Sex At The Limits
There are some things in life that are impossible to understand until you’ve experienced them. Sex is one of those things and a long term relationship is another.
Suze and I have been together for a while. For both of us it’s our longest relationship by far. During that time we’ve seen a lot and changed a lot together. Not all that we’ve seen has been pleasant and not all the changes that have happened to us and the way our relationship works have been expected or in some cases welcome, though looking back they all worked out pretty well because we’re still together and I feel more deeply attached to Suze than I ever thought possible.
Attached? Does that sound a bit wishy-washy and lacking in passion? It shouldn’t do.
When you begin a relationship sex is just sex. It’s the physical expression of your lust for each other, then as a relationship progresses it represents something deeper that I don’t think the English language even has a word for.
Sex for people in a long term relationship embodies all they have been through and is infinitely more personal and unique to the couple than their first sexual encounters were.
People talk about how the “passion” leaves a relationship after it first blooms. I think those people don’t understand passion and are confusing it with lust. Lust is great and exciting but the deeper passion that a long term relationship develops is something that makes lust seem almost trivial. It’s impossible to describe how but the passion I’m talking about manages to incorporate all of a couple’s shared experiences and give them a form in each sexual encounter.
One thing that does intrigue me is when, in the case of some couples, do they decide to invite other people into their bedroom? Is it early on in a relationship so that they share the sexual experience of multiple partners and it forms part of their bond from the start? Or is it later, when they feel more at ease with each other, and know where the boundaries of their relationship are?
Thanks for this post, and for distinguishing passion from lust. My partner and I have been together for years and passion is definitely there. Lust is, too, but that does have its ups and downs.
Connected to your question, we recently helped rekindle our lust by adding a playmate to our bedroom. This move was after years of discussion on the idea. We definitely have to be open and discuss things to keep this easy and non-threatening, but it has added an engaging dynamic, injecting some of the fun of “new” into our established bond.