Psychic Liam: Reigniting Passion

Chris writes:

Liam,

I am 39, married, and the mother of three beautiful boys. The past four years have been hell. A man came into my life and turned it upside down. This led to my husband and I separating for almost two years. Sex with the other man was the best I may have ever had (he too was separated. He is also married, with four children). Currently, this affair seems to have played itself out. Responsibilities, children, a tight-knit small Catholic town, and social and financial concerns have forced both of us back to our original marital situations.

My husband and I have been living back in the same house for almost eight months now. We do not have sex or sleep in the same bed. We get along fairly well and work together to raise our boys. The focus is most definitely on the boys. Now, I do love my husband, but it is a completely different love than I felt for this other man. I realize that the “mature” love I have with my husband is best for raising my boys, but the lack of passion and loss of intimacy/sex is difficult for me to deal with. I can hardly ever bring myself to have sex with him; he feels like a brother, friend, etc., not a lover. Will I ever get any sexual feelings/attraction back for my husband, or am I kidding myself? Is he just the socially acceptable choice, and I am being a coward? I do not necessarily want the marriage to be over, but I have come to realize that I may never have the passion and fulfilling sex life I need if I choose to stay with my husband. The other man isn’t the “answer” necessarily, but I long for those feelings that he unlocked within me. Will time heal this? My husband and I have tried many things to repair the relationship and get the passion back, with little or no luck. Please help. I feel like my spirit is slowly dying. Thanks.

Psychic Liam ext. 9290 responds:

My friend, I feel the longing of your soul, the depth of your frustration and the agony of your discontent. The passion between you and your lover is scorching, a fever endowed with elements of the forbidden and a chemistry that tears at the seams of social artifice and supposed familial stability. It’s a magickal thing, and I’m happy you were able to experience its majestic disruption. Such passion is a divine liberator, but as you are finding out, sometimes making your way back to the village after a foray in the forest can be very difficult.

There actually are many lovers in the world who come together, know secret passion, enjoy its delights, and still continue on with partners in conventional marriages very well. They are generally more sophisticated people who have a deep sensual knowledge of how nature works and how their own bodies operate. For them, the midnight embraces of their shadowy loves are essential to experiencing life. They manage to strike a balance and are able to cherish their married partners even more for having gone ahead and tasted the lush texture of the forbidden fruit. Unfortunately, I fear your case is a bit more difficult, and I sense there is more to the scenario than might first meet the eye. You and your lover took your relationship to the level you did, separating from your spouses, for reasons beyond your passion for each other. On some level, I think you both understood that you didn’t have the sort of relationship that was meant to be long-term. However magnificent you are together in bed, you do not complement each other well in other areas. Indeed, you are both rather cowardly, if I may use the term you yourself put forth. This isn’t meant as an insult. It’s just that you are both very preoccupied with social convention and labor under the delusion that there are certain scenarios essential to successful child-rearing. The main problem here is that you and this lover are both very concerned with the opinions of others, and you lack an essential force that would make a long-term relationship between you flow well.

I advise you to look upon your passionate interlude as what it was: a disruptive and vital force of nature opening you to liberation. From here on out, you won’t find solace in mediocrity. You will come to detest your suburban charade and the sham of a life you have been living. You have been shown that you have a true nature for passion. It’s not just something for people in novels and movies. It’s real, and it’s buried deeply in the core of who you are as a woman and a human being. The life you’re living now does nothing to nurture this. You live in degradation, as a slave to the man who shares your home, and though you might have a soft texture to your soul, you were never meant to serve any man. It’s really not your nature at all. You say you and he have a “mature” love, and this is best for raising children. Is it really best to raise children in an environment where the adults are sexually repressed? Where passion and vitality are nonexistent? Where misery is the status quo? Unhappy parents raise unhappy children. Do you really want your sons to grow up viewing women as property, as beings simply made for function? They might not know all the sticky details of things, but believe me, children sense a great deal more than we give them credit for.

My answer to your dilemma is both very simple and very difficult. You are a good deal more than what you pretend to be. You were given the gift of awakening, and in your fear, you backtracked a bit. But you will never find your husband sexually appealing again. You were never truly attracted to him to begin with. You met a man who knew how to touch you, and now you know that real men can love you in real ways, while the pretender you live with doesn’t care enough to try. Your body and spirit are longing for release, so take up with your lover again if that is what pleases you. But this time, do so without expectations, and keep things casual. If you leave your husband, don’t do it for another man. Any changes you make from here on out, make for yourself. This entire process is about what is happening inside of you. The passionate affair was about igniting the fire. The pain is about catharsis and evolution. The marriage and its dissolution are about standing up to social pressure and prevailing despite the adversity. But all the happiness, all the joy, all that you seek is already there inside you. That’s the path you’re really trying to find.