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Lately, perhaps because I have stopped asking for them, my spouse ("Pat") has been really wanting and asking for us to have our nightly Happy Hours on the patio. That is good, it is the first sign of any desire to be with me that I've seen in a long time.

On the other hand, during one of our recent happy hours, Pat and I had a lengthy conversation about our marriage, as we often do. I explained to Pat that I missed the passion and intimacy that our marriage had for the first 10 years (!), and that I didn't know that I could live the rest of my life without it. I really want that with Pat, and said so. Pat's response was that if I really needed that, I should just have an affair, but keep it secret. This was not an angry statement, quite the opposite, just a statement of fact. Pat is a very jealous person and knows it, as do I. It would destroy my spouse if s/he found out about it, and Pat knows it, whence the request for secrecy.

I am still trying to process that statement. No small part of me wants to take Pat up on the offer, I so want to experience a connection with another person, I'm freaking dying here. On the other hand, I just don't know that I could do it: I'm imagining going out, or going online looking for a partner and the thought is just not appealing. I don't see myself as someone who could do that, in addition to the logistical difficulties of such action ("bye honey, I'm going... hum... out for the evening, have fun putting the kids to bed"). The bigger problem is that it isn't sex that I most want, it really isn't. I most want to be intimate and romantic, playful and flirtatious with someone. I want to be wanted, flirted with and kissed, I want joking and silliness and knowing glances. I want what we had for those first 10 years.

I explained to Pat that I didn't know if I could do it. Pat's response was "then do it for me"(!). I don't know if I believe my spouse though, do they mean that, or is Pat just saying that because at some level s/he cares about me and figures that this is what I need? No matter what, it is a nice thing to say, I just don't know what to do with it.

Another part of me is very sad, because Pat's statement is an admission that s/he sees no way of ever rekindling any kind of passion in our relationship. Pat would rather give me permission to do something that would be deeply hurtful, if s/he found out than give credence to the notion that s/he could recover some desire for me. It seems like the last nail in the coffin of this perhaps unrealistic notion of an emotionally fulfilling marriage.

I would love for Pat to have a fling, be it emotional or sexual. First I would love for Pat to have that experience just for it's own sake. The idea of Pat having fun makes me happy. I wouldn't ever even need to know about it. I would also hope that it would wake Pat up, the way it did me. It might not, but Christ anything is worth a try. I however am a very different person than my spouse. I am not jealous. At all. At some point many years ago, Pat had decided to leave me for someone else, we had been fighting a lot and I was in a stress-induced depression and decidedly not fun to be around. Pat had an apartment picked out and everything. I argued successfully that s/he should stay. I didn't want to lose Pat, and felt hurt that Pat wanted to leave, but I never felt jealous. Pat has remained friends with this person and communicates occasionally with them. I have encouraged this because this was a good friend of Pat's and good friends are precious. Pat has had several other flirtatious emotional "affairs", and they never bothered me because I knew s/he was coming home at night, no matter what happened. But I digress, I am not jealous, so it is easy for me to give Pat permission and mean it, Pat can't, which makes me question the sincerity of my spouse's offer, or the wisdom of taking Pat up on it.

God am I confused.