Unwanted

Years ago, when I was between 10 and 12 years old (I don't remember for sure how old I was), I was looking through some of my parent's photo albums.  I remember coming across a picture of my mom from their wedding reception.  It was a side view and I remember her bouquet resting on her stomach which seemed to protrude out a bit.  I then started doing some math in my head--they were married in early 1978 and was born halfway through 1978.  It didn't add up to 9 months, it could have if I had been born early, but I wasn't.  So I asked my mom about it.  She told me that she and my dad had made a mistake and got married halfway through their senior year.  I was born shortly after they graduated.

To be honest I don't remember much about more about that day or what else she said.  What I do remember feeling was that I was their mistake, an unwanted mistake.  Then when they began having serious problems during my high school years I felt it was my fault as they were only together because they had made a mistake, ME, years earlier.

As a youth I always needed a boyfriend.  I felt wanted if there was a guy (or guys) that liked me.  So I went from boyfriend to boyfriend from my 6 grade year until I was married to my husband.  I needed to be wanted and because of that I put up with all kinds of crap from the guys in my life. They said awful things to me, they treated me poorly and I let them because at least they wanted me (insert sarcasm).  I put myself in situations that compromised my values because I felt wanted.

When I say wanted it doesn't necessarily mean in a physical, sexual way.  Sure, making out helped me to feel wanted.  But it wasn't what I was/am really searching for.

When I met my husband I wasn't looking for a relationship (I was waiting for a missionary).  It didn't take long for me to make him the center of my life, after all he showed interest in me.  He seemed to want me. Our courtship and engagement were rough.  I was always looking for some validation from him that I was wanted. There were many times when I left in the dark of the night  in the bitter cold and went to a park alone in hopes that he might come searching for me because that meant that I was important to him, that he wanted me.  He always came.  He wanted me.

Not long after we were married, almost a month actually, my husband came home from school one day and told me how several girls were hitting on him.  Suddenly I felt unwanted again.  Here I was a new bride and all my new husband could talk about was other girls hitting on him.  I wanted to curl up and die.

Our first year was HELL!   I couldn't get over feeling not wanted and I pulled away.  Sex was just that, sex.  There was no connection, no intimacy.  Most times I would cry during or after. The one thing that should have helped us come closer together as a couple actually tore us further apart.  I didn't feel wanted, I just felt like an end to a means.  I didn't feel wanted for my spirit and my body, I felt abused and used.  I said hurtful things and I was cruel.  I know that I made his life miserable, so miserable that he was ready to walk away.  He made a mistake marrying me.  Here I was again, someone else's mistake.  UNWANTED was how I felt.

When everything finally came out about M's addiction, I felt more unwanted than ever.  My husband was choosing porn over me, over our marriage.  He was choosing to fantasize about every other woman he saw over me.  He was choosing to masturbate over being intimate with me.  He was choosing his addiction over everything!  Although he doesn't feel that way.

I have struggled with feeling like I was my parent's mistake and feeling not wanted.  They didn't get to choose me though.  They got who was sent to them.  M on the other hand chose me.  I felt special, loved, and wanted because HE chose ME over all the other girls he dated.

I  know they say that this addiction has nothing to do with me or M's feelings for me.  I doesn't feel that way at all.  I feel so broken, so UNWANTED, that I am not sure I can ever believe he wants me.  The man that promised to love me, CHOSE  thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of women over me.  He chose sex with himself over sex with me. He chose connection to a computer screen over intimacy with me.

His unwillingness to do all that he can to help rebuild trust and heal our marriage leaves me feeling unwanted.  It has been a week since he told me he would do daily check-ins and nothing.  That doesn't show me that he wants to do everything he can to heal our marriage.  It doesn't show me that he wants me.

I don't want to feel wanted for my body, that isn't what this is about.  I want to feel wanted for who I am as a person, as a beautiful daughter of God. I don't understand how M can say he wants me and thinks I am beautiful and amazing when he is struggling to NOT want (physically) every other woman he sees.  How can he supposedly see me, like really see me, when every other female is just an object to him?  I find it hard to understand why the Lord would let M see the real me and not see other women for WHO they are as daughters of God rather than their bodies.

I just want to feel wanted.  I want to feel special to the one man on earth who I care what he thinks and feels about me.  :(