Is long-term love sexy? One writer investigates the allure of middle-aged romance
This is what 20 years with the same man is like
The working day was drawing to a close and one of the girls at work was smiling at me. “What?” I asked her. “Nothing,” she replied. “It’s just that you’re the only one I know who puts on makeup before she goes home. And I finally figured it out.” “Figured out what?” I asked as I ran my brush through my hair.
“Well, I realized that you make yourself pretty for your husband. And I thought that was nice, what marriage must be like.”
Marriage is more than making myself pretty for my husband I wanted to tell her. There are many exhilarating highs, as well as the deepest lows. There are endless days and nights of making love, as well as years of wondering if we still turn each other on. There is silence—the good kind and the bad kind. Through thick and thin, however, one thing is constant: each other. We made that promise and it’s not always easy to keep every day but it’s been 20 years and here’s what I found about being with the same man for that length of time.
I’M NOT ALONE
Marriage is having a hand to hold the three times I gave birth, when I cried at breastfeeding struggles, when we both lost our jobs, and worried about money, when the kids do something really cute, when I buried my parents.
WE GET A SUPERPOWER
At 20 years, we can communicate telepathically. We can look at each other across a crowded room or above the kids’ heads and we can have a whole conversation with just our eyes.
LOVE IS TEAMWORK
They say love shouldn’t be hard, but what they really mean is love makes the work easier, and to stay with someone year in and year out takes a lot of work. I learned that we’re a team and we may attack the game of life differently, but we should always remember we’re in this together. So, we eventually learned how to work together and with each other. The battles of the early years are now a distant memory. It’s nice going through life’s highs and lows with someone who has my back all the time. And carrying his, too.
MARRIED SEX IS THE BOMB
Sex with one man for 20 years is great. I know what he likes, he knows what I like. It is honestly thrilling and comforting that the marriage bed is our safe space where we can be literally and figuratively naked. Sure, there were times our sex life seemed threatened by babies and middle age, but the best thing about being legally required just one sex partner is we were forced to work through our issues.
I CAN BE ME
Having someone’s unconditional love for years on end means I can relax. I don’t have to be cute all the time. It means I can be ugly and sad and angry and depressed, and he won’t give up on me. He’ll call out my bullshit, sure, but I can safely work through my issues and get out better, knowing he was with me throughout it all. I also do the same for him. It’s not easy to hold on to someone who is mentally and emotionally thrashing about, but we do it anyway because who else will?
SHARING TRULY IS CARING
A life shared together isn’t just all about deep and serious stuff. It’s starting the day sharing coffee and kisses while the kids get grossed out. It’s knowing that when he sees a pink laptop, he’ll ask me if he can buy it for me. It’s looking for Netflix shows we can watch together. It’s us sharing household chores. It’s him telling the kids I need to go to the salon or me taking the kids to a play place because one of us needs to be alone. It’s silly jokes and made-up words only he and I get. It’s getting a chocolate bar just because. It truly is nice to know someone is thinking of me and I’m thinking of him all day long.
THE THRILL CALMS DOWNBUT IT’S STILL ALWAYS THERE.
Marriage is coming home and knowing the best part of my day is just about to begin. It’s feeling excited and relieved to go back to my safe place with my person. It’s reading his messages that he can’t wait to see me again like we’re in a long-distance relationship when in fact we just saw each other five hours earlier. It’s feeling a special flutter in your tummy that’s been there for 20 years and after all this time you know it’s always going to be there.
LOVE BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE MAKES ME AVAILABLE TO LOVE OTHERS
Loving him and being loved for so long helps me become a better person every day. The longer we’re together, the better we become as spouses, as parents, and as human beings. And I always thought love was something you share with just one person, a private privilege, but because we’ve spent so many years together, I know now that having this kind of love for so long opens me up to others and be more understanding and compassionate to my community
I’ve never been a forever kind of girl. I’m a one-day-at-a-time person, but after 20 years of love and knowing that one day death will end all this, I can only feel grateful that for a few short decades in all of life’s lonely eternity, I was able to love this man and he loved me.
“THEY SAY LOVE SHOULDN’T BE HARD, BUT WHAT THEY REALLY MEAN IS LOVE MAKES THE WORK EASIER, AND TO STAY WITH SOMEONE YEAR IN AND YEAR OUT TAKES A ” LOT OF WORK