http://www.articletrader.com/ Articles at ArticleTrader en-us http://www.articletrader.com/society/marriage/a-marriage-of-inconvenience.html http://www.articletrader.com/society/marriage/a-marriage-of-inconvenience.html Fri, 03 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0600
Although the love might still be there, it feels buried under a mound of doctor's bills, grocery receipts, household expenses. You've gone from having sex three times a day to three times a month. This might simply be the natural progression for any two people who've lived together over a period of years, yet if you're suddenly alarmed by waning sexual compatibility and longevity, it might be time to step back and reexamine why you got married to begin with and if you're partner is still right for you.

Take Joanna and Dennis, for example. They met in college and married a year later. Having been together for thirty years, Joanna, now 48, remembers their courtship fondly, the excitement of flowers and candlelit dinners, when they were young and the world was just opening up to them. Though she loves Dennis deeply, Joanna never quite thought of herself as the kind of woman capable of monogamy. When she had her first affair ten years ago, she was wracked with guilt and wasn't sure how to broach the subject with her husband.

"I just told him as honestly and kindly as I could that I was going to leave him," she said.

Dennis, who didn't see this coming at all, sat there coolly for a while, trying to gather his wits. Then, he said, "I don't want you to leave. I love you. You're my wife and we have our children and a great life, don't we? There must be a better solution than this."

And there was. The two decided to open up their marriage. For a while, this worked well. They set up rules for their assignations and though Joanna found this new marriage within her marriage more than copasetic, she felt the smallest bit of resistance from Dennis. Though he never said anything outright or to contrary, maintaining the façade of support, Joanna often wondered if Dennis were taking advantage of his newfound freedom. But this wasn't her problem.

"He's a big boy," she told me. "If he can't get laid, it's not my fault."

The problem, of course, isn't the agreement to open the marriage itself but that one person inevitably resents the choice he's made, loosing his footing to compromise, to please his partner, who couldn't possibly be pleased in the first place.

When Joanna went away to teach for a semester, she did what she always did and announced to the man she'd fixated upon that she was in an open marriage. The two took up instantly and were inseparable during her time away. What was supposed to be a mere fling, however, became something very different after Joanna returned to Dennis. They fought. They made up. They fought again. They had sex, though for Joanna it couldn't possibly compare to the sex she'd had with younger lover.

Open marriages, while seemingly healthy and supportable, often bring up far greater fears and anxieties than those they set out to quash. For Dennis, the specter of jealousy often came up, while for Joanna it was guilt. In either case, their marriage, which began with such promise, has turned sour and ugly, full of accusation and blame. Yes, sometimes marriage is forever, but if the quality of that marriage is called into question, then perhaps it's time to work on it rather than open it up to further doubt.

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David Levinson is a young writer, who explores the mistiness of sexuality and human relationship, writing articles for EdenFantasys.com, where you can find his other works or discover new sides of intimate feelings for yourself.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/society/dating/the-view-from-here.html http://www.articletrader.com/society/dating/the-view-from-here.html Fri, 13 Oct 2006 00:00:00 -0500
He agreed to go on the show for two reasons: because he wanted to meet Barbara Walters and because he wanted to be on TV. His friends tried to talk him out of it, saying, "You have nothing to sell! No product to push. Don't do it." But being cavalier and impulsive, John phoned the producer and accepted. This was mid May. He was to appear on the show two weeks later.


In the meantime, he did what any normal American gay man did who was about to go on national television: he went a little nutty. He spent hours in the gym, trying to lose an extra five pounds and used his future notoriety to land dates, working "The View" into conversation.


He'd never seen the show and took great pride in that. Some of his friends raved about Meredith Viera, Lisa Ling, Joy Behar and Starr Jones, names he'd heard in passing. The producer had told him he had nothing to worry about.


"You'll have it easy," she said. "A seven-minute interview with Starr Jones, then you're done."


He could have one friend along and he chose Cathy, mainly because she was the only one of my friends who didn't work during the day. She him me at the studio as she was supposed to do and took her reserved, audience seat while John was escorted into the cold conference room to wait for the producer. When he appeared - he, not she - John was confused.


"Change of plans," he said. "Now you're a 'Hot Topic.'"


In a panic, he found Valerie and told her, right there in the studio, that he was leaving, that they'd pulled a bait and switch. She fiddled in her purse and pulled out a tiny Ziploc bag, handing him a Valium.


Half an hour later, feeling woozy and misdirected, John sat under the stage lights, as the four co-hosts launched their hostile questions: How many sexual partners had he had? How could he deny his parents the right to their grandchild? What if, after seeing the child, he changed my mind? What kind of cold, irresponsible person was he?


"A dead-beat Dad, that's who," Viera said at one point, turning to the audience.


When he tried to defend myself, Jones pushed her hand into his face, cutting him off. He thought he'd be given the chance to tell the world why he was doing what he was doing. Instead, he was booed and hissed at.


John went home to the ringing phone, to calls from consoling and angry friends and family. He wondered when Ruth would call to upbraid him as she had when she'd first read the Newsweek essay. It's not that he begrudged the forty-two-year-old her desire for a baby, but they were creating a new life and, in all fairness, he'd begun doubting himself.


Going on "The View" had been disastrous, but it had led John out of a strange place, where he felt responsible to father Ruth's child because he loved her though without really knowing how any of it would play out. He thought he was being heroic, that appearing on TV would galvanize his own feelings. If a woman has the right to terminate a pregnancy, didn't he have a right to do the opposite? The sperm was his, after all.


Yet, cast as a Dead-Beat Dad, John wondered if he weren't making a huge mistake in signing away his rights to Ruth's - to their - child. Having made it perfectly clear to the world, they weren't all right with his choices to give Ruth a child, the women of "The View" went on to accuse him of "dumping and running" - though he was gay and there wasn't any intercourse, consensual or otherwise. What the co-hosts failed to realize (and wouldn't let him get out) was that in the current political climate, it had become even harder for same-sex couples to adopt a child and that the community as a whole was being forced to look at other alternatives - like the kind of silent partnership John and Ruth were making. Why should she be denied what the rest of the planet took for granted? Still, John wished he could've been more articulate on TV, like he is in real life. If he had to do all over again, he might not have taken the Valium so willingly, but then again, he might not have agreed to go on the show at all.


Over those next few weeks, as the horror of Viera, Ling, Behar and Jones dissolved into other, more pressing concerns, John met up with Ruth and delivered his sperm, just as they'd planned. He was sticking by his decision. Six years later, he still does.



--
David Levinson is a young writer, who explores the mistiness of sexuality and human relationship, writing articles for EdenFantasys.com, where you can find his other works or discover new sides of intimate feelings for yourself.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]>