About us
Short version…
This blog is about the marriage of Ed and Sue, both 46.
We’ve been together for 29 years and married for 22.
We have 2 teenage children, 17 year old son and 14 year old daughter, and one dog.
Location: Wales, UK.
Long version…
Well…. it all started in 1977 when we were both 17. At the time I had been in a pretty heavy relationship with a girl for about 2 years and Sue was her best friend. Maybe not the most promising of starts for our relationship, but there you go.
The relationship I was in at the time was very stormy - we were constantly having fights, breaking up and getting back together again and I was getting fed up with it all. If we had stayed together I’m sure we would probably have married at 18 and be divorced at 19. So I made up my mind to end it once and for all.
In the meantime I had got quite friendly with Sue, and then came along one magical summers day that was to have a huge impact on the rest of my life. It was towards the end of the summer term at school and there were no lessons that day. Sue and I chatted together all day long. She was so easy to talk to.
In the evening there was a school dance. I didn’t actually ask her to the dance, but I made sure she would be going. Why I didn’t ask her to actually go with me I don’t know. But anyway we got together at the dance and as soon as I touched her on the dance floor it was like electricity flowing between us. She was so sensual and responsive to my touch.
I should have known right there and then that she was the person that I would spend the rest of my life with but things were a bit more complicated than that.
For the next year (our last year in school) things got pretty complicated - we were sort of going out together and sort of not. I think both of us were wary of committing to a long term relationship at that stage in our lives. She had had a long term relationship with someone before I came along, which also had a messy ending.
And then we went to college - she went to Oxford and I went to London, so there would be about 50 miles or so between us. We agreed that we would not be tied to each other during our first year of college - we would both be free to go out with other people if we wanted. Apparently this was my idea.
I break out into a cold sweat now when I think of it. If she had met someone else during that time I could have lost her forever. What an idiot I was!
During that first year of college I had some fairly disastrous sexual encounters with other girls (which mostly involved me being totally drunk and barely capable and on one cringingly embarrassing occasion, totally incapable) but didn’t get into any relationships with anyone - thank goodness.
At the end of our first year in college I suddenly woke up to the fact that Sue was the person that I desperately wanted to share my life with. To say I was relieved that she hadn’t got into a relationship with anyone either is quite an understatement.
So, from the start of the summer holidays after our first year of college we were finally ‘an item’. For the rest of our 2 years in college we saw each other pretty much every weekend during term time.
After college we decided to set up home together in Oxford. Well, when I say ‘home’ it was actually a very cramped bedsit. Once we had both found jobs we graduated to a small unheated 1 bedroom flat.
Around this time, when we were both about 22, maybe 23, the subject of marriage was mooted. I’m afraid that there wasn’t any romantic proposal on my part. Basically she wanted to get married and I didn’t. My objection to marriage was that we were blissfully happy as we were and getting married might spoil things. I had seen plenty of people live together happily, then get married and suddenly everything falls apart. Somehow people seem to change after they get married. I was determined that that was not going to happen to us.
I also felt strongly that we should stay together because we wanted to, not because of any contract saying that we had to.
But anyway I agreed to get married on condition that we would make a conscious effort not to let it change us.
We finally got married in 1984. We were totally broke at the time (nothing much change there, then) and spent our honeymoon camping in Wales. On the first night our tent leaked and we ended up sleeping in the farmer’s hayloft. I don’t suppose many married couples can say that they spent the first night of their honeymoon in a hayloft!
After we were married, time went by and we were blissfully happy. We had pretty much kept to the condition of not letting marriage change us.
We never seemed to have much money, although by now we had moved to another part of the country, bought our own flat and had acquired a moderately exotic sports car. We didn’t actually plan to have children but in 1989 one came along anyway - perfect timing as it turned out.
Now at this stage we had a reasonable sex life but with Sue’s pregnancy our sex life took a definite turn for the better. Most people’s sex lives seem to take dive after having children, but with us it was the other way round. First of all she really bloomed during pregnancy. She felt better about her body than she ever had done before and pregnancy made her feel really horny. She suddenly had the confidence to take the lead sexually, which she had never done before.
Also, during pregnancy, particularly in the latter stages, we had to be more inventive about sexual positions. Previously our sexual positions had mainly consisted of either me on top or her on top. But with a big bump to allow for we started using doggy style and also her sitting on the edge of the bed, sofa, dining table, or any other available surface, with her legs open and me either kneeling or standing in front of her. That also meant that we were freed from having sex only in the bedroom. Previously we had only had sex n bed, but now just about anywhere in our flat was suitable for fucking.
It also helped matters that she had a relatively easy labour and didn’t need stitches. I was very surprised when, about 5 days after giving birth, she announced that she was ready for sex. And we carried on pretty much the same as we had during her pregnancy.
And then about 2 years later our daughter was born and we moved to a house. And sex continued as wonderful as before.
Then in our mid 30s our sex life started to go downhill. Suddenly she didn’t want sex any more. Or at least not so often. Or was it that I wanted more sex and she didn’t? I don’t know, but either way there was suddenly an imbalance of what I wanted and what I got.
Testosterone was largely to blame for that, or rather the lack of it. I think my testosterone level took a sudden dip and my body seemed to think, ‘At this rate you’re not going to be able to have sex for much longer, so get as much as you can now while you still can’. And no matter how I tried to rationalise it in my head that impotence wasn’t about to strike I couldn’t shake off the feeling in my body of impending doom if I didn’t get as much sex as possible.
By the way, I think it probably explains why a lot of men in the mid thirties or early forties leave their wives for younger women. It is because the drop in testosterone increases (rather than decreases) the desire for sex. And not just sex per se, but the desire for exciting sex.
So we frequently got into the situation where I was desperate for sex, but she didn’t want to know. The frustrating thing was that I saw it as a mental problem with her, rather than a physical one. I could be wrong about that, but it seemed that she was mentally blocking any desire for sex. On the occasions when I was allowed to get to her clit it usually jumped to attention just as always, but it seemed that she was mentally trying to block the desire for sex.
I don’t really know now what the problem was. Maybe I was too demanding at the time. It’s even possible that we were having sex as normal but it didn’t seem that way to me at the time because my heightened desire was making me think that we weren’t having enough (or any) sex.
Maybe she was subconsciously worried about getting pregnant again. At that point we had two perfect children, a boy and a girl, and our equilibrium would have been totally thrown if any more children had come along.
Anyway, whatever the reason we managed to get into a downward spiral. Any attempt by me to initiate sex was firmly rebuffed. Sometimes if I just wanted a kiss and a cuddle it would be interpreted as trying to get her to have sex. Although, given my desperation for sex at that time, that was understandable.
The constant rejection made me very depressed and my self esteem was at rock bottom.
To be honest, I am not sure how long this lasted for. It seemed to go on for years, but I suppose it was really about a year, maybe less. I really can’t remember. In the end I decided to back off from any physical contact unless she initiated it. That way she would feel less pressured and maybe we could relax a little bit and perhaps get back to some semblance of normality. It was very hard to do but I hoped it would be worth it in the end.
We never really argued about any of this, though, or had any major rows. I only remember one row (I’m not sure that you could even call it that) where I stormed out of the house and slammed the door. I got half way up the garden path, spun straight round, went back and kissed her and said I was sorry. I couldn’t storm out and leave bad feeling between us, I just couldn’t.
I can’t really remember how we got out of it in the end - that part of my life is a bit of a blur to be honest. But I think gradually my policy of backing off from physical contact started to work, together with some heart to heart letters to explain how I was feeling. And over time we got back to the terrific sex life that we have today.
Even then, things are not always how I want them to be. There are times when we go for quite long periods without having sex for one reason or another and there are times when I would like to have sex more often.
But I do realise how incredibly lucky I am to have chosen such a wonderful, wonderful woman to be my life partner. Really, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t stop and think how lucky I am.
There are a lot of factors that make our relationship what it is. For one thing it is a huge advantage that we have known each other for so long. Coming from the same kind of background and having gone to the same school, knowing the same people from our past - all of that gives us a head start over many other couples.
There is a web site in the UK called Friends Reunited where you can get to meet old school friends and it is blamed for a lot of marriage breakups because people meet up with a former boyfriend or girlfriend from school and realise that they should have married that person instead of their husband or wife. Well, I like to think that we cut out the middle man and just went for the school boyfriend/girlfriend scenario from the start.
Another reason is telepathy. We both seem to instinctively know what the other is thinking and feeling at any given moment. This can be quite scary at times but I think non verbal communication is a vital part of any long term relationship.
I could go on but this post has already ended up being much longer than I intended. I will probably return to the subject of what makes a relationship work in future posts.
I’ll just finish on this final thought. Things are not always going to be perfect the whole time. Any long term relationship will have its ups and downs. But if you can work your way through the down times you will come out stronger in the end. I can’t remember where I came across this quote but it is one of my favourites:
‘It’s the stones in the path of the water that give the mountain stream its music.’
