9 1/2 years without sex???

So, "Brad", my younger cousin, is going through a rough patch in his life. I have been supporting him for a wee while, and I thought I knew him very well. So I was amazed to learn that he and his girlfriend of 9 1/2 years (they've been living together for 7), have never had intercourse.

Why?

She has no libido.

What's odder still about this is that she is his first girlfriend. So... he's a virgin. Well, they do have sexual relations of a sort, just not normal intercourse -- so I guess it depends on what your definition of virginity is. It's something she doles out to him as a sort of favor once or twice a week. She's bored by it, and so he's none to thrilled with the experience either.

He hopes to have children with her one day. I wonder how that is going to happen?

I am reminded of a couple I read about who actually got married and were together for some years before they had sex for the first time. She got pregnant, and that was the end of it. A couple of years later, she wanted another child, so they had sex again. She got pregnant, and that was the end of it again.

She had been badly sexually abused as a child, and had never recovered.

In the end, he left her and married someone else. They started a new family together, and had a normal sex life.

So I am left wondering... where do we draw the line? Should men in long-term sexless relationships cut their losses and find someone they feel more comfortable with? Or should they put up with years of frustration and lack of sexual fulfillment? And if they (or, rather, we) should put up with it. . . then why? To what end? We should live unfulfilled lives because our wives no longer have libidos and aren't willing to do anything about it?

Of course, there may be good reason to stay in an imperfect relationship. Kids; a family buisness; the reality that no relationship is perfect, etc. And, of course, it's different if the woman (or, for that matter, the man -- low libido can strike men, too!) is willing to get medical and/or psychological help to work her way through the block to her libido. But when her response is "shrug -- like it or lump it honney, it's who I am, what I am, where I am" then a man surely has to consider his options.

I am nowhere near the point of cutting my losses, but 9 1/2 years?!?! I mean _wow_! Just how long is a boy supposed to wait?

There's more to say on this, I'm sure, but it's late and I'm tired and losing my train of thought.

"Say goodnight, Gracie."

"It's not you, it's me"

A woman wrote in to an advice columnist recently, complaining that her husband had pulled back from the relationhip. The columnist replied that that was perfectly possible, and that the husband might be depressed. She should discuss that with his GP. BUT, the columnist noted that it was also possible that it was the woman who had changed, not her husband. If so, she needed to find other outlets for her energy (a hobby, new friends), rather than turn to her husband to make her life be more fulfilled.

This column spoke to me, because I've been feeling like Susan has been particularly absent from our relationship recently. But I've also thought... no, maybe it's me. Maybe I've become clingy and needy. How unsexy is that?!? I've realised I was unhappy with the way things were, and that she was unwilling or unable to meet my needs. So I've been reaching out to new friends, and finding excitement in new activities. I got my cello out for the first time in years, and had an excellent match of tennis with a friend.

It's felt great! So refreshing! So fulfilling! Somehow I was waiting for Sue to meet my needs, but by going out there and looking after myself, not only were my needs met, but, even better, I felt empowered in the process! I once again felt like the captain of my fate, master of my destiny... well, a little bit, anyway! (Being in a family is surely nothing if not a tradeoff between companionship and independence.)

But then I began to wonder about the endgame. Of course, I can go my own way and feel independent, happy and fulfilled. (And a bit lonely -- but that's another story.) But just as it's possible for a couple to be too clingy and codependent, so also can couples grow apart and learn to not love each other, not need each other, not want each other.

Sue and I went through just such a stage once upon a time.

So... right. Far enough apart that we meet our own needs, but close enough together that we don't lose touch.

This life business sure is a tricky one! Why is it that they teach Calculus and French in high schools, but not how to have a successful marriage? I know which is more important to me; which I want more for my children; and which will ultimately make me a more productive, happier, and more well adjusted member of society.

Yes, I can conjugate verbs with the best of them; decline nouns in my sleep; take the second derivative of binomial equations without batting an eyelash. But finding just the right balance between independence and intimacy in my marriage? Now that takes some serious effort!

Is it normal to have sex after marriage?

So, everyone jokes about how little sex there is after marriage.

And sex after kids? forget it!!!

And so we spend huge hours worrying about this. Talking about it. Reading books. Seeing the doctor, the shrink. Taking medications.

All, it seems, in pursuit of the notion that we should all have as much sex as we did in our twenties. Not doing it 2.5 times per week? Something is wrong! Never mind if you're in your 40s and have multiple small children, as well as two careers, multiple bills and the family dog to juggle.

The point is, maybe there is a stereotype that people don't have much sex after marriage (and especially after kids) because this is NORMAL! Now there's a radical thought! Perhaps some (much? most??) of the wailing and gnashing of teeth that we have over our collective lack of sex (ok, that I have over my personal lack of sex!) is based on the entirely false assumption that we should still be having sex like we did in that summer after the junior year of college.

Sure we (ok, I!) would love to be having that much sex again. But I would also love to be as fit as I was back then, too. And to have as good a memory. And as much hair. And... etc, etc, etc.

Of course, couples that are having that extra sex do seem to be enjoying it, (Bully for them!) but that doesn't make it somehow pathological that I am now so chaste.

I can worry all I like about sex, and sure, the topic can wind me up at times. But for a guy like me to worry about it says I am already doing pretty darn well on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

I mean, I am not worrying about my next meal, my job, my health, my family's health. We live in peace and prosperity and our family is reasonably harmonious. And it is only because of all of this that I can worry about (and indulge myself so far as to write a blog about!) sex as much as I do.

Looking at Maslow's hierarchy more closely, I am intrigued to see that it is not nearly so high as I assumed.

I am also intrigued to see that sex is listed in two different positions: once on the same level as food, clothing and shelter; and then again higher up along with friendship and family.

Hmm. It all seemed so simple when I started this posting. But that hierarchy has got me wondering again.

Sex as a basic physiological need?

Curiouser and curiouser.

This whole sex thing would be pretty hard to figure out even if it were something our society had a healthy discourse about.

As it is, it feels rather like the classic enigma wraped in a riddle, shrouded in a mystery.

incommunicado

How can a woman not want to talk to her husband about their relationship? I thought that's what women were supposed to be all about. Sure that's a stereotype, but stereotypes don't generally come from nowhere. I guess she is one of the outliers.

But, damn, hasn't she ever watched Oprah!?! Doesn't everyone know that communication is the key to a happy relationship?

And, no, we weren't talking about anything sensitive like her personal history. More generic stuff like, "why haven't you built the dog house yet, Mark?"

But getting to that was like pulling teeth. And she was angry that I wanted to talk at all. Asking her why it made her angry made her angrier still.

Whew!

What's a boy to do?!?

Incidentally, I had a paranoid flurry this afternoon, wondering if she had cheated on me. Later on I was up some scaffolding which made me rather nervous. Would those tiny bolts and rotten-looking planks really hold my weight? I walked softly, and my imagination of how I might crash to the earth went into over-drive.

After an hour of walking around, I felt great -- as if I was on terra firma. And the anxieties about infidelity disappeared, completely replaced by the exhileration of wandering around 30 feet up in the air on a beautify sunny day.

And I realized that these two experiences were linked. I had anxiety about heights, which sent my imagination into overdrive, making my anxiety worse. I tested out my theories of plummeting to the earth by walking around. I didn't fall. I gained confidence. And soon all thought of rotten wood or loose bolts disappeared from my mind as if nothing more than a dream.

I think that's why I wanted so badly to reach out to Sue tonight to talk. Subconsciously my anxieties about her fidelity had not yet been tested and disproven. Not that I wanted, or needed, to raise that question with her directly. Rather, I think I needed to reconnect with her emotionally. When I walked on the scaffolding, my fear was that the wood or the bolts wouldn't hold me -- but I didn't check a single bolt, or examine any of the wood. My groundless fears were answered simply by walking around and not falling. I came to feel safe. So it was with Sue. I didn't want to probe the technical question of fidelity. I think subconcsciously I wanted to connect with her; to feel safe with her; to form a bond with her. With that bond of communication in place, the anxieties disappear of their own accord. Without it my mind becomes their plaything in which they fester and multiply, driving me nuts, and no doubt subtly undermining our relationship as well, even if I never give voice to them.

nine months in and blah blah blah

So, we're nine months in and three to go.

Long enough to gestate a baby.

And, I'm kind of over it.

I don't have much interest in sex recently. Which is, under the circumstances, an unequivocally good thing!

And biding my time doesn't seem a challenge any more.

I kind of feel like it's all downhill from here.

I can kind of just turn my mind off and wait.

But... that thought is a bit of a worry. Turn my mind off to this whole issue? To tune out to sex and the whole area of emotional and physical intimacy seems so much like tuning out of our relationship in general.

I don't know. I just don't feel like I have the energy to get all worked up about the whole thing any more.

What's a boy to do?

To My Coy Wife

To his Coy Mistress

by Andrew Marvell

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

a time to talk (but no time to write!)

I have lots of things I would like to be writing here, but so few chances. I don't really feel I can be writing this when Sue is likely to walk in on me ("Hey, honey, what are you doing?" / "Oh nothing, dear, just spilling the very most intimate aspects of our respective lives into the public doman for strangers to read and pass judgment on. What's for dinner?")

So, thanks to Rae and Sungold for their email and comments respectively. I want to get back to both of you soon. But first a few thoughts on an article I just read:

This article on sexless marriages was published in the New York Times just a few days ago. 

I am intrigued to read that, on average, married couples have sex 58 times a year. Is that all? 

I am also intrigued to read that a whopping 15% of married couples have not had sex in 6 months to a year. 

Wow! I didn't realize I was so . . . mainstream! 

But most thought-provoking of all was that sexlessness in a marriage is a largely one-way street. Most couples do not get their lives in the boudoir back to what they once were.  Apparentlythis is  because, "it’s hard to get a couple talking once they’ve established a pattern of non-communication." 

I have certainly found it hard to get Susan talking. It's great when we do talk. It feels like there's intimacy there. But it also feels like I am pulling teeth. Susan doesn't do it willingly, and she cuts it as short as possible as quickly as possible. 

Today, this whole idea of "a year without sex" seems really, really stupid. 

I feel hobled in any ability I might have to open things up a bit, to get communication going. 

But perhaps it's just a pessimistic moment. 

On the whole, like the woman who gave her husband sex every day for a year, I think it is adding depth to our relationship. She found a deepening and richening in their love, committment and closeness. And not just because of the sex, but rather because of the mindfulness that that committment to sex brought to their relationship and to each other. 

Similarly, by making a very mindful choice to act like a eunuch around Sue, I am much more aware of our relationship, much more mindful of my own sexuality, and much more present with the degree to which she is emotionally open or closed to me each day. 

Just doing something different has,  I think, made a step forward for us. 

But I am sorry to hear that the odds are stacked against us. 

I guess I just need to redouble my efforts to engage with Sue in an emotionally (but very asexually) intimate way. 

Time to go to the dentist!