While I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis over 13 years ago, it was only a minor inconvenience until the last few months. I have always been a physical worker as a construction worker and country folk.
Now I have become “disabled” due to MS damage to my spinal cord. I have lost hand strength, dexterity, and coordination. My legs are very disorganized and lack the ability to walk or hold myself up without a cane.
This means that ALL of the “manly” things I have done for our entire relationship now have to be handled by my wife. Short of the twig and berries, she has become the husband in addition to being the wife in our home. Kudos to her for picking up the slack that I’ve had to leave and still sticking it out with our relationship.
Considering the irrational level of guilt that I subject myself to over a disability that I have zero control over, I try to be as supportive as I can to my wife. This does not, however, translate in to a positive self image for myself. When I walk, it looks like I’m moments from passing out drunk blended with the stereotypical zombie shuffle after the zombie was hit with a truck and shot. Simply stated, I look stupid and feel stupid in the way that I walk.
The excessive level of stupidity in my gait and lack of any physical prowess has made me feel as far from sexy as humanly possible. Then comes those words just nonchalantly rolling off my wife’s tongue about 45 minutes before bed: “Wanna get freaky tonight?”
“Sure” is the only appropriate response I can muster in this encounter on this particular night. If I turn her down for any reason (except death) surely she would be justified in finding physical satisfaction elsewhere someday. Honestly, I love my wife so damn much, I want the absolute best of everything for her. She deserves a husband that can financially take care of her, afford to pay for IVF treatments so she can have babies, and physically take care of her.
10% of my response is self serving pleasure seeking for myself. 90% is a desire to satisfy my wife because; a) she deserves to feel good and be sexually satisfied, and b) to turn down a woman for sex is devastating to their sexual identity and consequences will be dealt for weeks, months, years, and I suspect decades to come. My wife remembers shit that hasn’t even happened yet, so turning her “get freaky” invite down, regardless of my mental state, is not a good idea.
I am acutely aware of how not sexy I am. From my drunken hit by a truck zombie stagger, to my pathetically slow and awkward disrobing routine, I kill my own mood, I can only imagine what it does for her.
I won’t go into details about our encounter per se. I will let it be known that if someone has little strength and control in their legs, arms, hands, and core, it’s not a good idea to “put them in charge” in bed. It winds up being frustrating for both parties involved. Once positions are changed and we figure out what we are doing like we were first timers all over again, we proceed, then conclude, both satisfied.
I recognize there is not any sex appeal left in me. My speech is often garbled, my limbs twitch erratically at weird intervals, I quickly run out of breath, and I’m constantly self conscious about all of this which takes me out of the moment. Recognizing that I needed to up my game, I attempted something that I’ve only managed to accomplish a few times in my life. From the moment I shuffled in to the bedroom, knowing what the intention was, I passed no gas from either end of my digestive system. Sadly, the sexiest I can be, revolves around my ability to concentrate and focus on not burping or dropping a raunchy wind biscuit prior to, during, and in the moments after sex. For all it was worth I had not one slip up. I tried taking solace in the fact that this is my new reality and having been successful, I did feel a fuzz better about our new relationship dynamics.
Then, in a twilight zone twist of irony, the dull murmur of afterglow is shattered by my wife’s long, deep, toe curling, juicy belch. Before the shock on my face can fade, she follows with what I thought was a weird Heisman Trophy pose to celebrate a sexually satisfied touchdown, only to hear an equally deep and juicy call back to her belch, but from her ass. It is official: my wife has become her own husband and my new plan to phase myself out of her life is coming along nicely.
–The Twisted Cripple
Inside a Broken Brain 