Posted: Nov 18, 07 4:45pm
(I originally posted this as a somewhat non-sequitur comment to someone else's discussion: http://www.tbd.com/content/post/10366 )
I've been married 21 years, during which I usually initiated sex. I always felt like my wife was "giving in" by letting me "have it". We had a difficult marriage for many of those years. Our frequency of sex has been 6-10 times a year for the last several years.
About 6 months ago our relationship suddenly got much better for a series of reasons I won't go into in the interest of brevity. We now get along very well, we are good friends, roommates, partners in parenting, running the house, etc... we really get along very well and like each other. We have great, long and very personal discussions over drinks every night during our "happy hour" after the kids are in bed. I really like her and she likes me and she likes me.
This summer my wife and kids were gone during which time I met and fell in love with someone else. The relationship was mostly chaste, but not entirely. What blew me away though was being reminded of what passion/romance/intimacy were like. I had completely forgotten. It was overwhelming. I loved it and wanted more. I decided we couldn't be physical and cut it off.
After my wife got back, I used that newly recovered interest to try to re-ignite our passion/romance/sex life. It worked, sort of. As long as I initiated things, she would go along with it, but never initiated anything herself. Then one night, I had asked if she wanted to make love. She said yes. A few minutes into it, she asked me to stop kissing her, then a few minutes later to stop touching her and just "do my thing" and be done. It was of course very hurtful, and I decided then that I was done begging for it. I just can't bring myself to beg for sex if she has no interest in that with me. I know she finds other men attractive, because we'll joke about it when we are out, and she has had crushes on friends and colleagues, which I'm ok with. She just doesn't see me as sexually/romantically interesting.
So now the plot thickens. A few days ago, during one of our great happy hour conversations, I mentioned how much I miss the passion/romance/sex in our relationship. We had all that for at least the first 10 years. She said that if I really needed that I should just have an affair and keep it secret, because she is a very jealous person. When I flat out asked her if she thought we could recover that, she said "no". I don't have a clue what to do. On the one hand I would love nothing more than to take her up on the offer. The experience of being wanted and desired and kissed with passion is so amazing and beautiful, I just can't see living the rest of my life (I'm 43) without it. On the other hand, I can't see myself sneaking about looking for it, even with "permission". It would destroy my wife and our marriage if I did and she found out. I care about her and don't want to hurt or lose her or the kids.
So here I am. I guess the real problem is that I don't know what I really want or more to the point really *need*. I certainly have thought of having an affair, but don't know that "just sex" would be enough for me. Sex is great, but what I really want is romance, intimacy, and a little passion, just once in a while. I want someone to want me as much as I want them, nothing more.
