Let’s get one thing straight. If you are looking for answers, I don’t have any. I repeat: I have no answers to the questions I posed in my midlife crisis sex and marriage posts, and you are not going to find them here. You will, however, find a lot more questions, and a sense that maybe, just maybe, you are not so different after all.
I recently wrote about my . . . I hate to call it midlife crisis, because you know, midlife?, but I guess that’s what it is. I received lots of feedback. Like, more feedback than I have gotten on anything I have ever written before. I heard from singles, marrieds, straight, gay, bi, divorced, separated, widowed, and remarried. I heard from old friends, new friends, neighbors, acquaintances, former coworkers, family. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, ministers, friends’ mothers (not even kidding), and people who are friends of friends who had been forwarded the post. (Thank you to those who shared my post, and especially the ballsy-themselves folks who shared publicly. I don’t delude myself into thinking that it has anything to do with my writing skill, as much as the fact that the subject struck a chord with a lot of people, and, you know, it was about sex. Everyone loves to talk about sex.
Getting all those comments, and the majority of them were private, was pretty wild. On the one hand, people are praising my writing, my balls, my husband’s balls (which are HUGE), my parents’ balls even, and the fact that I put out there something that affects so many people, but no one ever really seriously talks about. I got a lot of comments about how strong my marriage must be . . . which makes me feel a little self-conscious. Because no one is perfect, and no marriage is perfect. I am far from perfect. My husband is pretty close, but we are not perfect.
On the other hand, the vast majority of folks I talked to are in differing states of marital or relationship or life or work turmoil. I found the overall experience to be very humbling. I was so very overwhelmed that I still can’t wrap my head around it all, so I am just going to give you an idea of the things I heard over the last week. I am also doing this because so many of you asked what kind of response I had, and I think a lot of people are looking for validation, solidarity, and frankly, an answer to the question of how to fix the problems.
There were lots of folks who identified with what I wrote
“You wrote about so much of what’s in my bag.”
“I’m so in the middle of that right now. There are many days when I just want to get in my car, leave all this behind and drive. To where? Who the F cares?? Just not here!”
“Honestly I think you opening it up and discussing it with folks means a lot to people. And something good has to come of it. And I think the fact that you can talk about it with your husband so openly means a lot and is eye opening to people.”
“That was beautifully painful to read.”
“Somewhere you crawled inside my head and listened to my thoughts.”
“Well, if you could cookie cutter how I was feeling and the emotional roller coaster I was going through a year ago. It would be in the shape of your cookie.”
“Thank you for putting yourself out there. You have a beautiful insight.”
” I admire your honesty about marriage, sex, and middle age. Thank you for being vulnerable.”
“I can relate to what you wrote and have witnessed the same thing among quite a few 40-something friends and in my own life.”
“I want to thank you for writing your last two blog posts. I know from personal experience that it was difficult to both talk to your husband and write the posts and address the elephant in the room.”
“WAIT, women are freaking out over this too?!”
There were a lot of people expressing that they have trouble thinking about these issues, much less talking about it
“I wish I was so brave to be honest with myself AND everyone else. You and your husband both have huge balls.”
“Ballsy. Wow, your husband is pretty badass.”
Here’s Hope: Some People Are Really Truly Fully Happy in Their Marriages
“Being married is work and it’s never perfect. I suppose it just means taking the longer view and wondering, is it worth dismantling what you’ve built together? Because the dismantling is also work- in fact, it seems to me like it might be more work than just working through.”
“I don’t think marriage matters . . . I actually didn’t want to marry my husband at first because I feared being married meant you were trapped (as I had been), but if you weren’t married, you could always walk away at any time, which meant you had to work hard to keep the passion. Freedom is power, but also means it’s reciprocal. We did marry, and I’m very glad we did, but marriage to me is a construct. You should always know you can get out, but so can they.
As a counterpoint, I “do” monogamy because the idea of intimacy without anyone else but my husband makes me feel dull, sad and a bit ill. I’m not religious, it’s not religion, and I’ve made some close to questionable choices in the past (before him) so it’s no ones mores but my own. Trying to put a label on “how I’m supposed to feel about sex in my 40s” only makes sense assuming everyone is exactly the same, and that’s just not the case. I don’t care what other people do, frankly, but I just find most other men to be boring and “not for me”. My ex husband was pretty much what it was like being married to a buddy and we’re now divorced. My husband is not my buddy, he’s my lover and I want him every minute of every day and thankfully it’s reciprocal. It’s hard to label people’s sex drive as normal or not. It’s all normal. . . I’m reacting to the concept that monogamy is unnatural for everyone. I don’t think that’s true in my case, with this particular man. In the past I’ve been bored shitless, so yes, if I were answering this many years back, I may have had a different answer.”
“Everyone goes through periods, though, where the dust needs to be kicked up. No relationship is perfect. I’m sure having no kids helps a lot. Not that people with kids don’t have the same desire to be with one person, I just naturally think it would be harder with additional humans in your relationship and would take more work to keep focused on the relationship, sexual and non-sexual, as the most important thing.”
But those folks were in the definite minority. (And I also realize that the most respondents are obviously going to be people for whom it struck a chord – people who are having some kind of issue. The people who are happy for the most part, maybe those people didn’t feel strongly enough to even respond.)
But, oh y’all. . . I heard a lot. Funny, sad, matter-of-fact, regretful, angry, guilty, giddy. . . You name it, i heard that emotion.
People in Marriages with Little to No Communication
“Living here essentially . . . with extremely dysfunctional communication”
Financial Pressures
“You know what kills the romance? Money problems. So helps your sex life if you’re rich.”
Lack of Affection
“My problem is not sexual….although having sex twice a year for several years in a row doesn’t help. It’s affection and it’s even more than that.”
Masturbation
“Am I a freak because i never, EVER masturbate to thoughts of my husband? I think men acknowledge this all the time. Women hide it.”
“I masturbate to thoughts of my wife, just not that often. And it usually involves her along with someone else.”
There were people who have almost taken the plunge to seek sex outside marriage
“I came so close to making the jump to affair..I’m such an open book i told wife immediately after I broke it off.”
Some of these were too personal for me to quote (the one above was a public comment, so I used it), but suffice to say that people are having all sorts of . . . well, there were some affairs mentioned, but those were a small number as compared to the smaller things. A stolen kiss. A friend’s husband who went a little too far at a party. Emotional affairs with coworkers. Texting and Facebook messaging gone awry. (There was a lot of this y’all. A LOT.) Some people nipped it in the bud. Some people gave in. The most interesting thing here is how torn they all felt about it. If it felt natural to them, and so good, even the emotional part of it, then what is so bad about it and why do we have this marriage thing that might just be making us all crazy?
A few other quotes along these lines: “I’m fond of quoting Perry F these days in saying that there really isn’t much right or wrong. Just pleasure and pain of one sort or another.”
“Right and wrong are societal constructs… just like… marriage.”
People are Often Staying Together For the Kids
A lot of the time it is not just the marriage, but the kids that are holding things together. I got a LOT of comments about that.
“If it wasn’t for the kids, I don’t think we would be together. They are about the most real part of all this.”
“Why the f* else would anyone bother getting married?”
There were a surprising (to me) number of people who feel uncomfortable or brought down by their work situation
“I totally understand the not being able to be yourself at work. I constantly have to tone down and even then I am still “too loud.” . . . Sorry for the rambles but everything you said about work–me.freaking.too.”
There were people whose sex drive or desire was out of line with their partner’s, and not all sex drives are the same it seems
“I’m so jealous of your sex drive, I can’t even stand it!!!” (This was two friends in a discussion with me, but the jealous was directed at my friend – Yes, there are a number who are wanting it way more than I am.
“We probably average about 3 times a day. Definitely a minimum of twice, always before we get up in the morning and before we go to sleep at night. On weekends when we’re together all the daylong we usually have it at some point during the day, sometimes more than once.”
“I’ve always wanted it a lot, but I have been in relationships, especially my marriage, where it was more like once every 6 weeks or some such. And I told myself that I was being selfish. Which is bullshit. You’re allowed to feel however you want about it. I’m just lucky that I finally found a partner who reciprocates. . . . if you DON’T want to have the sexing very often, that’s fine, too! My ex-husband just didn’t want it. There is/was nothing wrong with that! It just meant we were mismatched. If there are lower-sex-occurrence relationships, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re unhappy. Often it does, but I just don’t think we should vilify people if it happens that they’re not highly sexual. Our society tends to do that. And then vilify people who ARE highly sexual. So we should get off that vilification train.“
There were a number of men that bristled at the thought that men might peak sexually in their teens
“The ‘men peak at 18, women at 40’ is a myth. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nSNoiAnUnH0. (Unless one’s interest can peak for 25 years and going strong, in my case. Haha!)”
The Need for Romance Or Spontaneity
A few friends complained about not having enough romance in their marriages. Likewise, a number of men knew this was the problem for their wives and just have no clue how to “do” romance.
“I can’t just jump right in it. We have a signal. I wear something nice or sexy to bed and he knows that I am up for it.”
To other couples, if you are naked that is a signal that you are ready.
One friend said that sex was “so scripted,” she could tell exactly what what going to happen next.
Evidently, Kids May Not Be Good For Your Sex Life
“You have not lived until you’ve tried to maintain a sex life and raise teenagers at the same time.
“I have a friend who gave her teenagers headphones and told them if it bothered them they should put in the headphones.”
The Reasons Why
There were a lot of people speculating on the “why” of it all. Maybe it’s chemical, maybe it’s hormonal, maybe it’s situational.
“So the question is, if [marriage is] ‘unnatural’, why do we continue to do it”?
“My wife said that pheromones and shit must be exploding about now in our age group. All her friends have crushes (I do as well) or some sort of sexual explosion. She said the Facebook ninjas are coming out of the woodwork. All dressed in little black cocktail dresses and looking to steal your man.”
“I’ve always wondered how people married a really long time don’t get bored. Maybe I’m just not a super sexual person (or maybe I’ve just not been with the right people to help make it so?), so I always kinda wonder how folks make it work.”
“I’d say the #1 reason we do monogamy is because of our history of religious patriarchies.”
There were lots of folks who came to the same conclusions that I did – That this is just biological
“I guess I’ve gone beyond the theoretical some but that’s not the interesting part for me. Not by a long shot. That’s just [sex]. The interesting part is why this had suddenly become SUCH a big deal?
Boredom. And biology. That is my theory.”
“My mom and I were discussing the whole “box of saltines” issue last night. Neither one of us believes that monogamy is a natural state for almost any species. And humans are just a species of animal on this planet regardless of what we’d like to believe.”
“We are conditioned to believe that monogamy is the norm and that anything outside of that is deviant. I think mostly as a societal control of women, because that same narrative comes with the same tired bull* that women don’t have the same levels of desire, etc., that men are programmed to “spread their seed” and women are choosier based on resources, etc.”
“Cheating, open marriages, polyamory, swinging…. There is a reason all these things are much more prevalent in our society than we realize. Sadly most don’t share this part of their lives out of fear of judgement, shame etc. Humans are not biologically meant to be monogamous in my opinion (and in the opinion of lots of doctors and sciency types whose books I’ve read and podcasts I’ve listened to).”
And y’all, there are WAY more people experimenting with non-traditional marriages than I thought
“I think I could be emotionally monogamous but not sexually. It got pretty boring until we “opened” our marriage. “Oh THAT’S where I put my sex drive!” Apparently it was in other guys’ pants…”
“What if I were to say I wanted an open marriage? (I don’t see this happening for a multitude of reasons, but . . .) What if he [there were plenty of ‘what if she’ too] said yes? What if he said no? Would it make everyone crazy?”“I would be curious how open marriage works and how it is brought it up in the first place?”
“There are so many shades of ‘open’. A lot, and probably the most successful I would guess, are the “don’t ask, don’t tell” that involve people who can separate the sexual act from emotional entanglement. Which is tough if you grew up in any kind of mostly Western society that went through a Chivalrous age.”
Another friend referred to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as “The French Way.”
“Greatly enjoyed reading about SOC [Same Old Crackers] and empathetic to a degree… While I could use the guise of several bottles of wine to share my thoughts, I’m sober and bold enough to say I do not condone open relationships mostly because that’s ultimately an escape in not addressing bigger issues, but I don’t think there’s any harm in “recreational” pursuits as long as there is great communication. The couple indulges together with another party(ies) with agreed upon parameters and mutual consent is in place before an interaction begins. Each individual in the couple has power to veto and the other half must respect and abide by that veto. This isn’t so much an open relationship as it’s a closed relationship that may extend a invitation when mutually agreeable.”
“Husband and I don’t have an open marriage in the sense that he does his thing and I do mine, but definitely have fun with other couples from time to time (yes, that’s technically swinging, but I find that term always conjures weird things for people). We both love the new relationship energy you can get with someone new, but for us there must be full disclosure…in fact talking about it is half the fun. Some of the best married couples we have ever met are in the lifestyle (yes, that’s the preferred nomenclature).”
Lots of folks in Couples and Sex Therapy
A lot of people are already in therapy. And most of them are finding it only temporarily helpful, or finding that it just makes them understand what the underlying problems are, but now how to fix them. As one friend said,
And this, which cuts to the core for me, because I fear there is this much marital unhappiness out there:
“50% of marriages end in divorce…that means that only 50% of people are brave enough to end it. How many of the remaining 50% just don’t have the guts to end it?”
I also liked that this person pointed out the bravery in dissolving a marriage. I talked to a lot of people who struggled for years in an unhappy marriage, because they were too scared or ashamed to do anything about it. I think we need to acknowledge the bravery in making positive life changes.
What to do about it?
I wrote this in an earlier post: “The Crackers Dilemma – You can cheat. Or you can have sex with the same person. OR that person can die and you are free to have sex. OR you can die, in which case you still only had sex with that one person. FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. “
One person wrote:
“Your comments about crackers was hilarious. And scared the f* out of me – For some reason I thought I was special and that I was the only person dealing with “crackers” which meant it could be fixed. Seeing you write it made me feel like it was a foregone conclusion and inescapable.”
And another:”This sort of thing has been happening with me for a while. I’m just bored in general. My spouse? He is a loving, sexy, smart man. And my mind is wandering. I’ve never even been a little tempted in real life to actually cheat, but it’s sinking in that this is *it* forever. And the thought is daunting.”And what I kept hearing over and over: “Has Anyone Come Up With a Solution?” (I would say that this is the number one comment I got from people. Right after, “Right there with you.”)
As one put it: “The question is what you do with it. I am interested in how to make this [midlife crisis/sexual frustration] work within the confines of my marriage.” And there were a lot of people who JUST. WANT. A. FIX. for their marriage, within their marriage. It’s like all our marriages are ebola, and I might have the vaccine.
There were quite a few suggestions from folks on how to improve sex/intimacy with their spouse. These include:
- ‘Ask for it. Have you said, “Have sex with me?” Try being direct.’
- “We make time to be together, both intimate and otherwise. I get dolled up to spend Friday nights at home with my husband after our daughter is asleep.”
- One recommendation for nudist resorts where my husband and I can go to have “Monkey sex”
- One couple agreed to show each other pictures of people/things they find sexy. (This one backfired and is a cautionary tale. And, yeah, for the record: Your spouse is probably attracted to either Jennifer Anniston or Zooey Deschanel, or both.
- “You can try crazy weird fantasy shit with the person you’re with.”
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“My wife and I are currently working through all of this with a marriage counselor and I highly recommend the same to anyone else struggling with these issues.”
- A number of folks recommended books to me. I’ve included links to those at the end.
The Viable Options
Okay, now there were also a good number of people who are married, but exploring other options, and I heard, frankly, some kind of crazy stuff that will not be laid out in full on my blog. Instead, I will summarize. Lest you think that I am the only one giving it this much thought, you would be wrong. I received a number of lists of “viable options” – So many that it occurs to me that maybe we are all just Houdinis trying to get the key, insert it into the lock and get out of the box before it fills with water.
- Cheating: Pretty much universally agreed to be the hottest sex, but also creates MASSIVE MARITAL DESTRUCTION. Guilt is not fun, and it makes you sick. Seriously not recommended y’all.
- Swinging: Whoa. Much more popular than i would have thought. Like, a number of people I know do it, although they apparently call it “The Lifestyle.” A few men mentioned that they are not fans due to not wanting to watch another man with their wife. However, they would be fine with it if the other man gets lost, which really just becomes a threesome, no? There are tons of websites and clubs, evidently.
- Polyamory -“The practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved.” Honestly, few seemed interested in this. But there were two people who had explored it.
- Don’t ask don’t tell (or as one couple calls it “The French Way”.) “Basically, a tacit agreement that either or both of the spouses will have an affair at some point. The key is to be discreet, don’t embarrass the other partner and make no promises to the third person that would lead them to believe this was anything more than fun. The marriage is the bedrock and still wanted very much by both. You just recognize that there are other needs. This is not something necessarily talked about a lot (other than maybe laying down some ground rules) but just sort of accepted.” (I quote here, because I could not have explained it any better.)
Interestingly, a number of people who have explored these options (other than cheating) said first and foremost, start thinking about it NOW and discussing it with your partner/spouse BEFORE it all lands in your lap, because one or both of you will be tempted or have some kind of situation arise sooner rather than later. And honestly, after reading how some of these incidents have spiraled out of control, I think they are probably right about at least thinking about what one truly believes should be a plan of action or boundary.
As one person currently exploring these options with their spouse said: “It can be a celebration of the strength and communication skills of two people dealing with powerful (!!) physical and emotional needs in a positive, constructive way.”
So, that’s the summary. There are no pat answers. We are all just struggling along together.
I have nothing to add, except that I was overwhelmed by the response and people who felt validated to hear that others struggle with the same or similar issues. I also was, like others, a little sad that there was no one or good answer, even though I knew deep down that there wouldn’t be. I know that it helped me to write about this, and I hope that it helped others. Thank you to all of the thoughtful, wonderful people who shared their thoughts and stories with me, and to those who listened while I shared mine.
I’d love to hear what you think after reading this, preferably in the comments, and especially if you disagree with what the bulk of the responses said. I do think the best part of writing this was feeling like I did something to open up a dialogue about the issues, both in my own personal life, and hopefully more publicly amongst those whom I know. Don’t be so scared to share! I feel better for having shared my story. You might too.
Recommended Reading
Two friends said their husband reading this book “saved their marriage.
And this one was recommended by five different people:
Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships
One recommendation for this one:
The Other Side of Desire: Four Journeys into the Far Realms of Lust and Longing