionate with my love for Danielle and she isn’t as passionate. But that’s what made us different and I think what made us work as well. It’s not like I became social during the marriage, I’ve always been social and an extrovert just like you’ve been introverted and less social. My being social isn’t a surprise but it was like you and the Dr. Dick wanted me to change when I’ve been like this all along. What have you done to change? Why are you forcing change on me? Maybe a compromise? Maybe? You point out every single minutia detail of what I’m doing wrong, yet you hardly look at yourself. I think you’re just trying to find all of this negative minutia to justify why you’re leaving the marriage.
Even if it works out, your still not going to love me as much as i love you.
I knew back then that my love for her would outweigh her love for me. I can clearly the remember the day that I told Danielle that I loved her for the first time. We were a month into our relationship and we had just made love. I looked into her eyes. She looked into mine. I said the three words, “I love you.” She looked into my eyes, smiled, and said, “that’s nice.” I guess that was the first ego blow that Eric took. Little did I know that there was going to be a bigger one about 23 years later because at the time, that was a biggie. She eventually told me she loved me a few weeks later, so all is good. I mean, all was good back then. When she told me she loved me. It’s not so good now. Because of the whole divorce/coming out of the closet thing. What I believe is that if you really want a relationship to work, you can’t change your partner. You have to change something within yourself. I’ve changed a lot for Danielle because I wanted this to work so bad and I didn’t feel the reciprocation.
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So there I was, holding back my affection in order to not put pressure on Danielle. I had to consciously not show I loved Danielle physically or mentally which would supposedly (according to Dr. Dick) allow Danielle more room to display her affection to me since the pressure would be off. I guess that makes sense. Not to me, because I like holding hands, massaging, and even coming up behind the person I love and kiss them on the back of the neck maybe while they’re making dinner. But this and other types of affection were a no-no. If this were the preface again, I would preface the preface again by saying that Danielle is an amazing mom. Out of all of this, to have created a human being like Emily is well worth all the pain and hurt I’m feeling right now. I would go through Covid again to save this marriage, but I wouldn’t give up Emily for anything and neither would Danielle. But I have to admit something. Something that I don’t like. I was jealous of Emily. Jealous because while I was holding back affection because of doctor’s orders, Danielle was showering tons and tons of affection on our daughter and it pissed me off because I wasn’t getting enough from the love of my life. I don’t need sex with Danielle all the time to make things work, but I would need some kind of sexual intimacy and some assurances, such as out of nowhere kissing me or being loving to me when I’m not upset. Ultimately, I just want to be happy at the end of the day
The energy that she’s using to keep me away seems disproportionate to the amount of affection that I’m actually giving. My response to myself in my notes was as follows;
Because that’s not who you are and that’s fine. I just don’t understand it because that’s not my nature. My nature is when I see you standing there looking good in jeans, is to go up behind you and flirt a little because I’m attracted to you. Isn’t that what you want? Sometimes spontaneous stuff?
I would think most people would want affection like this. I would think that most women would jump on the chance to have a husband desire them. But apparently to Dr. Dick and Danielle, it was too much too fast too bad Eric. My wife eventually became gay. How did my lack or abundance of affection impact this ultimately!? The answer is that it didn’t. The amount of affection did not matter. It did not turn Danielle gay so I have one thing to say to Dr. Dick. Suck it, Dr. Dick. Suck it hard. Personally, I didn’t see this as a problem which led me to these observations.
THIS FEELS LIKE A MANUFACTURED PROBLEM AND A PROBLEM THAT CAN’T REALLY BE FIXED OR NEED TO BE FIXED. I AM AN INDIVIDUAL PERSON WITH INDIVIDUAL IDEAS AND I’M SORRY IF I FEEL OUR RELATIONSHIP IS STRONG. I FEEL LIKE I SHOULD BE FINDING THINGS THAT I WANT TO FIX, BUT I DON’T REALLY FEEL WE NEED TO. DO I WANT YOU TO BE MORE AFFECTIONETTE? SURE. BUT I CAN’T CHANGE 40 YEARS OF WHO YOU ARE. I FEEL LIKE THE PSYCHOLOGIST IS FINDING PROBLEMS FOR US TO HAVE THAT ARE NORMAL PROBLEMS FOR ANYONE WHO HAS A RELATIONSHIP. I NEVER GET ALONG WITH ANYONE 100 PERCENT OF THE TIME. SO WHY WOULD I EXPECT THAT MY LIFE PARENTER AND I WOULD GET ALONG AND BE ON THE SAME PAGE ALL THE TIME AND I THINK COMPARED TO MOST COUPLES, WE’RE REALLY PRETTY GOOD.
ALSO…
YOU WANT ME TO KNOW HOW MUCH AFFECTION TO GIVE YOU. WHEN IT’S TOO MUCH, YOU WANT ME TO KNOW. BUT YOU STILL WANT SOME SO I HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHERE YOU ARE AT THAT PARTICULAR MOMENT IN TIME. HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF I PUT THOSE SAME DEMANDS ON YOU? FIGURE OUT HOW MUCH AFFECTION I WANT TO GET WHEN IT’S APPROPRIATE. THIS IS AN IMPOSSIBLE TASK. I KNOW YOU’RE GOING TO SAY SOMETHING LIKE JUST TRY TO BE AWARE, BUT I’M NO PSYCHIC.
In hindsight, I felt like Dr. Dick was finding things to create disharmony between us so we’d continue to come to her and need her services. There wasn’t really an end plan, just for me to hold back affection and Danielle to not feel the pressure of that affection. Nothing to do with Danielle’s sexuality. To this day, I don’t get Dr. Dick’s endgame and I feel like Danielle listened to Dr. Dick too much regarding the affection portion of our relationship. Danielle was telling me at various times during the relationship when she wasn’t in the mood. We didn’t have to pay 100 bucks an hour to Dr. Dick to get a refresher.
Here are the primary sexual/romantic issues.
What can Danielle give me physically?
How does she get her libido back (that don’t include her dating other women)?
Is there something physical going on such as hormonal changes?
Would date nights help?
More vacations together (since she seemingly always is more romantic when we’re on vacation)?
This is what I would like. I would want a wife to be intimate once in a while who will make out with me or give me sexual satisfaction (sex, oral sex, hand job) out of the blue. Who will initiate sometimes. You didn’t initiate. Everything else, including you dating other women I can handle if I felt that you were into it, felt attraction to me, or showed me some physicality. Are you going to leave me when you fall in love with a woman? That’s my big fear. If I let you see other women, can you show me the attraction, physicality, or priority? Are you willing to do that with me? Do you even want to? Or are we just the dreaded F* word?
*Friends
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Now that I’m in the dating world, I’ve noticed that people are into taking quizzes and such to see who they are compatible with. One such test is the Love Language test. There are five Love Languages.
- Acts of Service
- Quality Time
- Words of Affirmation
- Receiving Gifts
- Physical Touch
Now this doesn’t mean that if you’re an Acts of Service Love Language and your partner is a Physical Touch love language that it couldn’t work. Quite the opposite, it will help you better understand your partner and accept their differences. All of these tests are awesome and perhaps helpful. I look at myself and I’m totally a Physical Touch Love Language*. To me, Danielle is totally an Acts of Service** Love Language and we could have made our differences become a strength based on these attributes. Sometimes however there are greater powers involved. There are more powerful things than language. Your sexuality is stronger which is why no matter what our love languages were, I would still be writing this book. A big part of the problem was the power dynamic. She had all of it and I had zero. I feel like a fan of an NBA team hoping that the top free agent was coming to the team. She’ll complain about me in therapy, but then want her neck rubbed and then when I was done massaging her, she’d say she needed space. Everything was on her terms and my terms were dismissed. How do you think I feel when I massage you, make you dinner, and treat you with as much love as I can and you say “space” or “I’m being my authentic self”*. I feel like your pet… if pets gave massages. Turn me on and off when you want. You always complained about being a caretaker, yet I’m the one doing the caretaking. Here’s an idea. Maybe I can do all this for you and then you can do things that I want. If you’re getting what you want and ask for, why shouldn’t I?
*Sounds like psychologist speak….
“Maybe there needs to be a trial separation.”
Looking back about 3 years, Dr. Dick suggested a “trial separation”. At the time, it would drive me to tears and I would adamantly say no. Now, I don’t want to give Dr. Dick any credit, but perhaps she was right on this one. Maybe a trial separation would have given Danielle time alone to figure things out more quickly. I actually saw palpable relief in you when Dr. Dick suggested it. At the time, I felt like you wanted to do it but were too afraid to do it yourself. I think you would have been happy if I agreed with it. Would you have? Maybe it was a good idea. At least, it would have given you and me more insight to what I needed to do as well. Coulda? Shoulda? But also, Emily was 10 at the time and also a small thing called Covid-19 was about to fuck it all up for the entire planet.
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When my marriage started to fail, I had no clue it was failing. I just thought that this is what two people who love each other do in order to improve the marriage. They go to therapy, learn how to communicate more effectively, and then problem solved. People say marriage is hard and I never felt that. Yes, it had challenges, but I (naively) thought that therapy meant we’d solve it. The guilt stemmed from the belief that it was my fault. Everything was my fault and I had to fix it in order to get Danielle back to me. For years you and Dr. Dick were telling me that I was doing something wrong but now that you’re out, why did I have to suffer all these years? It wasn’t fair. I would get slammed at therapy. Whatever I did, wasn’t good enough. I would be told by Dr. Dick to let Danielle go through her process and just listen. I was told by Dr. Dick that I was being too affectionate and social when that’s who I was in the beginning and who I was was apparently enough to attract me to you. I’m angry at you… wait… scratch that. I’m fucking pissed at you and Dr. Dick for doing this to me and Emily. When you say things like you’re not sure if you love me or that you don’t know what you want, it makes me feel crappy and resentful. All of this therapy was seemingly about me supporting you and in turn, I would be drained. You and Dr. Dick were Dracula and I was Mina Harker. You both failed me. This wasn’t good therapy. This was a bloodletting.
Another problem is that I would feel guilty about everything. I would feel guilty if I didn’t do enough and I would feel guilty if I did too much. Too little would make Danielle think I didn’t care enough and too much according to Dr. Dick would pressure Danielle. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. These feelings are not really sustainable, but I sustained for 4 ½ years of therapy, I sustained. Do I regret it? No. But I wish I wasn’t so hard on myself. Some things I was guilty about.
WHY SHOULD I FEEL GUILTY FOR WANTING TO HAVE A DATE NIGHT 2X A MONTH?
Dr. Dick felt that requesting this was too much pressure to put on Danielle so it was cut down to 1x a month.
WHY SHOULD I FEEL GUILTY FOR GIVING MY WIFE AFFECTION?
This is one that bothers me because Danielle has the ability to say no. She’s an adult. Dr. Dick didn’t want me to give too much affection due to the pressure it put on Danielle. But last I checked, Danielle does have a functional mouth that can produce speech with clarity. Also, she has the intelligence to produce such phrases as;
“I’m not in the mood”.*
She doesn’t even need to learn any other phrases. That says it all. I will stop. I cannot read minds and it’s not like I’m on Danielle 24/7. I never thought we needed to go to a psychologist for Danielle to learn how to say no to me. But Danielle had this pressure to not say no for some reason and that’s one thing I will never truly understand because I’ve accepted Danielle saying no in the past and it’s been fine. I never forced myself and never would force myself on Danielle and when told something like* I would acquiesce. For Danielle, my giving too much affection was a big deal to her. This is where alternate love languages may be a problem.
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There was a point in 2017 when Wanielle’s sex drive seemed to flicker. She would still have sex with me, but she seemed less into it and it bothered me because I enjoy sex. A lot. I could have sex every day and still want more. Danielle didn’t. We went from 1-2 times a week to 2-3 times a month. I didn’t know how to handle that type of rejection very well. I didn’t want to force myself on Wanielle obviously but mentally and physically my body was being denied the physical act I desired greatly. So what does the mature adult called Eric Bram do? He throws a tantrum. Let’s call it a Testosterone Tantrum*. What is a TT? It’s when you let out your anger based on a lack of sex in a variety of ways that are not equal to the crime. For example, if we passed a gas station that charged less for gas than the next one we went to, I would lash out about the prices of gas**. Or if I went to the market and Wanielle forgot to give me the updated shopping list, I would get angrier at her than I would or should have. The anger would obviously stem from larger issues regarding a lack of intimacy. Myself feeling inadequate, feeling unattractive, feeling agitated because I wasn’t able to release my sexual energy with Wanielle, and also just wondering what I was doing wrong. The night of the gas station incident was the final straw for both of us. I got really pissed. I mean really pissed about the gas price and yelled at Wanielle in the car in front of our daughter. Not my shining moment and afterwards I felt like the biggest cock since Ron Jeremy. Therapy with Dr. DICK began soon after.
*TT
**$5.53 vs $5.68
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How you are and who you are can relate to how you were raised. Family can also be a burden as well which is what Danielle had said. I don’t fully blame her because my parents were kind of financial screw ups, but what I do have to say is that you are sure calling the kettle black. Yes, my parents were screwed up financially. I remember your parents wanting me to sign a pre-nuptial agreement because my parents were so screwed up financially and they were worried that you were going to be drawn into my parent’s debt. You never were. Other issues that my family had/have were that my sister Dominique was called Dramanique for a good reason and my other siblings are people too so they have their flaws. But again, you are the pot and you’re calling that kettle black. Now, I didn’t really say any of this at the time, but this is my fucking book and I can write what I want. Here goes. Your family was fucked up too! You had a mom and a dad who were both married three times. Your mom is a slut who should have a name that rhymes with Drama as well. You and your siblings annoy me because you bemoan how your lives were thrown in upheaval with the divorce and such, but financially you had lives that 99.9% of people would have wanted. That I would have wanted. Your half-brother and half -sister complain about how hard their lives were, but look in a mirror. Your lives are not that bad. Seriously. I’m tired of hearing them complain. Wah Wah. Poor you. Not a lot of sympathy. This is what you had to deal with. In my 20s, I had to take care of my family financially. I never had my 20s and you and your siblings were all able to travel to Europe. Again. Wah Wah. Enough sympathy. Your siblings are whiners!
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Mister Hollywood (What she called me) & Granola Girl (What I called her) started dating in 1999. It almost ended in 1999 when for our second date, I was writing the great American screenplay for too long and didn’t make it to the video* store on time and brought over some home movies to watch in the place of whatever new release was in the video store at that time. Gentlemen, that’s not a good way to make a good impression. To make it worse, I met her mother that night. Just kidding! I don’t remember if I met her mother that night. Fast forward…
- Sex approximately one month after meeting.**
- I told her I loved her. She waited an extra two weeks to tell me. Awkward two weeks.
- Married in 2002.
- Bought first house in 2003.
- I had DVT and subsequent Pulmonary Embolism in 2008. SEE BELOW
- Had child, Bemily*** in 2009.
- Bought second house in 2011
- Bought current house 2016
That’s pretty much it. Had a bunch of pets during that time who are now on the Rainbow Bridge. Paw out to Inga, Knockers, Baby Kitty, Scrash, Caribe, Big Cat, and Chairman Meow you are gone but not forgotten. Both of us got our graduate degrees at California State University, Northridge****. Went on some great vacations. Plane out to China, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan, Costa Rica, Thailand, Honduras. We got jobs. Me as an unemployed actor/writer but employed Speech Language Pathologist for the school system. Wanielle became the Director of a Center at California State University, Northridge****. Life was good or so I thought until I read the next chapter….
*For those under the age of 30… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS
**In my opinion, it was the best sex that Danielle ever had.
***Are you serious? Just take off the B. Duh.
****Go Matadors!
My ex-wife is gay and I'm flailing... 