I’m not entirely sure how we landed here in this space of passionless kisses.
I was watching a movie when it happened.
Two seductively beautiful characters were engaged in a passionate kiss, and I felt myself growing hot under the collar and lowering my eyelids while I drifted off in memories of sitting on my husband’s lap while we kissed — hands roaming around our young bodies, perspiration gilding our young skin. It was a lovely moment embracing that memory, but I felt embarrassed immediately afterward.
It has been more than a decade into marriage, and when my husband and I kiss nowadays, it looks more like my grandmother pecking me on the cheek than anything else. In fact, at this point, a basic French kiss would feel awkward and perhaps even scandalous.
I’m not entirely sure how we landed here in this space of passionless kisses except to say that time has a funny way of marching off with bits and pieces of youth that I had hardly noticed were missing. Time steals more than just the smooth skin and voracious libido of youth. It slowly replaces them with the comfort and convenience of routines and expectations.
And so it was for our French kisses. They were gone. Vanished.
And along with them, our steamy intimacy had been mischievously replaced by the dull repetition of a daily peck on the cheek. Once in a while, we would spice things up with a sassy slap on the ass at the tail end of a goodbye for the day. But no more hands in my hair and closed eyes while we kiss.
I brought this up to my husband, and we both laughed uncomfortably. It isn't that we don't find each other attractive anymore, it is more like we are so out of practice that we feared it would feel like smooching a stranger should we give the old Frech method a whirl.
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So I challenged my husband to give it a go. We should find the time to rekindle our romance. Wasn't there an era in our relationship when we couldn't keep our hands off of each other? A mortgage, three kids, and two time-consuming jobs seemed to have engulfed our passion and snuffed it out, but I felt like if we dug hard enough, there must still be an ember left. We just had to search.
We set a date for a quiet evening together sans kids and chores. He picked up some wine; I made us a lovely dinner. The night felt tinged with excitement like being a real date for the first time in years. Who would make the first move? Was this a stupid idea?
We kissed for what felt like days, and I couldn't believe what we had voluntarily given up and replaced with mild-mannered and rushed pecks on the cheek.
After dinner, we moved to the couch where we sat facing each other and trying our best not to laugh. Was this ridiculous? Of course, it was. I leaned forward and clumsily planted a kiss square on his lips, which didn't open.
I forgot how prickly his face could be.
"Ouch!" I leaned back and reached up to smooth out the sharp feeling in my mouth.
We both laughed, this really was a stupid idea, but it was so damn funny. And when was the last time we felt like nervous teenagers?
In the middle of the laughing and teasing my husband leaned into me and kissed me in that old firey way that would unhinge me.
We kissed for what felt like days, and I couldn't believe what we had voluntarily given up and replaced with mild-mannered and rushed pecks on the cheek.
Marriage has meant being a team for us. We partner for everything from paying the bills to raising the kids to figuring out how to support each other's dreams. Our intimacy, though, has taken a backseat, and we spend more time joking about our lack of sex than actually being intimate. Those fleeting private moments of passion that are shared in a French kiss or a lingering hug have slowly faded, but we can get them back.
Marriage can be sexy again.
When our date night was over, my pants and bra were slung over the coffee table, and my shirt was on the floor. It turns out that old French kiss still packs quite a punch.
