When Sheri saw the “For Sale” sign in our front yard as we pulled into the driveway on Saturday afternoon, it choked her up. We’ve been working so hard to get ready for this, but preparation doesn’t dismiss the emotions when they come. I took a video of our house – this inanimate object, this material possession – when it was painted and staged and as clean as it has ever been, and I was surprised to have to fight back tears as I narrated the ways we used each room over the past twenty years.
There is an incomparable purity in the relief I feel from her authentic touch.
I used to think the most relief available to me came from the euphoric feeling delivered by the second IPA. Alcohol provided relief, yes, but the emotional and cognitive sensations delivered by a toxin are anything but pure or authentic.
While watching a movie about college basketball in the 1960s, I noticed most of the men in the crowd were wearing suits and ties. In 2025 can you even imagine dressing up to attend a sporting event? I hate the confined feeling of a suit jacket, and I’ve never understood the purpose of a piece of colorful silk dangling from my neck. If it was there for me to clean the spaghetti sauce from my mouth, at least there would be a plausible purpose. I’m certainly not proposing a return to wearing church clothes to basketball games. I like to say, “Once you find hoodie-town, you’ll never wear a button down.” (I’ve actually never said that, but maybe I’ll start now.) The point is that when the camera scanned the crowd at that cinematic basketball game, I was certain that every man in those stands held the door for someone else entering the arena. I’m equally certain that hands were shaken firmly, people stood graciously to let the people seated in the middle of the rows pass, and pleases and thank yous were abundant.
It is hard to argue but that we’ve devolved.
*Underlying Issues Series
He was coming at me covered in sweat. It wasn’t just his sweat. It was his sweat and his opponent’s sweat and the sweat of dozens of others who came before him. His arms were open wide and his smile was as big as my sudden panic. He was no longer walking. He trotted toward me, bouncing in victory, droplets spraying from his face, arms and shoulders. I was so proud. I love him so much. But he was…well…soggy.
When Harry Met Sally is an iconic movie with a star-studded cast, and is arguably the best flick from the classic era of late 20th century rom-coms. But it is not best known for the romance, or even the comedy.
It is best known for the orgasm scene.
I know your secret.
At least, I know that it is one of a handful of possibilities that my wife and I have either lived through ourselves, or witnessed dozens (maybe hundreds) of time with others.
I can all but guarantee that your worst fear would never come true. They aren’t going to shame you or reject you or fire you or turn their backs on you.
When it comes to sex, my wife, Sheri, could dump a bucket of ice down my pants, and I’d still be ready to go.
I despise ambiguity and hidden meanings, and there is no room in this message for subtlety. So rather than bury the lead, let’s get right after it.
I experience spontaneous arousal. I can be changing the filter on our furnace while listening to a recording of a gospel choir singing “Amazing Grace,” and if the wind shifts out of the northwest in my basement, I am turned on. I don’t really listen to gospel music (I’m more of a Broadway show tunes kind of guy), and the last time I checked, our basement is almost entirely wind free. But that’s not the point. The point is that I don’t have to be doing something sexy to be ready for sexy time.
Perhaps the worst prevailing relationship advice is that women in committed romantic partnerships should feel compelled to have sex with their partners, whether they want to or not. Let me say this in no uncertain terms:
It doesn’t matter if she is giving him sex because she is told it is her duty by the church, their couples counselor, societal messaging, some study in a magazine, endless cinematic rom-coms, some call-in radio psychologist, cultural arranged marriage practices, the family court system, or even her own mom. Consenting to unwanted sex is the absolute enemy of trust building, and it is toxic to the very connection we seek in pursuing sex in the first place.
You might be easily convinced that obligatory sex isn’t fulfilling for the woman who feels obliged. But here’s the counterintuitive part: Obligatory sex is even worse, in the long run, for the person who is asking for it.
One of the worst days of our marriage, for both Sheri and me, was July 14, 2021. Since we are a couple who experienced my active alcoholism for 25 years, you might be surprised to learn I was four-and-a-half years sober on that traumatic day. Even without alcohol, Sheri and I make occasional trips back into the pit of hell with emotional relationship relapses.
Relationship relapses often spin out of control as both partners revert to deflection, manipulation, overreaction and self-protection – all skills learned during active addiction. But before we pull out the old tools of dysfunction, there has to be a spark. An impetus. A new or refreshed wound around which the spiraling decline can revolve.
Popular media and other cultural depictions of us guys as horny, thoughtless seed scatterers are crass, shallow, and add a lot of unnecessary fuel to the inferno of misinformation and stigma blazing around the very real (and really important) topic of sexual desire discrepancy in romantic relationships. Take, for instance, the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary series episode titled, “Broke.” The very real (and really unfortunate) cultural trend of counting the number of, “baby mommas,” male athletes can impregnate as a source of bragging rights is one of the main topics. And as we have come to expect in our society, when our professional athlete superheros brag about something, the message trickles down. In this case, the message is that lots of indiscriminate, unprotected sex without acknowledging the very real (and really generationally traumatic) consequences is a sign of virility and success. It is part of what it means to be a man. I don’t relate. I don’t feel that way, but I am a man, so I am at least ever-so-slightly, tangentially tarnished.
But like with most stereotypes, amid the legions of uneducated assumptions is the kindling of truth from which the fire was started.