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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Salon readers share secrets for marital longevity. Hint: Staying faithful, and having nothing in common, help a lot.
Nov 5, 2003 | When friends ask how my husband and I started dating, I always tell them we didn't exactly date; it was a little messier than that. One night while he was sleeping, I crawled through his window and climbed into his bed.
It was Fayetteville, Ark., 1995, and I'd met him four days before at an orientation course for new English instructors at the university. We met in the hallway during a break. He was standing alone, talking to no one. He had amazing hair, thick and black, with this Elvis curl in the center of his forehead, and he was wearing a great pair of Giraudon boots. He looked out of place, like he didn't belong in Arkansas. I walked over and introduced myself. His name was Kevin, he had just moved from San Francisco, and he was a translator of Albanian fiction; as it turned out, I was familiar with his work. Our apartments were both on Garland Avenue, just a stone's throw apart.
The following Saturday, I went out with a group of graduate students and had a bit too much to drink. At two o'clock in the morning, when a friend dropped me off at my apartment, I didn't go in. Instead, I walked the two blocks to Kevin's single-story building. The crickets were making their nocturnal racket, and the summer air smelled like pine trees. Because Fayetteville seemed unreal, like a town outside of time, I wasn't surprised to find the gate to Kevin's little fenced-in patio unlocked, his window open. It was a big window, low to the ground, with no screen. I didn't even deliberate; climbing in seemed like the natural thing to do.
Once inside, I realized I was in the bedroom. Kevin was asleep, covered up to the waist with a white sheet. He looked really good, better than any man had a right to look. I unhooked my bra, slid out of my jeans, and crawled into his bed in my T-shirt and underwear. He woke up. For a moment, he seemed startled, but it was only a moment, and then he smiled at me.
"Hi," I said.
"Hey. What time is it?"
"Two o'clock."
"How'd you get in?"
"The window."
His hair was sticking up all over the place, his sheets smelled like Surf laundry detergent, and I knew it would be very easy to fall for him.
"Mind if I sleep here?" I said.
"No, but I should warn you that I snore."
For some reason, I suddenly felt the need to set boundaries. "We can make out, but I'm not taking my shirt off," I said. I didn't want him to think I was the kind of girl who'd do it on the first sleepover.
"OK."
It was all very innocent, really. We kissed for about 15 minutes, then went to sleep. The next morning, when I opened my eyes, he was already awake and staring at the ceiling.
"Oops," I said.
"Oops is right."
"I forgot to ask if you have a girlfriend."
He laughed, not a ha-ha kind of laugh but a what-have-I-done sort of laugh.
"I do."
"Good. I have a boyfriend."
He didn't say anything, but I could tell he was relieved.
"In the future, you should lock your window," I said.
We both agreed that we wouldn't repeat that little incident. Two nights later, however, I crawled through his window again, and this time we did more than kiss.
That was eight years ago. Now, we're approaching our third wedding anniversary. In retrospect, I'm convinced that one of the reasons Kevin fell for me all those years ago was that I was the kind of girl who would see someone she wanted and pursue him relentlessly. And part of the reason I fell for Kevin was that he was able to accept this uninvited stranger in his bed in the middle of the night, despite the fact that he had a girlfriend across the country. We both responded to some element of danger in the other person's character, a danger that made the sex phenomenal and the courtship wildly satisfying. Neither of us was capable of saying no to the raw chemistry that we always felt in each other's presence.
Here, then, is the dilemma: What makes someone an attractive sexual partner often becomes a less-than-desirable character trait when the sexual partner is transformed into a spouse.
When Kevin and I found ourselves in an exclusive relationship, headed toward marriage, we knew a little too much about each other for it to be a comfortable transition. I knew, for example, that he had a hard time being friends with women without crossing the line into emotional involvement. And he knew that my sex drive could get out of control, especially when liquor was involved. Perhaps most difficult was our joint knowledge that we had proved ourselves capable of cheating on our significant others.
There was a while there, when we had left Arkansas and were living together in a one-bedroom apartment in New York City, when it looked as though we wouldn't make it. We both had old relationships that reared up in unexpected moments, messy entanglements that lingered. The danger that had been sexually thrilling in the beginning had suddenly become a source of arguments and distrust.
Years later, both of us have changed. Those former relationships are so old now, they seem almost laughable, as if they occurred in a different universe. Our marriage is a kind of daily comfort that serves as a buffer from whatever troubles we may be experiencing on the job or in the world outside our home. And fortunately, the sex is frequent and still very satisfying. The fact is, we've done it together so many times now that we know all the right buttons, we know exactly what works. The odd erogenous zones, the perfect rhythm, the exact balance of rough and gentle.
But I would be lying if I were to pretend that harmony doesn't come at a price. What we have lost over time is the danger, the sense of the unexpected. I know that I can trust my husband, and vice versa, and this is a great source of happiness. But when you make a commitment that requires you to ignore your animal instincts, a commitment that requires you to relinquish the possibility of sexual connection outside of the marriage, something in your nature does change. There is something very erotic about the risk one takes by making a sexual advance toward someone who may or may not accept; this risk is one of the thrills of courtship. With marriage, that sense of risk has been eliminated. The very fact that neither one of us will ever turn the other down for sex means there is far less at stake each time we make love.
