In late August, I listened to the audiobook, Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis. I thought it was brilliant. I had friends ask if it was a beauty tips book, literally about the importance of washing your face before bed. I laughed, no, it’s more figurative. I would classify it as an emotional self-care book. Essentially, it is okay to cry and feel your feelings, but when you are done, go wash your face and start fresh.
There are so many things that I loved about that book, but the one thing she talked about doing was designating one month to have sex with her husband every night. At first it started out as a chore, but then they both started looking forward to that time. They called it Sexy September. It was late August when I got to this part of the book and I thought it was perfect. To explain why, I need to rewind to the early months of my relationship with Sam.
Our first summer together was very difficult. His divorce was just finalized and I had just hit the one year anniversary of my divorce. We were both emotionally struggling with the idea of falling in love again, yet, it was happening and I think internally we were both panicking. Summer was also extremely busy for us both. Our kid-free schedules weren’t aligning and we were too new to spend time with each others kids, in fact, he hadn’t even met mine at that point. He was emotionally detaching and I was struggling with the lack of time together.
It was a super confusing time. We broke up, yet we were still texting the same volume, if not more than we had while we were dating. For the month of August, we fell in love from a distance. It was safe. No pressure. Just friendship. By the end of August we were back together and working towards building a stronger relationship. I’m not sure if we are the only couple to ever fall in love while broken up, but I’m sure our story is pretty unique.
Fast forward to our second summer together. We found ourselves in the same rocky place. Again, our schedules just weren’t aligning for July and August. I was away, he was away, I was away, he was away. Our kid free time was minimal, and alot of our “time” together consisted of him coming over after my kids were in bed. We’d talk a little bit, maybe watch some TV, and then roll over and go to sleep and off to work in the morning.
By the time August came, it very much seemed like we weren’t going to make it. We got close to calling it quits for a variety of reasons, but I think they all revolved around lack of time. At the top of both of our love languages is quality time. We were on month number two of little to no quality time. Our bond was slipping, miscommunications were increasing, we were both building a narrative in our heads about how the other one felt, and at one point I played the break up script in my head. I would bet anything that he ran a similar break up script in his head too.
As we were on the verge of splitting, we both agreed we needed to hold on and not break up while we were lacking quality time. We wanted to get some time together before determining whether or not we were a lost cause.
Enter Sexy September
September was already looking like the month of getting back to getting more time together, we had already scheduled a few weekdays together and the first weekend in the month, we were going away for an event. I proposed making it Sexy September. We don’t live together, so committing to every day just wasn’t something that was going to work for us. But instead, we committed to being intimate at least once per sleepover. Our relationship was never one built off of lust or physical connection, so this commitment was pretty different for us.
Late nights out and being too tired, led to us waking up, each sneaking off to the bathroom to brush our teeth and then crawled back into bed to roll around a bit. Days when we both had early mornings, and knew by the time we got the kids to bed, we’d be too tired, we took advantage of kid-free time while kids were at practice.
For the month of September, we not only made it a priority to get more time together, but we made it a priority to be intimate more regularly. I wouldn’t say that Sexy September alone saved us. I have enough faith in our strong foundation to know that quality time was all we needed to get back on track, but I do believe that Sexy September expedited our reconnection and we are stronger than ever. Hey babe, shall we try Oral October? 😉
Any tips for rekindling and strengthening your relationship after long stretches apart?