Marital Options

An hour session in the gym, stay fit and strong and in a state of preparedness for the day a lover arrives, I’d hate that moment to come and for her to think, what a slob. Physical exertion also being the best occasion for unpressured thinking.

On the rowing machine, pondering, this is the long weekend of summer, it’s the one-year anniversary of the time my wife and I last had sex, for some reason I remember it took place at that time. A thin and stilted though reasonably amicable experience.

I wonder what I should do now. Maybe, talk to her about it, I’m sure that’s what a counselor would recommend. This however being more likely to rip open a door in her mind, blasting hot air in a cool room, one she’d rather leave undisturbed. Start the talking and it can’t be undone. More loving to stay silent.

Or maybe I should hold her close, stroke her, seduce her. Trouble is, she likes contact, I know that already, but only of the teddy-bear variety. Not if it turns sexual. Her erogenous zones tending to work in reverse, making her shut down, barricade herself. Understanding this is the key to understanding her. A deeply unsexual person.

The rowing machine whirring away and the problem seeming similarly arduous. Maybe I should resign myself to the realities, accept her for her good qualities, renounce sex, become celibate. Possibly, but for what? It’s not as if she gains anything thereby or would even notice.

Or we could split up. But what for? To free me to search for someone identical but with libido? That’s what happened with my first marriage, it’d probably just happen again. Maybe it's something about me.

Or, I could find a lover. As the saying goes, take a lover, save your marriage.

Twenty minutes up and the rowing machine beeping away, time to move on.