A writer I am not.
I can barely string my shoelaces together let alone a few sentences. My last blog post was back in May 2005 and if you take the time to click the link you will quickly see my feelings as it pertained to blogging.
So I’m sure you are asking yourself, “Mr. Toy With Me, are you coming out of retirement to become a well hung version of The Bloggess?”
I wish it could be something like that. So why am I writing?
You see, my mother has cancer.
She doesn’t deserve this.
Anyone that has the privilege to meet my mother comes away better for having known her. She has more friends than anyone I know. A social butterfly. A beautiful butterfly.
Since she was diagnosed I have been making the journey every week to her house some 300 miles away to spend a few days with her and my father. Watching the both of them deal with the most difficult time in their lives has been a trying yet humbling experience. There is the fear, the anxiety, and the exhaustion. Sprinkled with hope , tears and laughs as we try to keep things light.
No matter the outcome none of us will ever be the same.
One of the side effects of all of this for me has been that since my mother is never far from the front of my mind, it is difficult for me to give the attention that my family at home needs. When I get from my trips I am pretty much mentally exhausted and quite frankly probably as fun to be around as Elin Woods is around the breakfast table. The Sex is the farthest thing from my mind. Ever since my mother was diagnosed my “Ron Jeremy” has been in a perpetual state of shrinkage. I swear to you it is actually getting smaller.
All of this got me thinking about how people deal with aging parents and the impact that helping and caring for them has on the relationship with their significant other and how to deal with it. Like most men I figured the obvious answer was booze and hookers because, well that’s what you do. But with Christmas coming my budget allotment for the va jay jay wouldn’t get me a quick tug job in the back of an alley with a crack whore.
Ahem.
I just realized that my Mother and crack whores are in the same blog post.
I am so going to hell.
Anyyyyyways, how do we deal with this?
When I look back at other painful moments in my life I still seemed to have the ability to put that aside and make time for for my wife in the intimate department. I think that the difference this time is the realization that after this ordeal has finished that there will more than likely be a similar challenge just around the corner. Our parents are getting older.
They will need care.
It will be hard.
Intellectually I know that the answer is that I can’t just stop living my life when hardships like this occur. Life goes on and all that shit. I think that’s easier said than done. A night out once a week with the wife? A good meal and too much to drink? Frankly I don’t really have a fucking clue as I am in the midst of it but I know that as a couple it will be something that will have to be dealt with.
Right now the only thing that really matters is that my butterfly can continue to spread her wings..
Do you have aging parents, and if so, how have you dealt with your relationship with your significant other?
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{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
I am mostly responsible for keeping my mother sober and sane, and it’s been hard as hell. I’m so sorry that your mom is going through cancer and I’m sorry that you’re having to deal with all of this Mr. Toy With Me and Toy With Me.
In the end, it will strengthen your bond, I think, because you’re facing your own mortality together. You can be intimate without having The Sex. Being close to each other and knowing that you love each other with or without bumping nasties, that, that is MORE special.
LOOKIT ME BEING ALL SENTIMENTAL. GAH. Quick, someone fart on the dog!
Like Becky I have spent my whole life keeping my mother sober and myself sane. It doesn’t occur to me to worry about her because daily I am surprised she is still here.
However, I do think about my dad all the time. As he gets older I get more panicked that I will get a phone call that will put me in your exact position and I am scared as hell.
Yes, temporarily it has zapped you of your intimacy, but it will be back. In the meantime be grateful that you have a supportive and loving family and don’t be so hard on yourself. (Pun intended.)
My mother was an amazing, fabulous, artistic, warm and wonderful butterfly. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June ’08. By September we knew we were losing her, the surgery having not been as successful as her doctor promised. I packed up my home and moved back in with her for her final days. She passed in October ’08.
My father’s multiple cancers and depression over losing the second wife of his life finally caught up with him eleven months later, four days after his birthday and five days before mine. My brother couldn’t take the loss and his heart gave out. He passed in October of this year.
What I’ve come to realize from this is that I HATE being a single parent. I am the only one my kids can rely for anything, and I’ve been a mess. I’ve also had a string of dead-end relationships because I can’t stand being alone, but can’t find anyone I can trust with my heart anymore. To me, love now equates loss.
Lean on each other. Realize that you have someone in your life who seriously cares about what is going on, someone who can cry in front of you and you can cry in front of them. I don’t have that. I am entirely jealous of married people. I have no idea how you do it.
I hope all goes well with your mother. I’ve seen some remarkable recoveries from cancer. It can happen. Believe in that.
My mother wasn’t aging. Well, not what we think of as aging. As of the day of her death in May this year, she was 45. She fought cancer for nearly three years, through surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. When she was diagnosed in the ER, she was in the throes of multiple organ failure, stage IV. There was so much cancer, in so many places, they originally didn’t know where it had come from. They removed everything they could — including her uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries, and most of her large intestine, just so they couldn’t miss anything hiding in those places. Honestly, they didn’t expect her to come off the table alive. The surgery was so extensive, her odds so low, they wouldn’t even give us numbers. All they told my grandparents, my mother’s parents, was “it’s not good.”
But my mother recovered, to a degree. She was never the same, but she was alive, and she had a chance. We were all told not to get our hopes up. That the first year was crucial, and dangerous. Often patients develop infection or complication from such a massive surgery, or the cancer is so virulent at this point that it just takes over while the body tries to bounce back from the major invasion the surgeons had to do. They bombarded her with chemo to keep it in check. Round after round of it, names I’ll never be able to recall or pronounce even if I could. This combination and that, trying to find something that stemmed the tide. Miracle of miracles, they did. She lived past the one year mark. Her doctors breathed a tiny sigh of relief, and so did we. Mom had a chance now.
Around year two, they realized some of the cancer wasn’t responding to the chemo. Eventually they decided to try radiation to target these “hot spots.” My mother was tired, and so sick — she hadn’t been in the best of health before the cancer, and certainly having it go so long untreated wasn’t helpful. But she endured it, because she had to. She had two grandbabies to live for at this point, and she refused to leave them without a fight. I’m very proud to say that by the end, she was cancer free. She beat it. She gave it a big, fat middle finger — well, okay, a long skinny one. But still. The doctors told my grandmother they had never seen someone with her drive to live, and are convinced that had she been in better health before she developed cancer, she likely would have lived.
Through all this, my boyfriend and I raised our infant daughter — only 4 months when we found out about the ER visit that changed Mom’s life — conceived and birthed another, and managed to get through some of the best and worst of our relationship.
It’s a roller coaster no one in their right mind wants to get on. And there will be days when your partner will just have to accept that you hate life, or are completely apathetic to it, because quite frankly all the crap dumped on your psyche in a relatively short period of time is just too much. It sucks. For everyone involved. But it does get better, and when it does, if you’ve managed to weather the storm, your relationship will be stronger for it. And however hard it is on you, understand that your partner has it just as hard — because while they know you hurt, they can’t help. They can’t make it go away. It’s a demon they can’t fight, and because it isn’t their mother, it’s one they can’t even fully comprehend. It’s a different hell they live in, but it’s a hell nonetheless.
Good luck, Mr. Toy With Me. And sorry for the exceedingly long comment…
I’m sorry you had to get such hard news, and my deepest empathies. But in spite of it all, remember that it’s not necessarily a death sentence. My great-aunt beat breast cancer twice (I presume one case in each set of breast tissue). Within the last year, then, so did her oldest son, who is severely physically disabled. It takes a lot of work to go through the treatment/s (and the ensuing metalic taste of food from chemo that my cousin would always joke about). At the same time, I know how hard it is to try to remain positive when you are the third party to it all. Especially now that they are both advancing through the stages of Alzheimer’s at an outrage rate.
Albeit, this doesn’t /quite/ relate to your sound off, as neither of these people are my parents, but they are both very dear to me.
As for the relationship aspect of it, my partner has always been very supportive. She knows I have trouble talking about what’s bothering me in the moment, but she can read it all over my body — even when my face tells her I want to pretend everything is alright. She quietly walks up and wraps her arms around me, and that simple gesture lets me know she’s there for me if I do want to talk about it, or maybe just cry. The simple act of reaching out and touching me is my grounding and my support, and I can reach out and touch when I need some extra help.
It sounds like you both love and support each other very, very much. Remember that, right now. Don’t worry about the sex. Cuddling can be intimacy unto itself, even if one of you is comforting the other. It is when we are at our most vulnerable, and that you can succumb to that feeling and feel safe with somebody is something very special.
The impact of it all may come in waves, with some days feeling better than others. On those off days, remember that it’s ok to have been living your life; it’s not a bad thing if you are able to move through your day and only think of your mother and your worry for her once or twice. Maybe even not at all. It’s not the end of the world.
It’s hard to deal with something like this. Lean on the people who love you.
My love to you and yours.
I am sorry that you have to go through this. I’m sending positive thoughts your way and hope that everything works out okay.
I’m so sorry to hear about your mom’s cancer. Cancer needs to FOADIAF. I wish I had some wise words of wisdom for you, but unfortunately I’m the idiot who buries her head in the sand and pretends that her whole family is going to live forever and ever – I seriously can’t even contemplate losing my mom without freaking right out.
You’re all in my thoughts. <3
Aww darlin’ that sucks. Pure and simple. But I’ll echo many of the above sentiments with my own comments.
My own Mama has had cancer 7 times. Yes, seven. For the past 10 years she’s been fighting the last battle. The. Last. One.
If I’ve learned anything from her it’s that attitude and support are just as powerful of tools as chemo, radiation, and proton therapies can be. She’s surrounded herself with a wealth of friends who make her laugh, make music with her, and allow her to LIVE. Because that’s the hardest part of a cancer diagnosis–you sometimes forget about the living and sometimes get busy with the dying. She too is a beautiful butterfly and I often joke that people only become friends with me simply so they can get close to my Mama.
My partners are forced to contend with this. I have this gorgeous creature of a mother and I take care of her as best I can. But I often fault myself for what I can’t do, or worry that I should be doing more. There are days when you just lose it, all of it, and become a hot hot mess. And those are the days when we allow the others in our lives to take care of us. Because you know, what goes around comes back around.
When I had my first bout with cancer (at the ripe old age of 20) I remember feeling like this was it, it was finally happening. I had succumbed to the legacy I was always supposed to. I was despondent, and couldn’t imagine having The Sex. But my partner in crime at the time smacked some sense in to me (and knocked the bottom out of me, ahem) and we dealt with that very serious, very scary thing with humor. I made terrible off color cancer jokes until suddenly cancer became very funny instead of being so scary. And slowly I began to feel like myself again, and then I kicked the cancer’s ass. But I had to take each day at a time, as did he. Some days were good. Some days were bad. But we were very much in love and so bad days involved tea and hair brushing and good days involved sexy time and laughter. Take each day one at a time.
So Mr. Toy With Me, talk it out. Know that you won’t always feel like this–so powerless and angst ridden. The Sex will happen again. But promise me you won’t get so caught up in the dying part that you forget the living part.
Remember: Cancer isn’t a death sentence. For you, your mom, or your marriage. Some days you’ll want to talk and some days you’ll just want someone to sit in silence with. And the madam Toy With Me is the perfect partner in crime.
Ron Jeremey may be off the radar for now, but he’ll come back. And we’re going to have a party for him when he does; complete with candles, lube and lots of toys! So after his little hiatus he’d better be ready to work HARD! I crack me up
Ok, seriously now, sex is not the glue to our relationship. It’s amazing, awesome and I lovvvve it, but there is more depth to us beyond that. Every relationship endures times of hardship and how you deal with the challenge makes you who you are. This is why after 25 years of marriage (holy shit that’s long) ahem we are stronger then ever baby.
Oh yeah.
Almost forgot.
NO – you cannot have booze and hookers for Christmas!
Figures. I write my first post on the blog and we have sex bloggers on twitter calling me out for referring to sex workers as crack whores.
Cancer is the biggest kick in the nuts with a cowboy boot you can have. I feel for you sir!! I lost my dad this year to an anuerysm in his aorta. He went quick! sorry your mom has to suffer the indignites of cance crap.. Keep strong.. Jeremey jr. will rise again!!
Who the fuck gets off calling you out on “crack whores and hookers” when you’re writing a post about your mom’s struggle with cancer, your attempts to manage those emotions and flat-out having a hot wife and not wanting anything to do with The Sex?
They can suck it, unfollow me and bite my lily-white ass. If you’re a writer, you know what you write isn’t always pretty – but if it’s honest, it’s even better. I’m lucky that I’ve earned the ability to do what I love for a living. What I share sometimes is shocking, but it all has to do with MY LIFE. This is YOUR LIFE. Thank you for sharing. And I would say the same if I weren’t a contributor to ToyWithMe.com.
My heart goes out to your family – and thank you for sharing your heart with us. See? Even dudes have hearts. Unfuckingbelievable.
#iknewitallalong
Oh, and by the way, THIS from @debaucheddiva’s very own blog:
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
Just thought I’d be the bitch and share that
while i don’t have the perspective of one with an aging parent (i’m only 28 and my parents are 53) yet along an ailing parent, i can empathize because i have watched them take care of their own. i recently watched my in-laws say goodbye to my husband’s grandfather (our son’s namesake) with hospice. and that alone, has left its mark on my sex life with my husband… and it was his grandfather, not his father (which will probably make me sound just as insensitive as the twats on twitter are making you sound right now). but grief takes its toll, mentally and physically, and i would imagine that in a way, knowing that your mother has cancer causes your grief process to begin earlier than it should. i’m sorry. i wish peace for your family, and for your ron jeremey to be unashamed. fantastic post!
Mr TWM, my heart goes out to you and your family. Someone mentioned in their comment about being intimate not only means having sex, but just being there to hold you and let you cry. That to me is more intimate than having sex. It is someone to lean on when you aren’t strong enough to hold yourself up. That is true love.
My step-dad has COPD, CHF, HTN and probably a gazzilion other lettered acronyms for a medical condition. He diligently takes his medications, but otherwise has totally given up. He has gone from 240# to almost 360. He is supposed to be on a low – no salt diet, uses “No-Salt” on his cooked meals, but will sit and eat 5 Arby’s sandwiches or 2 double quarters or an entire family size bag of lays, in one sitting. Kind of defeats the purpose. My family and I can do nothing but sit there and watch him literally kill himself.
I am a paramedic. He thinks all I do is drive an ambulance. When I try to talk to him about this stuff, he looks and me and basically tells me to shut my face, I have no idea what I am talking about. That hurts, so I have basically given up as well, because as Dubious Ma can tell you, there is no getting through to him and he will NEVER admit when he is wrong. It definitely goes against all I am and everything that I have been taught to do this, but I can only help those that want to be helped and he is happy right now being waited on hand and foot and in the meantime making the rest of us watch him die very slowly. I told my mom, I don’t think he will have another Christmas after this one. That is my gut, and unfortunately, my gut usually doesn’t lie.
As far as you and TWM, accept the hugs, the kisses, the alone time that you do have. Lean on her as much as you can and know that, like it has already been stated, intimacy is more than the act of sex, it is a gentle touch, a shoulder, and two beautiful arms to hold you when you need it most.
Many prayers and happy thoughts for you this Christmas. Make lots of good memories, cuz too soon for a bunch of us, it will be all we have.
Big Hugs from the Dirty South
Shannon
I think it’s actually rather sad that an immensely moving post about struggling with personal loss has been completely derailed by obsessing over a the use of couple of inopportune words.
I do understand where the offended people are coming from – sex workers are people too and it’s not nice to label them with horrible names. But in this instance, I think it’s wrong to suggest that the name calling is somehow far more significant and important than the death of somebody’s loved one and totally divert all attention away from the point of the article.
I say acknowledge the reason people are offended, but stand by your well written and moving post. You ultimately wrote this for yourself, not for anybody else, so other people have no right to censure you.
For those who have unfollowed ….I see people with tunnel vision so narrow that they can no longer step back to see the larger picture. Very unfortunate.
For those who follow and comment I thank you for your kind words and support.
I agree with the above posters. Sex workers are people, too, yes. Are all sex workers crack whores? No. But some are. And wager that if you’re picking them up in a nasty back alley, they just may have *some* sort of “issue” Did the writer say that all sex workers (from porn stars to strippers to call girls to the back alley type) are crack whores? No. But hey, way to take a post that had fuck all to do with sex, and make it all about your personal cause, complaining sex workers. Not exactly endearing behaviour, to be honest.
To the Mr., I’m sorry to hear about your mother’s diagnose. Cancer is a bitch. I’ll be keeping you all in my thoughts during this troubling time, and I will be rooting for your mom to kick cancer’s ASS.
Thank you all so much for your kind words of support and for sharing. Let’s please not comment anymore about the bloggers that take offence and try to keep it to the subject of the post.
I’m sorry, cancer is teh suck. BUT it’s not a death sentence and she very well could survive it. I know many that have. She sounds like a strong woman and while I’m not religious and don’t believe in prayer, per se, I do believe in positive thinking. You keep telling her and yourself that she can do this, she can beat this……and she will.
Its hard, that moment you realize you now have to take care of them. I’ve realized it with my own mother, except that we dont exactly get along famously. Plus my father has been gone 12 years and I’m the only child so there is no spreading around of the care and burden and guilt trips.
It’s also doubly hard on me bc many of the things wrong with my mom are likely going to happen to me. I already have some of it. So I see my future, except that I know mine will be worse, more painful and debilitating, bc I’ve had the disease longer than she did.
Good wishes for your mom and you and family.
(ps – if you don’t want people commenting on the bloggers, then you shouldn’t have mentioned it yourself. If you’d have left that out of here, everybody else would have. sorry but don’t reprimand your commenters when you asked for it is all)
Dangerous Lilly, thanks so much for your thoughtful comment, it must be difficult to carry that burden alone.
As far as the comments go, I never “reprimanded” my commenters, all I did was politely ask that we focus the discussion back to the topic at hand.
“And there will be days when your partner will just have to accept that you hate life, or are completely apathetic to it, because quite frankly all the crap dumped on your psyche in a relatively short period of time is just too much.”
I think that’s what lost me my last lover. He couldn’t deal with my falling apart. Wasn’t meant to be, I suppose.
Mr. Toy, I have known so many women who have survived cancer. They are strong willed individuals who had the support of their families and friends to get them through the long slog of chemo, surgery, etc. and see the other side of it all. I wish that for your mother. The support and recovery, not the long slog, that is!
Dear Redhead, thanks for posting that bit from debaucheddiva. I’ve copied it down and taped it to my computer. Most excellent advice.
I’m so sorry about your mom, and I’m also very sorry you got hassled about your word choice.
What I think about these sorts of group-specific terms (whore, slut, etc being group-specific to women in this example), is that when people seek to “reclaim” them, the point isn’t to reclaim it away from people outside the group who use it in hate, – because you can’t stop them anyway, – the real point of reclaiming the word is to stop people within the group from using it to shame the other members of the group.
To often I read people saying “don’t call women whores!” , and then a few weeks later they are saying “except this one woman, she is just like a whore”. We are warned away from using the words for ourselves, which leaves it free and available to be used against us instead.
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And my mom…. She was the best, she’s been gone 6 years already, cancer I’m sad to tell you, and my father had gone 3 years and 29 days before her. They both went quickly – my father struck while riding his motorcyle, and my mother, faster than I ever imagined, and right before my eyes, with only 17 days between diagnosis and death. The very same thing happened with my mother’s mother, she went into the hospital feeling sorta bad, and then in 14 days she was gone. My mother told me about it, I hadn’t been born, my mother was only 18. I had my mother 10 years longer than that. I wrote a short post a about her a few weeks ago, and about her death, it’s thru the link in my name.
My SO, when my mom got sick, we’d been together for 4 years, and he slept with my best friend on the day my mom died.
sorrow. big sorrow.
He found it hard to face me after that. I found it hard to face anything.