Heaven Isn't Just Like This

And now, as usual, I will write about something I am in no way qualified to write.

(Remember, kids, I'm not a professional. I just act like I am.)

I mentioned in an earlier post that one of the prettiest girls I know just started an affair specifically because of sex. To clarify, she absolutely adores her boyfriend. She often talks about how good he is to her, how nurturing he is, how caring, and how he meets her emotional needs, but if often is the word I'd use to describe how much she talks about those things, always is the word I'd use to describe how much she talks about another thing: their crappy sex.

For a long time--at least a year of their not very much longer than a yearlong relationship--this girl has bemoaned her sex with her boyfriend. A year ago she was so unsatisfied that she was seeing his best friend behind his back, two weeks ago she started having sex with a guy she met at her job, and although I have no idea what she did before or what she's done in between, suffice it to say it's commensurate to those two things. She's talked to her boyfriend about the issues multiple times, but no matter what she says, nothing changes. She's also asked to go to couples counseling but he refuses.

When we first talked about this a year ago, when she told me how much she absolutely loves her boyfriend, how much he's done for her, how safe and loved he makes her feel, how everything is absolutely perfect except for sex and said she didn't know what she should do, I didn't hesitate. Leave your boyfriend, I said. Things will always be the same.

Well, it's a year later, and just like I said, nothing has changed, and so the question, a question I asked myself for almost 19 years of a 20 year relationship is, Is being unhappy with sex really a valid reason to leave a relationship if everything else is okay?

And my resounding, earth-shatteringly loud, extremely emphatic answer is, Hell fucking yes. Not only is it okay, I recommend it. 

Okay, wait. Let me qualify that. If you're someone who sex is very important to, then yes, you should leave. If you're someone who really doesn't care about sex much at all, who can take it or leave it, who thinks it's nice and all but then again so is playing a video game or taking a walk, then by all means, stay, and I'm not saying that in a snarky or demeaning way. Different strokes, right? But if you're not one of those people, people who read my blog, for the love of God, run. Ignore all the excuses you come up with, and run:

I have kids. Run.
I don't make enough money. Run.
I don't want to be alone. Run.
I hate change. Run.
I'm afraid of the unknown. Run.
My significant other does so much for me. Run.
It's just sex. Run.
Things will change. Run, bitch. Run.

Run far and run fast before you spend one-and-a-half years of your life, like my friend, or almost twenty years of your life, like me, feeling bad.

To the people who think I'm horrible, that I'm selfish, that I'm cold, look. If you're a person who really cares about sex, and for whatever reason, the sex isn't working, you're going to be filled with negativity. You're going to be resentful, you're going to be angry, you're going to be lonely, you're going to be sad. If you're like my friend, you're going to have sex with other people because the person you're with can't give you what you want, and if you're like me, you're going to decide to get a divorce every year and repeatedly change your mind, and if you're like the however many other people there are out there who are in the same predicament, you're going to do the same thing as one of them (and I promise, not one of those things is good).

Sex is important. It's a basic need. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be in a relationship that meets your basic needs, especially if the person you're in your current relationship with refuses to meet them. Can't meet them, as in you're just not sexually compatible, while harder to condemn and while not necessarily the other person's fault, is still a reason to leave because both conditions lead to the same thing.

I may sound harsh, I'm completely aware, but I wish twenty years ago when I cried myself to sleep the night before my wedding someone would have said these exact same things to me.