I am having negative feelings about being married and about having children. This is because I feel that I have not
achieved personal milestones that would have been achievable when not in a relationship. The main one is living in my own
place for longer and setting up a technology rich environment that involves especially audio but also visual and computing
technology. I also have not had many s** partners and feel that I never had a period where I could have s** with
multiple partners. I perceive this to be an enjoyable thing to do, due to the repeated novelty and excitement that this
might bring. I feel that my s******** involves a liberal and fascinated view of s**, and I have not been able to explore this.
I am not sure if my wife’s lack of desire for s** contributes to this anxiety, but it is a repeated, sometimes constant source
of anxiety for me. I often think that if I wasn’t married I would get a vassectomy
to preserve my freedom, prevent exploitation from women claiming that I got them pregnant and to fully realise my ideological
hesitation in having children. This hesitation stems from a persistently negative view that the world is becoming an
increasingly depressing place, both in terms of human behaviour and the destruction of natural beauty, which I perceive
to be the most pure form of beauty on this earth. I am afraid that my children, through the process of coming to reflect
the world in which they live, may become abhorrent to me. The only place I feel truly at home and safe is when I’m by myself,
which is a state I have enjoyed in the past while I was single. My wife is the only person I have been with for any
significant period of time: all other relationships were short-lived and were ended by me. I am often self-critical of
this pattern, accusing myself to be a user of women who wants physical intimacy and the niceness associated with not being
alone. However, my patterns of thinking always make me wistful for solitude. I stayed with my wife after numerous
attempts to end the relationship resulted in her overwhelming sadness, and out of love for her I came back. I have always
loved her a great deal, however cannot find happiness because life without her sounds miserable, even though life in the
confines of a relationship makes me miserable now. I promised her children and married her with the hope that s** would
return, and that our shared direction in life would provide more fulfilment. However, my same patterns of thought have
remained, and there is still no physical intimacy in our relationship. It is my wife’s expectation that we move to a
different state soon to pursue her career, and a new life together. My suspicion is that she wishes to seperate me from
things that are part of my identity that do not involve her (family, friends and hobbies). I don’t feel any joy in seeing
friends and family any more, and the things I used to enjoy (reading, golfing, listening to music and going out with friends)
are no longer enjoyable due to the baseline anxiety that permeates my life. I feel hopeless and think constantly of death,
and my mortality bothers me to an extent that I alternate between feelings of hopelessness of the finite nature of life,
coupled with anger at my christian upbringing promising eternal life after death; a fate that my belief system and
personality cannot accept as truth. I see myself on a trajectory that puts me on a trajectory toward my death that involves
progressive loss of youthfulness coupled with increasing cynicism and feelings of isolation and helplessness. I am
constantly melancholic, and any feelings of nostalgia are accompanied by sadness, as I can feel the uncaring passage of
time and feel bad for those whose youth is passed; those whom the world no longer cares about (and those who I am destined
to join without fail).
In terms of things that make me hopeful, I believe that people increasingly achieve milestones at an increasingly younger
age, and that I may have been ambushed by what was once known as a midlife crisis during my early thirties instead. I
also recognise that my thought patterns, although real and tangible, are pervasive and that I cannot turn the negativity
around no matter how I try. This recognition of flawed thinking makes me hopeful that I can figure things out. I should
not be focusing on my death, because as soon as it happens I won’t care a s***. I am hopeful that I can discover life-
affirming thoughts that will get rid of the baseline anxiety that I seem to carry with me everywhere these days. The
preoccupation with death will not result in suicide – I am confident that I lack the ability to self-harm. Rather,
the constant cardiovascular changed bought about by stress may be my undoing in terms of a hypertensive stroke or a heart
attack. And, ultimately, I believe that I have an abundance of first world problems. When you strip away all of the
negative feelings about my marriabge, that are there because giving your life to someone is a huge gamble (that she took also),
I love her in a massive way. I’m frightened by how much I love her, as the power of this emotion is so profound, it has
knocked me off what I perceive to be my ideal life course. I love my brother, mother, father and cousins; and I love my
friends. A biological imperative makes women draw their men away from these things to assume their role as a father in a
family, for the good of the children. I have too much in my life to care about, and I am defined by my fear of losing any
of it. Maybe it’s a touch of OCD also, that I can’t be the master of all of these things down to the finest detail anymore,
even though my wife gets to indulge hers. It’s unfair. I used to be happy and now I’m not, and I’m sure this is doing me
damage. The scars from this damage are an investment in life, and I do have a desire to make them count for something
special.
Anyway, it’s time to be off to my job as a shift working intensive care nurse, to watch people die and to watch families
in states of severe stress, and to watch patients suffer horribly. On my way I’ll listen to the death metal that I love,
then I’ll eat unhealthy food at work which will keep me overweight. I wonder if these other factors are contributing to
the way I am these days? I just want to find an anchor in life and start swimming and stop drowning.
thanks for reading -anon.
