Get past that dry spell

Now here’s the dirty little secret about long-term monogamous marriage: some of us honestly can’t remember the last time we’ve had sex with our husbands.

Just

Can’t

Remember.

This described me last spring. My married sex life had been diminishing for years. We’d gone from sex every day to sex a few days a week to sex once a week to sex every once in a while to…

Never.

Never is not good.

Worse, I didn’t even miss it, at least, not with my husband. I was quite content to not have sex with him.

He didn’t initiate. I didn’t initiate. Life was really pleasant in my king-sized bed.

Yet, I was anything but asexual. I lusted after any remotely good-looking man I saw. One day, I was eating lunch alone in New York. A waiter folded a paper napkin into a flower and placed it on my plate. He said, “You look so lonely. You should not be so lonely.”

I thought:

Me? Lonely? Say it ain’t so!

You? Me? In the stairway?

No, I did not just think that. No, I’m married. You see? Wedding band on left ring finger.

But the stairway does sound…

I said:

“Thanks for this. I will treasure it always. I’ll take the check please.”

And so, as I rode on the bus for an hour and a half to get home that day, I thought about my sex life and about my husband.

I thought:

Him? Me? In the bedroom? Oh, God, no, not that!

The Making of a Dry Spell

Of course my husband and I had problems, and the dry spell was just one of many. It was a symptom. We had many other symptoms. They included

• When we went out to dinner, we had nothing to talk about.

• I avoided eye contact because I assumed he was mad at me, pretty much 24-7.

• I talked about him sarcastically behind his back. I had nothing good to say about him.

• I was secretly planning his funeral.

• I was writing a novel about a woman (me) who kills her husband (him).

So, yeah, the sex part was just one piece of our This Marriage is Doomed Puzzle.

How Long is Too Long?

So you are sitting here and you are reading this and you are thinking, “Has it been too long? Am I officially in a dry spell? What’s the definition of a dry spell anyway?”

This is my answer:

* If you can’t remember the last time you did it: Too long.

* If you can remember the last time you did it, and that memory puts you in a different season of the year: Too long. If it puts you in a different year: Way too long. A different decade: Way, way, way too long.

* If you think of your husband as your best friend: Too long.

* If you’re thinking about humping the 18 year old who lives down the street: WAY too long.

So has it been too long? I mean, if you just banged away yesterday, you wouldn’t still be reading. I get that. Now, you want to know: what to do about it.

How did we go from never having sex to having sex once a week? Let me tell you.

We worked on our marriage. Before I could want to have sex with my husband, I first had to forgive him and grow closer to him. More on this in coming blogs.

We made a date. I referred to it as “Our Second First Time.” We booked a room in New York. We lined up my parents to babysit our daughter. It was a deadline. We were going to have sex during our New York weekend no matter what.

I did everything I could to feel sexy on this weekend. I got a bikini wax. I bought lingerie. I purchased a really nice and sexy little dress and shoes.

He romanced me. We had a date. We went out to eat. We wined and dined.

We just did it. And hey, you know what, it wasn’t bad at all. In fact, it was quite good. No, I take that back. It was quite fantastic.

So then we came home from this wonderful weekend and you know what happened? We stopped having sex again.

Whoops.

So we scheduled it. We prioritized it.

We started having sex once a week.

And then we stopped again.

Whoops.

You know what? It happens. Life is busy. Life is stressful. Life –especially life as a parent–is the ultimate anti-aphrodisiac. Still, sex is important and, I’ve learned, as long as I continue to prioritize it, I will continue to make it happen. And I will continue to enjoy it.

Here’s something else: every time we have sex? We grow closer as a couple. Every time we grow closer as a couple? I’m more interested in having sex. The two feed into one another.

PROJECT POINTERS

• Put a date on the calendar to just do it.

• Get lingerie. If you feel sexy, you’ll want to have sex.

• Work on your marriage. It’s hard to lust after someone you hate. The ultimate aphrodisiac is a good relationship.