Accepting what I should not have been willing to

The speaker reflects on their past relationship with Justine and the challenges they faced. They discuss their own desires and struggles with intimacy, as well as their tendency to become attached and fall in love. They express uncertainty about their current situation and the choices they need to make. The speaker acknowledges that their past experiences have shaped their behavior and emotions, and they are trying to navigate their feelings without losing themselves. They recognize the need for patience and self-awareness, but also the difficulty in making decisions. I was so sure I wanted to be with Justine that I was willing to accept things that I should not have been willing to. I needed to get out of where I was. This seemed like the perfect solution. And I trusted myself in the sense that it would all come right. I trusted my feeling. And that feeling expressed itself as a kind of continuous lusting for her. Even though it wasn't always appropriate and she was very controlling as to not now but save it for later. Even though we were alone in our own home and could have easily expressed it spontaneously. She would have to have it later. I would discover that it was because she didn't want to be seen physically. And so in the dark at night then she was able to relax and I just accepted that. But I found that very difficult to deal with because for me the expression of that feeling is meant to be expressed in the moment. Not in some future moment when it no longer is no longer there. For quite some time it was there. It was almost like I was 18 again and able to be sexually aroused instantly by her. But that didn't last. I couldn't keep it up literally and figuratively. I went with the feeling because the feeling was there for me to go with but I was actually 20 years older than her. I was in my late 50s and for the vast majority of my time I'm not sexually active. So to suddenly become an 18 year old again for a while, strange as it seemed that I could actually do that, it couldn't stay, it couldn't last, it didn't last. It didn't seem to matter. Closeness, connection, friendship, security, that's what I wanted. The sexual side of things was great just because prior to that for a few years I hadn't had anything. But very quickly the compromises and acceptance of how it needed to be for her to be comfortable eventually, finally got to me. Not being able to see her, only having to do it in the dark, her frustrations eventually revealing themselves where she hadn't expressed herself well with me as to how she needed me to be was becoming too much. And as I'm always wanting to accommodate and to care and to love and to do the things that she liked and that made her happy and made her feel good, and I could, eventually I wasn't good enough anymore. I couldn't do it for her anymore. And the feeling she had towards me which sustained the discrepancy, she no longer had. So the discrepancy became glaringly obvious, creating an even wider chasm. It was an intense experience, but it wasn't real. And it came about as a result of, in a sense, contrast. The contrast to how things had been. So having then moved from one extreme to the other and had an intense physical sexual experience for several months, I now needed to go back the other way. I now needed to actually have no experience, just to be at peace with my companion who couldn't deal with that because she needed to be wanted. She needed to be lusted for because she had become used to it. She was always finding me hard the moment that we started to embrace, even if there was to be no sex. She liked knowing that I wanted her. When she began to discover that I wasn't hard anymore, and she would actually feel, to find out, she would put her hand there, just to discover, oh, he's not hard. I didn't know at first what she was doing. I couldn't understand it. So I would mimic her actions and put my hand on her vagina, not in a touching way, just there, just to say, oh, you're doing that to me, so I'll do that to you. But I didn't really understand for quite some time that she was checking to see if I was hard or not, revealing I wasn't excited, revealing I didn't want her, and so on. And this is how I have experienced relationship, one extreme to the other, contrast, contrast, contrast, a pendulum swinging back and forth from one extreme to the other. All or nothing. Usually nothing, then occasionally all, and then back to nothing. So there's no reason for me to assume that that pattern of behaviour has changed in me. I've had a long period of abstinence, and so there is a temptation, perhaps it is enhanced as a result, to experience its opposite. It is not a normal experience that offers me that opposite, which is why it is different and feels different for me. But I am concerned that some of that pattern is present and fuelling what takes place. I'm not free to make or create the circumstances where things can move forward very specifically. And yet, there are forward movements which seem right, but are also only very small, which also seems right. So that no line has been crossed, and it is unlikely that it could really be crossed. There can be more movement, I think, there is more forward movement possible, but no real line can be crossed, which may be important, or it simply may be requiring a way to go, to find a way to cross the line. I'm not sure exactly. I'm trying not to think about it too much. I am not succeeding as well as I would like. I am trying not to imagine what could take place, but I have not always been successful. So I recognise there is a desire, there is a lust in some ways. It's not uncontrollable, and a lot of time has passed by since even recognising that might be going on. Patience is a virtue, and there is a lot of it. I'm not feeling like I'm missing something and I've got to make it happen as soon as possible. It doesn't have to happen. It may not happen. There's time for something to happen, or nothing to happen, but there's time. And I think it's important that I have time, that I feel like there's time, that I don't feel like I've got to do something, I've got to make a decision, I've got to take action, I don't want to lose something I think I want. I don't have any of those feelings, but I have in the past, and that has encouraged me to take those actions, take the steps. And things have occurred in their own time that I have been happy for. And yet I have never been able to stay in that space that I cannot keep things as I think they have become, even. Even just to get used to something being nice and wanting it to continue being nice is in itself a controlling aspect. And it allows me to overlook certain things, to not confront, to not recognize certain things, just in case they interfere with that. Until such time as they just interfere with it anyway, and it's now too difficult to deal with it. It is a problem for me, it is a flaw in my character, it is an issue I have always had, and I suspect it goes back to not forming properly, emotionally, sexually, as a result of having very early access to pornography. Very early access to magazines that excited me in a way that I couldn't quite understand, and yet affected me immediately from that point on. I can't say exactly what the problem occurs as a result of it, but I feel like that was the result. But that doesn't change the present. Just understanding the path doesn't make any difference, because I can't do anything about the experience I've already had. It's the experience of that in my formative, very early formative years, that created, I suppose, some kind of miswiring, or it didn't allow for certain things to connect properly, thereby sending me down a path that would always lead to this. So I think it's just who I am now, and it's what I have to deal with. And while, I guess, there have been shifts and changes and growth as a result of the experiences and pains and sufferings that have come from it, so that a learning and understanding has arisen, it hasn't ultimately changed the drive, the desire, the feeling, when that possibility is sort of in my reach. I don't walk away from things easily. I tend to step into an experience without really understanding what it really means, what the effect of it will really be on me. I just consider it experience, rather than, oh, I better not do that because this will happen or this might happen, and I don't want it to happen, so I won't even explore it and just stay in my comfort zone. I'm always going out of it without thinking when it comes to this area, and it's not like I am inundated with opportunity. So, like I said, because of the extreme contrast and the possibility of the opposite, it's very hard for me to remain objective and see it objectively. I just won't be able to, or even if I am, even if in this moment I can, when confronted with the possibility in the actual experience, that all goes out the window. Just the feeling, and it's a bit obsessive in that feeling, is overwhelming. It doesn't mean it's right, it doesn't mean it's wrong, but it doesn't mean it's right because it's overwhelming, and resisting it only has the opposite effect. What I resist persists and gets stronger. The obsessive feeling becomes even more overwhelming, telling me I must explore it. I can't resist it. I have to go with what feels exciting and take it as far as I can take it until I can take it no further and then let go, without attachment to it. The critical aspect that I have failed in a sense before is to become attached to having it so that now I don't want to give it up. I am hooked, I am addicted, that's where I fail. So can I experience something that doesn't make me do that, where I don't have to be in their world 24-7, where we don't have to be constantly in contact, where we don't have to do everything together? That's what's happening, and I don't dwell on it as if I'm missing something. Yes, there are times when I feel like I would want more time, but there are also times when I feel like I'm having exactly the amount of time that's right. And then in between, I'm not longing and missing and can't wait for, although I do have moments like that, but for the most part I'm not, I just get on with what it is I do that I do. That's better, I don't feel attached, I don't feel connected, but then one important crucial aspect hasn't happened, and I've often suspected that when that happens, that line gets crossed, that sexual, actual sexual act takes place. For me, maybe for other men too, but for me specifically, something changes, and that could be described as falling. I've often wondered what falling in love means, falling from where to where? Why do we call it falling? Like a lowering, going down? Whereas I want to stay in my higher self, which I'm able to climb back up to, but then there is a price to pay for having fallen in the first place, and I don't want to struggle with the other person who can't deal with the fact that I'm unstable like that, that I give the impression that this is how I feel and this is how it is, and they're just getting used to it and then suddenly I'm not feeling like that, and I don't know how to deal with it, so for a while I wear the mask, so it looks like nothing has changed, when everything has. There's many positives and benefits and pluses to having, to being, to doing, and I overlook that there is an underlying feeling that I'm not exploring properly, that I can't deal with, so I either have to deny it essentially or suppress it, just avoid it, act like it doesn't exist, but it's only a small voice, it's not very loud, because all the other is much louder and is drowning it out, but it's there and I can't deny it, I can't say I didn't hear it, I didn't know, I'm aware and that's the problem, so I have to be careful, and this situation is even more uniquely different than any of the other situations that I've experienced before, which would make sense I suppose, because it would have to be new, I don't tend to repeat old experiences because I've learnt from them, so I don't need to go around the circle again, but this is different enough for me to feel like there's something more there, even though I am not fully sure that it's right, I can't just trust how it is I feel, even though I trust that I feel it, and in some ways it is the feeling that matters, that's all that matters, it's how I feel about the thing that takes place, not what I think about it, I can always find alternate perspectives, but how I feel is how I feel, acting on how I feel authentically, that's not always been easy, but I think it's being recognised, there is still an underlying aspect to what I do, that is fueling it, providing the energy for it, making me shift into that specific vibration, to be seen that way, to facilitate the forward movement even more, and it's not that I'm in denial of that I am doing it, because it's not really conscious, I am aware that it's there, but I am not hiding the fact that I'm wanting something, and yet I suppose on some level that must be true, I must be wanting it, and I'm not being honest with myself, I'm not admitting it, yet at the same time I honestly don't know if that's true, I could say that I am experiencing both realities, just not at the same time of course, but when I experience both realities in their own moment, both are real, so then it must come down to a choice, here's your choice, you could go this way, and you could go that way, and both seem to offer a life experience that would be of value, so choose, and that's something I do not know how to do well.