Page 65 of Marriage and the Midlife Crisis

Chapter 22

Ryan

On the drive home, I kept replaying Mel’s response to Kim’s question.

“I think I would be more comfortable discussing that with Ryan privately.”

That sure as hell didn’t sound as if this would be a pleasant conversation. I tried to push aside my worry – after all, Melanie and I had a fantastic sex life for years, so even if it had changed over the past year or so, it wasn’t as if it were terrible. It just wasn’t as…intense as it used to be. Or as frequent.

That happens in long relationships though, I reassured myself. Passion ebbs and flows. We were just in the “ebb” stage at the moment.

I had almost convinced myself that I had nothing to worry about. Melanie just wasn’t comfortable talking about our sex life with Kim. That was reasonable.

Once we were sitting in the living room, my wife in the chair and me on the couch adjacent to her, my concerns came roaring back. Melanie was looking everywhere but at me, and her hands were in her lap, fingers clasped so tightly that her knuckles were turning white.

“It’s still a little early for dinner, but if you’re hungry…”

My voice trailed off as Mel shook her head. “Let’s talk first,” she said quietly, staring down at her hands.

She paused, then seemed to brace herself for whatever she had to say to me. Before I could do the same, she blurted, “You told Kim that you think our sex life is still satisfying. Well, for you it may be, but it’s not for me. It hasn’t been in almost a year.”

I slumped back against the couch, so stunned by her admission that I couldn’t even speak.

“When we do have sex, I feel…used, I guess is the best way to put it. You aren’t affectionate anymore, just for the sake of being close to me. It’s as if you can’t be bothered if it’s not going to lead to sex. You’re either criticizing me or ignoring me, unless you’re horny. Then you grope me for a few minutes before going straight to the deed. I started faking my orgasms almost a year ago, and then I stopped bothering, and you never noticed. You’d get off, and then go to sleep, without a thought for whether I was satisfied.”

She paused for a breath, and my mind reeled at what she’d revealed. She wasn’t done yet, though.

“For the past few months, you haven’t even done that much. Our sex life has consisted of you asking for a blow job, then zipping up and going on your merry way. You literally left me on my knees in our bedroom the last time, because Mitch walked in the house and yelled for you to let you know he was here early, right after you came down my throat. You pulled out and zipped up, hollering back that you’d be right down. By the time I’d brushed my teeth and dried my tears, you had already left to go play golf.” Her voice caught, and she took in a shuddering breath, then quickly swiped away a tear.

Pain gripped my chest and my stomach knotted with dread as I remembered that day. Shame filled me as I racked my brain trying to find something to refute what she was saying, some recent memory of us actually making love and I couldn’t. I did remember the blow jobs, which would have normally led to sex, or at the very least me feasting on her until she came. I sat there, completely shaken, as I realized that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone down on her. It was one of my favorite things in the world, and I couldn’t remember the last time it had happened.

“I was awake when you got home from the airport,” she revealed. “I pretended to be asleep because I was so upset with you that I didn’t even want to talk to you right then. You reached for me and had the nerve to grab my breast and rub your erection against me after ghosting me all weekend, and that was bad enough. Then I found out that you did that after betraying me, and with every intention of hiding it and lying to me.” Her voice was filled with accusation, and so much deep-rooted pain that I could help but flinch.

She raised her head then and looked me straight in the eye. “So, no, I’m not satisfied with our sex life, and that’s something I could never have imagined saying even a year ago.”

Those words echoed in the silence, and after several long moments ticked by, I finally rasped, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “I tried, but you didn’t listen, or at least not for long. When I told you I wasn’t in the mood to have sex because you’d been ignoring me or criticizing me, you would take me out to dinner and make an effort to be attentive, with the expectation of getting laid at the end of the night. Then you’d go back to ignoring me until the next time you got horny and I turned you down. After a while, even that apparently took too much effort, so you stopped bothering with dinner dates and would just ask for a blow job instead.”

She shook her head and threaded her fingers through her hair, frustration clouding her features. “After the last time, when you left me kneeling on the floor without so much as a thank you, I told you I wasn’t in the mood for that either. Then, you stopped asking altogether. You stopped touching me. You completely stopped paying even the smallest bit of attention to me in or out of the bedroom. So, I bought new batteries for my vibrator and enjoyed the first orgasm I’d had in over a year.”

“Fuck,” I ground out, surging to my feet to begin pacing the living room. “How the fuck has it come to this?” I asked. “We’ve not been able to keep our hands off each other for over a decade, and now…” I trailed off, unable to find the words for the situation we’d found ourselves in.

“For the situation you created,” that goddamned little voice in the back of my head just had to have the last word, and I clenched my jaw so that I didn’t tell it to shut the hell up. Melanie would think I’d lost my mind.

I stopped suddenly at knelt at her feet, grasping her hands in both of mine. She froze, eyeing me warily. “I’m so sorry, sweetness. Please believe me that if I’d realized, fuck, if I’d been paying attention the way I should have, I would never have treated you that way.” I swallowed hard, trying to ease the tightness in my throat. “I’m so damned sorry,” I repeated hoarsely.

Melanie finally gave me a barely imperceptible nod, then tugged her hands free. I slowly rose to my feet and stumbled back to slump down on the couch. I stared at the floor, wondering how the hell we could ever come back from everything that had happened.

When I said as much, Melanie heard me and sighed. “Hopefully, Kim can help us work through it.”

“I’m surprised you’re even willing to try.”

She answered so softly that I had to strain to hear her. “You have to change. I won’t live that way anymore.”

“I will, I promise you. Just please, don’t give up on me,” I pleaded, my eyes burning with unshed tears.

She didn’t answer, and we sat in silence until the fading sunlight cast shadows over the room.