BOOK REVIEW – “Hard on Us: Memoir of a Sexless Marriage” by Donna Mitra

March 22, 2022

I came across this book after I received an email from the author.

Dear Morgan –

I came across your blog via Kinkly. I come from another world to yours but it is equally conservative and restricted in what women are and aren’t supposed to conform to. Because of that, I’d like to share my book with you in the hope that you enjoy how I tackled coming into my own and breaking down those barriers over time.

Intrigued, I decided to take a look at this book. I am an avid reader, so I am always looking for new titles. I expected to read a tale of an errant housewife and her sexual adventures — but what I found instead was a profound examination of a marriage that didn’t last.

It is so easy to blame the husband in situations like this. However, Mitra does a full self-examination of her own faults in the marriage. This book covers everything from being the bride, to infertility, to post-partum depression, to counseling, to having an open marriage, to more counseling, and finally to divorce. It is a roller coaster, yet life often is that type of journey.

The first half of the book was difficult for me to read as many parts echoed my own marriage. I applaud her strength in meeting her challenges head-on, something I was unable to do. I read with more zeal of her experiences with an open marriage, something I now wish my husband would have allowed me to experience. Mitra’s husband, however, suffered from lack of desire, while mine was sidelined by disease and other medical problems. Yet I feel if he had let his jealousy go enough to want to truly see me happy (which he always inferred was his goal), perhaps our marriage could have been saved. Instead he kept subtle and often overt control over me in fears he would lose me. Obviously it did no good, as he lost me anyway.

Mitra was able to cajole her husband to therapy and other treatments, which I was unable to do with mine. Even now in Assisted Living, he still refuses to acknowledge his mental and emotional state. He is stuck in the mentality that men are not supposed to share their feelings, and that men have to be the head of household.

I pity him.

In the end, Mitra was able to remove herself from the situation with grace and with strength. She met each circumstance with inward reflection and with thoughts to keeping her family together. Her ultimate goal was to maintain her household, but not at the sacrifice of her own happiness. She realized in order to be a good mother, she had to be pleased with herself first. Only then could she have the confidence needed to raise her daughters as young women of power in this modern age. Mitra herself a highly successful woman, wanted to make sure her family could break the bonds of misogyny.

This book is certainly one to read if you are going through similar situations. Mitra can perhaps lead you to consider alternatives to try before deciding that your marriage cannot be saved.

Surprise Visit (Part Two)

March 18, 2022

I slept very well that night, partially due to the long drive and partially due to the extreme fuck session. I awoke bright and early the next morning and waited for his call eagerly.

The call, however, was not a cheerful one.

It seems the heater in his house went out overnight. He had a call out to the repairman and couldn’t really leave until he heard from him.

“[It’s] Really annoying to be sitting here doing nothing when I could be there doing deviant things to you.”

Finally the repairman called. He wouldn’t be able to make it out to look at the heater until noon.

“I can come over now for a little bit,” he said.

It would have to do.

He came over, alright. And we both came a few times.

For a man who once said he didn’t like blowjobs, he sure responds to mine quite well.

But it was over way too soon.

After about an hour he went back home to meet the repairman. Unfortunately the repairman took too long and was unable to finish the job that day. My guy had to go to work, and the repairman would have to return in the morning.

Disappointment again.

By then, too, the weather forecast was not looking good for Saturday, the day I planned on returning home. With everything going on with him, and with the weather turning, after much deliberation we decided it would be best for me to drive home Friday.

So I got to see him maybe an hour and a half the whole time I was there.

But I did get to see him. And we did get a couple things checked off of our sex “bucket list” (a list that keeps growing).

You may be thinking it was all a ruse – that his problems were fabricated. It could be. I did not want to pry. But believe me, I thought about that, a lot. Too much. I want to believe him. But my emotions have been all over the place this week. He also has been rather quiet this week, which he has a tendency to be after our disappointments. His quietness unnerves me and really makes me wonder what is going on. He has talked to me a little bit, but it has been short conversations, not our usual lengthy teasing as and sexting. I always wonder if our banter will return. It always has in the past, so I have to believe it will this time.

I have to believe. And be patient.

But my mood is not good.

Also since I got home, I’ve been on antibiotics for a urinary tract infection, which explains the blood. I thought maybe it was due to the rough nature of our sex. I told him, and he said “Oh good. I didn’t break you ;)”

He’ll be back.