I acclimated to be one of those women who assuredly altercate that lust, affection and sex aloof aren't all that important.Wife #2: You know the conversation:
"Marriage changes things..."
"We have kids now. Sex just isn't a priority..."
"Lust fades. It's not what matters..."
I get it. I acclimated to alive that lie myself.
In my antecedent marriage, sex became a assignment performed to accumulate our brittle accord afloat. It wasn't done out of affection or alike love, abnormally in the after years. Over time, sex became beneath and beneath frequent, beneath and beneath affectionate. I arrested sex off my agitation account with the aforementioned activity as the dry charwoman -- animated that's done!
Don't misunderstand me. I tried. I bought lingerie. I planned date nights. We took up doubles tennis. I thought together time would bring us together. But I couldn't force a connection in or out of bed.
After all that, I opted for resignation. I believed I could live with my tepid sex life. I assumed it's simply what happens when you've been married for years, when kids barrel into your bedroom like a small army every morning.
I was wrong.
Here's what I learned:
When you lose sex, you lose a critical part of being a couple. Sex is that precious thing you share with one person only, the bond you have to your mate that exists nowhere else in your life. It's looking across a crowded room and knowing you have with him something no one else does.
When the sex evaporated, I was left with a roommate instead of a husband. And though sex was hard to live without, what I really missed was the warmth it creates in a marriage. What I missed was that connection.
I'm sure many of you are smugly thinking I'm deluded, that the sex will drop off with Husband #2 soon enough and I'll live to eat these words. I suppose the day will come when our sex life slows down. Maybe that's even started ... if you count not having sex in public places as slowing down. But years into being Wife #2, he still rocks my world in a way no one ever has. And the crazy OMG sex has lasted far longer than ever before. We'll probably settle into married sex like everyone else but our married sex is a whole other ball game.
Why? It's not because I'm a model or he's a rock star. It's that connection. The amazing sex, the sleeping entwined all night, the constant conversations about our childrens' well being, the way he knows exactly how I take my coffee -- they all come from the same place: devotion and honesty.
So I won't let happen this time what happened before. I won't let sex and passion and love take a perpetual backseat to getting the kids to soccer practice on time.
I didn't leave my marriage because I was starved for sex. I was starved for intimacy. Think about that the next time you're about to roll over and turn out the lights instead of seizing the moment.
