Originally posted September 2006.
On Tuesday, I posted a reflection on 9/11 and the small role the events of that day may have played in the end of a marriage. As sometimes happens, I ended up getting more emails about the post than comments. One of those emails, from a woman I will identify as "Cyndy", asks a series of questions to which I’d like to respond.
In regards to my most recent ex-wife, I wrote:
It was a kind marriage, characterized by civility and thoughtfulness on my part and on hers. It was also a marriage nearly devoid of excitement, passion, and chemistry. While chemistry fluctuates, it’s not as if my third wife and I ever lost it — we’d never had it to begin with.
Cyndy wrote a long response, most of which I’m printing here:
What, in your opinion, is the excitement, passion, and
chemistry you describe? (I am hoping you will not
respond with the usual, "If you have to ask, then it
isn’t it.") Is it the physiological response to which
you are referring? A spiritual response? Is it the
"intense sexual desire"? Something else?
Also, do you truly think excitement, passion, and
chemistry are absolutely critical to a marriage?
I can think of older couples (our parents’ generation
and our generation) who, as far as I can tell from
what at least the women have told me, that there was
never the intense sexual desire you mentioned. These
older women (some are Christian, some are not, and
they are not necessarily sexually repressed) tell me
chemistry is deceiving and a poor indicator of the
potential success of a relationship. Most often, these
older women tell me a good man is a man who respects
you, isn’t overbearing/controlling, works hard to
provide for his family, will be a good role model and
father to his children, and ideally, comes from a
"good" family (meaning they won’t mistreat you, him,
and your children, and there are few/no criminal/shady
elements/influences). (FYI, most of these women work,
too, so they’re not saying the man should be the sole
provider or anything.) In fact, these women discourage
younger women like myself from including chemistry,
passion, and excitement as a criteria by which to
judge potential mates.
As far as I can tell, these women and their husbands
continue to live a content life together as a couple
and family. OK, I can’t say for sure if they’ve ever
had a clothes-ripping romp in the bed or not, but day
to day, they seem happy. They laugh together. They cry
together. They take joy in each other, their family.
Sometimes they bicker. They usually make up. They have
the usual ups and downs, like everyone else.
What you are saying would seem to invalidate their
experience. Are you suggesting that they can’t
possibly be happy because these women lack that
chemistry, passion, and excitement?
Or possibly, is it something that the man must have,
but is optional for the woman? (I am a woman.)
There’s a lot there to unpack, and I want to do my best to answer at least part of what Cyndy is asking.
Cyndy wants to know what I mean by "excitement, passion, chemistry". It’s notoriously difficult to articulate, but I mean a combination of intense and persistent physical attraction with a sense that one’s partner arouses both sexual and romantic feelings. It is physical, it is sexual, it is spiritual, and it is emotional. Now, I am as aware as any (and probably, based on experience, more aware than most) of how temporary and transitory that initial chemical "rush" of a new relationship can be. Within a matter of weeks or months, what once was incredibly new and exciting often loses some of its "freshness".
But I want to distinguish between placing a high value on passion and the "pursuit of everlasting novelty" which I have criticized here in the past. On the one hand, we make a serious mistake if we turn into compulsive, serial monogamists, always looking for the next person to bring us a rush of excitement. On the other hand, we make an equally serious mistake, in my opinion, when we claim that mutual sexual attraction and fulfillment aren’t immensely important components of a successful marriage. While chemistry may wane and lust may fluctuate, I do believe that in order for a relationship to be successful, there must at the least be an initial period of extraordinary desire. In times of low desire and little sexual activity, memories of "how it used to be" can serve as a reminder that the two people in a given relationship really did once passionately long for each other. What one once had and then lost can be found again. What one never had in the first place is a lot harder to create from scratch. That’s the lesson I got from my last marriage.
(Before you write in with stories of arranged marriages where a couple learns to kindle desire over time, let me say I’m dealing with the realities of marriage in our culture, in our time. There is very little that is cross-culturally timeless and enduring about marriage, historians always point out. And comparing marriages of choice and desire to those which are arranged is the ultimate example of weighing the apples against the oranges.)
Cyndy asks if I think if this passion and excitement are critical to a marriage. Obviously, I’m the last person in the world to be giving advice on what makes a lasting marriage. Give me a few years with my wife, and I’ll have more to say. I do know that for me, passion is non-negotiable. That doesn’t mean I demand sex all the time (thanks for asking), but it does mean that I would never enter into a long-term relationship with someone for whom sexual fulfillment — within a monogamous context — was not also a high priority. Sex is not just about orgasm or reproduction — it is a uniquely intense expression of intimacy, a joining of bodies in a profoundly intimate way.
I’m a hugger. I’m a kisser of foreheads and cheeks. Last night at All Saints, I hugged and kissed three dozen kids and a dozen adults. I walked up to old friends, put my arms around them, and made my affection for them tangible. (Mind you, I know who I’m doing this with — I don’t foist my embraces on the unwilling.) In any event, I’m a physically expressive human being. But while my hugs and kisses are shared with a very large number of people, sexual intimacy is saved only for my wife. Sex is more than just boisterous affection or mutual "getting off"; sex in a long-term, monogamous pairing becomes the "you and me" thing that is unique to the two people in that relationship. My wife and I love many people in our lives. We tell them we love them. We hug them, kiss them, cry with them, worry about them, think about them. Of course, we also love, kiss, cry with and think about each other. But while our hugs and kisses and tears are shared with many, our sexual intimacy is not. Sex is the "private language" of the relationship, and all the more sacred because it is reserved for just one other person at a time. If sex isn’t present in the marriage, then where is the physical expression of love that is truly unique?
What of those couples of whom Cyndy writes, for whom sexual desire is not a major component at all? Am I invalidating the worth and goodness of their marriages? Of course not. As we say a lot in the blogosphere, YMMV = your mileage may vary. I’ve seen "sure things" fail many times, and I’ve seen what looked doomed survive for years. I’ve got no right to judge what it is that others consider vitally important to sustain their love and their mutual commitment. At the same time, I’ve learned not to let "the good be the enemy of the best." That means many things, but in this case I’m arguing that just because two people laugh and cry well together and enjoy each other’s company doesn’t mean that they couldn’t be even happier and more fulfilled if they also had an exciting sexual relationship! Joy is not a zero-sum game, and emotional fulfillment and sexual excitement aren’t mutually exclusive.
As for how this impacts men and women, I don’t think a sweeping generalization will work. Some humans have stronger sex drives than others, and it would be woefully inaccurate to say that men always are hornier than women. Particularly over time, the evidence suggests that that is not the case. (And though the stereotype is that among the young, boys have higher libidos, I can think of several young people of both sexes who prove exceptions to that rule.) Our desire for sex is affected by so many factors: physiology and psychology work together in a strange dance that often leaves us bewildered. Ask most folks about desire, and they will tell you it sometimes is there when you don’t want it — and won’t show up at all when you really wish it would. For most of us of either sex, our desire is not a light switch to be turned on or off whenever we please.
So in the end, I’m saying that I think several things are essential for a happy marriage. Trust, shared values, a mutual willingness to grow, compatible if not identical long-term priorities. But those are also the values of many a long-term platonic friendship! On top of these other essentials, I’d add physical desire and at least an initial experience of intense romantic devotion. To me, those are among the sine qua nons of a successful and enduring marriage.
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As you’re so clearly illustrating, another essential for a happy marriage is very similar sex drives. Honestly, I know people who would think you were nuts to put so much importance on sex–and this is not a gendered observation–they really don’t find sex important and of these people, two sets of them are very happy, long-term couples. Because neither party really cares much about sex.
I, on the other hand, would be desperately unhappy with someone who didn’t care about sex. I must have a feeling of strong physical desire towards the person I am in a long-term romantic relationship with, period. So I’m totally on the same page with you.
BUT that’s only because I care about it period. It’s really not essential if both parties simply have low sexual interest overall.
This post really hits a nerve with me. I’m in the process of dissolving a 17-year marriage for this very reason; I married a good man about whom I never felt that spiritual/emotional/sexual passion, and, in the end, it wrecked us. My parents, who were married for almost 50 years before my mother died a couple of months ago, always emphasized the companionate aspect of marriage to me, discounting passion as transitory and unreliable. When I married, I was very young and didn’t have the kind of self-knowledge I do now, and I adopted their perspective uncritically.
As my mother began to die, my father cared for her tenderly, and as I watched him it was clear that he was seeing both her currently disintegrating body *and* the sweet young hottie she was when they met. His care of her was tender but also nakedly passionate in a way I had never seen before, and I was astonished. My parents had always hidden that aspect of their relationship from me, but I saw without a doubt that it had always been there for them. They were each others’ Ones in every sense. I don’t know why they chose to teach me that this aspect of a relationship was unimportant, but I made a terrible marital decision in large part because of that.
Of course other things matter, as Hugo pointed out, but I’ll never make the mistake again of being with someone who doesn’t excite in me a type of tender, loving, passionate (and, yes, sexual) feeling in me. I need that, whether other people do or not.
I appreciate your honest approach to this subject, and by extension, the level of frankness that has become the norm in the media. At age 50, I’m still heavily imprinted by my parents’ marriage. Mom was an emotional pre-adolescent, basically thinking that sex was “icky.” Dad was a self-deprecating “noble” sort, who believed he was some sort of dirty rotten animal for desiring more physicality with my mom. And because I was the only child and a daughter, the protective and puritanical atmosphere in our home was compounded. On an intellectual basis, I applaud those who are unabashed about sex for themselves and humanity as a whole … but the inhibitions and difficulty accepting it on a visceral level are still there, and probably always will be. More than anything, I grieve for my late father, who spent nearly 5 decades in a marriage without sex or even respect.
And how often we hear adults lecture younger people that “real” marriage isn’t about sex. It’s only “about” sex when one partner wants it and isn’t getting any.