Chapter 1

I had read stories about this kind of thing happening. I always assumed it was just fiction and nothing like it would ever really occur, at least not to me. So, imagine my surprise the other evening when my wife of nearly twenty years told me over dinner, “Honey, we need to talk.”

My heart leaped into my throat, and I immediately tensed up, preparing for the worst. Had she cheated on me? Did she want a divorce? What could it possibly be? Where had we gone wrong?

I stared across the dinner table at her, my hands shaking. “Talk?” I asked, trying my damnedest to sound calm. “Talk about what?”

“Well, first of all, I want to tell you that I love you,” she said, then took a sip of wine as if she were using it to settle her nerves. I noticed she hadn’t eaten much at all.

I stared at her, trying to analyze her movements, her facial expression, anything to give me some clue about what was coming. I couldn’t take the stress very long and blurted out, “Have you cheated on me, Maggie?”

Her face twitched, and she looked at me with big, surprised eyes. “No, of course not,” she replied. “I would never cheat on you.” Although the way she stressed the word cheat made me nervous, I think I let out a sigh of relief. Well, if it wasn’t cheating, what could it be?

“Are you leaving me?” I asked, fearing the worst.

“Oh, God, George,” she said, “Where are you getting these ideas? Of course, I’m not leaving you. I love you.”

“Good,” I responded, “I love you, too. I plan on growing old with you and spending the rest of our lives together.”

Maggie’s eyes lit up, and she gave me a warm smile. “So do I, George.”

“Then, what is it? Are you unwell?” I asked growing concerned for Maggie’s health.

“I’m fine, honey,” she assured me. “I didn’t mean to alarm you, but it’s just that I feel like something’s been missing between us for a while now. With Meredith off to college, things just seem different. Maybe it’s empty nest syndrome or mid-life crisis or something, but we seem to be stuck in a bit of a rut.”

I felt myself relax a little, but I was still apprehensive, wondering what in the world was bothering Maggie. “A rut? How so?” I asked.

“Well, we spend so much time with work that we have little time for each other. Your job takes you out of town frequently, and my job often keeps me late at the office. When we’re not working, we’re both tired. When was the last time we had sex?”

“When was the last time we had sex?” I repeated her question. I honestly couldn’t remember the last time. Maggie had not wanted to have sex for quite a while. I had to settle for jerking off, alone, for months. “It’s been a while, but every time I initiate anything remotely sexual you shut me down. You’ve always got one excuse or another.”

“Right,” Maggie agreed,” I know. I’m usually tired as hell when you feel frisky. But, when we were young, we didn’t care if we were tired. We’d have sex three or four times a week. Now, it’s like once every three or four months.”

“If that,” I replied, agreeing with her. “And?” I was growing irritated. It sounded like she was blaming me for the lack of sex when she was the one who always said no. If it had been up to me, we would have been doing it often.

“And, well, I want to get out of this rut we’re in,” she said. “I want to fix things between us to ensure we can stay together for the rest of our lives. We’re bored, George. We need to get un-bored.”

“I’m not bored,” I told her. “I’ve got plenty of excitement in my life.”

“Excitement? Really? What are you going to do tonight?” she asked me with a crooked grin.

“Watch the Curse of Oak Island. They’re saying tonight they make a big discovery,” I answered as I thought about her comments.

“Don’t they say that every week and all they ever find is mud and bits of wood?”

“Well, yeah,” I admitted. “More or less.”

“As I said,” she grinned, “boring.”

“Okay, that’s not boring. It’s comfortable. We’re comfortable. That’s what happens when you’ve been married as long as we have. You get comfortable.”

“I don’t want comfortable,” Maggie explained. “When we were first married, you would ravish me nightly. You haven’t ravished me in years.”

“Is that it?” I asked, setting my fork down. “Do you want me to ravish you? Pull down your pants and bend over the table. I’ll ravish you now.”

“That’s not exactly what I was thinking of, George. To be honest, I have just as little interest in having sex with you as you have to do it with me. It’s just where we are in our lives. We’ve lost the spark, and that’s what worries me. We’re still in our forties. We have a lot of years left. I’m afraid that if we’ve lost this much romantic interest in each other already, what will we have left in a few more years? How will we be able to stay together?”

“We’ll stay together because we’re husband and wife. That’s what husbands and wives do; we’re used to each other; we’re comfortable. And who says I don’t have interest in having sex with you? Of course, I do!”

“We’ve become roommates, George, comfortable roommates.”

“I think we’re more than roommates. I mean we do have sex now and then, and we do love each other.”

“So, we’re roommates with infrequent benefits. Yes, I do love you, George and I know you love me. But, can you honestly tell me you’re still in love with me the same way you were when we got married way back in the stone age?”

“It’s different,” I tried to explain, “like a fine wine. Our love has matured and mellowed over the years. We’re older, and our libidos are not as active as they once were.”

“But they could be,” she said taking my hand. “Don’t you want to be excited and feel the thrill of chemistry again, like we used to?”

“I don’t know, Maggie, I kind of like how things are now. I mean, sure, I’d love to have sex more often, but I like coming home and hanging out with you, calmly and peacefully. We’ve worked a long time to get to where we are. It’s like that damned hammock in the back yard. It’s been back there for almost twenty years. Every year I kept telling myself that one day soon I’ll be able to just lay out there, relax and read a book. Well, now when I’m to the point where I’m finally about to lay down in the thing, you’re telling me you want to get rid of the hammock.”

Maggie stared at me as she processed my remarks, then shook her head. “I don’t understand that, but I’m not asking you to give anything up, honey. I’m saying I think we need to rekindle our romance, to spice up our love lives, before it’s too late. My libido isn’t dead; it’s just been dormant. I want to feel the way we used to feel when we had sex when it was new and fresh and exciting like we couldn’t get enough of it or each other.”

“So are you saying that our sex is no longer satisfying?”

“No, I’m not saying that at all. You’re a wonderful, caring and talented lover when we have sex. You always know how to please me and not once have I ever faked an orgasm with you. The problem isn’t that our sex is bad; it’s that we never want to do it.”