How Important Is Sex....

NOTES: This post is extremely long. It's emotional and parts of it were hard for me to write but in having to re-do the "How Important Is Sex Or Lack Of To You In A Serious Relationship" post, I decided to work it from a very personal angle. To do that, I decided to share quite a bit of history with y'all in order to do this. This includes some things about me that I have never wrote about, some things that I've never even discussed with good friends of mine. If you want to skip to the "HIISOLOTYIASR" part, find this to mark the beginning of that post. HNT is at the bottom. I would really appreciate if y'all didn't skip the meat of the post though as I put a lot into it.

In March of 2005, when my boyfriend was 19, he had a stroke. I didn't know him when it happened.He had gone to school to be an auto mechanic and already had a job working for an auto repair business. He loves cars and he was thrilled he could make a living doing something he loved. After the stroke, he couldn't work on cars any longer due to some medical issues he was left with as a result of the stroke. I met him shortly after. He was dealing with not being able to pursue the career he had wanted and been excited for. He was disappointed and sad. He was also confused about why a healthy 19 year old boy had a stroke in the first place. He saw doctors, he saw neurologists and they all did every test imaginable and not a single thing hinted at why a healthy 19 year old boy had a stroke. His neurologists wrote papers on him and used his case as an example of medical mysteries in a class he taught. He was lucky though, he was still walking and still alive. It could have been worse. He had to go on a couple medications and he did lose his peripheal vision and had a couple other issues. Other than that, he did well. Still, it was frustrating having doctors and specialists run countless tests on you only to find nothing wrong with you.

I met him in April of 2005, one month and two days after the stroke. He was tall, broad shoulders, full lips, had longish dark hair that curled and twisted at the ends and he resembled a young Bam Margera. I thought he was damn hot. He also had a 1986 red IROC Camaro which I thought to be pretty badass. We talked and we hit it off. The first night we met, we spent 9 hours talking and trying to find things we didn't have in common. I was hanging out with a guy friend that night but ended up giving all my attention to the 6'8" giant that I had so much in common with. Then, in early June of 2005 I decided to move to California, where my dad was living and had been living for a while. I had only known Boyfriend for 6 weeks but I felt like there was something special about him. We spent a lot of time getting to know each other in that time and I felt like I knew him better than I knew some of my friends. That wasn't enough at that point to keep me from moving to the west coast though. I kept in contact with Boyfriend and we got to the point where we were talking several times a day. Texting through out the day, talking for hours on the phone at night, chatting online when I couldn't be on the phone. In November of 2005, we were making fun of shirts on a website and I was joking about one that would be good for him. He made a smart ass remark that went along the lines of, "Well that means I'm in love with a..." and I just smartly replied back with a stunning, "huh?" Then he told me he was in love me with me. He was worried I'd think he was nuts because I hadn't known him long before moving. I asked if he was sure of that and he said he was. I didn't feel the same way but I liked him so much and cared a lot about him. I told him that and he asked if I would move back to Texas. I wasn't happy there. I was an assistant manager and working the night shift.

Then, in early 2006, I was closing up at work one night where I was an assistant manager. There was a female crew leader there and a male employee closing. I told her to take off because she was just standing there texting. I was doing a deposit and had to enter the information in and finish up. I had Jeremy there and she wasn't any help at all anyway. She finished texting, clocked out and left. Five minutes later, a huge 25 pound rock came crashing through the glass side door that I had locked up tight. If people want in, locks aren't an issue. A group of guys dressed completely in black from their ski masks down to their shoes came running in through the door and crunching over the broken glass. They were screaming and I didn't even realize two of them had guns and that I was about to be in an armed robbery until they were behind me, screaming at me to open the safe and give them the money. One of them stayed to the side waving his gun, screaming that if I didn't hurry that he'd kill me. Screaming out bitch, whore, you're going to die and tons of other shit. The one directly behind me had a gun aimed at my head. The guy next to him was yelling at me to hurry up as well. Two others had watch over Jeremy who was laying on the floor in the back with a gun aimed at him. Then the guy kneeling on the floor next to me, filling up the bag with the cash was trying to calm me down. He spoke to me nicely, calmly and told me to relax and just give them the money and they wouldn't hurt me. We had two safes. I had the top one open because I had been putting the cash drawers in when they came crashing through the doors. The bottom safe had documents and a cash box that had $100 in it. I was freaking out, scared out of my mind and I messed up the code to open the bottom safe. I tried a second time. The guy behind me pushed the gun hard into my head and told me not to fuck up again. I did. I had a third and last time to get it open and I couldn't do it. I was so scared I kept messing up the order of the numbers in the code. The guy knelt with me on the ground asked me how much was in there, I told him only $100 and nothing more. He told me to lay down, not look at them and stood up. They ripped the phone off the desk and out of the wall and dropped it down on me. The crazy one to the side that had been cussing, screaming and waving his gun at me started screaming about my cell phone. One of them leaned down and checked my pockets and he told them I didn't have a phone on me. They glanced at the desk looking for it but it was hidden under a jacket I had sitting on a file cabinet. The calm one told them to forget it. The one that had been behind me with the gun told me to stay on the ground or he would shoot me if he saw me get up. I stayed laying on the ground, shaking and crying, absolutely terrified to move for ten minutes. It was so deathly quiet and I slowly got to my hands and knees and crawled along the ground to see if Jeremy was okay. He was laying face down on the floor with his hands behind his head. He looked up and saw me, stood up and asked if I was okay. He was totally and completely calm. Not shaken at all despite what had just happened. He pulled out his cell phone and called the police. I called my dad, who was also the supervisor/owner of the job I was working at the time. LS answered his cell phone and heard me, obviously shaken and crying, and ran the phone back to my dad to wake him up. I told him I got robbed at gun point and I told him Jeremy had already called the police. He told me to calm down and he would be there quickly. We only lived a few minutes away. On the way, he called our GM and woke him up to get him up there as well. My mom had came home in time to catch my dad going groggily out the door. He explained quickly and she decided she was going with him. I was afraid to be in front of the windows because I wasn't thinking clearly and thought for some reason the robbers might come back by. In a rational state of mind, I'd never think such a think but I was 20 and hugging the ground thankful they didn't deliver on their threats to shoot me. I did stand up finally and look out the windows. When I did, I yelped because I saw someone in all black clothes standing outside looking in. Jeremy grabbed me and told me it was just a cop. We looked around and the police were outside walking around. My parents got there shortly after the police did and I went to them and started crying all over again, trying to tell them what happened. I calmed down, got questioned by the cop. He was convinced it was an inside job and convinced I had had something to do with it. The cop that had gotten Jer's side of the story came over to talk to me and send the dickhead over to talk to Jeremy. He had apologized to me for the dick playing "bad cop" and said that he thought I was too shook up and too scared to be part of this. I told him my story. I told a third cop my story. They left me alone and I sat there waiting. Jer and mine had matching stories. I told Boyfriend about what had happened later and he was angry and wanted to come out to California and hurt people, lol. I took 6 days off work but I had to go back on the 7th. Not because they made me but because after several days of playing it all over in my head, I realized the cop had been right in saying it was an inside job. I realized who several of the masked robbers were too since I worked with them. The 3 guys I knew had been part of the robbers were working that Sunday as well as the dumb bitch crew leader who had cued them in after I sent her off that night. I wasn't ready to be back there but I wasn't going to let them win. I remember going to work that day and they were the only 4 who wouldn't look at me. The only 4 who wouldn't meet my eyes if they said something to me despite the fact that before hand, they were always very social and chatty with me. I chatted with all of them and asked them all why they wouldn't look at me. They all glanced at me slightly and then looked away, paying attention to work and giving me some bullshit and cracking a joke. For days after, those same 4 continued to avoid looking at me and avoid having to talk to me. They also worked damn well on my shift because they didn't want to have me bitching at them. I didn't close again after that night though. I went to mornings and became the opening manager. I got to work just before sunrise to open and I spent a lot of mornings, checking the doors and checking the mirrors. Having panic attacks when something popped when it shouldn't, when something metal fell off a shelf and fell noisily onto the tile floors in the back. Feeling anxiety when I saw the shadows of the homeless walking out of the darkness because all I could see in my head was dark silhouettes coming out and I didn't trust a single straggler out there not to be up to something. I was afraid to be alone. I was afraid of being outside by myself at dark. I had nightmares almost every night. I tried to fight against everything I was feeling and in that, I became so angry with myself. Angry because I had let a group of assholes have power over me and turn me into someone that jumped at shadows and strange noises. I became obsessed with checking the doors and windows at home. Making sure they were locked, making sure no one was outside trying to find their way in. The slightest noise would wake me up and I'd have to get up and creep around, making sure everything was okay. I could have seen a therapist and I wouldn't have had to pay for it nor would my family. I could have gotten therapy free to me but I couldn't go. I wouldn't go though part of me wanted to. I didn't see it as getting help. I saw it as being even more weak than I already felt like I was. I talked to Boyfriend instead. A lot. I told him about the nightmares, the panic attacks, the anxiety, the paranoia and how I was angry at myself. We talked about things a lot. He tried to encourage me to seek therapy but I wasn't having it. I was determined to work through it on my own. If I hadn't had him to talk to, I don't know what would have happened. I didn't even tell most of my friends about it and I didn't want to tell my family about all the thoughts and issues I was having. I was lucky to have him and he helped a lot. I got to where I wasn't scared to be at work though I was still far more alert than I had ever been before. I was still more suspicious of everyone than I had ever been before.

In June of 2006, I moved back to Texas with my mom and two youngest siblings. The night we pulled back into Dallas, boyfriend met us at IHOP. I hugged and kissed him in that parking lot and he smelled so good and felt so warm. I missed him and as we stood there kissing and giggling about how I wasn't allowed to move off anymore, I knew I was in love with him. I left with him that night and spent the night with him.

I spent a lot of time with him. He helped me more through things. I still had to obsessively check locks, doors, windows and outside surroundings. I used to love being alone but at that point, I would go anywhere even when I didn't want to go as long as I wouldn't have to stay home alone. When we went out, I wanted to sit in places where I could see the doors and see who was coming through them. I had half a dozen or more other little things that had to be this way or that way and I probably would have driven most people nuts. He has dogs and when they would start barking for longer than a few seconds, I had to check and see what was going on. I didn't feel safe, I realized. I couldn't hear unfamiliar noises and not have my pulse speed up. One day, a friend of his that I had met and liked let himself in the house. I was in the bedroom in the back and I hadn't heard him come in. He decided it would be funny to scare/surprise me by sneaking up on me. He scared the hell out of me and I had a panic attack and almost took his head off in the process. He thought I was nuts and overreacting. My boyfriend explained to him in very short form why I had reacted that way, why I was still jumpy and anxious. He felt bad and apologized.

Jeremy had kept in contact with me up until Fall of 2006 via email and MySpace. I asked him one day if he felt the need to make sure I was okay was to ease his guilty conscious. I told him I knew he knew it was going to happen, which is why he was so calm and why they didn't pay much attention to him at all. He apologized to me and said he just needed to know I was okay and that I would continue to be fine. He didn't want to do it the way it went down, he said he felt weapons would be too much and threatening to kill me was too much. The others thought if I didn't fear for my life, I wouldn't cooperate given that I am such an outspoken, strong person. I might be outspoken, strong and have some stubborn pride but I'm also smart and wouldn't have given a group of guys any issues even without the weapons. It wouldn't be worth any harm they could do and I told him as much. He apologized a lot over the next month and I finally told him I was fine and to just leave me alone, to never contact me again for anything. He said he wasn't ready for that and that he still needed to check up on to make sure I stayed fine, to make him feel better about what they did. I didn't care about his guilt and doubted I could fix it. So I began to ignore him and eventually, he left me alone.

My boyfriend had to deal with my panic attacks, my anxiety, my freaking out over every little thing, the nightmares I had from time to time and the anger I felt towards myself. I finally told two of my friends what I was going through and I talked a little to them. My boyfriend was still the most help to me. I started drinking more than I already did. I wasn't an obsessive freak when I was drunk. So, I drank and I drank a lot. My boyfriend was patient with me most of the time and less patient with me the rest of the time. In my anger, I had gotten depressed and I began wishing that they had just shot me so I didn't have to exist anymore. I felt weak and felt like I was the only person to blame for my weakness. I felt dysfunctional and felt like I was a waste of skin, energy and life. I contemplated a little but I didn't want to die. So, I drank and I drank some more and once in a while, I popped pills while I drank.

I tried not to spend a lot of time at home with my family. I knew I was a mess and I didn't want them to see me that way. My mom knew I wasn't entirely me but she didn't know to what extent. A friend of mine contacted her and told her things I had confided in him. Something like an intervention happened with my boyfriend and my family. My mom was worried about my drinking and my well being. My boyfriend was worried about me. My siblings were worried about me. I got angry some more. Not at them though. Angry that I had let myself try to wash it all away with booze and not face the issues. My mom asked a lot of hard questions about my well being and where I was at mentally. The idea of therapy came up again and I wouldn't do it, again. I didn't want therapy.

My boyfriend was there for me while I tried to drink much less. I could drink this big bottle of rum by myself in one night over several hours and not have a hangover the next day. I wouldn't get sick that night. I wouldn't be black out falling down drunk. I would be drunk as fucking hell but I wouldn't be ill or hurting afterward. I had been drinking too much and I did need to cut way back.

A lot of work on my part and support on his (and some others as well) later and I was a mentally and emotionally healthier person. I'm still more wary and suspicious of people than most others are but I'll probably always be that way. I was always rather alert and aware of my surroundings but now I pay almost constant attention to what's going on around me and don't allow myself to get distracted. I always check to make sure everything is locked but I don't have to obsessively do it several times through out the day and night.

In February of 2008, my boyfriend had a second stroke. We had been laying in bed. I got up to go smoke a cigarette and he was working on getting up to do the same. I was waiting for him to get up and he started trying to get up, he couldn't move and when he did move up a little off the bed, he fell to the floor. I tried to help him up and asked him if he was okay. He was slurring and not making any sense. I got him up and was asking him what was wrong. He couldn't talk, he kept insisting he would be okay and he fell over again. I ran into the front room and got his mom. She came to the back of the house and checked on him. I said I was going to call 911. He tried to tell me he didn't need help, that he was fine. He kept trying to talk and I wasn't understanding him. He was confused and didn't understand when I tried telling him things. His mother called 911 and told them he was having a stroke and we needed an ambulance. I kept trying to talk to him, he tried pushing me away telling me he was fine. He tried to stand but couldn't move. He kept falling over and had trouble staying balanced enough to sit up straight on his bed. I was terrified he was going to die.

Paramedics arrived. He's 6'8" and not a skinny guy. He's not fat but he's a big guy. They had trouble getting him arranged because they were all barely taller than I am. He was still dazed and uncoordinated but they got him out and got him into the ambulance. One paramedic talked to his mom and she informed them of the medications he was on and a quick medical history including his last stroke. They had me ride in the ambulance with him so I could tell them what happened and so I could answer questions for him if I had to. I only had to answer a few questions and then he was able to talk well enough to talk to them. He didn't remember exactly what was going on though. I called my mom and told her what was going on. Her house was two hours away but her, LS, YB and my cousin (her sister and her family lived in the house next door to my mom's) ended up coming up there anyway and stayed for many hours while we waited to see if he would be okay or not. He had some friends who came to visit him as well.

He was in the hospital for quite a few days after that stroke. They, again, did tons of tests from A to Z and still couldn't find out what was wrong or what had caused him to have another stroke. He saw his neurologist again (he has to see him every few months to do blood work and make sure his medication dosage doesn't need to change) and nothing there either. No one can figure out why my pretty much healthy boyfriend has had two strokes.

This most recent stroke did mess a bit more up. In the hospital, he had friends that came to visit. He had no feeling in most of his left side. Chevelle needed to test the theory and decided to inflict pain on Boyfriend's left thigh. It didn't matter how hard he hit or what he did, Boyfriend didn't feel it. He would feel a faint pressure but nothing else. He would try to hold my hand with his left hand and then get upset, he could perform the function but couldn't feel my hand in his. He got out of the hospital and had to work on things. His doctors and neurologist told him he might be able to regain feeling in his left side but not to count on it. He had a medication he had to get shot with in the stomach. It bruised him horribly and I had to give the shots to him. I didn't mind giving the shots because he needed them and that kind of thing doesn't bother me. I hated seeing the bruises. I hated seeing him upset and frustrated with himself too. He didn't have a lot of control over his left arm and hand. He wouldn't use it at first. Then his neurologist told him he had to work it and had to use it to try and make it functional again. He had trouble doing things as simple as pouring a pitcher of water because he couldn't feel what he was doing, couldn't feel if he had a good grip on it, couldn't feel if he was lifting it or not. He had a little ball to work in his hand to do hand exercises with. He used it and hoped he would be able to feel again on his left side.

Currently, that hasn't changed much. His left leg and thigh are extremely sensitive to heat and cold. If I touch his leg or thigh with chilly hands, he jumps away because it's painful to him, like being stabbed in several places. Same goes for his arm. He did get some strength back in his left arm and he did practice things enough to get used to doing them again. He just has to be careful and pay more attention to what he's doing because he doesn't and won't ever have full use and normal feeling of his left parts again. There are other issues he has from that but I won't go into those.

I know this post is long enough as it is but all of this brings me to the point of sharing all this background. I've left out a lot of hard, trying things we've been through together because these are the biggest issues we've had to get each other through.

This is where I finally get to the "How Important Is Sex Or Lack Of To You In A Serious Relationship" part of the post. I know, you thought I would never get here.


A rather delicate result from Boyfriend's second stroke was that his ability to perform in bed was hindered. He has problems down south that he can't control and it results in us having sex quite a bit less than we used to. Now granted, we used to have sex every day no matter what and twice a day when time permitted and sometimes even three times a day. I like to fuck, a lot. No, we have sex when we can and sometimes that's once a week. I do play with toys, let him use toys on me and we fool around without sex for intimacy and orgasms. Masturbation, finger fucking, oral sex and toy fucking is fun and gets me off but it's not as good as fucking. It's not as close, not as intimate, not as raw and just not as good as the real thing. Having skin to skin contact, being as physically close and connected as you can be. Certain pills he could take that might work would clash with his medications that he has to take every day for the rest of his life to keep him alive and going. Life is more important than fucking. So, I get frustrated at times even though I try not to. It isn't his fault and there's nothing we can do about it for the time being. I enjoy it when we can fuck and when we can't, well that's when the other stuff comes into play. This likely won't ever change either. Which is hard for me because I'll admit, I'm a slut and I might have a slight addiction to sex. I love sex and get physically frustrated, cranky, annoyed and even at times out right bitchy when I'm not getting a regular release. Since losing my virginity, I've never gone very long without getting sex regularly with guys and girls.

May 25th of this year was our 3 year anniversary of actually being together in a serious relationship. If you had told me four years ago when I first met him that I would enter into a relationship where I would only be able to have sex a few times a month, I wouldn't have been in that relationship. If you had told me three years and three months ago that this would happen, I would have probably stayed friends longer with Boyfriend instead of crossing that line with him. Sex was a huge part of my relationships then and not getting it more than a couple times a month would seem insanely unappealing to me.

Thankfully, I've grown up since then. Ask me now. How important is sex to me? Sure, it's important. Sure, it's great wonderful fun and I love it and crave it on a hourly daily basis. It's not more important than what I have with him though. It's not the end of the world because we can't fuck all of the time anymore. We can be intimate in more ways than that. We can still have fun. Yes, it gets frustrating for both of us but we deal with it. It's not the deal breaker that the younger me would have naively and shallowly taken it to be. I think intimacy and sex is an important part of a relationship. It would be nice if we could fuck each other silly all the time still. Intimacy isn't just about fucking though. It's about more than the act. It's feelings and emotions. It's physical closeness. It's cuddling. It's kissing. It's hands running up and down each others naked flesh. Kissing, tongues exploring each others mouths. Tongues gliding across skin licking, flicking and teasing. Lips caressing necks, shoulders and every other inch of skin. Teeth biting, nibbling and grazing. Fingers and tongues sliding in and out of warm, wet places. There's more to intimacy than fucking and more ways to please, tease and pleasure each other.

The person that had originally offered to do this post with me backed out after it had been done. One question she asked me that I still want to use is, have I ever considered cheating on my boyfriend to get what I'm no longer getting from him?

I thought about that. I thought openly and honestly. I would never cheat. I have never cheated. I don't think it's right. I think if you're going to cheat, you might need to reevaluate the relationship you're in. I can confidently and 100% honestly say that I wouldn't cheat on him just because we aren't having sex as often.

Our relationship started off from mutual attraction, common interests and sexual tension. I wanted to fuck him silly shortly after meeting him but I didn't. I thought he wasn't interested in me but that's another story for another day. We've gone through so much in three years together. He's helped me overcome so many hurdles and has helped me calm down and mature a little bit. We've changed each other in ways that we didn't realize until afterward. We've gone through some storms and will probably go through more. We've so far survived and made it through everything I mentioned and everything that I didn't mention as well. We've been tempted and tested. We always come out on top. I love him more than I've ever loved anyone or anything in my entire life. When you look at all we've been through, all we share, the loyalty, the honesty, the laughs, the lust, the desire, the support, every good thing and every bad thing... sex isn't much in comparison to the love, loyalty, respect, encouragement, intimacy and support that he gives me.

If you and your current significant other found yourself in the position where you could only have sex two or three times a month, sometimes a time or two more and sometimes a time or two less; how big of a deal would it be to you?

Happy Thursday!!!!