Kinks & Coffee: Exploring the relationship between women’s sexual and mental wellness after personal turbulent times

Hi!

My name is Natalia. I’m a regular gal who lives in the beautiful capital city of Canada, Ottawa, but some pretty epic things happened in my personal life these last few years. I’ve spent significant time and effort processing and healing, and while I’m now in a place of greater stability, my journey of reflection is ongoing and I continue to learn from the difficult moments that occurred. Lately, I’ve been craving a new creative outlet and feeling empowered to share my story and insights more openly. Maybe it’s the fact that I just turned 30 and saying goodbye to the crazy life chapter that was my 20’s has given me a sense of relief and strength. Regardless of what’s causing this new boldness, I’m leaning into it and going to pursue more opportunities to express myself. Writing is just one of the mediums I hope to use. Even if one person can draw something of value from what I share or produce, I think it will be worth it. To set the stage for what’s to come, here is some of my story…

If you had asked me to introduce myself five years ago, I would say there’s nothing particularly remarkable about me. I’d had a relatively easy, uneventful life and had not gone through very many difficult moments up to that point. My life looked very different than it does today.

Exactly five years ago, in August 2015, I had three major life events happen in a single week:

(1) I officially completed my Master’s program at Carleton University in Public Administration;
(2) I landed my dream job working on social policy issues for the Government of Canada;
(3) I got married to my best friend surrounded by all of our closest family and friends.

Oh, my birthday was also the day before my wedding so I turned 25 the same week as well. Yeah — that’s a lot of milestones crammed into a week.

I was quite happy at that time in my life. I had built a wonderful community of friends in Ottawa after moving there to continue my education. As a first generation Canadian, I was incredibly proud of myself for being the first person in my family to not only graduate from university, but from a graduate program too. I was also building a future that I was excited about. My boyfriend of several years, who I had met in undergrad, followed me from our hometown of Peterborough to Ottawa and was extremely supportive of my professional goals. We had a great friendship and he made me feel very loved and needed. He had been my first stable long-term boyfriend and I felt a great sense of security and pride in our relationship so I was smitten when he asked me to marry him. Despite these positive aspects of our relationship, things were not perfect. I knew we had issues, but I was fiercely loyal and committed to tackling them together as partners. It wasn’t until things started to unravel elsewhere in my life that I would be confronted with some hard truths about my marriage.

First, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. I’m the eldest of three kids and my mother told me the news last because she knew I would be most dramatic and upset — and she was totally right. It was so difficult to watch my mother, the pillar of my life, go through this soul-draining experience. After going through a lumpectomy, we were all so hopeful that she would not have to lose a breast to the disease. My mom was always an incredibly feminine woman; she had the most beautiful cleavage and loved to flaunt it! It was an aspect of her womanhood that she was proud of. Sadly, the cancer cells around the removed lump were very active and she was advised to have a mastectomy. My siblings and I took turns taking time off work to take her to her chemo treatments and did our best to comfort her through the painful side effects.

My dad was there through this experience too and he appeared to be fulfilling the role of a devoted partner, at least at the beginning. My parents had always had a challenging relationship, but when my mother was diagnosed with cancer it was the first time I saw my dad stricken with grief and fear at the thought of losing my mom. There were tender moments between us in the first month of the news sinking in, where he showed me a vulnerable side that I had never seen. These were particularly special to me because I had never had the closest relationship with my father. He had always been an extremely stubborn and arrogant man, hardened by a cold family life and the challenges of living in Poland under the Soviet Union. But in the early days of my mom’s diagnosis, we were bonding and I was learning to let go of the grudges I had held against him since childhood for his own coldness towards me. Unfortunately, the new foundation we were building would quickly dissolve…

In the very last month of my mom’s chemo treatment, she discovered my father had been cheating on her throughout her entire cancer journey. The discovery would send my mom spiralling into a depression, further complicated by the side effects of her ongoing treatment and medications and intensified by new body confidence issues stemming from the loss of her breast. As for us kids, we were completely ashamed of our father’s actions. What was most hurtful were not the actual acts of infidelity, but the fact that my mother had confronted my father on numerous occasions to ask if it may be happening because she was feeling disconnected. He told her she was “crazy,” — exploiting the fact that she was on new medication and claiming it was making her “imagine things.” It’s that manipulative aspect of his betrayal when my mom was at her weakest, that I still struggle with today. The next year of my life would be occupied with trying to help my mom navigate her separation from my father and coping with mental health issues exacerbated by her experiences. I’ve always had an eager problem-solver mind-set, so I was optimistic that my siblings and I could work together as a team to help my mom move forward with her life. However, all of this distracted me from the severity of the problems in my own marriage.

My husband had suffered from bouts of depression since I first met him, five years before our marriage. I was always there to support him through it, though often that turned into being an emotional crutch. He made me feel as though his survival in this world hinged on my positive outlook and guidance. I felt an immense amount of responsibility for his happiness and I spent many days cheering him up. Another source of tension was his excessive pot use, which was a key source of our arguments. When I tried to suggest he seek professional help for his depression and addiction issues, it was either met with intense anger or dismissed and put off until another day. I remember one hopeful day when he came back from a visit with our family doctor with a list of local resources for men dealing with depression and anxiety. We had a brief chat about his options and I posted the list on our refrigerator. I would casually reference the list over the next few weeks to see if I could gently guide him to take action, but bringing the topic up often made him hostile. Instead, he retreated more and more from the idea of it and retreated more and more into himself.

In Fall 2018, I was in Seoul, South Korea for a work trip. My husband’s neediness that week was intense. He was texting me non-stop about how much he missed me and wanted me home ASAP. I remember he looked like a shell of a human being when he picked me up at the airport and I was frightened. When I asked him why he looked so weak, he said he had been sick all week and stayed home from work. I felt awful that he had been so sick and I hadn’t been there to care for him, so I spent the rest of the day doing just that — making him tea, rubbing his back, and trying to brighten his mood with treats I had brought back from the trip.

The next day seemed very normal. My husband was in better spirits and we were going through our regular daily routine. I went out for my usual evening walk with our dog, Zelda. When I returned home, I was shocked to find my husband in tears, completely inconsolable wailing on the couch. He was in total distress. I ran over to him, kneeled down on the floor in front of him, and asked him to tell me what was wrong. With his face in his hands, he mumbled through cries: “We can’t be together anymore. We have to split up. I’m so sorry. It’s not you, it’s me. I know people just say that and it’s not true, but it is true in this case. I mean it. I’m so sorry.” I was alarmed by his decisiveness. We had talked about divorce in various arguments, but always as an option and not a decision. I was also so confused because there was no build up that I was aware of that led him to come to this decision in his mind, especially when he had been so desperate for my love and attention all week. I spent the next hour repeating myself over and over saying “I don’t understand” and “this doesn’t make sense to me” and “why?” He regurgitated the same statements and over and over, giving me no clarity until he reached his breaking point and he spat out a confession that completely distilled everything for me. It was a secret that he has been keeping for years that was intertwined with complex sexual promiscuity, drug abuse, and psychological issues. It was something that I knew instantly we could not solve together, and it was a journey he would have to embark on alone to understand himself better. When the secret finally came out, a complete calmness fell over me. “Okay…” I said, “it’s okay.” I held him in my arms and he proceeded to cry for hours. Through his tears he would say “Why are you being so nice to me? You should hate me… I hate me!” I didn’t feel an ounce of anger, just immense clarity. The anger would come later as I continued through the process of grief, but in that moment I just felt a bizarre peaceful sadness for both him and I in knowing that we would not be able to solve the root of our marriage issues together and that we had to part ways and go down separate paths.

In the following weeks, anger started to bubble up in me as my husband and I discussed his secret more and he admitted to multiple acts of adultery over the course of our relationship and our marriage. I began to shift from my understanding of his inner confliction to a place of deep resentment for the mountain of lies he had kept from me. Because I witnessed how painful it was for my mom and dad drawing out the process of separation, I was firmly committed to taking quick actions so that we could both gain much-needed space and maintain as much respect as we could for each other. I first moved into a separate bedroom and then moved out of the spacious townhouse we were renting in the suburbs to a small one bedroom apartment by myself in downtown Ottawa, taking Zelda with me. All of a sudden, I found myself living alone for the first time in my life with no clear plan on how to move forward.

Everything had been blown up by my husband’s confession. It was the lowest point in my life. I felt immense shame over what I saw as the failure of my marriage and felt distant and out of touch with myself.

Since that point, I’ve continued on this emotional rollercoaster with many highs and lows. I often joke to my friends that the last couple of years of my life has been like a bad soap opera. But, the truth is, there are so many beautiful things that have come out of everything that I am so immensely grateful for. I have rediscovered things about myself that I dulled or abandoned and I’ve sparked this new fire within me to learn more about my desires and needs. I’ve also been reacquainted with my passion for writing. The counsellor that I started to see after my separation encouraged me to take up journaling, and it has proven to be a wonderful tool for me to work through my thoughts, embrace my emotions and release my pain.

So where am I at now?

Well, I’ve let go of a lot of shame and guilt that I have about my experiences and have chosen to draw positives from them. When I think about the most important lessons I’ve learned through everything, a common theme is the connection between sexual and mental wellness. When I found myself as a 28-year old divorcee, I had never had a one night stand with a stranger, never been on a dating app, never had a porn subscription, the list goes on…. I had also never spoken to a therapist, never read a self-help book or tried mindfulness practices. The recent chapter of my life has been about having a more open and alert mind and finding empowerment through sexual and mental self-discovery, and that’s exactly what I would like to write more about. Here are some initial ideas I have:

I’d like to write about some topics that are often considered taboo to discuss openly or that women shy away from talking about because of embarrassment. I want to talk to professionals who have expertise in areas of sexual and mental health, leaders who are breaking stereotypes about women’s sexual behaviours and beliefs and advocating for better mental supports, as well as women from all walks of life and backgrounds who have different perspectives to share from their own lives, being mindful to highlight diverse voices.

One commitment that I have made is to read a book each month that relates to the broad area of sexual/mental wellness and share my highlights and reflections generally. Hopefully, I will build a beautiful collection of stories that can inspire other women.

I’ll pepper some other things through this space and my Instagram page — ideas, artwork, discoveries, random thoughts that I think might help other women in their journeys of deepening their intimacy with their bodies and minds.

A lot of my writing will have a local lens, focusing on resources and options available to women in Ottawa. Eventually, I would love to be able to host an event series that brings women together in the community that would be an accepting space to share experiences and ask questions about sex and mental health issues without fear — but that would be stage two of this little project of mine.

Ultimately, I hope this new creative pursuit will result in more connections. I would love to hear your thoughts on these plans and suggestions for things to consider — drop ’em in the comments please! Thanks for joining me on this new adventure :) I truly appreciate your love, acceptance, and support.

xx Natalia