My Pre-Midlife Crisis

Our Parents & Sex

I asked my husband last week if he thought his parents still have sex. He quickly said, "Nah." And he left it at that. I had assumed he would answer that way. If I had to guess, I'd say they don't either - though I wish for them that they did. His parents are only in their mid-50's - attractive, intelligent, and loving. His dad seems tired most of the time, and keeps to himself without interacting much with anyone - even when we come for the yearly visit at Christmas. I have never seen him sleep in the bed with my mother-in-law. Instead, he sleeps on the sofa or in his chair in the livingroom. My mother-in-law is beautiful, kind, and vivacious. She gets tired too, but no more than I do at 34.

His parents do not spend much time together, mostly out of circumstance. When Michael was in the 9th grade, his dad was transferred to Alabama for work. Since his mother did not want to move from Mississippi, she and the children stayed there, and his dad stayed in Alabama. He came home every second or third weekend. He did not attend church with the family, even when he was home - and he still does not. The family photo under their television set in the livingroom is a testament to the separateness - it is my mother-in-law and the three children. Though it was taken when my husband was in high school or college, his dad is not in the picture. I sense my father-in-law loves his family quite a lot. Obviously, he worked hard to provide for them. He beamed with great pride at my husband's graduation ceremony when he received his PhD, and last month when my brother-in-law received his PhD as well. He seemed happy at our wedding, and smiled and even danced for a few minutes. He is now out of work temporarily (or perhaps permanently) due to a diagnosis of sleep apnea that still hasn't been successfully treated. I am worried about him, and about how he will cope if indeed he is out of work on an infinite basis.

Michael clearly did not have a model growing up of a physically intimate, passionate, and/or sexual relationship while he was growing up. He saw companionship and deep intimacy in marriage as optional. He saw a dad who provided for the family financially and showed his love in distant and quiet ways. He saw a mother who showed little concern for the distance between she and her husband. I do not know when the last time was that he must have seen his parents hug, or kiss, or act like people who have a sexual relationship. Throughout all of my visits with family and extended family, I have not seen anyone that I thought might have at some point modeled this kind of relationship. Even my husband's siblings - 23 and 30 years old, do not date or seek out intimate companionship for the future. Career goals, for them, seem to be the dominant theme without a balance of the importance of intimate romantic relationships as well (though they seem to have a strong set of friends). In the three years I have been with my husband, I have not known either his brother or sister to date anyone.

My parents were quite different. All of my life, may parents have worked together - side by side, literally. My father is an accomplished architect. In the beginning stages of his practice, Mom worked hard running blueprints, managing the files and finances of the business. She was his secretary and office manager when he could not afford to hire one. She continued to run the entire practice when various secretaries over the years proved to be complete flakes. My little brother and I were frequently in the office, and every day after school I was there working too to earn money for college. The family business was comforting to me. There was closeness and a lot of contact. And there was a fair share of hurt feelings and animosity as well. But at the end of the day (and sometimes at the end of the week), everyone drew back in together. My friends used to come over to the house and ask why Dad didn't kiss Mom when he walked in the door at the end of the day. I had to explain that they had gotten up together, worked together, had lunch together, and that Mom had been home only long enough to have dinner ready when Dad got in. They were tired. But at night, they often snuggled on the sofa. They grinned at each other. Dad had been known to emerge in his white t-shirt and underwear and do a "mock" seductive dance in the kitchen for my Mom while the two of us kids looked on in amusement.

Mom and Dad slept together at night, and had a lock on the bedroom door. We knew not to bust into the bedroom, and we knew why. Married people have sex. We never questioned this, and as I became a teenager, I realized my parents were "hip" and that my father was a sexy man. Women looked at my dad, and my friends thought he was handsome. Candles, boxes of condoms, lubricant, and massage oil were never too far out of sight in their bedroom or in the master bathroom. When I got older and would come home from college, Mom might show me the latest lingerie she had bought - she even bought the marabou slippers. When my brother left for college, they seemed to blossom further into true intimacy and love. I know they went through rocky times. Dad went through a pissy phase of life where he was no joy to be around. Mom stood by him, and I knew that God was the only reason she didn't. He frequently fired her at work. Yes - fired her. Or she would quit. She would box up her things, put them in the car and go home. And she would refuse to go back until he apologized sincerely. And he did, I suppose (I assume). Either that or else Mom worried the business would crash and burn if she didn't go in to do billing.

I never doubted the importance of intimacy in all its forms in marriage. When I was about to get divorced, I was riding in the back of the car on a visit with my parents. I finally decided to disclose to them that my husband and I did not have sex - because he wasn't interested. They both voiced how a lot of people in the family had thought he way gay. Dad was furious with him. He got very serious, and went on one of his famous monologues about the importance of sex. He said that if I ever brought another man home to meet the family, "He'd better look at you like he wants you. And I should be able to tell." He explained what it means to want someone, and why wanting to be with someone sexually is important. He explained that at 50-something years of age, he still wanted to have sex every day - or more. While this seemed like a little too much father-daughter disclosure, I appreciated his honesty. He made me promise I would never again settle for someone to whom physical intimacy and sex were not important. I promised him I would not. I felt that promise in my heart that night, and I was hopeful. God was the inventor of sex - he planned for us to do it, and he made us only fertile part of the time, so it wasn't merely for procreation - it was for pleasure. Wow - God is awesome.

I am terrified of growing older with my husband and becoming like his parents (though on some level it has already happened). I don't want to become like mine either, though that sounds like the lesser of two evils for me. I know Michael sees the kind of a relationship his parents have as a comfortable one - one in which he can have all of the privacy and freedom that he craves (more on this later). On some level, I understand why he would be so alienated from his sexuality and wonder what in the world I keep complaining about. He knows nothing more. It would be like telling someone to walk through the forrest, with the promise that there is a paradise on the other side they can't see - but they've never experienced paradise, and they hate forests. It doesn't seem worth it to them. It seems too costly. They don't comprehend the reward - they might even say they don't know what all the excitement is about over it. The dessert they are standing in is far more comfortable - the temperature is always the same, and so is the climate. There is nothing to explore. You can see all the things around you. There is nothing to nourish or care for. There are no hills or valleys - just flat land. There are no colors to interpret, or anything to stimulate your senses. Your mind and body have little adjusting to do. The dessert seems a much safer, more comfortable place than the forrest and this unseen and unpredictable paradise. Paradise seems high-maintenance. There are plants to water, and lawns to mow. There are seasons, and a vast variety of living creatures to look after. And there is risk of discovering paradise and loosing it. If I don't want paradise, I won't be disappointed if I never make it there. So why bother wanting it?

This is the dilemma. I'm already half-way into the forrest. I can't even look back and see the dessert behind me. My husband is standing on the edge of the dessert and the forrest. All he sees are trees ahead of him - and an impossible journey. He likes his dessert with it's freedom and privacy. I had attempted to pull him into the forrest, but he got cut and scraped, and cried, complained, and sulked, and felt sorry for himself. He kept looking back at the dessert and longing for it. It looked better to him than the forrest. So, he ran back and stood at the edge and watched me running into the forrest. I tried to wait for him, but now I was in the middle - I had to choose to run toward paradise, or loose myself and retreat to the dessert. If I stay in the dessert, I will die - I know my own limits as a creature of paradise, and I must get there - even if it means I go through the forrest alone. My friends are in the forrest too, and they will walk with me. I can hear the voices of thousands of others ahead of me, and I can see the corpses of others who have stayed in the dessert and lost their souls. Michael does not seem bothered by the corpses or the suffering of others in the dessert too. He says they are content, and so is he. Staying in the dessert requires nothing. Running into the forrest requires giving up too much for him. But for me, it promises a receiving of everything. Even if I never make it through the forrest, I have been in good company, and I have seen wonderful forms of life. And I held on to myself.

posted by No Longer In Crisis @ 5/27/2005 01:29:00 PM