Here’s something they have in common, but not in a good way: it’s their least favorite topic of discussion. She’s willing to let you know that she has sex, that she and the husband have sex, less willing to get into the specifics of that. What is there to say? It’s basic, to the extent that no one’s asking for things the other one hasn’t heard of, or isn’t willing to try at least once. Basic sounds awful, but she doesn’t mean basic like the kids say or like all they do is missionary or whatever and that’s that, and they’re both satisfied, or at least this is how it appears and this is what they tell each other about it. Their first few years together, there’s a lot of it. More than she needs, frankly, but that’s okay, she thinks, although she worries that it isn’t, because he has a thing about wanting her to initiate more than she does, and she has a thing about not wanting to initiate when she’s not in the mood, which she usually isn’t as soon as he is, because they just had sex, you know, yesterday, and so most of the time he initiates. Time passes and they have less sex but still a couple times a week for many years, which is still frequent enough for her to not be inclined to initiate, and so most of the time he still initiates. Then more time passes and they’re down to maybe once a week, but somewhere along this way he stops initiating and her way of initiating tends to be verbal, and not in a super sexy way, she’s aware (this wife + efforts at sexy talk = comedy), in like a Hey can we make time for this way. She’s never thought of herself as super sexy. Like if you think of her as super sexy, that’s cool, and know that she doesn’t feel bad about herself, she just doesn’t think of herself like this, and it lines up with her not wanting to suddenly get on top of her husband, which is probably more like what he’s hoping she’ll do.
Maybe know this: as she gets older, heading into and through and past menopause, sex becomes painful at times. That’s one small thing. Or, not small. This does not make her want to have more sex, nor does it make her stop having sex, but it does make her think she wants to have less sex, you know, if it’s going to hurt. Also, she has the idea that it takes her longer to get there than it used to, and she has the idea that her overall desire is down. She tries to be honest with the husband about this, and he sometimes tries to spend more time getting her there and he sometimes doesn’t. And since her husband is also reluctant to pursue this topic, who even knows what he’s thinking about it. What she least wants to say is that she stops wanting to really kiss him. She loves his mouth so much, he has soft, full lips, and when they were first dating they sometimes made out on the sofa for hours at a stretch. She has memory in her body of the first time they kissed, of the very idea of the kiss going through the entirety of her before she finally told him he could kiss her if he wanted, because she couldn’t wait any longer for him to read her signals. They still kiss. They don’t make out too much now. When he comes down the stairs in the morning and smiles at her she still thinks, He’s so cute. She wants to want to kiss him.