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Sex
We are both closer to 50 than 40. I have, in the past, gone to the doctor because I had trouble getting and maintaining an erection.
She has, in the past, told me that she has very little sex drive, and seemingly very little natural lubricant.
Even earlier this year, it would take organization, determination, and seemingly outsized effort to even find the time to get romantic, and it was usually an event fraught with anxiety on both sides.
And we loved one another as much as we do now. I didn't want to go anywhere else after work but home, and would spend hours hanging out with her, watching favorite shows together. We would laugh and talk and really feel ... together.
But the punctuation mark to a good day was very rarely sex.
Flash forward to today, a few days past our 3 month mark of engaging in an FLR, and I was struck by a remark my wife made this morning. We had just made love. It had been sweet and beautiful and full of kindness and love, with zero anxiety and no expectations. We were holding one another afterwards and she remarked that we have engaged in at least 90 acts of lovemaking of one sort or another over the last 3 months. She had a thoughtful look, and looked so sweet and cute in the cat ear headband she uses to keep her hair out of the way when she gardens, that I admit I was not paying absolute attention to her words (sorry, Abigail), but it was true. Honeymoons last, what, a week or two? We are well past the honeymoon. We're into the phase of the relationship where getting the sheets clean (laundry) is at least as important as getting them dirty. And yet, despite pretty intense professional stressors complicating my wife's day to day, and dealing with back-to-school and other issues (money!) we are so well connected that romantic love, eros, is a constant part of our lives.
This is a function of many things, of course, but I listen to a great podcast about pegging, Ruby Ryder's Pegging Paradise, and the number one thing she recommends to guys trying to convince spouses or lovers to try pegging to do is to lay the groundwork. She asks them, point blank, whether they have been showing effort in the relationship and in the day to day life. Are they focusing on her? Taking on a larger proportion of their shared responsibilities (Chores)? If they are not cohabiting, then focusing on the non-sexual side of the relationship and her emotional needs? All of those things and more are what have brought the First Lady and I to this point. All the external stresses of life are still there for us; in some ways they are worse. But our internal stresses have nearly evaporated. The chains of anxiety and interpersonal miscommunication have sublimated, floating away on the breeze. And please don't take the image of me working myself to the bone around the house so she can sit around and sip cocktails. There's too much drudge work for that to be possible. No, I am making honest efforts, and more importantly, asking her about once a day what she thinks a good priority would be. No, she doesn't micromanage me, and I don't do nothing if she doesn't tell me, but I DO communicate with her openly, and she knows anything she tells me will be received with appreciation, and so my efforts are maximized. In short. We are communicating. And are both acting on that communication. Our mutual trust and contentment swells, and in an environment where love, trust, and contentment are the strongest factors influencing a relationship, eros becomes a common and constant factor. What a beautiful life.
