My Penis-Free Era

Part One - The First Three Years

(Mindy Matijasevic - guest blogger)

One might wonder how a woman who can still turn heads has gone over seven years without getting laid. Well, rather easily really. It began in a miserable marriage where I regularly told my then-husband that I wanted him to leave. He never honored the vows he took or the words he spoke, so it really shouldn't have surprised me so much when he refused to honor my words. It didn't matter to him who was unhappy. I now clearly see that he gets off on making others unhappy. It makes him smile. Gives him direction- a focus for his evil. Like a child, he enjoys the sensation that he's getting away with something. But as real adults know, no one gets away with anything. He cheated on both wives and was never remorseful. Yet he wouldn't do the right thing and leave. He can lie to the women who, before getting healthy, loved him, and he can rewrite history in his head for his own comfort, but he can't fool his penis. Like wife number one and wife number two, it eventually didn't want to be with him either. He needed Viagra in order to cheat on me.

To get rid of him in New York where one had to charge the other with something, and after trying unsuccessfully to have him sign divorce papers that charged him with mental cruelty, I knew I was going to have to let him divorce me. We both knew he destroyed the relationship, but on record, I was going to be the one getting sued for divorce. His ego, thin as it is, couldn't do it any other way. His first wife lived elsewhere and was able to get a no-fault divorce. That was what I needed here in New York. My other options aside from letting him divorce me seemed worse. Among the worst were never getting free of him, losing my rent stabilized apartment to him, or a felony being committed.

I started to believe the devil was on his side when he wasn't taken out on 9/11. He worked nearby. His hours began at 9:30. So many good husbands and wonderful fathers died that day. So many wives, who would have given anything to have their husbands back, eventually received a lot of money to help them maintain relatively comfortable lives. Mine walked out of the deadly fog.

The apartment was in shambles, looking as awful as my life was feeling. I became overweight. I rarely cooked. I was droopy with depression. Those commercials that would ask if you've lost interest, can't sleep, feel achy, have suicidal thoughts were talking to me.

Eventually it hit me very clearly. He will never listen to the words from my lips. Those weren't the lips he ever heard.

For the next three years, I slept in the living room. I had no sex at all with another being. I knew that he was having sex with others. I was so jealous of my husband's lovers. They got to go home without him.



Mindy is a writer, actress, and comedian. She can be seen this Thursday (8/16) at The Grisly Pear on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, NYC, 8pm show.