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"It was bound to happen, we&amp;#039;ve hit a sex rut. Unlike the last quiet spell we faced, I am recognizing the signs before it&amp;#039;s too late: Not enough date nights, too many late work evenings for him... Too many events scheduled with girlfriends (that&amp;#039;s me, not his girlfriends) and oh yeah... the most important of all... not going to bed at the same time. Apparently it&amp;#039;s hard to have sex when your spouse is hitting the sack at 9:30PM and you&amp;#039;re still downstairs finishing work items, watching tv or chatting with your sister about who should have won American Idol last season. I refuse to take full responsibility for our standstill. After all, it is Rex&amp;#039;s choice to get that extra certification for work. Sure, he&amp;#039;s doing it so we have more money in the bank in the long run (and trust me, I&amp;#039;m very grateful) but at the end of the day, he&amp;#039;s doing it because he loves it. That&amp;#039;s all fine and dandy, but we got married so he could also love me: Literally and figuratively. What I can take responsibility for is helping him out the best way I can. I bring him snacks at the computer. I don&amp;#039;t nag him for incidentals. But... and here&amp;#039;s the big &amp;quot;but&amp;quot;, if I need help, I&amp;#039;m no longer sucking it up. Not if at some point something else wants the last three words of the prior sentence. &amp;quot;Babe, I need back-up with the kids tonight. I can&amp;#039;t face the bedtime routine alone.&amp;quot; I could tell he wasn&amp;#039;t happy about putting down the new laptop he won from a trade show and coming upstairs for the teeth brush, pee-pee, &amp;quot;I want a book&amp;quot; whine fest that known as the Frazer bedtime hour tonight. But he did it.  I pushed aside reservations in asking him to join us for prayers. I fully expected a &amp;quot;No thanks&amp;quot; - he&amp;#039;s not faith driven in the slightest. But he said &amp;quot;Sure.&amp;quot; We might as well have been saying &amp;quot;Praise Barney in blue jeans&amp;quot; for all he knows from the &amp;quot;Our Father&amp;quot;, but he sat there and listened. And he kissed the kids and tucked them in as they said their &amp;quot;Amens&amp;quot;. Do I wish he&amp;#039;d be more proactive in the child department? Absolutely. But I&amp;#039;m also grateful that I haven&amp;#039;t martyred myself and am asking for support when I need it. I&amp;#039;m realizing it means less to me if he says &amp;quot;yes&amp;quot;, thought that&amp;#039;s always nice, and more important that I honor myself by asking for what I need, regardless of the response. Oh, and another new routine I&amp;#039;ve started? Sometimes, just to be snarky, I walk by his computer when he&amp;#039;s mid-test and let a right or left boob flip over my stretchy tank top neckline as if to wave, &amp;quot;Hello, partner!&amp;quot; When he looks up and I quickly tuck them back into my bra and continue en route to my dish duty, I just smile at his incredulous look. &amp;quot;What?&amp;quot; I ask. &amp;quot;Nothing,&amp;quot; he smirks back. I&amp;#039;m hoping his answer doesn&amp;#039;t describe our sex life tonight. It really has been too long.... for it not to be long. So long for now. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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