A Little at A Time

Chapter 3
My Relationships

Before I tell you about how I ended up at the doctor’s office and what happened there, I should tell you a bit about myself, my family, and what was happening with my relationships during this time.

My name is Tim. I’m 34. I sell insurance and live in the suburbs. My wife, Jessica, has her own interior decorating business, which is very successful. We met in college and have been married six years. We have one child – Ashley. We’ve thought about having more kids, but we’re both so busy and Ashley is pretty much everything we could have hoped for – smart, cute as a button, and full of energy!

Before all this started, I’d say Jessica and I had a fairly typical marriage. Occasional fights to be sure, but for the most part we got along. Nothing out of the ordinary in the “bedroom department” – we had sex every few weeks. We both still found each other attractive. I was probably 10 pounds overweight, but still good-looking and Jessica keeps herself in great shape.

Again, like I said, all in all – we were a pretty average American suburban married couple. Notice I said we “were.”

As I look back, nothing big or dramatic happened. It was all pretty subtle and slow. Right around the time my “potty problems” started, I just started to feel different about Jessica. It’s hard to describe. I just started being much more interested in her. I wanted to be around her more than ever. In fact, one Saturday morning she stopped in the middle of doing some housecleaning, looked at me, and said “Tim, why are you following me around?” I blushed and looked at the floor. Without really realizing it, I had just been following her around the house for about ten minutes, not saying anything, just standing there watching her. I mumbled something about just liking to be around my beautiful wife and walked away, but it was an odd feeling.

Then, one morning, I just felt really sad about going to work- not because I didn’t like work – but because I didn’t want to be away from Jessica. I convinced her to blow off work and we spent the day together. We didn’t do anything all that special, we just spent the day together and I felt great. The next morning the same feeling came back. I thought about asking her to take another day off, but I realized that neither of us could afford to do that. I got more and more upset until finally, without any warning, I just started crying. I really, really didn’t want to be away from Jessica! The tears came fast, until I was practically sobbing. “Tim, oh my God, are you OK?,” Jessica asked. “I’m fine,” I said, pulling myself together, “I was just thinking about a customer with some serious medical problems,” I lied. I desperately wanted to hug her and tell her that I wanted her to stay with me all day, but I didn’t. She gave me a concerned look and it was pretty clear she didn’t fully accept my excuse. I felt this way every day. Most days I held it together until I got into my car, where I’d start sobbing uncontrollably. I tried to meet her for lunch every day and I rushed home from work. I gave her a huge hug whenever I first saw her. It would send waves of warm feelings all through my body. I should be clear, though, it wasn’t warm like sexually attracted “hot” feelings. It was warm in the sense of feeling safe, contended, calm. I know now that Jessica was growing concerned about my behavior, but at the time she chalked it up to me trying to be more sensitive and affectionate, so she didn’t complain.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I also stopped thinking about Jessica sexually. Before, if she was in the shower or getting dressed, I’d stop to admire her perky, firm breasts. When she wore jeans, I usually stole a glance at her round, bubble butt. Now, I found myself looking at her all the time (more than ever really), but never at her breasts or bottom. I didn’t initiate sex or even think about it. She tried once, but I felt weird and didn’t “respond” at all. I told her that I didn’t feel well and just wanted to cuddle. She looked at me strangely (I never turned down sex), but didn’t say anything more. We cuddled and it felt amazing to me.

Now, about Ashley. As I mentioned before, she’s five. Before all of this, I would say, again, that we had a pretty typical father- daughter relationship – probably a little better than most. I prided myself on being a pretty involved dad. Work was stressful and life was busy, but I always tried to find time for Ashley.

My relationship with Ashley began to change too. Again, it was little things. Usually, when she asked me to play with her, I agreed, but felt slightly bothered, especially if I was doing something like watching football or doing yardwork. Now, when she asked, I actually felt excited and I was happy to play. I also wasn’t “suffering” through the sessions, waiting for a chance to be done with my duty. I was enjoying the time and often “got lost” in the moment, really having fun. Before I knew it, sometimes, we’d end up playing for two hours. I found myself wanting to ask Ashley to play “tea party” or to color with me. At first, I resisted it, thinking it was childish. But, then I told myself that it was quality time with my daughter and that I shouldn’t feel embarrassed. So, I started asking her to play pretty much every day.

One Saturday morning, Jessica left first thing for a meeting with a client, leaving me with a list of household projects to work on. I saw Ashley watching cartoons and sitting on the floor. I made two bowls of some sugary cereal, one for each of us, and sat down. The next thing I knew, it was twelve o’clock. I had spent the entire morning sitting on the family room floor, absolutely engrossed in cartoons! To make matters worse, when I jumped up from the floor, alarmed at having wasted the entire morning, my bladder let go, flooding the front of my pajama pants, and a small piece of poop slipped out of my backside.

Looking back, I guess you could say that I should have realized something was wrong. My relationships with the two most important people in my life were changing and I was having pretty serious physical problems. But, at the time, the relationship stuff just seemed sort of natural and, mostly, pleasant. And I was more or less managing the potty issues, although they did seem to be getting worse. In any event, as I’ve said, who knows how long I would have waited – but, that doesn’t matter now, because everything changed when I finally wet the bed.