Some of this I already said but.....

I was a virgin until I was 21. Women just weren't attracted to me. Very few are now too. I know many will think this crazy but until I was in my 20s I was convinced women hated sex. They only did it to shut the men up. Now I am in my mid 40s and I still have this niggling in the back of my mind that women still don't really like sex. I know that's wrong. Just can't shake it

I have not had very many girlfriends. I can count them on one hand.

20 years ago I met my future wife. She was a broken thing, living in a broken old cottage. She suffered such abuse as a child and then moved on to an abusive relationship. But underneath the timid broken woman. I saw intelligence, caring, kindness. And a spark of passion.

I remember the first time I visited her. I knocked on her door unannounced, she opened it, saw me, screamed and slammed the door in my face. She refused to let me in. Eventually she came outside to me. For about 5 minutes. then she shooed me away and told me not to come back for a week. She said many years later she was so worried about her appearance and the state of her house she nearly broke down.

I did return a week later. Then more and more often. Things happened very quickly, and circumstances pushed us to move in together after quite a short amount of time. I always treated her gently and with compassion. I got to watch her bloom into a confident passionate woman. I don't know if it was ego or what. But I loved seeing her become who she was. Who she should have been all along. She became this unstoppable force. No one or nothing got in her way. Heaven help them if they tried. I wound up living in her shadow and I was perfectly happy to be there.

In the 16 years we were together I never grew tired of going to bed with a woman and also waking up with one too. The niggle was always there. Why would a woman want me? It still persists today.

After 14 years, she found a lump in her breast. Things went downhill from there. So many medical mistakes. The cancer progressed very rapidly. 13 months after finding that lump I sat beside her as I watched her heart stop. She turned to me, took 2 breaths and died. 9:10am 21st of September. A moment burned into the core of my being. A stain on my soul.

Before she died she was unable to sleep in a bed. She had to spend her nights propped up on the sofa. I hated her not being there beside me at night. I missed her being there even more after she died. It was such a constant and a comfort in my life. No matter what the day bought that night there was a woman who wanted to spend the night next to me. That fact never, ever got old. I actually had trouble, even after all those years believing it. Yet there she was. Beside me.