He Was Right

Just a quick note: This addition to the series helps provide some context and set up for future stories. It's all for fun, so please remember that as you comment. If this isn't for you, please feel free to not be a jerk.

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The flight home was short. In some ways I couldn't wait to return. I love to be gone, but I love coming home. This was especially true after this trip. In some ways the flight was way too short. Heading home I started to feel a flood of emotions and thoughts about the conference, my time with Chris and what it meant for my marriage. Even though Mark and I had talked, and it seemed fine on the surface, the reality of being home soon was hitting me. I was going to be back to my normal life and routines and yet somehow, I felt like none of that could ever be the same. I barely had enough time to digest that there was a coming emotional storm brewing before we touched down.

As I pulled into our driveway I had to also pull myself together. I was going to see Mark again, in person. My dear husband in our home, with our things and sleep in our marital bed again. Why was I such a wreck? Mark had been an encourager before the conference and a source of comfort since. He was right about how much I could enjoy myself, but, I guess, I just couldn't shake the guilt for some reason. More than this trepidation, I entered the house without a plan. Without the words to snap thing back in order. I felt vulnerable.

Coming into through the garage there was an immediate sense of relief. The house was spotless and the familiarity of our home was a comfort. Mark sprung up from the couch to greet me. Giving me a huge hug and then a tender kiss on my cheek I felt my love for him all over again.

"Welcome home Hun. I'm so glad you made it and the travel must have gone well for you to get here on the early side. " he said as he took my luggage. Mark looked like he was literally beaming. He was peppy and full of an energy with a grin from ear to ear. Continuing he said, "Can I get you anything? Do you want to come in and relax, or go right to bed, or take a shower? What can I do?"

I wasn't ready for this from him. I was in a daze and felt like nothing was making sense. I stumbled a response back, "I don't know. Maybe just sit down for a minute?"

"Of course." Mark said. "I took the kids to your mom's. I think they want to stay up there for the weekend. She has some projects lined up and the cousins are coming tomorrow. So, just relax."

My mind started to settle in and I realized Mark had a nervous energy about him. It wasn't just some happy go lucky Mark, but more of a happy I hope everything is ok Mark. That helped. That meant that he had his own emotions and fears and wonderment about what happened and what's next. I felt less alone on a ledge. We both were confronting my return, but we both needed to confront it together.

"Look, I'm a tired, but I'm not sleepy." I started. "I know we've talked before, but I need to hear it again. Why did you want this to happen? Why were you ok with me sleeping with another man? How can you look at me now and not be angry or disgusted?" I asked while starting to feel the emotions well up in me. The feeling of doubt and fear was starting to grip my stomach and turn it into knots. I didn't understand. I could never feel the way he's told me he would. I could never be ok with Mark fucking other people and then coming home to me. I started to second guess myself and feel dirty for having an affair. I was starting to really get upset and I was secretly praying that he had something to say that would make it better.

Mark turned to me and in a calm and caring voice said, "I love you. I hope you know that to be the case. Whatever I'm about to say, as I've mentioned before, is about our future and not the past. In other words, if I say something that has a critical observation, it's only done with love to help show a future that I see for us. No matter what did happen, or even if something never happened at all, I want you to know that I think of our marriage as a core part of me. It's a part of my very identity and I think you feel the same way."

He paused to gauge my response. I nodded.

Mark continued, "So, I think it's fair to say that we have done what I imagine almost every long term committed couple has done. First, we fell in love. Then we enjoyed each other, physically, in the context of that love. We were having sex 10 or 12 times a week for the first couple of years we were together. It was blissful. Then our lives began to slowly change. I couldn't even tell the difference at first. Becoming parents has been an incredible experience for us both. Being homeowners, and you volunteering and bake sales and work and and and..." Mark trailed off for a moment.

Gathering himself he continued, "Somehow, at each step along the way we chose to include different things in our lives. There are benefits to each of them and we have included them as a component of our marriage and commitment to each other. I wouldn't trade any of it really. I'm affirming that in case you get lost on where I'm headed. But, we also only have so many resources. At some point we have made the choice to give the energy we once gave to each other and turn it toward those other things. This has left us in a different place as man and woman in our relationship then where we once were."

I started to speak and Mark held up his hand to pause me.

"Wait, please." he said. "I don't say that to object. Again, we have built an amazing life with that dedication. Still, our time together has gone from 10 plus times a week to sometimes once a month. If we are really, really, really honest about the situation we can blame the schedule, how tired we are or the distractions. I don't want to say that they don't play a role, but the old us would have fucked 'til dawn no matter what. I may not be able to do that quite like I once did, but, I think after we have had so much great sex, that the justification to go for it with each other just isn't quite compelling as it once was. There are literally times now where sleep is more important. That's the truth and I don't think it is in any way unnatural or out of the ordinary. It doesn't take away from anything we do have nor is it a threat. It's just a simple truthful assessment."

Mark's tone changed to a bit firmer and without giving too long of a pause for me to interject he said, "So, I also need you to know that I am never more turned on by you than when I see you turned on. That your sexuality drives me. I have confronted the fact that I have given you my best and that I cannot be made new again for you. That the things that drove you into my bed aren't fresh to discover anymore. We can't be young forever and I've accepted that part of life. Still, I want to see you as a sexual being. Lately, and for a while, you've been drifting away from that part of yourself. I'm telling you now that it's too early to close shop. You are more than a mother. You are extremely attractive and desirable and I hope to see that alive in you again. I think that reawakening is healthy, or at least, it should be.

Look, I know what's happened this week and yet you have chosen to come home to me. You have challenged yourself, enjoyed something that I'm happy for you over and now you bring your love and soul back home to me. It's deeply compelling and I feel drawn to you over it. I want to make love to you again and consummate that feeling. To enjoy you and this reaffirmation of the priority of us as a couple. I want to physically express the attraction I have toward you and that you being brave enough to embrace your sexuality has only made it more of a turn on for me to be with you again. I feel like nothing has been broken in us. In fact, I feel like there's only a happier road out in the future for us. If you say that your heart is still with me, then the joy you had from sex—even from another—is really no big deal to me. I don't care. I'm not jealous. We still have everything we had before that moment, but now we also have a new sexual horizon to explore. Maybe there's the old rules of morality and I should feel bad about this, but I don't. I love you. I think making love to you is wonderful. I think..."

I stopped him with my hand up this time. He was starting to ramble on and there was too much information to digest at once time. "Whew, Mark. I thought I asked a small question, but I guess I was wrong." I responded. Continuing, I laid out the questions I was starting to collect, "I know what you're saying is right about us. How things aren't hot and steamy like they once were. We talked about this before my going and so, I get it. But I don't get how you can think this way? You know someone else was inside of me right? You know that I went back to him the next day. How can you love me and all after that?"

Mark smiled like he had a secret and said, "I have two questions for you that might answer your own question. First, did you enjoy yourself? Honestly. I mean, I think we know the answer, but it's important for you to say it. That you enjoyed the attention and the deed. The second question I have for you is, are you really asking me about how I can accept these things, or are you struggling to accept them yourself? I don't think my judgement is the issue. I don't think your ability to enjoy the attention and fun in the moment is the issue. I think the conditioning you have is more of the issue. Again, if you had diner and grew close to someone then that would be ok, but sex is taboo? We eat for fun, but we can't fuck for fun? That, to me, seems harder to understand. Our commitment is bigger than that. That's especially true because it's a phenomenon that differs so greatly in different cultures. We are the..."

Again, I had to cut my husband off. I love him, but he can say in paragraphs what could be said in a few words. "I can't deny that I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it for a few reasons, but that was almost like a different me. I was away and now I'm back. This is home and real life. You're here in person and this isn't some game." I responded.

"You're already arguing with yourself." Mark said. "You know that right? I mean, good for you in saying that it was another version of yourself. That's exactly the point. You don't have to be some specific thing in all cases and all circumstances. I'm encouraging you to see that and know that what we have can't be broken by that. So, if I'm not objecting and you enjoyed it and you can still come home and love me then the issue is easy to identify. Unless. You do still love me, right?"

That was a heart-breaking question. My husband asking me if I loved him. I know its rhetorical, but the words were still there to digest. "Yes, of course I love you. I want you. I chose you and have always wanted you. You have that part of me that nobody has ever had before. I don't ever want you to think otherwise." I said as I almost felt tears well up in my eyes.

Mark came to me on the couch and kissed me. He kissed me with a passion and care that I needed to feel. The time for words, for the moment, was suspended. I had so much more I wanted to say and hear, but I would not stop Mark. I would not prevent him from having me. Mark began to caress my hair and slowly work his mouth down my neck. I wanted him to never stop. I was holding onto a hope of being suspended in time with the love of my life returning his need to connect with me as I had that need for him.

I had given my body to another man just a few days ago. I had lived in some temporary fantasy space, but now I was home. I was giving my heart and soul to my life long partner. I was there for him and it all felt right. Somehow the familiarity wasn't boring. It was intense and I could appreciate it more than I had in recent memory. Each part of him that I felt was another piece of this love of mine that it seemed like I had almost forgotten. I had let the familiarity take root and so now, in this moment when there was a challenge to us, I was brought back in time to a place where I never wanted to let any piece of him go again from my mind.

The guilt started to fade as Mark and I began to grow closer. I had been with men before and so why should this week's experience be so different? If Mark endorsed it, or maybe even found a way to use it constructively, why should I be the hold up? I was there for him now and I would always be available for him. I would do all I could to communicate that. To hold him closer or to gasp with each touch or pressure he applied. To be his committed lover.

I wanted him to take me. I wanted him to have his way with me and to give me the kind of fucking, no better than the kind of fucking, I got earlier in the week. But in the end, Mark wouldn't. He loved me. He made slow and beautiful love to me that night. I was available for whatever he wanted, but all he wanted was to be connected to me. Mark wasn't going to pull my hair or slap my ass in some brutish way like Chris did. He was there to shower me with affection and to be available to my needs as a symbiotic way to fulfill his needs. We made love for a long time and I learned that sex with Mark was forever going to be different than with anyone else. Mark had different needs and wants and I felt like that somehow helped make everything make sense to me. This is the thing we can have and it's beautiful, but how Chris used my body was different and pleasurable too. I don't have to measure them even if I can compare.

We woke up late Saturday and continued to talk. It was a shame we never talked so freely about sex and intimacy before. I had to back Mark down a few times as he clearly had this ball of pent up energy about this topic, but it was liberating. We were both in a good place and the talks and love making sessions held up through the weekend. It was the best couple days of my life and I look back wondering why I was so worried walking back into our home Friday night. Mark was right about this topic. He was always right. Even still, I wondered about how to go forward. How to integrate such a new thing into my already stable and very full world.