So Sad Today

by Melissa Broder

  I want to hide from the monotony and darkness of the illness in the levity of something else: something frivolous, something young. I want to feel young, because the illness exacerbates the ten-year age difference between Ron Jeremy and me. I want to feel young, because the illness reminds me that time is passing for me too. I am vain. I’m scared of aging.

  When we had been together for five years, just before we got married, Ron Jeremy and I decided to experiment with nonmonogamy. This wasn’t a direct result of the illness, though I think it played a role. When you’re sick all the time, you want to seize the moments when you are well and squeeze all the juice out of them you can. When your partner is sick, you want frivolous joy.

  Ron Jeremy was going to Rio for a friend’s bachelor party. He told me that there were brothels there, brothels that functioned like clubs. I sort of encouraged him to go. I was like, I really don’t think I would mind if you had that experience. Like, I really felt I would be okay with it. And it turned out I was.

  But I had a question for him. If Ron Jeremy got to go to Rio, and have the full Rio, then what did I get?

  From there we opened our relationship. We weren’t swingers. Not at all. We would have our experiences independently. Also, there were rules. And the rules were different for both of us.

  The rules for Ron Jeremy were that he had to approve with me any possibility of sex before it happened. In the case of Rio, we called it POPC: possibility of paid companionship. Also, he had to tell me all the details after. This gave me a feeling of control. My biggest fear was to be the wife in the dark. I preferred to be the wingman, the locker-room buddy (or in our case, the kitchen buddy).

  Another rule was that any sex for him was to be relegated to out-of-state experiences. I made one exception, once, for a very special New York experience. With this experience, I gave him special dispensation to go in-state. But I limited the terms by giving him just two chances with which to seal the deal. I didn’t want him dating her. I told him that after these two chances were up, regardless of whether he sealed the deal, it would have to be over. He sealed the deal.

  The rules for me were different. I was free to do whatever I wanted with whomever I wanted (aside from, like, a mutual friend) wherever I wanted (aside from, like, our apartment). But Ron Jeremy didn’t want to know about any of it. I could live my life as I so chose and have sex with whomever I chose. But I was to keep my big mouth shut. No going to Ron Jeremy for boy advice (it’s hard not to do this when boys are so elusive, and your husband is a man who might have some answers). No leaving dick pics on the shared computer (oops). I had to keep it to myself.

  Finally, the rules for both of us were that we always practice safe sex and always protect our love. We didn’t elaborate on this last rule, the protecting of the love. But what I think it meant was: Don’t fall in love with anyone else. Don’t leave me.

  The first two years that I was able, or “allowed” to be nonmonogamous, I didn’t act on it. I didn’t think I could handle it emotionally. I have the brain of an addict and the heart of a sixteen-year-old girl. I remembered what I was like in my early twenties, before I’d met Ron Jeremy: attachy, pining, crushy. I felt like I wouldn’t be capable of staying unattached. I would catch feels.

  But after we got married, I didn’t care whether I could handle it. The day after my wedding, I felt depressed. I wasn’t depressed to have married Ron Jeremy. But I was depressed to be a wife. I kept having this thought that everything was over.

  I don’t watch romantic comedies. I didn’t have the illusion that marriage means a happy ending. I knew that marriage wasn’t the end of the movie. It had never really been my dream ending. But that was just it. Marriage had never really been my dream. I was not disappointed so much as confused. What did it mean to be a wife? The word sounded gross to me, so old and finite. I didn’t want it. And so I began.

  Most of the time it went like this: I would be approached by a younger man, or approach a younger man (I liked the younger ones—I already had an older one). I would let him know that I was available or interested. In my approach, I was able to be less than subtle, because having a husband gave me confidence in the face of potential rejection. If I were to be rejected immediately, I wouldn’t feel like I was being rejected by all men. I had a net. Also, men really like sex. I don’t think I was ever rejected.

  But a problem occurred a little further in. If the sex was bad, or if I wasn’t attracted to the person, I would be grossed out, kind of sad, like why am I even doing this? But if the sex was good, if the person was hot, intelligent enough for me to elevate their characteristics in my own head to talent and brilliance, then I wasn’t able to just fuck and move on. I did catch feels.

  There was Hunter, who was the first boy outside my marriage. Hunter taught me not to include my head in the photo when I sent nudes. That was very nice of him. I met Hunter at a holiday party. I thought he was gay, because he worked for Barneys and talked about how big his dick was. But then he said he was great at eating pussy. I was like, Hi.

  Over the course of a month, Hunter and I made out on the street and fucked each other twice in his apartment. He had a big, crooked dick. Also, as foreshadowed, he was great at eating pussy, but I wasn’t relaxed enough to come.

  I obsessed about Hunter, waited for texts from him, writing a narrative in my head that he was a genius art boy (sometimes he made weird videos from his roof), when in fact he was more of an IT person with a penchant for colorful hair dye. One night I invited him to hang out and he said sorry, but he was playing video games by himself. I knew then that this was not safe for me emotionally.

  Then there was Paul from creative writing class, another boy who at first I thought was gay. On the subway platform one night, I asked Paul if he had a boyfriend. Heterosexual, Paul was appalled. The next day he began doggedly pursuing me, posting on my Facebook wall the words I’ll show you hetero. We made out in the street (I like boys who seem gay and making out in the street). He never tried to fuck me though.

  Paul and I texted on and off for months. He was a disappearer. In his disappearances, I obsessed. When I confronted him about his vanishing, he said he couldn’t get involved with a married woman. I don’t know whether he actually was gay or was a boringly conservative straight person or just had good morals, but it wasn’t going to work.

  Then there was Brandon, the motorcycle boy from Long Island, who I met on cougarlife.com. I went on Cougarlife because, while I was only thirty, I think the illness made me feel older. Brandon and I rode around on his motorcycle. We also fucked in his van. I fantasized that I would move out to Long Island and tend the house, while he worked at his auto repair shop. I don’t think that’s what Brandon was looking for.

  There was Adam, who was cute, but into Bukowski, so no.

  There was Tom, who lost his virginity to me. He basically broke my vagina, but I left him with some tips on how to be gentler with the next woman.

  There was Nathan, who I really liked, even though he couldn’t get it up. Nathan never got a full erection yet somehow came in about fifteen seconds.

  There was Matthew, who I made out with in the street to get over Nathan. Then I fell for Matthew.

  There was Ben, a gorgeous twink who is actually gay. We would kiss for hours and talk about existentialism and the boy he liked in California.

  In all of this, I felt like a teen—flitting between excitement and heartbreak, compulsive analysis and gameplaying. What I wanted was both my husband as well as a harem of boys who were totally devoted to me, at my beck and call at all times. That isn’t really fair. Actually, it’s totally fair to want it. You can want whatever you want. But the types of boys who are going to go for a woman with a husband are probably not going to be at your beck and call.

  None of these experiences seemed to jeopardize my marriage in any way. If anything, they made my marriage hotter.

  There is something about a long-term relationship that takes away the ability to see the other pers
on. We stop seeing them as their own entity. We stop seeing them as a possibility, rather than a possession. Or we stop seeing the possibility of them not being there. The gap we have to cross to get to them is no longer there: the gap filled with doubt as to whether we are loved or whether he will text or whether he likes me. We stop fucking in that gap, or fucking from across that gap. We start fucking in some new shared space that we feel we own. Or maybe the shared space is still the gap but we fuck there for so long we stop seeing it.

  But with an open marriage, I was consistently reminded that having sex with my husband, having a husband, was a choice. As these men were separate from me, so too was my husband. I saw them each with new eyes and was reminded that I could see my husband, each time, with new eyes.

  Also, when I knew that Ron Jeremy was having sex with another woman, I would get to envision him the way another woman might envision him. I liked thinking about other women wanting him. It made me want him more.

  The only experience that may have threatened my marriage was with Demetrius. He was my last lover. He was not like the other boys. Demetrius and I did not flame out quickly. We went on for a year, sexting and sending romantic emails from across the country, meeting up in hotel rooms in New York. The communication, the sex, and our connection were spiritual. I felt so connected to him, so consumed by my thoughts of him, that it made me question the truth of my marriage.

  I struggled with compartmentalizing Demetrius and Ron Jeremy. It’s hard to compare the person you see once every three months with the person you see every day. It’s hard to compare the person you don’t really know with the person you’ve been with for eleven years. The rarer person starts to look better. You don’t see his flaws. He only shows you his best self.

  Such was the case with Demetrius. I would see his most amazing side in a fantasy bubble that we constructed. Then he was gone again, and in his absence I would imagine an even more amazing Demetrius. Questions arose for me as to why what I had with Ron Jeremy didn’t feel like what I felt for Demetrius. Like, why didn’t my love for Ron Jeremy excite and titillate me like my new romance with Demetrius? Intellectually, I understood. But emotionally, the questions consumed me.

  I think that even if I were single, it would be hard to compartmentalize my longing for Demetrius. That longing was an all-consuming longing. It made me wonder why the rest of my life, all of it, didn’t sparkle like that.

  Despite his request that I keep my private life private, I came clean to Ron Jeremy. I told him that I had fallen for someone. Or, as he put it, You let your sidebitch settle in. We decided, after five years of open marriage, to be monogamous. I didn’t think I had the strength to break it off with Demetrius otherwise. If you are nonmonogamous, why would you?

  It feels safer to talk openly about open marriage on this side of it. I felt that when I talked about my marriage as open, I was perceived by my straight female friends either as crazy or too idealistic or in denial. Maybe some people find it threatening—that their husbands could have desires they are not addressing. That they, themselves, might have desires that they are not addressing. That “the way things are,” the status quo, doesn’t have to be the way things are.

  People have affairs all the time and this could be a viable alternative to monogamy. An open relationship doesn’t mean all the doors fly off the things and there are no rules. It doesn’t have to be an orgy. You don’t have to be a 1970s swinger on a cruise ship or living on a commune in Oregon growing hemp to try this. People who look like me are trying this.

  The gays, of course, understood. My gay friends loved my open relationship. I was considered “French” and “evolved”—a beacon in the straight world. When I told my friends that Ron Jeremy and I were monogamous again, the straight ones said congratulations! The gays seemed disappointed.

  I doubt that Ron Jeremy and I will be monogamous forever. Our relationship continues to evolve. Monogamy vs. open is one question that will always be up for discussion. His health may be a factor in considering whether to remain monogamous or open it up again. But it won’t be the only factor.

  Yes, having an open marriage can be a comfort, a defense mechanism, when I feel that my marriage, because of Ron Jeremy’s health, will never look like my friends’ marriages. I feel like, well okay, I can’t have that. I probably wouldn’t even want that, in the case of husbands and wives who do everything together, from the gym to grocery shopping. But look what I can have. But I also think that some people, like myself and Ron Jeremy, are uncomfortable with the traditional picture of marriage. Maybe we do better when we see each other simply as beloveds.

  Los Angeles has been good to Ron Jeremy and me. It’s easier to be a sick person in Los Angeles than in New York. LA allows for more mobility, when weakened. Also, as a sick person on the street, it’s better not to have crowds of people pushing toward you. We originally moved here hoping that the weather would help him get well. While the LA sun has not been a cure, he has more of a life.

  Recently, we went to a Jewish deli, where Ron Jeremy ordered an exorbitant amount of food, including a knish, which I told him not to get. The next day he complained about being fat. I was like, I told you not to get the knish. He said that would be a good title for an essay about marriage.

  I walk into the kitchen and I kiss Ron Jeremy with an open mouth. I kiss him with an open mouth, as though he is not my husband. Or I kiss him as though he is my husband, but that the words husband and wife mean something else—not what I have perceived them to mean through my own fears.

  In this moment I resolve to kiss my husband with an open mouth forever. I want to freeze him the way I see him in this instant: dark eyebrows, sexy, sleepy hair and sleepy eyes. But we can’t freeze the way that we see the people we love, as much as we would wish. I know that I will kiss my husband with a closed mouth again, at some point. I know that I will even kiss him with a closed heart.

  I pray for our love. I pray that even if I kiss my husband with a closed heart, my heart opens again to him. When I desire my husband, I am grateful to desire my husband. What can we hope for in a marriage but to keep seeing things anew? With the people we love, it is so easy to stop seeing them at all.

  Under the Anxiety Is Sadness but Who Would Go Under There

  I’VE ALWAYS HAD GENERAL ANXIETY, and later came panic disorder. But it took me many years before I realized there was depression underneath the anxiety. They are the flip side of the same coin. I never identified as depressed, despite the fact that all along there was an ocean of sadness, disappointment, hopelessness, and nothingness inside me. I think the anxiety was a coping mechanism; its heightened sensations, as terrifying as they are, were in some way preferable to me than the depression underneath.

  As a little kid I took fearful thoughts to a greater extreme more than most kids, I think. If a parent got sick, it was cancer. If I got something in my eye, the cornea would be scratched forever. A sprained ankle on a school trip definitely meant an amputated foot. I was dying and everyone I loved was dying, which was true, of course, but it wasn’t happening as quickly as I thought.

  There was no specific event that triggered the anxiety for me. Rather, the anxiety was always there, floating, looking for something to land on. Any minor event could serve as a seed, which, when nurtured with the anxiety, grew into a scary thought. The seed event would ground my fear, rendering it tangible. For someone with anxiety, dramatic situations are, in a way, more comfortable than the mundane. In dramatic situations the world rises to meet your anxiety. When there are no dramatic situations available, you turn the mundane into the dramatic.

  My anxiety found a steady focus when I began having nightmares about fires at age twelve. I repeatedly dreamt that my family was burning in our home and that it was up to me to save them. Nightmares turned into daydreams and visions. I made my mother store the family’s fire ladder in my bedroom and learned how to assemble it, plotting an escape route for the family out the second-floor windows. I knew how I would bre
ak the windows—the furniture that I would throw through them—should my hallucinations become a reality.

  I’m not exactly sure why my anxiety chose fire to fixate on, rather than flood, hurricane, earthquake, or other myriad natural disasters. From a poetic standpoint, fire depicts passion, sexuality, and a destruction that leads to renewal. I was coming into my sexual feelings, masturbating regularly and crushing on boys, and perhaps I felt that my desires would destroy my family. Perhaps I felt ashamed. From a nonpoetic standpoint, fire is an easy place for anxiety to live, because it is both a visually striking and painful death.

  When I was thirteen, my anxiety shifted its focus to the Holocaust. As a Jewish girl, I had Holocaust images shoved down my throat from a very young age so that I would “never forget.” There was the time in Hebrew school when our principal called us all into the assembly room and turned out all the lights. He then began smashing glass bottles on the ground, so as to “simulate the experience” of Krystallnacht. There was the youth group trip where the older kids locked us in a cabin and let us know the cabin was Auschwitz now and we would not be allowed to leave. Ever. There were my Zionist grandparents who warned of neo-Nazi risings in Europe. There was also Tanya, the woman who helped my mother clean the house. Tanya liked to talk about a 20/20 special she saw about the KKK. She said that the Holocaust could absolutely happen again. It could and would happen here.

  I had visions of the Gestapo coming to my home. I saw my family separated. I saw my mother and father put on a train, bound for separate camps. I saw my sister and me huddled together in straw in one bunk. She was skinny and dying.

  Tanya said that she would hide me when the Holocaust came again. That was nice of her. But I was hiding from myself. I was deeply miserable about my delayed onset of puberty: my baby fat, the absence of any tits at all, my lack of menstrual cycle. Also, I was hiding from school and from my female circle of school friends, who had decided over the summer that I was no longer cool enough to be spoken to. The anxiety and friend rejection fed off each other. When I did speak to the group of my former friends, I was fearful that I was unliked. So I would say something and then laugh weirdly, right after what I said, which made me further unworthy.