On any given weeknight during the final several years of my marriage you could safely wager your life savings that no sex would happen in my house. For all intents and purposes Friday followed the same rule; participants were “too tired” to do anything but vegetate in front of a glowing screen and not touch each other — for fear, perhaps, that even a touch would rouse up passions better left sleeping.
Eventually Saturday became the day on which all my hopes were hung. If we could manage a day with no arguments, few childish catastrophes and little stress it was just possible that we’d wind up naked by ten p.m. It was not guaranteed, mind you. It was just possible.
For the sake of sanity1, since I became a mother I’ve maintained a network of friends willing to trade midweek appointment-going and weekend date-night hours; the goal of the latter to ensure that adults could steal a tiny bit of time during which no one’s nose would need wiped nor tiny bottom cleansed nor petulant request for milk answered. I lived for the nights we could shuttle our charges off to trusted friends; I am such an unnatural mother that those hours felt like the only ones wherein I could draw a full breath.
For a while we devoted a fraction of that time to nakedness but then that too fell away. That dinner was so filling he’d say after we returned from a meal I didn’t have to cook. I don’t think I can do anything tonight. Rain check? And I’d surlily stomp upstairs to drown my sorrow in a book, determined next time (next time being two weeks hence when our turn for freedom would roll around again) to encourage sex before eating.
But it never worked. There was always a reason that dinner took precedence over nudity and always a reason that the effects of dinner precluded nudity, and in the fullness of time I accepted the fact that that’s the way it were and weren’t never gonna change.2
Over those many lonely years the rule was drummed into my head: Having a “date” in a restaurant was a certain sign that sex was off the table; moreover, going to a restaurant was a convenient and sure-fire way to dodge sex. So perhaps it’s understandable that when my friend because of lingering minor illness requested that we forgo a sexdate in favor of dinner out I lost my motherfucking cool.
Internally, of course.
I coolly agreed to the switch then sat back with destruction running through my head. Did it mean he was done with me? That he was no longer having fun? That this would mark the start of a long line of excuses, avoidance and sex he’d just barely tolerate? I worried past all rationality, but I am 41 years old and the possessor of many pairs of big-girl panties. I put one on and met him at the restaurant. In suitable time I summarized the tale you’ve just heard and requested politely that if he ever felt we’d do better with a clothed rather than naked friendship please to tell me forthrightly.
It’s all very silly as I’ve had ample evidence lo these many years that my partners find me to be fun, smart, desirable and ten-thousand other positive things. I know that one missed sexdate is not the same as years of married neglect. I know I’ll never want for loving, competent, kinky friends. I know these things in my head.
It’s just too bad I have such a hard time believing them.
