SEX, LOVE & MARRIAGE
My husband and I teeter dangerously close to the sexless marriage threshold, writes Mary McPooped*. But at 39, I’m not willing to throw in the towel on my sex life.
Finding the right balance
*Yes, this is a pseudonym
It’s a February tradition for some women’s magazines to offer easy ways to spice up your sex life: Eight new positions to blow your mind! Ten lacy thongs to help you strut your stuff! But now — perhaps out of a recognition that for people in long- term relationships, cheap tricks are no match for the deadly combination of familiarity and fatigue — a new category of tips has emerged that’s focused less on spicing sex up and more on making sure it happens at all.
We’re told to schedule it (presumably into our shared iCals, between grocery shopping and getting the car serviced) or to do it in the morning, when we’re not as tired. Then there’s the oxymoronic suggestion of planning to be more spontaneous.
These tips can work, if success is measured by getting the deed done. I know, because I’ve tried them all.
But let’s be real: Scheduled sex sucks. It becomes just another transaction with your partner, at a time when nearly all your communication feels that way. That’s not exactly a recipe for climax.
And spontaneous sex has its own pitfalls. The last time my partner and I had 20 minutes of found time, we raced upstairs like rabbits on speed. I tried to overlook that he was slick with sweat from a just- finished jog. He tried to ignore that I hadn’t showered and had two cherry Tums on my breath. Neither of us was entirely successful.
Doing it in the morning works great — until you have kids. They know when you’re horny. It’s some kind of sexual sixth sense. The first time I set my alarm for 6 a.m. to squeeze in a pre-dawn shag, my kid peed the bed at 5. The next time I did it, she was awake an hour before, puking. There’s only so many times your morning sex can be derailed by a third party’s bodily fluids before you throw up your hands.
While I can accept the death of morning sex, I’m not, at 39, willing to throw in the towel on our sex life entirely. I miss it. My partner misses it.