Harumi and I had been married for twelve years. We had met and married in Japan in the early 90’s, then moved the States the following year. We had our only child, a boy named Andy, 9-months later. Ironically, we conceived him the night we arrived in America.

It was 2005, and we were living just north of Raleigh, North Carolina. Harumi was a stay-at-home mother, and I worked for a small technology startup in Research Triangle Park, designing video streaming technology.

In the early years of our marriage and back before that when we were dating, my wife and I had a very active and adventurous sex life. We had sex practically every day, sometimes two or three times. We would do it everywhere and anywhere, including in public locations. She would dress sexily and liked to show off her body, even flashing people now and then. She had expressed a long list of sexual fantasies, and we had tried out many of the tamer ones. We’d even attended some swinger parties, but never really did much, just watched, got horny and fucked at home.

Then she got pregnant. That put a significant damper on things, but she was still the horny, dirty little minx with whom I had fallen in love. That all changed, the day she gave birth. It was like she flipped a switch and went from being a sexpot to a teapot. She was in primary “mom” mode, and that would last until our divorce ten-years-later.

She didn’t want to have sex at all after the birth of our son. It took about a year before she would even allow me to touch her that way. After that, it was always one excuse after another. If I were lucky, I’d get to have sex with her once a month.

Handjobs and blowjobs were out of the question. I was allowed to kiss her, feel her tits, suck on them, rub her pussy, lick it, and fuck her. Anything else would result in her getting mad and ending the session. It also got to the point where the only position allowed was her on top.

She claimed my cock was too big for her tiny Asian body. It hurt to have sex. She didn’t even really want to be fingered, as that hurt too, so she said. Then an alarming trend started for a while. We would make out; she’d get horny. I’d go down on her and she would cum. Then she’d say, “Ok, I’m done. Good night.” No boom boom for Bam Bam.

Over time, it got less and less frequent. I would try to touch her, or made advances, and she would push me away and say, “No!”. If I tried to romance her, she’d say, “You only try to be romantic so I will fuck you.” So, I quit trying. Instead of a month between fucks, it became three, then six, then a year, then three years, then it just stopped. I would try, but she never would do it.

So, for a long time, I thought it was temporary. It was her hormones or something. Then, I thought maybe it was me. I changed my behavior, my attitude, my level of presence with her. She didn’t want me to pay attention to her, hang out with her or be attentive. She would watch TV in the bedroom, and I would watch in the family room. In spite of all this, I was home almost always. I didn’t go out with friends or fool around. I was home with her; we just weren’t really together.

Oh, and we fought a lot. That’s an understatement. We fought all the time. She was always moody and looking to pick fights over the dumbest shit. I didn’t know better, and I would take the bait, and we’d start yelling and screaming. Usually, we’d get pissed and go to our separate rooms, but about once a month, she wouldn’t quit. She’d just get angrier and angrier, driving up her level of bitch until she was foaming at the mouth.

Her eyes would bug out, she’d scream with veins popping out in her face and neck and cry as she hurled insult after insult, all in Japanese. Quite often she would get violent and attack me, slapping me, kicking me. I never retaliated. I would just let her vent and then she’d storm off to her room, or worse, get in her car and take off to a hotel. Well, maybe not worse, at least when she did that I could just sleep.

Afterward, she would calm down and seem embarrassed, maybe even remorseful. She would become a sweet, gentle cuddle bunny, but again without sex. This would last about a day, and then the cycle would begin all over again. I knew she had issues. I figured she was bi-polar, but looking into her childhood and early years before we met revealed things that were maybe even darker, like borderline personality, possible schizophrenia and at least one attempted suicide.

I tried to get her to see a doctor. She refused. I wanted to get her to see a therapist. She refused. I tried to get her to attend couples counseling with me. She refused.

It wasn’t all bad. In her manic moods, she was a lot of fun and great to be around. She loved to party with our friends and neighbors but tended to over drink, which didn’t take much. Many times, we would go out to dinner with friends, and after two glasses of wine, she would be lit. After three, she would be close to a blackout.

Nobody else ever really saw it or figured it out. I did. I knew. I could tell. Then, when we would come home, the instant she was inside the house, she would lose her shit. I don’t mean get angry. I mean she would show the effects of the alcohol ... stagger, fall down, crawl, pee on the floor, puke and pass out.

Yes, I said pee on the floor. The first time she did it, I thought it was funny. We had been out and had a few drinks. We came home, fairly uneventful. This was in the early days, while still in Japan. I didn’t know what to expect, so she was “happy,” is what I thought. We got home, closed the door and “pow.” She was hammered. I had to carry her, dead weight, to bed and get her undressed.

No sooner had I got her in the bed that she declared, “Oshiko-shtai!” [I need to pee!]. She got out of bed, staggered, leaning sideways, across the room to the bathroom. The bathroom was inside the master suite, with a large open entrance. You just walked in, turned left to reach the toilet. If you stopped short and turned left, you would go into the walk-in closet. Well, I was watching her and ... yep ... she went into the closet.

I laughed and got up to go help her. When I got to the closet, she was squatting in exactly the place where the toilet would have been, if she had gone into the bathroom instead of the closet. She was directly over an expensive cashmere sweater that was folded up and laying on the floor. I yelled, “Dame dayo! Soko de Oshiko shinai de!” [Don’t do it! Don’t pee there!”]

Too late.

Well, so much for that sweater.

We joked about that for years. But, then she did it again. And again. And again.

It stopped being funny the second time.

My son came to me one day and said something very mature. He said, “Dad if you want to divorce Mom, I get it. She’s crazy. She treats you really badly. I won’t blame you if you do, but if you do, can I live with you?”

To be honest, I never considered divorce. I think a part of her was trying to push me to divorce her. She was deliberately sabotaging our relationship, pushing me as far as she could possibly push me. She either was wanting me to divorce her or as David Deida says in his book The Way of the Superior Man, which I had not read back then, that she was testing me to see if I would still love her in spite of her behavior.

So, I even thought, maybe it is me. Maybe I’m the problem. Maybe I suck at sex and don’t know how to treat a woman or get one off. I had been extremely sexual my entire life and had many lovers before my wife. I got off on getting women off and remembered so many times having the most amazing sex, but even so, I started to think maybe I’d lost my touch.

So, I may as well come clean and confess my sins. So, between the constant rejection, the lack of sex for years, the constant fighting and attacks the peeing on the floor and the growing doubt of my sexual talents ... I cheated. I cheated several times.

And I figured out; it wasn’t me. I was still in good shape. I was still as handsome as ever. I still had game to seduce women, get them in bed and spend hours making them cum over and over. It helped my poor wilted ego immensely.

It didn’t help my relationship.

So, one weekend we were having a “good day.” She was in a reasonably good mood all day. We were invited to my boss’ house for a wine-tasting / barbecue party. We’d been over to his once or twice over the past couple of years. His parties were always fun.

It started out well. I kept an eye on her and made sure she drank plenty of water between glasses of wine. We were not attached at the hip. She was often in one room, and I was in another. There were a lot of people there, many we knew, many we didn’t. She was often in the kitchen with several of the wives, including my boss’ wife. I was often outside on the patio with the men.

I would periodically go by and make sure she was ok. I mean, I loved her dearly, in spite of her ... being her. She was handling the booze fine, not overdoing it.

It was summer and the days were long, so it was around eight in the evening. The sun was getting low, and I was outside on the patio, drinking whiskey with some of the guys. My boss Jake had been there, sharing cigars with us, but went inside to get more. When he didn’t come back, I thought I’d go check on my wife.