My name is Gabrielle and I am a 43 year old married women living in the burbs in Chicago. So many stories claim to be true as if the stamp of authenticity somehow enhances the story but most turn out to be so fanciful that they are hard to believe. This is not one of those stories. This is a genuine account, and so it may not be as exciting or erotic as you might be used to.
I have been married now for 21 glorious years to my wonderful husband, Peter (we've been together as a couple for almost 26 years now). We met at school in my sophomore year and just clicked straight away. We started dating towards the end of my Junior year and became intimate in our senior year. We were both late bloomers and were each others first. We stayed together after school and 4 years later, we were married.
Our sex life was great to start with. We were like a couple of teenagers (probably because we were a couple of teenagers) and could not keep our hands off each other. It was all so very exciting yet not that satisfying. Peter was so excitable that he did not have a lot of stamina in the bedroom, so whilst we had a lot of sex, it rarely went very long. I had orgasmed before meeting Peter by stimulating myself but was never able to do so with Peter which was somewhat of a letdown. I had such romantic notions of what sex would be like but it unfortunately never lived up to my expectations.
As anyone who is ever been in a relationship would know, over time, the excitement began to wane and the frequency of our encounters diminished accordingly. When we first became intimate, we were doing something together every day (or at least every other day) but by the time we were married, it was down to 2-3 times a week if we were lucky.
Another couple of years went by and so came the children. We have 2 wonderful children aged 17 and 14. They are the love of our life but became the bane of our sex life. By the time the kids came along we were down to a scheduled session once a week. All of the romance of the act had now been extinguished. Sunday nights were the night and for me, it became a "let's get it over with" sort of activity. Peter's sex drive was high and he would have happily had sex every night of the week if I'd let him but my libido was low. I think it was because I had not gotten very much out of sex personally other than the niceness of the intimacy. With the scheduled session on the Sunday, sex stopped being about me and became more about him. It wasn't that Peter was selfish or anything like that but I just found it hard to become enthused about it.
This sort of routine continued for many years and over time, even the Sunday night stopped being a regular occurrence. It felt at this point that our sex life had really broken down. I found that my husband was pleasuring himself to keep his own libido in check and I just lost all interest in sex altogether. I was glad he was masturbating as it meant I did not have to do anything. We still had sex but it probably became a once every 2 week sort of occasion.
Outside of our sex life, our relationship was perfect. We were closer than we had ever been in our earlier years and we complimented each other perfectly. Peter was an all round nice guy who didn't have a bad bone in his body. We had our arguments every now and then but like our sex life, these seemed to diminish over time and we found ourselves happier and happier together.
6 years ago now, Peter and I had a late dinner together after putting the kids to bed. We had a couple of glasses of wine and got to talking as we usually did about everything and anything. After a little while, the conversation turned to sex and more specifically, our own sex life.
"Does it ever bother you what's become of our sex life?" Peter asked.
"I can't say it's ever at the forefront of my thoughts," I replied.
"That's sad don't you think?"
"Look sex isn't a big deal for me. I sometimes think back to when we first did it a bit but not that much. I've kind of just accepted it for what it is now."
"Yeah but it shouldn't be like that. I know you're not that excited by it anymore but you should be. When was the last time you ever orgasmed?"
"About 8 years ago now, I masturbated whilst you were in the shower after we had finished having sex. It was probably years still back to the next one before that. I love them when they happen but it feels like such an effort to get myself in the mood to want to do that. And when I do finally get in the mood, I feel like I'm wasting the opportunity to have sex with you so rather than pleasure myself so we have sex instead. You don't last that long and I lose my desire and so it goes."
"Well rather than have sex with me maybe you should concentrate on yourself when the mood strikes."
"It's easy to say that but when it strikes I don't feel like sitting there and pleasuring myself. I want to be with you. I want to have sex with you. I always know how it will end up and I'm ok with that. It's kind of a catch 22 but because I never orgasm, I just don't tend to get in the mood as much anymore."
"Would it make a difference at all if you were able to orgasm during sex?"
"Of course it would. It's been 20 years now though and that hasn't happened. I don't think it's ever going to happen. That's probably something the 2 of us need to accept. I know I have a long time ago."
With this Peter seemed a little downcast and perhaps a little bit hurt. "I'm not remotely upset by it though." I said somewhat reassuringly. "I wouldn't want to be with anybody else. What happens in the bedroom between you and me is incidental to our overall relationship. It would be great if you could bring me to climax but it's not your problem. It's mine too. It takes such a long time for me to climax. If you were a little bit longer, and I was a little bit quicker, we would be perfect together."
"That's really it though. Sexually, we are a complete mismatch. We're like Sonny and Cher!"
I laughed at this and then said, "Yeah so what if we are. What are we going to do about it? I'm not about to run out and sleep with anybody else!"
There was a brief pause and Peter looked a little thoughtful. "What if you did though?"
I laughed and said, "Yeah right!"
"I'm serious. Maybe that is exactly the answer. Maybe that's just the sort of kick start our sex life needs."
He looked serious but I somehow doubted that he was. He couldn't be serious. I thought it was some sort of test maybe. It wasn't a problem though. I wouldn't bite. I harboured no desire to be with someone else. "Yeah well I'm sorry but our 15 years of marriage is kind of important to me so I'm not about to run out and destroy that so I can get off!" I said somewhat forcefully.
"Who said anything about ruining our marriage? I'm not talking about our overall relationship here at all. I'm purely talking about the sex part of it."
"It's called cheating and very few couples survive it. I'm fine with things the way they are thank you very much!"
"Cheating is going and having an affair behind someone's back and that is not what we are talking about here. I'm talking about sex, nothing more than sex, with another person with my full consent and knowledge. That is not cheating!"
He was really serious about this. "I'm sorry but I just couldn't do that. It wouldn't feel right to me." I said.
"I'm saying this for both of us. You talked about this "catch 22" before and how the 2 of us could not break this cycle of monotony that we are in with sex. Maybe someone else is the way to break it! Not just for you're benefit but for mine as well!"
"Look I'm flattered that you've made the offer but I just couldn't do that!" I said. I meant it as well.
"Fair enough. I'll drop it!"
Over the next year, this conversation was repeated in various degrees every now and then but my answer was always no. After that, it was dropped and I never heard anything more about it. Then about 4 years back now, everything changed!
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I worked for a small time tax consultancy office in Chicago. It was a mind numbingly boring job but it paid the bills. I filled the boredom with surfing the net and talking to Ben, my work colleague who sat next to my desk.
We had worked together at this point for about 5 years. I didn't know him that well when he started but he was moved next to my desk about 3 years ago and we struck up a great friendship. We would talk all day about a whole heap of different things. We mainly talked about baseball. He was originally from Boston and was a mad Red Sox fan where I was of course a fan of the Cubs. We would playfully tease each other whenever either of our teams went down. It was always good humoured banter between two good friends. Over time, I found myself ever so slightly flirting with Ben. It was all very innocent however and I never had any ambition to take it any further than just a little bit of flirting.
One Friday night, we had a big office night out. The secretary was leaving the company to have a baby so we all went out to the local bar to celebrate with a few drinks and some dinner. After quite a few drinks that night I found myself talking to Ben for most of the evening. Now after a few drinks, I can become very flirty and this night was no exception. Again it was all kind of innocent and meant to be more humorous rather than sexy. I can't remember everything I said but I remember how some of it went.
Ben was building a house at the time and was talking to me about it. "....and it's going to have a huge garage." He said.
"Wow. I really love big things!" It was a cheesy line but it was meant to be. It was all in good humour. I then very obviously battered my eyelashes at him whilst trying to look sweet and innocent before I couldn't hold the pose any more and started laughing. He laughed initially, then looked at me a little quizzically before laughing again.
This sort of conversation continued for most of the night. After another such moment Ben again gave me that quizzical look.
"What are you thinking," I asked, myself puzzled by what was on his mind.
Ben shook his head and said, "Nothing, seriously it's nothing."
I pushed him a little on it. "Come on Ben what are you thinking, you can tell me anything." I said, once again with an over the top flirty tone.
"You've been flirting with me all night right? I've thought nothing of it assuming it's just a bit of fun but I have to ask now. Are you seriously flirting with me? I'm just a bit confused by it that's all."
I was taken aback by this, "Oh god no. It's just a bit a fun. I'm just messing around with you. I'm always like this after a few drinks."
"Sorry, I thought that was the case I...... I don't really know what I was thinking."
