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Truly, Madly, Guiltily (SHE LOVES HER HUSBAND MORE THAN HER CHILDREN)
The New York Times ^ | 3/27/05 | Ayelet Waldman

Posted on 03/30/2005 8:13:49 PM PST by paulat

March 27, 2005 MODERN LOVE Truly, Madly, Guiltily By AYELET WALDMAN

HAVE been in many mothers' groups - Mommy and Me, Gymboree, Second-Time Moms - and each time, within three minutes, the conversation invariably comes around to the topic of how often mommy feels compelled to put out. Everyone wants to be reassured that no one else is having sex either. These are women who, for the most part, are comfortable with their bodies, consider themselves sexual beings. These are women who love their husbands or partners. Still, almost none of them are having any sex.

There are agreed upon reasons for this bed death. They are exhausted. It still hurts. They are so physically available to their babies - nursing, carrying, stroking - how could they bear to be physically available to anyone else?

But the real reason for this lack of sex, or at least the most profound, is that the wife's passion has been refocused. Instead of concentrating her ardor on her husband, she concentrates it on her babies. Where once her husband was the center of her passionate universe, there is now a new sun in whose orbit she revolves. Libido, as she once knew it, is gone, and in its place is all-consuming maternal desire. There is absolute unanimity on this topic, and instant reassurance.

Except, that is, from me.

I am the only woman in Mommy and Me who seems to be, well, getting any. This could fill me with smug well-being. I could sit in the room and gloat over my wonderful marriage. I could think about how our sex life - always vital, even torrid - is more exciting and imaginative now than it was when we first met. I could check my watch to see if I have time to stop at Good Vibrations to see if they have any exciting new toys. I could even gaze pityingly at the other mothers in the group, wishing that they too could experience a love as deep as my own.

But I don't. I am far too busy worrying about what's wrong with me. Why, of all the women in the room, am I the only one who has not made the erotic transition a good mother is supposed to make? Why am I the only one incapable of placing her children at the center of her passionate universe?

WHEN my first daughter was born, my husband held her in his hands and said, "My God, she's so beautiful."

I unwrapped the baby from her blankets. She was average size, with long thin fingers and a random assortment of toes. Her eyes were close set, and she had her father's hooked nose. It looked better on him.

She looked like a newborn baby, red and scrawny, blotchy faced and mewling. I don't remember what I said to my husband. Actually I remember very little of my Percocet- and Vicodin-fogged first few days of motherhood except for someone calling and squealing, "Aren't you just completely in love?" And of course I was. Just not with my baby.

I do love her. But I'm not in love with her. Nor with her two brothers or sister. Yes, I have four children. Four children with whom I spend a good part of every day: bathing them, combing their hair, sitting with them while they do their homework, holding them while they weep their tragic tears. But I'm not in love with any of them. I am in love with my husband.

It is his face that inspires in me paroxysms of infatuated devotion. If a good mother is one who loves her child more than anyone else in the world, I am not a good mother. I am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my children.

An example: I often engage in the parental pastime known as God Forbid. What if, God forbid, someone were to snatch one of my children? God forbid. I imagine what it would feel like to lose one or even all of them. I imagine myself consumed, destroyed by the pain. And yet, in these imaginings, there is always a future beyond the child's death. Because if I were to lose one of my children, God forbid, even if I lost all my children, God forbid, I would still have him, my husband.

But my imagination simply fails me when I try to picture a future beyond my husband's death. Of course I would have to live. I have four children, a mortgage, work to do. But I can imagine no joy without my husband.

I don't think the other mothers at Mommy and Me feel this way. I know they would be absolutely devastated if they found themselves widowed. But any one of them would sacrifice anything, including their husbands, for their children.

Can my bad motherhood be my husband's fault? Perhaps he just inspires more complete adoration than other husbands. He cooks, cleans, cares for the children at least 50 percent of the time.

If the most erotic form of foreplay to a mother of a small child is, as I've heard some women claim, loading the dishwasher or sweeping the floor, then he's a master of titillation.

He's handsome, brilliant and successful. But he can also be scatterbrained, antisocial and arrogant. He is a bad dancer, and he knows far too much about Klingon politics and the lyrics to Yes songs. All in all, he's not that much better than other men. The fault must be my own.

I am trying to remember those first days and weeks after giving birth. I know that my sexual longing for my husband took a while to return. I recall not wanting to make love. I did not even want to cuddle. At times I felt that if my husband's hand were to accidentally brush against my breast while reaching for the saltshaker, I would saw it off with the butter knife.

Even now I am not always in the mood. By the time the children go to bed, I am as drained as any mother who has spent her day working, car pooling, building Lego castles and shopping for the precisely correct soccer cleat. I am also a compulsive reader. Put together fatigue and bookwormishness, and you could have a situation in which nobody ever gets any. Except that when I catch a glimpse of my husband from the corner of my eye - his smooth, round shoulders, his bright-blue eyes through the magnification of his reading glasses - I fold over the page of my novel.

Sometimes I think I am alone in this obsession with my spouse. Sometimes I think my husband does not feel as I do. He loves the children the way a mother is supposed to. He has put them at the center of his world. But he is a man and thus possesses a strong libido. Having found something to usurp me as the sun of his universe does not mean he wants to make love to me any less.

And yet, he says I am wrong. He says he loves me as I love him. Every so often we escape from the children for a few days. We talk about our love, about how much we love each other's bodies and brains, about the things that make us happy in our marriage.

During the course of these meandering and exhilarating conversations, we touch each other, we start to make love, we stop.

And afterward my husband will say that we, he and I, are the core of what he cherishes, that the children are satellites, beloved but tangential.

He seems entirely unperturbed by loving me like this. Loving me more than his children does not bother him. It does not make him feel like a bad father. He does not feel that loving me more than he loves them is a kind of infidelity.

And neither, I suppose, should I. I should not use that wretched phrase "bad mother." At the very least, I should allow that, if nothing else, I am good enough. I do know this: When I look around the room at the other mothers in the group, I know that I would not change places with any of them.

I wish some learned sociologist would publish a definitive study of marriages where the parents are desperately, ardently in love, where the parents love each other even more than they love the children. It would be wonderful if it could be established, once and for all, that the children of these marriages are more successful, happier, live longer and have healthier lives than children whose mothers focus their desires and passions on them.

BUT even in the likely event that this study is not forthcoming, even in the event that I face a day of reckoning in which my children, God forbid, become heroin addicts or, God forbid, are unable to form decent attachments and wander from one miserable and unsatisfying relationship to another, or, God forbid, other things too awful even to imagine befall them, I cannot regret that when I look at my husband I still feel the same quickening of desire that I felt 12 years ago when I saw him for the first time, standing in the lobby of my apartment building, a bouquet of purple irises in his hands.

And if my children resent having been moons rather than the sun? If they berate me for not having loved them enough? If they call me a bad mother?

I will tell them that I wish for them a love like I have for their father. I will tell them that they are my children, and they deserve both to love and be loved like that. I will tell them to settle for nothing less than what they saw when they looked at me, looking at him.

Ayelet Waldman is the author of the novel "Daughter's Keeper." This essay is adapted from "Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race and Themselves" to be published by HarperCollins next month.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top


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To: thefactor

Your buddy is BRILLIANT. Keep him as a friend.


81 posted on 03/30/2005 11:20:07 PM PST by Pan_Yans Wife (" It is not true that life is one damn thing after another-it's one damn thing over and over." ESV)
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To: thefactor

"Well, a .45 will drop pretty much anyone."

I'm not going to ask who you love more - your spouse or your kids. But - I would be interested in knowing who you like the least! :-)


82 posted on 03/30/2005 11:23:22 PM PST by geopyg ("It's not that liberals don't know much, it's just that what they know just ain't so." (~ R. Reagan))
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To: geopyg

LOL! Yeah, kind of got off topic I guess.


83 posted on 03/30/2005 11:28:13 PM PST by thefactor
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To: thefactor

LOL! Yeah, kind of got off topic I guess.

Perhaps. But, my wife won't let me get a pistol for home defense (kids too). (I do have a shotgun nearby!).


84 posted on 03/30/2005 11:35:45 PM PST by geopyg ("It's not that liberals don't know much, it's just that what they know just ain't so." (~ R. Reagan))
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To: It's me
I wonder why this author feels guilty about this.

It's not the love of her husband that's making her feel guilty. It's the lack of feeling for her children that's at the root of it. Deep down she knows that to normal people, the loss of a child is absolutely unthinkable, yet she's certain she could live with it and move on.

85 posted on 03/30/2005 11:45:08 PM PST by Melas
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To: DTogo
Girls, This is addressed to you. I know women like the author. She is the one who has one purpose in life and that is to triumph over other women. She is lording her superiority oveer other women, she is better than all those tired, exhausted other dull, unsexy women. She is no more sexy than anyone you know, she just wants other women to feel that somehow, she has the brass ring, she is the sex goddess while all the rest of her so called friends are just dull, child loving, unsexy, unfortunate women. She thinks she won the race, she beat all of us. This woman is a narcissitic lying woman and not anyone's who is a female's sister. I know, I have a lot of sisters and have been hanging around my fellow women all my life. This woman is poisonous. That's all I have to say.
86 posted on 03/31/2005 4:19:02 AM PST by cajungirl (no)
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To: Great Prophet Zarquon
Then wallow in the guilt that is rightfully yours.

I'd say that the kids need to get over it - a committed mother and father, in love with each other, creates a wonderful, loving home for them. Obviously, if the parental relationship spurs neglect of the kids, that's wrong, but the kids, IMO, should be secondary on the relationship scale while still being primary on the "needs care" scale. After all, the kids came to live with Mom and Dad, not the other way around.

I didn't read the whole article closely, but I wondered why you considered that guilt would be "rightfully" due the author. Care to elaborate? (And, no, I'm not trying to start a flame war;-)

87 posted on 03/31/2005 4:30:56 AM PST by MortMan (CON is the opposite of PRO. Is Congress therefore the opposite of progress?)
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Comment #88 Removed by Moderator

To: cajungirl
You have her pegged right down to her DNA. A narcissistic piece of tripe, perfect for the NY Times. By the way she is a "Salon" writer and had a blog in which, among other inanities, she chronicled her bi-polar disorder. She is married to Michael Chabon who wrote the novel "Wonder Boys" and the screenplay to "Spiderman II",

She sounds exhausting. She should give Melanie Griffith a call and they can compare needy notes.

She is getting a good going over on more than a few internet sites but this is the highlight

http://www.popfactor.com/tmftml/archives/001995.html

89 posted on 03/31/2005 4:45:20 AM PST by CaptainK
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To: CaptainK
When most of your life is spent in the "ladies section" as is the case with those of us who have children and center our lives around them,,,you get to know these spider women. They just live to prove something to othere women. My guess is she hates her mother and sisters and has spent here life currying favor with men and triumphing over other women. Other women don't know why but being around her makes them feel less than. They can't put their finger on how and why but she just makes them feel bad and inadequate and dull. And they start to vaguely resent their children. And think their marriage is crap. This woman is so poisonous. Beware all who enter her web and her space. She is hazardous to women's health.
90 posted on 03/31/2005 4:51:15 AM PST by cajungirl (no)
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To: paulat
I feel that there are some pro's and con's to this article.

PRO:

The woman loves her husband, and cherishes her sex life. The husband loves her enough to give 100% to the marriage. They both seem to love their kids in their own way.

CON:

Hello! She is obsessing about this on a nationally syndicated paper. She sounds like she is bragging. I have a sneaking suspicion the husband is a tool. What the hell kind of support group does she go to where people are bitching about their sex lives? Waaaay too much time on her hands, play more with the kids, and stop "navel gazing".

Cheers,

CSG

91 posted on 03/31/2005 4:53:23 AM PST by CompSciGuy ("At 20 years of age the will reigns, at 30 the wit, at 40 the judgment." -- Ben Franklin)
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To: CaptainK

good Lord, I just read the link.

My oh my, why am I not surprised. It sort of gives me the shivers just reading it. LIke a needy, sick, pathetic womans porn site. This woman, well, there are no words.

I don't dislike her as much as I did. Somehow, she is pathetic.


92 posted on 03/31/2005 4:56:31 AM PST by cajungirl (no)
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To: Free2BeMe

I think you need to do some research on Gods plan for married people. No person should be more important than the spouse.


93 posted on 03/31/2005 5:03:48 AM PST by seemoAR
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To: paulat

Personally, I think this woman has it completely right.


94 posted on 03/31/2005 5:08:03 AM PST by ShadowDancer (As for the types of comments I make,sometimes I just, By God,get carried away with my own eloquence.)
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To: paulat

Wow, this column got people talking!

When I was a kid my folks adored one another, and as an adult I asked my siblings if they felt as I did - that Mom and Dad were a Couple, and were totally devoted to being a couple. There was never a question of "who does mommy love more" because the answer was Dad. I found that stabilizing and comforting, not distressing.

Of course, as an adult we all realize that the kids were first in mom's heart, but we never perceived it as children and I think that is a good thing.

My folks parted after 52 years when my dad died in 2001. My wife and I just had our 10th anniversary, and I think it will stick. I learned a lot from my parents marriage without knowing it at the time, and I hope to do as well as they did.


95 posted on 03/31/2005 5:20:49 AM PST by ko_kyi
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To: sauropod

pingy-ping...


96 posted on 03/31/2005 5:24:00 AM PST by hellinahandcart
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To: SuziQ
What is it with New York City women that they have to obsess about their sex lives, either for good or ill?

Bingo.

97 posted on 03/31/2005 5:26:40 AM PST by Alia
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To: paulat
HAVE been in many mothers' groups - Mommy and Me, Gymboree, Second-Time Moms - and each time, within three minutes, the conversation invariably comes around to the topic of how often mommy feels compelled to put out.

Maybe it's because I never bore children, but this opening paragraph strains the hell out of my credulity.

They're exercising their children and right away talking about sex with their husbands? Come on...

98 posted on 03/31/2005 5:38:11 AM PST by hellinahandcart
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To: paulat

Now that she's had her say, I'll have mine.

I could never love my son the way I love my husband. My son could never be my best friend, my confidant, my lover, my partner for life.

I could never love my husband the way I love my son. I did not feel him growing inside of me nor give birth to him.

It's two different kinds of love.

Both are given by God and I relish them both!


99 posted on 03/31/2005 5:41:55 AM PST by trillabodilla (Pray for President Bush!)
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To: Alia
I'm so glad I was born and raised in the middle west instead of New York City. I don't have to spend my adult life full of neurosis and agonizing over every aspect of a complicated and Freudian life as a woman.

It's no wonder New Yorkers elect con artists like Hillary. Giddy female Gothamites obviously love to add the agonies and burdens of her personal life on top of their own. She becomes they and they become she.

The NY Times is instinctively right on track printing these Ophra-type columns. This gooey crappioli is immensely popular with female readers and sells newspapers.

Witness the abundance of marital agony comments and intimate revelations which always immediately appear following the posting of such articles right here on this forum.

The book "Mommie Dearest" forever changed the culture in this country where personal and intimate matters were generally kept private and not used for attention, venting, paybacks, sympathy, profit and/or the analysis of strangers.

Leni

100 posted on 03/31/2005 5:54:14 AM PST by MinuteGal
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