Next...

Be careful what you wish for....I've said that before, haven't I?

I was forced to do a lot of thinking this weekend. Which doesn't always go well with turkey, pumpkin pie, lots of really, really nice pinot and a bottle or so of port. But...here's the thing. What have I been bitching about for the last umpteen months? The fact that my husband won't play naughty with me -- there is no sex in the Tuesday household, despite the fact that I'm apparently the only working mom in all of America who still wants it. Of course there are other issues, there always are, but this is the crux of many of them.

We spent Thanksgiving with four other couples -- really good friends, and then friends of friends. After god knows how many glasses of wine, one of the other wives overshared with me that she's in the same boat. Except that in her case, her husband is having an affair with one of his young sales associates (serious oversharing, since I don't really know either of them very well). Who am I to say she's mistaken? In fact, who am I to say I'm not in the exact same boat?

Of course, I don't know that my husband isn't having an affair, but I am at least pretty sure that it isn't with anyone he works with (all men -- unless he's switched to the other team, a slim possibility but not one I can quite get my mind around in his case). Perhaps it's me, perhaps it's him, who knows, he won't talk about it and I've exhausted myself trying to come up with the solution.

So this is where we still are on Thursday night. And lo and behold, on Friday morning, he's in the mood. I don't know why. Maybe he heard me at some point on Thursday and decided to do something before I posted an ad or an article in the neighborhood paper. Perhaps my post-Thanksgiving port hangover made me look particularly fetching. Maybe he had a dream. After multiple years of failing to figure out what exactly makes this man horny, I still don't know the answer.

What I do know, and what set the stage for some heavy thinking, was the fact that I didn't want to respond. In fact, I was mad. I'm still mad. Why? A very good question. Especially since I have in fact been WAITING for this. What the heck is wrong with me?

So here's my theory. I think I got mad because it felt like it didn't have anything to do with me. I think what I just realized is the fact that maybe the effing isn't the most important thing -- maybe what I'm really craving is being desired. For whatever makes me who I am -- my mind, my spirit, my body, my heart. Not just because I happen to be in the house, in the bed. Not out of convenience. So ... I'm not really feeling the love. I'm not there. That's not the person I want to be in bed with.

This is, to put it mildly, not the reaction I expected to have. Which begged the question -- for me, at least -- have we gone past the point of no return? If I no longer want the person I've been waiting around to want me (now there's a mouthful), what do I want? Where do we go from here? There are other questions, but I'm not ready to write them here.

I'm thinking...