Still having sex

My wife and I are close in all the best ways. We’re emotionally connected most of the time, and we have good sex. I don’t know any married couple having sex every night, and the whispers I hear suggest that our sex life – quality not quantity – is very normal for long-married couples. We both work full time, we have two young-ish kids, I spend at least one night each week working away, but we find time and ways. We’re intimate.

In the week between her cancer diagnosis, and her going away on a long planned holiday with her mum, we had sex a few times. More often than normal. I felt an urge, physical but not sexual, to touch her, to be connected to her. I wanted to give her hugs, to hold her hand, to rub her back. In bed, we held each other and offered reassuring words. Without either of us clearly initiating things it became sexual a few times. Not some big performance, but warm and familiar.

So why am I blabbing like this, telling you, Dear Reader, that we’re still having sex?

It’s because it feels like a marker for the health of our relationship. We’ll be tested, and things will get more difficult than they are now, but we’re starting from a good place.