When I came home from the gym on Monday night my wife paused the show she was watching. I looked up to see what it was and it was “Dying for Sex” a limited series starring Michelle Williams as a woman with terminal cancer who immediately leaves her husband to pursue sexual fulfillment.
Now, I realize any emotional reaction on my part is by definition irrational. Unfair. Immature. Petty. If you want to be therapy-speak trendy, it’s a symptom of anxious attachment.
But I cannot help but feel hurt.
We’ve had a dead bedroom for over a decade. It’s been six years since we’ve last made love. She’s stopped all forms of affectionate, intimate touch. Attempts on my part to communicate how I’m feeling, the impact this has had on me, have all been brushed off as mistimed, selfish, immature, unimportant. When I told her I felt unloved and unseen she told me I was unreasonable and it’s up to me to deal with on my own in therapy.
And now she’s watching a show where a woman leaves her bumbling burden of a husband to re-discover the passion and sensuality that was up until that point smothered by marriage.
Add to that the fact that she immediately paused the show and then started something by the time I had stashed my gear and sat down to join her and I just don’t know what to think. She said she was told it was a touching story of a woman facing her own mortality.
But I’m aware of the premise of the show, the podcast it was based on and had read a few reviews when it came out. It’s very much about the sex — also about her self-discovery and the relationship with her best friend — but a lot of it is about the sex. And leaving a husband that while not a villain definitely didn’t deserve her.
Well, I guess I can just tell myself that long-term dead bedrooms mess with your mind, continue to focus on my own growth and independence and hope she was told it was a steamy show that could re-ignite her desire.
Unlikely I know.
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