Marriage Actually - An honest look at marriage

How It’s Working Now

by Marye Audet on August 6th, 2008

I feel like I have been on the subject of our counseling for awhile so I want to finish up for now.  I am not going to say I will never go back and post about this issue again.  Why? Because more people than you might think are in sexless, or near sexless marriages. Many people are in marriages where the difference in sex drive is a huge problem.  It doesn’t get talked about, it is the skeleton in the closet of many marriages and the thing is, most of the time it can be dealt with in a way that helps both partners.

One of my big reality checks came when the counselor asked what my plans were if Marc did not change at all.  What? Until that point in time that possibility had honestly never occurred to me.  Of course he would change!

I had to think about that.  Was I willing to live the rest of my life with someone who saw sex as something married people did once in awhile that was not essential to their relationship?

Because this was the main difference between us.  In my opinion if i wanted to be married to my best friend then I would have  chosen my friend Mary because she can cook and she is a clean freak too.  I did not get married for the companionship, I got married for the intimacy and intensity that sex creates in a relationship.

Sex is the one thing that in marriage you can’t get somewhere else.  If you need companionship you can have friends, if your spouse doesn’t cook you can go to Burger King, but sex is the one thing that you are supposed to only get from your spouse and if they won’t share…well then….you are….uh….screwed.

So, was I willing to live that way if it came down to it?

I wish I could say that I knew immediately I would be willing because I was so committed to my relationship.  I guess I am not that mature. I wasn’t at all sure that I could live this way forever, until death, without at least a cabana boy in the wings somewhere.

I did come to the conclusion that I had made a commitment and I would stick to it.

Luckily Marc realized that it wasn’t just that I was some sort of weird nymphomaniac (he had accused me of that once. ouch).  He saw that he had areas that he needed to work on as well, and we agreed on a mutually acceptable number of times a week to make love, one that we both felt we could live with.

I found that as we worked together toward working out our problems that we often went over the minimum time we had agreed to!

The most important thing that we did was open up and begin to talk about sex in ways we hadn’t before.  I assumed that all men needed a lot of sex and that my husband would be thrilled with my willingness.   Marc assumed that because he was happy with a couple of times a month I was too.

It was a very good thing that we began to communicate better.  Within six months after we were released from counseling Marc woke up one morning in extreme pain in his legs.  He spent a week in the VA hospital on morphine and other stuff, and came out of the hospital in a wheel chair, and on so many pain killers that it has affected all areas of his life, including sex.

In someways, when I am at my lowest, I am frustrated because I feel like something I had just gotten was taken away.  Other times I am just glad that we had that time and now I can comfortably tell him where I am, what I need, and  we can work out our issues together.

The other difference is that he now allows me to show my passion for him with out pushing me away. I can tell him that he is hot, or that I want him without him feeling overwhelmed or embarrassed.  I need to be able to verbalize how I feel.

To those of you that have been reading this, I don’t know which of the side of the coin you are on.  I do know that when you force someone to hold back part of themselves you don’t get the whole person.  Marc married me because of who I was and then spent years trying to not deal with part of me.  By closing myself up in one area I was only able to give him very little of me.

I stopped being myself.  I am very sensually oriented. I love great food, awesome coffee.  I love experiencing new things, and I like being active.  I like challenges!  I like being touched, and flirting (with my husband) is one of my favorite activities.

To ask me to not be that way, to be the average homeschool mom, in the denim jumper, with the blue van…making meat and potatoes for dinner….well that isn’t me.

A man that was talking to Marc and I one say looked at Marc and said, “She isn’t plastic, is she.”

Marc laughed and agreed. “Anything but plastic”

If your mate challenges your thinking, overwhelms you sometimes, and seems to be very different from you…well…isn’t that why you married them?

So, if you husband wants you to wear a short skirt and a see through top and go driving with him on a lonely road…smile big and go for it..it will be fun.

And if your wife wants you to wear a pair of black mesh boxers …why not?

And if you have fantasies and thoughts that you haven’t shared with your mate..well..why not? Try some of them out.

Marriage is an adventure.  Enjoy it.

Original Image:Morguefile

Edited image by Marye Audet 

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