January Reading

Girl Number One

I hope you girls read "I'd Rather Eat Chocolate". Ahh, so good. Honestly, it changed the way I look at sex. Honestly. The author, Joan Sewell, not only is brutally honest and open about her sex life with boyfriend, then fiancé, then husband, she is a really great writer. So many times when I read these "self-help/relationship guide" books, I can't get past the horrible writing. But, Ahh, a breath of fresh air with Joan.

Two of my favorite Quotes are from the Beginning of the book.

"Dr. Laura Berman said, 'A lot of men don't realize that some of the best foreplay you can give your wife is taking the kids, washing the dishes, cleaning up. She will be so turned on, right?'"

Read out loud to my husband.

"If you don't enjoy sex, and are having it anyway, you are truly being submissive in the most personal way possible."

I love this book because it's not just one woman's ideas and thoughts. The author researches and reads and searches for answers about sex and marriage. She quotes television, other writers, and other women.

It's really a collaboration of thoughts. And it's powerful; and for me, life changing.

Let me know what you thought about the Book. 

Secret #2

Sometimes when I'm getting ready in the morning, my 6 month-old daughter sits on the sink and hangs out with me. Sometimes I let her suck on my husband's toothbrush. Sometimes I don't even rinse it off after she's done. Sometimes she has a runny nose while she does it. My bad.

girlnumbertwo

Ingredients for Marriage

My four ingredients for (a good) marriage: good sex, honesty, happiness and commitment. I know there are more ingredients, but those are the big ones, right?

Can you have a healthy marriage if you're only having bad sex?

Honesty, of course.

Commitment, of course; everyone wants love until the end. Except maybe people in Hollywood. 

What trips me up is this desire to be happy. I feel like many don't make happiness a necessity.

"Are you Happy?"

"No, but we've been together for 20 years."

Is commitment the ultimate goal? To stay together forever? Even if you're not happy? Even if you haven't had sex in 9 months?

It's "appropriate" to leave a marriage for infidelity, abuse and dishonestly.

Are you allowed to leave because you’re not happy? Is that enough?

Are you allowed to leave if you and your spouse don’t connect sexually?

I’m just confused how much good sex and happiness matter.

I feel like this is the Christian View of marriage. This is just my perspective.

This graph is Hollywood Love. If you’re not happy, why stay?

Why are we getting mixed messages? 

Does it have to be one or the other?

Can we make the ingredients even amounts?

Or does one have to be more/less?

Girl Number One

Recommended Reading

"How to Be Good"  Nick Hornby

I read this Book awhile ago, and have kept this quote on my computer.

“What you don’t ever catch a glimpse of on your wedding day- because how could you?- is that some days you will hate your spouse, that you will look at him and regret ever exchanging a word with him, let alone a ring and bodily fluids. Nor is it possible to foresee the desperation and depression, the sense that your life is over, the occasional urge to hit your whining children, even though hitting them is something you knew for a fact you would never ever do. And of course you don’t think about having affairs, and when you get to that stage in life when you do (and everyone gets there sooner or later), you don’t think of the sick feeling you get in your stomach when you’re conducting them, their inherent unhappiness. And nor do you think about your husband waking up in the morning and being someone you don’t recognize. If anyone thought about any of these things, then no one would ever get married, of course they wouldn’t; in fact, the impulse to marry would come from the same place the impulse to drink a bottle of bleach, and those are the kinds of impulses we try to ignore, rather than celebrate. So we can’t afford to think about these things because getting married- or finding a partner whom we will want to spend our lives with and have children by- is on our agenda. It’s something we know we will do one day, and if you take that away from us then we are left with promotions at work and the possibility of a winning lottery ticket and it’s not enough, so we kid ourselves that it is possible to enter these partnerships and be faced only with the problem of mud removal, and then we become unhappy and take Prozac and then we get divorced and die alone. “

Obviously we're in the midst of Dirty Realism here. The glass is half empty. And perhaps as much as we need to hear the truth about Marriage- it's hard, it's difficult, some days you will wake up and hate your spouse- we also need to hear about the magic. We need to know that some nights our husband w i l l bring home flowers. We need to know that some nights our husband w i l l hang up his coat and put his shoes away. Sure, it's not always rainbows and butterflies, but it's not always unahappiness and Prozac. We get to have both. The rainbows tide us over until the rain comes again.

Girl Number One

Knocked Up

My favorite Marriage Relationship is from "Knocked Up". I love the relationship between Debbie and Pete (played by Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd). I think it's a pretty accurate depiction of marriage after children.

Maybe it's a little pessimistic, but it's accurate. and I'd rather have honesty.

Girl Number One

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Back in the day, when I first got married, when life was rainbows and butterflies, I hated being away from my husband. He traveled 3 weeks out of the month, and while he was gone I would sit around and mope. And the worst part of it all? We only had one car and it was a stick. I couldn't drive it. I would practice and practice, but I just couldn't get the hang of it. So I would sit in my apartment. All Week. Waiting for my husband to come home.

Fast Forward. 3 Years.

My husband leaves tomorrow for the week, and I'm almost excited. Don't get me wrong, I miss him when he's gone. But it's nice to have the quiet nights to myself. I can watch whatever I want on TV and do crosswords puzzles without anyone bugging me. I can read without his constant asking "Why do you read? Do you like reading?"

The only time I get a little lonely is dinner time. I hate cooking for just me and the kids. But otherthanthat, this works for us. If he doesn't travel for awhile, both of us start to get a little kooky. Maybe it works for us, because this is the way it’s always been.

I do worry a little about him. I worry that he has a girlfriend in every city he travels to. I worry about his plane going down. I wonder if we would be just as happy if he stopped traveling; if we were together every day, every week, every month. But all of the worry aside, I’m looking forward to having some peace and quiet tomorrow night.

Girl Number One

The Dry Spell

Okay okay okay. You're right. This blog is called Sex.Love.Marriage. And I, Girl No.2, have not talked about sex yet. I'm nervous about spilling my sex life onto the screen and letting cyber space judge me accordingly. But, I believe in this blog and I believe in being honest to my readers.

(Warning: If you are reading this blog for the Love.Marriage sections then skip this sultry entry.)

My husband and I dated for about two months before I let him kiss me. I wanted this relationship to be different. Then as soon as we kissed it was full steam ahead. We had sex sometimes 3 times a day. We were in love and very physically showing it with each other. As time went on and we got to know each other better, my husband revealed to me that he isn't all that interested in sex ALL the time. My husband loves to hold hands and make out. The fresh new relationship sex wore off and we were having sex consistently 2-3 times a week. And THEN. I got pregnant. And THEN we got married. And....drum rolllllllllllll. We have had sex once since our wedding night. And we got married in March of 2010.

I know. I'm a terrible wife. But, here are some key reasons. I've had some abuse in my past. I was very uncomfortable having sex when I was pregnant. My husband is VERY understanding and sensitive to me to the point of annoyance. So now he does not ever initiate sex, because of course he would feel terrible if I turned him down. So it's all on me to initiate it and.....we don't do it.

So. I"m planning on it. Very soon. To get our sex life back. Men need it and I know this. This is my goal for this year. To reclaim our sex life and be the wonderful wife I know is in me.

Girl Number Two