Yesterday I found out that two friends of mine were having an affair. Two years ago, I think I would have been angry with them. This time, the feeling that caught me off guard was jealousy. I wasn't admiring the deception. I was imagining what it must feel like to be wanted.
I'm 40, and I've been with my wife for 13 years. For several years now, we've had sex about once every two months. At first, I understood why sex had slipped away. There had been childbirth, and life was stressful. I didn't expect desire to ignore everything else going on. But the stretch I thought we were getting through became the way we lived.
Sex still happens occasionally, when the circumstances seem to line up. What hasn't returned is the sense that she thinks about it, looks forward to it, or reaches for me because she wants me. I can't see inside her head. I can only describe what it's like to be the one who keeps asking.
Most of the time, I initiate, and most of the time, she isn't in the mood. It feels like nine rejections for every yes. After a while, we have sex, and I find myself wondering whether she's noticed how long it's been and feels she should. That's my interpretation, not something she's told me. But once that doubt is there, the sex itself doesn't answer the question I brought to it.
I've talked to her about this several times over the past three years. Some conversations have been emotional; in others, I've tried to explain plainly, without blaming her, what I'm missing. She tells me life is stressful and sex doesn't cross her mind. I believe her. Understanding her explanation hasn't made the loneliness disappear, and the conversations haven't led to a lasting change.
I've asked her to initiate sometimes. Not every time, or even half the time. One time out of ten would mean something to me. I want an occasion when I don't have to make the approach and wait to find out whether it's welcome. I don't want her agreeing to sex she doesn't want, either. That leaves us with a gap that can't be closed just by counting how often we do it.
I work out and try to stay fit, partly because I want to be desirable to her. There's something exposing about making that effort when I have no idea whether it reaches her. I don't think being fit earns me sex. I miss getting a sign that the woman I want also wants me.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've actually dreamed about her initiating. It's now been two months since we last had sex, and I'm tired of waiting for something that feels so ordinary in the dream and so unlikely when I'm awake.
Then came the news about my friends. I know having an affair isn't something I should copy. What unsettles me is that my first reaction wasn't the one I would once have expected from myself. I was jealous of being desired, and that feeling was harder to dismiss than the news.
