The Politics (and Power) of Sex in a Marriage

The Politics (and Power) of Sex in a Marriage

The only stranger I've ever had sex with is my husband. One day after I met him. And sometimes, 16 years down the road he's still the stranger in my bed.

If it was up to Sam we would make love – he'd say make love, I'd say fuck – every night and double on the weekend. A little something quick before the kids wake up.

Not me. Who has the time? Sex worth having – the kind where I come – is an investment, takes hours sometimes, and the sad truth is I just can't be up half the night then pack PB&Js for my kids' lunches before daybreak the next morning. A couple nights like that and I'm worthless for a week.

The other thing is, even with my husband, sex is just sex, just two bodies together and everything meaningful happens outside the bedroom. For me anyway. Hot is about the way we connect without ever touching. Hot is in the head before it reaches the body.

If we're not clicking on that level, the touching is, well, let's just say it's way less than hot. Think North Atlantic. If my mind and soul aren't getting off on him, on us, on the way we are together at the dinner table or talk just folding laundry on the living room floor, sex doesn't bring me any closer. Its part of being intimate, but it isn't in and of itself intimacy.

This is a problem in my marriage. This – even beyond the whole gender difference thing – is how Sam's needs and mine are so disparate we spiral into frustration and anger and resentment over and over. Over sex.

Sam is the most un-womanizing straight man ever. No porn, or girly mags, or strip joints – and in Portland porn and strip joints are almost impossible to avoid. They don't do a thing for him, though. At least, not enough for him to seek them out.

When he says make love, I believe that's what it is for him. The highest form of connection and caring and the pinnacle of together, and really the only way he is able to reach the deepest parts of himself or me.

So it happens like this, we fall into some emotional disconnect by day and I shoot him down by night.

We get stranded on some icey-island in out in our own private North Atlantic. We stand each other down in the cold. And the colder it gets the colder it gets.

He thinks I'm holding out as power play, denying sex based on anger, and he looks for ways to repay me.  If I'm not getting my needs met, neither are you kind of mentality.

Sixteen years it's taken me to understand we're doing this, marriage, separation and marriage again.

The other morning we slip in a quickie before the kids are up, first sex we've had all week, and he holds on to me and he says, "I love you so much."

His voice gets that new love gush and he says, "thank you so much for doing the dishes last night."

Sixteen years it's taken me to understand the politics of sex in my marriage.