As time moves on, I find myself reflecting on this that happened. One of them came to my mind today…

When my husband moved out, I helped him set up all his electrical stuff – TV, Blu-ray, broadband, etc. At times was difficult, because there weren’t any instructions with the internet and we couldn’t read the password on the secrets card. I have no idea how non-technical people are supposed to do it.

While I was working, I noticed a rather sexy Latino guy background image on his phone. I asked if he’d forward it to me.

At one point, he started getting a message from Google that his safe-search settings were controlled by an administrator. That took quite a bit of investigation to work out that it was a setting on the Sky broadband router.

“There!” I said, “you can now watch yer porn!”

“Why’d you say it like that?!” He retorted.

That stung and I was confused, not thinking that I’d said it in any way other than playfully. I suppose we’re both kinda anxious and hypersensitive at the moment, so I let it go.

Later, he was clearly pissed off at me: “I find it really uncomfortable when you letch over other men! I’m not ready for that yet.”  Yep. Pissed off. “Especially when you’re not into me.”

Maybe I am being insensitive. But it was a sexy guy on his phone. And the only reason he needed safe search removed was so that he could watch porn.

Many years ago, in one of our many couples counselling sessions, he complained about me looking at sexy guys online. I think it was worse for him because we were struggling sexually – and my difficulties around these kind of high-stakes conversations make any kind of talk impossible. I really feel  that his off-the-deep-end reactions didn’t help us resolve anything and just added to my anxiety around talking and sex.

After that counselling session, I did what I always did: I changed my behaviour to avoid the problem … and I believe that I buried my sexuality and gender issues still further. I only ever used tame images of my husband as my backgrounds. He continued to use hot guys.

Is there an element of unfairness there?

He also accused me of being a prude. I most certainly was not! But that was his perception and I do not know where it really came from – perhaps just insecurities on both our parts.

I thought that doing some shared ogling (after all, I was drooling over a man he also fancied), might start us being able to talk about sex together. Perhaps not.

I was not feeling inclined to try talking about sex with him then. He is still an attractive guy, but I cannot imagine ever feeling relaxed enough with him to have sex ever again.

I am sick of talking and it always being STRESS!

It feels like a strong reminder to me of why we had to separate.