Cooling Off

The wife IMed at work Friday asking if she could go to a late night scrapbook party. I said it was okay. She hadn't been to a crop party in a month or two, and I needed the alone time. I fed the kids and kept them entertained until bedtime. Then I took some time to blog and chat. It was a respite from the distance that had filled our house the past two evenings.

She returned from her party at about a quarter to one in the morning. She noticed that I had a box from Amazon.com on the kitchen table. She asked me which books I had ordered. I led her to the bedroom to show her them. One of them was The Sex Starved Marriage and another was Dr. Chapman on The Marriage You've Always Wanted .

She asked to see the first book, and she started to read the first chapter. She then told me that she thought she was going to like the book and asked to read the first few paragraphs to me, which can be found on the author's website. She said that it sounded like something I would have written.

We talked a few minutes. She asked me if I had slept on the couch the night before. I told her that I did up to around 4:45 a.m., but then I woke up and felt like I had done the wrong thing, returning to bed. She said it did't feel good to have me missing from our bed. She didn't want us to divorce, and she was worried. I told her that I didn't want us to divorce, either, but we needed to take a good hard look at our marriage.

It was a good sign. In spite of the heated arguments in counseling and the cold distance that followed, both of us were reaching out to say that we weren't going to quit just net. A few mintes later, I took her hand and told her, "I want you to make love with me."

I don't think I've ever expressed a desire to have sex using the word "I want...". It's always been "Do you...". She responded favorably, and we did just that. It was passionate, heated, and very pleasurable, thanks to some sex positioning tips from a fellow PFer (thank you note in the e-mail). We went to sleep, her back in her nightgown, cuddled.

The next morning, I told her that I enjoyed being with her the night before. We talked some more about things. We agreed that we're far from resolution. This still may yet wind up in a parting of ways. It won't happen today, as I might have feared a few days earlier. I think the love making was a way for us to assure one another that we'll hang on for now. At a day at a time, this much is enough.