I don’t have a living room like the one pictured above. And I bet you don’t either.
But I do have a “dead” one.
“Whaddya mean?” You ask.
It’s where my husband and I live. But where we don’t talk. We watch TV. But disagree on which shows to see together. We sit down to relax. But never touching.
It’s filled with “buts.”
Yes, it’s comfortable but not fashionable like the image.
Mine is filled with outdated furniture from when we were first married over two decades ago. It has the requisite kids’ photos in frames.
That room also is where we celebrate holidays and birthdays. Where we put up the Christmas tree. Light a fire when it is cold (except my hubby won’t because it’s too much work).
Yet the room never seems to be warm.
It’s as frigid as our dead bedroom. And I’ve written quite a bit about that.
A decade of no touching. No affection. And certainly no sex. Ten long cold years of not discussing our non-existent sex life.
“I’ll do better,” he promised. And it never happened.
Why live like this? I thought to myself one day when I was 47.
I’m still plenty sexual. I’m horny. I’d like to get laid again before I die. Why deprive myself endlessly?
What kind of sick martyr was I? No one would put up with a decade of zero sex. They’d leave or cheat.
I cheated.
I’d like an “alive” living room.
One where I can banter with my partner. I can put my feet up on his legs.
I can relax and feel accepted for being me. The perfectly imperfect me. The sexual me. The playful me.
Those aren’t welcome in my current living room.
My “alive” living room would be a place to make wonderful memories. And would lead to stripping naked in hallways while laughing our way to the bedroom.
It should have joy. And even disagreements.
It should be a spot where we talk. Not just sit apart and ignore each other, each of us on our respective laptops or phones. Heading to bed to roll to opposite sides. Never touching.
At home, it’s not a war zone.
That’s good, right? We don’t have knock-down-drag-out fights, but we also don’t have sustained honest communication. It’s pointing fingers.
- “You always do…”
- “You never…”
- “Not this again…”
- “Why can’t you…”
It’s a perpetual blame game.
I constantly feel “less than.” Except my affair partner makes me feel like I am enough.
“Wouldn’t you like every night to be like this?” he asks while snuggling. “We could watch Stanley Tucci in Italy,” he adds.
“With you holding me?” I ask. That’s an impossible dream, I think. No one has that.
But some lucky people do.
MonalisaSmiled writes about adultery, marriage, and heartbreak.
This article was originally published at Medium. Reprinted with permission from the author.
