He started to caress her again, at first still with his thoughts on their conversation, but when her body began to respond, she nestled against him, he felt the pain of that other wound, that he didn't even know how she experienced their physical relationship. It seemed like she was seeking safety now. He decided not to force anything, confessing to himself that, in fact, he had always done so.

Something suddenly came to his mind: "Oh Elly, there's something else, that also comes from my christian upbringing. About having sex, making love and so… There is something in one of Paul's letters, that you must not withhold that from one another, except by mutual consent, to devote yourself to prayer. Well, I don't believe anymore, and we've never prayed in our marriage, but those first words, not withholding from each other, have come into my system as a conviction that making love is an obligatory number, and that I have a right to it. That as a man I have a right to have sex with you, my wife, whenever I want. It doesn't say that literally, but the church has misused that text, in combination with the command to conceive children, so the husband's duty, to give the man a free pass to use his wife. It's the man's duty... And because of that, it became something of mine. To put it very bluntly, I was only using you to cum and conceive our children!

Damn it!" he suddenly shouted out. "This is too bad to say! Is that what love looks like? I took you as a utensil to satisfy my physical desires. Self-gratification but different. Self-gratification in your body instead of in my hands. I loathe it!"

To Elly's horror, he started to cry violently loud. She had never experienced Martin like this before. He shouted angrily at his own behavior as he cried, until it changed to an intensely sad crying. Elly acted instinctively, stroking his hair, his back, wiping the tears from his cheeks with her other hand, after which the next stream immediately took their place.

Sobbing, he shared his sense of despair that came to the surface, "I broke you Elly, I never wanted it, but I broke you! I never gave you what you needed! I wasn't there for you... I wasn't there for you! I... I... oh, how horrible this is!"

Elly continued to caress him. When he calmed down, she replied, "We are at a crossroads now Martin, and we have chosen to go that other way. To go together, to seek each other. And you've made such a good start on that...thank you dear."

She took his face in both her hands and kissed his wet cheeks, "It's going to be okay Martin, really. If it's okay with you, I'd like to talk to Annerieke about it, ask her questions, how we can get closer to each other. I think she could help us, don't you?"

Martin blew his nose noisily before answering. "I do think that's sneaky, getting her involved."

"Honey, it's not to hang out the dirty laundry huh, it's to share our desire for change with her. Does that feel better?"

Shaky from his crying he shot up laughing, "You learn fast, and yes, it does feel better, do it. I'll try not to feel myself discussed as dirty laundry."

Now it was Elly's turn to burst into laughter. "If those feelings are there, I'm sure there's a reason for that. Doesn't that have everything to do with guilt?"

"Yes, indeed. That whole religion is pretty much based on guilt, and our country has been as christian as the pope, so our society is steeped in thinking in right and wrong, and with the accompanying guilt and shame... and slavery, yes, slavery just the same, just look in history, slavery in the big picture, often called out by the church leaders. And just look at our marriage, slavery in miniature."

"So you could say, the whole mess is not your fault and my fault, but the fault of that faith, and of all those people before us who got so caught up in it, that they started living out of it, whether they were christians or not. It is exactly the same in my family, even though they are not christians at all. So it really does seem to permeate the whole of society, horrible!"

"Yes," Martin nodded, "that's absolutely true... Talk to Annerieke about it tomorrow, I think that's a good idea anyway. I'd love to hear from you afterwards how she reacted, if she has any tips or something."

To chapter 93. Blocked in making love

Or to the Table of contents