Many divorce once the kids leave home
I had the pleasure of interviewing local chef and author Toni Piccinini about her book, The Goodbye Year: Wisdom and Culinary Therapy to Survive Your Child’s Senior Year of High School and Reclaim the You of You).
OK, it’s a long title, but as we sat at Book Passage, chatting about the takeaway messages of the book (which I hadn’t fully had a chance to read prior to the interview) before I had to rush off “ how senior year is when moms need to reclaim their mojo “ she mentioned to be sure to read the chapter on infidelity.
Wait, what? We’re talking about a kid’s last year at home, what does that have to do with infidelity?
It’s certainly not about your kid being responsible in any way, shape or form about extramarital shenanigans. But it certainly is about the effect kids have on a marriage, or “ let’s get real about it “ a couple’s sex-life.
Here’s how Toni coaches it:
“I confess (and have heard my pals confess this countless times) that there were years when sex at the end of a busy day was just one more thing that I had to do before I could fall asleep. Pathetic but true. Why does that happen? Was it that long ago that we couldn’t keep our hands off each other? Yes, after the birth of your first child, it might as well have been a lifetime ago. And by the time he or she reaches senior year “
Kids, she says, hijack our sex life. We have ourselves to blame:
For moms, the essence of who we are sexually has been buried like the skeleton in the family closet. “Moms aren’t supposed to have a sex life” We wear masks for our children. When they are little, we protect them from our adult troubles (and adult fun) in our noble desire to keep their childhoods innocent. But the trouble is we, Husband and Wife, get so used to those masks that we just keep wearing them when they no longer serve a purpose.
So we start telling ourselves stories “this is just the way it is after x years of marriage.Sex just isn’t that important anymore.
But, of course it is, evidenced by anyone who gets a divorce at midlife and starts over with someone new. And, divorce often happens “ surprise “ just when the kids graduate from high school.
How could a husband leave the kids, she wonders:
Weren’t they the insurance policy we bought and paid for with our sacrifices on the sexual altar? Isn’t it the great nobility of parents to stay together for the kids”? You want that carved on your matching headstones?They took their marriage to the grave, but at least they didn’t complicate their children’s lives with a break-up.
Why don’t we continue to make sex an important part of our married life, and, if we do, will that make for a happy “ or happier “ marriage?
