It dawned on me that marriage monopolises sex. Often. Usually.
Perhaps that’s too obvious, but some obvious things are obvious in hindsight, but not in the moment, and not in the long before it.
It’s obvious that often when people are together (meaning the relationships between couples), it’s assumed they’re not having other relationships with someone else.
There are cases of open relationships, or kinks like swingers parties or stuff like that. I’d keep them both out of the scope.
Well, because…
First, I don’t believe in open relationships. The ones I saw personally, all of them were bullshit: a couple that isn’t meant to be together, but they are for some reason. And instead of separating and finding themselves a better partner, they just keep being together, and for some reason they decided to seek that partner while being in the relationship. Perhaps that could work for just a casual sex with someone else (assuming that other person is aware and accepts the deal). But not for anything more. Living different families at the same time, sounds like someone is fooling themselves.
Second, I’ve never been to swinger parties, so you can call me in, if that’s OK to attend alone, lol.
So, in a marriage, it’s assumed that you both are together ‘till death do us part.’
There’s this saying that ‘a man wants to be first for a woman’ (fucking why is it necessary?) ‘and a woman wants to be the last for the man.’
- The latter makes more sense.
- The former makes sense when you both met young, fell in love, yada yada.
I had my first love of sorts, with whom we both could be the first ones for each other, yet we both failed at that. We’d have our mutual sex later, but it was too late for the two of us to play that very card of first lovers.
And I managed to
mismanagefuck up the relationships badly. It’s an ancient history by now anyway.
I had my other first love that was my first sex partner, and I wasn’t her first. I thought of that as something of (any) importance, and it poisoned the relationship in a way. I think treating this as ‘the fuck is that even matters?’ would be the much more sensible approach. (If not the only one. If you’re not fucking medieval idiot, of course.)
Rest of the women I ever had sex with, none of them was my first sex partner. For obvious mathematical reason.
For none of them I was their first, with my wife being the exception. When I learned that fact, it made me consider dumping her, when it’s not too late. (Now’s too late!) But I thought ‘nah, if that’s of no importance, it works both ways!’ The problem is, the age matters here, and if you’re 25 or something, that’s fucking suspicious.
‘Not a sign of mental illness, totally fine!’
(Jasper’s scene from Klaus (2019), when he talks of Claus.)
The sex was just awful, and the worst I ever had. Which is important to me, but I decided that’s a matter of… training, you know. Practice.
Fast forward years into the future, and it turned out, it’s of no importance. My wife can live without any sex, like for months easily. Years too, if needed. That’s something a violent jealous but distant idiot husband would be happy to have, but I’m not him. Neither I’m distant, nor I’m jealous (any more). Nor I’m idiot (I want to believe), and I’m calm, not violent.
That’s a serious problem for a marriage. Initially, I thought I’m not looking for just a sex partner, but also a life partner, someone to share kids experience with— so, a more complex type of relationship.
Oftentimes, it feels like we share only the kids experience, and the rest is just non-existent. It’s not generally true, as it’s complex, but if over-simplified, it’s easy to come to that kind of conclusion.
E.g. I’m just mad (or very angry, if there’s any difference) that she doesn’t make any serious attempts at being an illustrator. She wondered whether the workflow of drawing on an iPad is something useful. I’m curious too! Here we are, having an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil for 2.5 years now. It looks like the iPad battery is on its last legs (or its having some other irrelevant issues, the root cause is unclear), and God knows what’s the battery state of the Pencil now, considering she used it exactly zero times. And if the iPad would die, I’d prefer to buy a newer model, with which the Pencil would be incompatible. We still don’t know whether it’s useful to draw that way or not. I communicated that to her, so not that this is some secret. That I expect her at least try. Like, at least have some respect for me getting all that tech for you to try. She’s panically afraid of anything new.
There are so many tiny aspects of this marriage that I thought as of a higher priority than sex, and they’re just rather absent anyway.
A friend shares the story of his colleague of our age of 40 or so, who married a much younger girl of twenty something. She’s young and she loves sex, amazing body, all that.
To me, a man like that that… that’s just a sign of an idiot. That would be my first reaction. Like, fuck, are you fucking that dumb? Finding the partner just to fuck? Nothing more, really?
I’m trying to be non-judgmental, and so I realise it’s not that simple. People date different people, and dating someone younger than you isn’t necessarily makes you an idiot.
Hey, my very Nick dates a girl of 25 now! Almost ten years younger than him. Life happens!
I joke that Leonardo DiCaprio dumped her for being too old, so that’s Nick dates her now. (I hope that’s not disrespectful, I just cannot comprehend the logic of DiCaprio.)
But in general, I’m not appreciative of dating people much younger. (I’m not sure about much older.) Most of my sexual partners (and girls I’ve been genuinely interested in) were older than me. Usually, a couple of years older, and sometimes a couple of years youngber.
I had one partner of six years older, and she was the best. And another 14 or 15 years older (a mixed bag).
My wife is the youngest person I ever dated, and she’s just 3 years younger. Even, closer to 2.5. Not much.
My point is: marrying people only on the basis of sex (shared sexual activity, lovemaking, not gender!) is a doubtful strategy, to put it mildly. But not considering this, especially when it’s important to you, is also a doubtful strategy.
Apparently, there needs to be some balance. Me, I have some strong sexual energy, and while I tried to belittle and suppress it all my adult life, this tension needs the release even more then. All of the girls I’ve ever been truly intersted in, they all were not sexual partners in the first place. I had some interest in them as persons.
So, I think, that’s just logical to seek long-time partner on the basis of other means than just sex. But, if sex is important to you and not important to your partner, you’re in a tricky place then! Either you’d have to find it elsewhere, which brings quite a lot of hardships into the relationships. By attempting at open relationships or seeking another partner. Or, you’re in the miserable state with no real solution then. You may attempt at changing that for the partner, but that’s a ‘changing other person’ business, which isn’t a good idea in the first place.
Recently, somewhere I’ve seen the thought that sex is a mutual hobby you two share. I quite liked this approach. Makes sense to me.
On the contrary, it seems like finding someone else for any other activity your marriage partner does not share — any other hobby, so to say — it seems socially appropriate. Weird, isn’t it?
I have no conclusion here. Everyone thinks for themselves, I guess.
And it seems that — as always — the primary idea is that one needs to know thyself. If you think something isn’t important, think twice. What if it is?