Page 101 of My Husband Problem

She lifts a shoulder. “I’ve always had some pelvic pain going clear back to high school. And once I was sexually active, it would be a little bit of an issue sometimes. But the fall, the spinal irritation, the fractures, and all of the inflammation and surgeries and everything have definitely made everything eventighter and more sensitive. Plus, there’s definitely a mental aspect to it. All those months of pain and dysfunction in that area make me subconsciously associate touch, movement, and pressure there with pain and bad things. But it’s getting a lot better. Thea has helped me so much.”

She actually tries to smile at me. As if trying to make me feel better.

This woman shouldn’t have to make anyone else feel better about anything.

What I know about her injury is bad enough. To know that she had chronic pain beforehand that got worse, pain that has made something that is supposed to be one of the most pleasurable things in life into something to panic over makes my stomach knot.

Painful sex, or being unable to have sex at all, would obviously make someone nervous if they were forced into a marriage.

“What do you need?” I ask her.

Please be hungry. Please be fucking hungry so I can feed you. That’s something I can easily take care of.

She shrugs. “Um…well…maybe we could go home?”

Yes. I can do that. I can take her home.Thank you, God.

“Definitely.”

But I have to do more. I have to takecareof her. I have to make things better. Somehow. Clearly there’s only so much I can do, but I will do everything I can.

Thea gives us wide-eyed looks on the way out, but Astrid gives her a big smile on the way out as if everything is great.

I’m sure my expression is closer to how people look on their way to the guillotine.

It’s not that I need to have sex with Astrid to be happy.

Oh, I fuckingwantto have sex with Astrid. Of course.

But I can be content with my hand just as I have been for the past year and eight months.

I can live with this woman for the rest of my life and be happy just to take care of her and see her smile.

But that’s the thing.

She has to let me live with her.

And she has to let me take care of her.

Somehow.

I have to make her happy and make her life better. Period. I. Have. To.

Even before we married, I had an instinctual need to care for her. I’ve felt that way about all of my siblings and hers since I left Cara. It’s been my single driving force.

Then Astrid got hurt, and it got amped up for her.

Then she almost married someone else, and I became a man obsessed.

Once she was my wife, there was no way I could be any other way.

And now that we’re in the same zip code again, and I’ve seen her happy and discovering who she is in this town with these people, I can’t change.

If I am destined to be abstinent from here on, then that’s how it will be.

I can also absolutely love her and take care of her from a distance if that’s what she wants.

I’ve been doing that for almost two years now.