
I realised I no longer wanted to be married to my husband while having sex with him.
He was on top of me and his body just felt so heavy. For years, I’d shouldered his weight. Now I was literally being crushed by it.
With each thrust, he seemed to push me deeper into the mattress. As it was, our bed had a permanent indentation in the middle of it, thanks to him.
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Those days, my husband spent almost every waking hour on our bed. He was unemployed. He got up around noon, took an hour-long shower, then climbed right back in between the sheets.
He spent the rest of the afternoon and evening reading about conspiracy theories from the vantage point of our conjugal mattress. After we lost everything in the 2008 financial crisis, he also lost his mind.
He became convinced that chemtrails existed and that every school massacre was a hoax.
We were broke. He’d bankrupted me. I couldn’t even get an apartment on my own without someone else co-signing my lease.
My mother was dead. My relationship with my father was strained. I had no one to help me. How would I survive?
Part of me even still loved him. Despite how angry I was, I still wanted our marriage to work.
We had two children together. How would I support them if I left my husband?
I remembered the good times. When my mother got sick, my husband was there for me. He comforted me when she died.
When our financial situation was better, we travelled the world together. When we were home, we discussed politics. At least we used to.
Back before he went crazy, my husband always had something interesting to tell me.
Now he drove me nuts with this conspiracy rambling.
It wasn’t that the sex itself was so awful. It was that we had so many problems, I couldn’t feel close to him.
Because I couldn’t feel intimate with my husband, I couldn’t enjoy the sex. It felt like he was an alien on top of me. I no longer recognised him.
Ironically, I was the one who had encouraged sex. I’d hoped it would heal us.