Needing Passion

        A fellow blogger recently stated that “love takes time, so marry a friend”. What happens when your friendship is mistaken for love and a decade later you realize that the love never quite developed as you had expected?  Or the person whose proposal you said yes to was so funny, handsome, well educated and on a great career path, that these things trumped the importance of a lover’s spark?  Can you live a life with a partner and never have true passion?  Would you want to?  How about if you had children?  Would that encourage you to maintain your existence, lacking it?

         These are all questions I had not fathomed until after eight years of faithful marriage, giving birth to two beautiful children, buying a dog, co-habitating with in-laws, earning a college degree, and working full time, all the while.  It wasn’t until I couldn’t shake an old beau from my brain that I realized I was missing something in my life.  That something was passion.  I kept asking myself why and how I had missed out on this important necessity in life.  And was it really a necessity?  Or just a happy perk that some lucky people got to experience?  Had I ever experienced passion?  I had, with the beau I couldn’t bury back into the depths of my memories from a decade prior.  So why had I not realized over these years that my marriage was lacking something so seemingly essential?  The only answer I could find was that I was just too busy to realize it was non existent, or that it had never been present even during early courting. 

        So now I am thirty two years old and raising two great kids with a man who might as well be my brother.  It is also important to mention that hubby is fourteen years my senior.  You might wonder now what my sex life is like.  Honestly?  It’s fairly non existent as well.  How often does it occur?  A safe representative number would be once a month.  Maybe, if I am lucky twice.  It’s always an ‘event’ that I find myself initiating.  I say ‘event’ because hubby likes to refer to our infrequent copulation romps as ‘sex nights’.  There is a bit of a ritual involved.  This includes hubby showering while I put the kiddies to bed, followed by me showering while hubby queues up the porn (this is normal, right?).  Lastly I must watch him mix up a few cocktails, while we try to have deep conversation that neither of us really makes a good attempt at, then proceed to the living room and wait for the show to begin.  Now you might say, why is this woman allowing her husband to add porn to the mix?  My only response can be that by that time of the month, I am crawling the walls and will take it anyway I can get it.  To me, porn is not that big of a deal, and really, who doesn’t enjoy watching it? 

        With that said, from time to time, I get my panties in a twist and put my foot down about its presence.  This leads to hubby feeling like he is a bad influence and it dampens the mood.  So, for most ‘events’, I prefer my man ready to take action.  The TV does its thing for a little while until he’s filtered through all the ‘specially’ downloaded selection he has chosen for the night, then the TV goes off along with all the lights (that’s right, pitch black) and we begin.  Kissing, petting, oral, intercourse, the whole gambit.  I’ll even add that hubby can be rather kinky and has some fetishes.  We’ll save those details for another post.  We’ve got all the moves down, or do we?  We certainly know what to do.  He seems more than happy with the action he is receiving and frequently verbalizes his satisfaction throughout the fifteen minute, give or take, event.  But where does that leave me?  Am I satisfied with the experience?  Even though my partner has become well practiced at working me up to an orgasm (manually I might add, not once ever through actual intercourse), I feel like I am missing out on something.  While the activity is in full swing I have literally found myself bored, disinterested, with my mind wondering to other things.  I often think about the term ‘love making’ and can honestly say that I don’t feel that I have ever truly made love with my spouse.  It has always just been sex.  Then I realize that the man on top or underneath me could be anyone, for I feel no spark, no chemistry, and no connection.  No passion.  So recently, as my children have become less dependant on me, and I have had time to reflect on my life, I’ve come to the realization that what I am longing for is indeed passion.  Enter: Old beau.

The New Found Compromise

Marriage is supposed to be all about compromise.  Or so I have been told time and time again.  Over the past decade my marriage has proven that an accurate statement.  Sure compromising leads to a joint decision, but is everyone happy with that decision?  Does agreement result in happiness?  It seems to me that compromise tends to have the opposite effect with a temporary high of accomplishment or maybe even an air of winning the argument.  Unfortunately that feeling of elation fades rather quickly as we move onto the next topic to haggle over.  Are we satisfied with an existence full of compromises?  How can we be?  Does there come a point when one or both parties decide they are fed up with the challenges of decision making?  Finally, in my marriage recently, exactly that has happened.  One of us has decided we need to be happy for a change and are no longer willing to give in to the other via the innocent compromise that by default, forfeits our own happiness.  So what does that say about our marriage?  Should the bat signal be sent out for the nearest marriage counselor?  But seriously I wonder if this momentous occasion is actually the kickoff to a slowly deteriorating marriage.  But what really is changing here?  I think this has positive notes strewn throughout, hiding deep in the depths of the has-been compromise.  We are now taking a stand for what we desire and are no longer forcing ourselves into some traditional marriage role within the realm of the compromise.  Instead of both parties making a decision for the sake of the group that leads to disappointment, now one of us is sure to win what we want at each go round in the decision making process.  Seems like a win-win.  Well, let’s call that just one win.  Now we’ve gone from sheer lack of happiness to being happy 50 % of the time.  It seems that such a revelation just might have saved us thousands of dollars in therapy.  This begs the question ‘what other possibilities are out there?’ doesn’t it?

I stumbled across this article from Redbook today, for all the ready and willing compromisers out there...enjoy.

http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/articlerb.aspx?cp-documentid=18187580&GT1=32023

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