{"id":2992,"date":"2014-04-22T10:30:28","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T14:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/?p=2992"},"modified":"2016-07-10T13:27:55","modified_gmt":"2016-07-10T17:27:55","slug":"tantrum-no-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/?p=2992","title":{"rendered":"Tantrum No. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I continue with the short\u00a0summary<\/strong><\/a> of my demented life<\/strong> with Derek,<\/strong> and since I keep referring to his abusive behavior,<\/strong> I thought I\u2019d post about one of his Childish\u00a0tantrums.<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s a particularly<\/em> bad one,<\/strong> one of the worst, <\/strong>about 16 months <\/strong>into our life together.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s \u201cNo. 1\u201d<\/strong> because it\u2019s the first<\/strong> one I\u2019m writing about, certainly not the first one chronologically,<\/strong> or the last<\/strong>. I wish. <\/em>There were so\u00a0many.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In July of 2010, two weeks after I made the irreversible decision<\/strong> to give up my housing subsidy<\/strong> and move in with Derek,<\/strong> we went to Hillside<\/a>,<\/strong> the gay campground<\/strong> in NE Pennsylvania, to check out Bear Weekend.<\/strong> It was sold out,<\/strong> so we got a hotel room relatively close by and bought day passes<\/strong> for the campground. There were some people we knew there and we stayed on the grounds most of the day,<\/strong> leaving to get some dinner and take a nap. For the most part, we had a great time<\/strong> and there were a lot of really good-looking men.<\/strong> Since it was a Saturday, there were parties all over the grounds<\/strong> and we wandered from place to place, hanging out<\/strong> and talking to people.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We drank all day.<\/strong> And I mean all day.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

After dark a lot of the men go down to the \u201cdisco\u201d<\/strong> to continue drinking and socializing.<\/strong> It seems to me there were several hundred guys<\/strong> there. There were only a few<\/strong> inside on the dance floor, so almost all<\/strong> of the men were outside.<\/p>\n

To get to the bathroom, we had to walk though a large covered area, open on three sides, with picnic tables. After one of his piss breaks<\/strong> Derek sat back down and told me there was a man\u00a0naked, on all-fours<\/strong>\u00a0on one of of the tables with an open can of Crisco\u00ae<\/strong> next to him! (Bear Weekend is one of several weekends during which Hillside\u2019s nudity and public sex policy<\/strong> is \u201crelaxed.\u201d<\/strong>) He appeared to find it amusing,<\/strong> and I said \u201cOh really? Let\u2019s go look!\u201d<\/strong> We walked up to the bench and had a look. I then I retreated<\/strong> to the wall to see if anything was going to happen.<\/p>\n

Something happened<\/strong> alright\u2026in Derek\u2019s head.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He picked up the can of Crisco\u00ae, threw it at my feet,<\/strong> and screamed \u201cThis is what you really<\/em> want!!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Long-time readers of this blog (all two of you!) know that I was very into fisting<\/strong> for some years. I hadn\u2019t done it for a long while, even before I met Derek, and I\u2019d told him numerous<\/strong> times, truthfully, that I didn\u2019t care if I ever did it again.<\/strong> It was something I enjoyed,<\/strong> and it certainly brought the men to the yard,<\/strong> so it was good to have on my sexual menu at the time.<\/em><\/strong> I was<\/em> still on the Handball List,<\/strong> an email list for guys into fisting. The list was mostly dead,<\/strong> with only\u00a0one or two messages a week,<\/strong> and I read it because I was\u00a0amused<\/strong>\u00a0by the obsessiveness<\/strong> of some of the men on the list. They\u2019re a strange group.<\/strong>\u00a0The fact that I was ever<\/em><\/strong> into it remained a bug in Derek\u2019s brain.<\/strong> In fact, my entire<\/em> sexual past,<\/strong> including thegloryhole.net<\/strong> and this blog<\/strong> in particular, bothered him.<\/strong> He wanted me to delete highstrungloner.com<\/strong> and<\/em> my ten-year collection of dirty pictures completely<\/em>. <\/strong>("None of those guys look like me!<\/em><\/strong>"<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>I'm not even kidding.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>) I refused.<\/strong>\u00a0I always replied that I wasn\u2019t ashamed of my sexual history\u00a0and I wouldn\u2019t hide it.<\/strong>]<\/p>\n

Anyway, I was utterly shocked<\/strong> when the Crisco\u00ae came flying my way.<\/strong>\u00a0(And I do<\/em><\/strong> appreciate how\u00a0totally hilarious<\/strong> this is. It\u2019s, in a way, a funny<\/strong> story to tell.) Despite being quite drunk,<\/strong> I kept my wits<\/strong> and went back to where we had been sitting.\u00a0Derek was relentless.<\/strong> He insisted<\/strong><\/em> that I was still into fisting and, somehow, this fantasy<\/strong> of his was a reflection of my feelings about him<\/strong>\u2014in a negative<\/strong><\/em> way, of course. He got louder and louder.<\/strong> I was mortified.<\/strong> He kept going on about the Handball List<\/strong> in a ridiculous,\u00a0accusatory<\/strong> way, demanding<\/strong> that I unsubscribe.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Public scenes<\/strong> are something that I won\u2019t tolerate.<\/strong> I just will not<\/em> be \u201cthat<\/em> couple,\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0so\u00a0I told Derek I was leaving.<\/strong> He\u00a0dangled\u00a0the car keys<\/strong> in my face. Really.<\/strong> I didn\u2019t care; I\u2019d walk<\/strong> if I had to. He followed<\/strong> me through the crowd,\u00a0still screaming like a lunatic.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Someone must have called Security<\/strong> because we were approached and asked to leave.<\/strong> "Oh, believe me, I\u2019m leaving!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

"Oh great," I thought. \u201cNow we\u2019ll never be allowed back.<\/strong>\u201d Wonderful.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was more drama<\/strong> when we got to the car and he wouldn\u2019t let me in<\/strong> at first. I didn\u2019t\u00a0say a word.<\/strong> It seemed pointless.<\/strong>\u00a0When we got back to the hotel, I went right to bed.<\/strong> He eventually gave up yelling<\/strong> and left the room.<\/strong> There was a lot of door slamming.<\/strong>\u00a0I know he eventually came to bed but he said nothing,<\/strong> thankfully.<\/p>\n

It was a long, long drive<\/strong> back to Philly in the morning.<\/p>\n

In the car Derek couldn\u2019t apologize enough.<\/strong> He told me he had talked to his brother<\/strong> in Los Angeles on the phone when he left our room the night before and got some sensible advice.<\/strong> Jeremy said that it was senseless<\/strong> to hold my past against me.<\/strong> The past has already happened<\/strong> and there was nothing<\/strong> that could be done about it. (Doh! No shit.<\/strong> I guess this wasn\u2019t already obvious<\/strong> to him.)<\/p>\n

I started talking<\/strong> on the way home. I reminded Derek of his promise<\/strong> to do something<\/strong> about his\u00a0insane outbursts.<\/strong> I certainly wouldn\u2019t have agreed to give up my housing subsidy<\/strong> without that assurance.<\/strong> Now, less than two weeks later,<\/strong> he did it again.<\/strong><\/em> I didn\u2019t know what to do. I felt foolish<\/strong> for even thinking<\/strong><\/em> he could do it. I couldn\u2019t even cry;<\/strong> I was just so\u00a0terribly angry.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ultimately, we agreed<\/strong> that Derek would stop drinking<\/strong> and I would, too,<\/strong> to support him. (As I've said before on this blog, I had previously been sober for 20 years.<\/strong> As much as I loved drinking, I could do it again.<\/strong> Piece of cake. And it was\u2026for me.<\/strong>) He promised to return to therapy<\/strong> and go to AA.<\/strong> I knew that simply being sober<\/strong> wouldn\u2019t fix this. The behavior would eventually return <\/strong>if he didn\u2019t try to deal with it. <\/strong>And boy, did it ever!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Things between us were \u201cgood\u201d for a bit<\/strong> but they slowly got really unbearable<\/strong> again once we'd been in Maine<\/strong> for a while. By then my options<\/strong> were terribly limited.<\/strong>\u00a0After all,\u00a0<\/strong>I had left my entire life behind<\/strong> to follow him there.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll document<\/strong> the long, horrible decline<\/strong> in future posts.<\/strong>\u00a0Thinking about all of this again is not easy<\/strong> but I\u2019m hoping it helps<\/strong> get the last several years of living with\u00a0insanity out of my system.<\/strong> We\u2019ll see, I guess.<\/p>\n

Thanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I continue with the short\u00a0summary of my demented life with Derek, and since I keep referring to his abusive behavior, I thought I\u2019d post about one of his Childish\u00a0tantrums.\u00a0It\u2019s a particularly bad one, one of the worst, about 16 months into our life together. It\u2019s \u201cNo. 1\u201d because it\u2019s the first one I\u2019m writing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[106,17,291,288],"tags":[5,524],"class_list":["post-2992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-gay","category-highstrungloner","category-relationship","tag-derek","tag-relationship"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ccTA-Mg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2992"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10530,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2992\/revisions\/10530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}