I’ve written enough on this subject to fill two or three novels. Yes, chemistry is important. I think I’ve spent a lot of my life motivated by the search for this chemistry. I’ve found it and had it taken away; found it and lost it and the person I had it with; found it and lost it and found it and lost it and found it with the same person.
I wouldn’t say that maintaining sexual chemistry has been a problem in my marriage. Maintaining sexual interest has been. When I go for too long without sex, I go crazy. Literally, as in diagnosable crazy. I get depressed because I interpret the lack of sex as a sign that I am no longer loved.
Then I get manic because I’m out there trying to find another way to have that kind of relationship that sex is so much a part of. To some degree, it’s not me—that manic person. I do things I wouldn’t ordinarily do, Normally I have more control over myself and I am able to deny myself that which I need to live, really.
But sometimes I lose it. I feel unloved and unlovable. That makes me crazy, and sometimes I’ll try to find other people who can show me I’m lovable and loved.
That’s in the past now, and I hope it stays there. Maintaining a relationship is very complicated, sometimes. Dealing with sexual desire or lack thereof is challenging, to say the least. What I’ve found is that if I feel loved and lovable, then I don’t need as much sex as when I feel insecure and worthless.
Well, there’s a lot more, but I’ll stop there. I have written more in my blog—the sordid details (and they are sordid). You can find a link to it on my profile, but it’s not to everyone’s taste. But they will show you something about how important sexual chemistry is to me. For me, it’s the manifestation of love. What I found, though, was that the problems are the same wherever you go, and that the solution to the problem lies inside me, not outside.