I first experienced a loss of sexual desire several years ago, just after I turned 40. For a long time, I thought it was me. I thought maybe it was my age. After reading every book and article I could find on sex, relationships, and marriage, I started to wonder if maybe it wasn’t me. Maybe it was my marriage, maybe it was my husband. I never wanted to be “that woman“. The one that screwed around on her husband. But, I had an affair about six or seven years ago. It didn’t last long. But, that’s when I knew my marriage was over. It wasn’t a lack of sexual desire, it was a lack of desire for my husband. I didn’t want him or the marriage. There was nothing wrong with my sex drive. I told my husband that I’d had an affair. He changed for about a month or so. He was very loving and attentive. But it didn’t last. He loves differently than I need to be loved and it’s just not in him to love me that way. A few months after I ended the affair, I got involved with someone else. I know. I shouldn’t have. I’ve experienced things with this other man that I never thought possible. Felt things I thought were only possible in movies. He’s a romantic. Not flowers or candy or jewellery, but he talks and listens. He hears me. He tries to understand me and give me what I need. Deep, intimate conversations. Looking into one another’s eyes. Soft caresses. Words of adoration. These things he gives me almost daily. I never knew I needed romance because I’d never had it. This is how I need to be loved. After having felt this way, I can’t stay in my marriage. It’s not fair to either of us. I’m not sure what happened. Did we grow apart? Did one or both of us change? Do people’s needs change as they get older? According to the above context, choose the correct option to answer the following question. Question: How did the author's husband feel after she told him about the affair? Options: - upset and he wanted to save his marriage - angry and he wanted a divorce - not enough information - he didn't care because he was having an affair himself
upset and he wanted to save his marriage
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Roland felt his stomach knotting. Having ridden out of the city through the Saint-Denis Gate, he now was nearly home, and the hurt inside was cutting so deep that he thought it would drive him mad. He repeated again and again the pledge he had just made to Nicolette: I am your true troubadour, now and forever. It felt like a knife stabbing into him. I do love her, as I have not loved any other - except Diane. Under his fur-lined mantle he was sweating, despite the bone-deep chill of the January night. Was my pledge to Nicolette a lie? No, not now that Diane has vowed herself to God. He had always believed that a man or a woman could love but one person. For all the years he had loved Diane, he had accepted that as a sacred law of Love. It was the way things should be. But it was not the way they were. Not for him. What if I had known, that day I saw Nicolette at Chinon, that Diane was still alive? I would have wanted Nicolette just as much, but would not have begun this. There would have been no messages, no song in her garden. But I was sure Diane was dead. There was nothing but a memory of a younger time to check my feelings for Nicolette. And then, when I found Diane again, I could not have her. I had lost her forever. So at last I wrote again to Nicolette. But tonight, when Nicolette would have let me make love to her - and how I want her! - I could not go beyond an embrace and a kiss. Not as long as I still love Diane. When he had set out, a full moon had hung low above the huddled rooftops of the university town. Now the silver disk was high overhead, and he could discern the small house he had bought two years ago with money he brought with him from Sicily. According to the above context, choose the correct option to answer the following question. Question: Most likely, who is Roland married too? Options: - Diane - Nicolette - not enough information - Chinon
Nicolette
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Patch's mother was named Silver, because high summer sun made her fur shine that colour. She had a marvellous drey high up a spruce tree, carved out long ago by a woodpecker, and since extended into a two-chambered home full of bright things. The journey along the sky-road to her drey did not take long. When Patch looked inside, he saw a hundred colours glittering in the sunlight, shining from bits of metal and glass set into Silver's walls and floor. But his mother was not there. He could tell by the faintness of her smell that no squirrel had been here in some time. There were two faint traces of scent, several days old; that of Silver, and that of another squirrel, a musky scent that Patch did not recognize. A scent that made his tail stiffen as if danger was near. Patch stared into his mother's empty drey for a moment. It wasn't normal for a squirrel to abandon her drey for days, not in the middle of winter. And he hadn't seen Silver for three days. Not since all the acorns had disappeared from the earth. Patch ran back to his own tree, and then to the maple tree next door, to his brother Tuft's drey. He ran very fast. He was hungrier than ever, and he was beginning to be very worried. He was relieved when he looked into Tuft's drey and found it occupied. Tuft himself was not present, but Brighteyes was, and their babies, and it was clear from the smells that Tuft had only just departed. "Hello, Patch," Brighteyes said weakly. "Would you like to come in?" Patch entered. Brighteyes was curled up with her babies in the drey's deepest, warmest corner. The last time Patch had visited, a week ago, this had been a den of noise and chaos, with all Brighteyes' four babies running and jumping and playfighting. Today they lay weakly beside Brighteyes, and the once-shining eyes from which their mother had taken her name were dim and clouded. According to the above context, choose the correct option to answer the following question. Question: After visiting his mother's drey, who did Patch speak to? Options: - His mother. - Brighteyes. - not enough information - His brother.
