My Current Relationship and Why When I Have Sex Is Not Your Business

We're approaching year 3 of marriage this September, and this July we've known each other five years.

In my past chapters, I experienced quite a bit of lust at first sight. That's easy to do when you're governed by hormones and unaware of that fact. We had some adventures, self and I. We had some heartbreak. But we did not know love. Not in its truest form. Not in the mutual-respect, protect you at all costs form.

Enter Nicholas. How do I relay details that only my heart knows? Four jobs, a new cat, three moves, a mortgage, and a baby later, he's my best friend. We disagree, as separate entities navigating the globe will sometimes do; we have inside jokes too crass to publish, we balance each other. And I would do it all again exactly the same way.

Well, maybe we wouldn't buy the Sleep Number bed. MISTAAAAKE.

Part II: Baby Factory

What I am about to tell you had been bothering me since it happened, so it's time to release it into the universe. Someone who has met me all of three times pressed me hard on when I'd be having my next baby.

Jim Gaffigan captures the frustrating hilarity of how no one is more up in your business than people inquiring about when you're going to have sex again or when you're going to stop (having so many damn children). We have plenty of sex. We have sex that doesn't result in babies. We believe in birth control, and we believed in birth control before marriage. Be appalled if it gets you through the day. Be outraged if it helps you sleep at night. We knew raising a human would be tough work, a financial investment, emotionally demanding, and a separate adventure from our personal relationship. We waited.

Sidebar( Waiting doesn't mean abstinence. In a committed, honest, loving relationship abstinence is not scientifically sound.)

And now, as little bear has reached age one, the questions pop up. When? When is the next one? 

When are you going to financially contribute to my family? Are you offering to babysit so I can nurture my relationship with my husband, who is still the reason I *get* to add the title of "mommy" to my docket? Are you going to explain to my doctor that, pish-posh, medical this and that aside, getting pregnant again doesn't jeopardize my current health goals? 

I can choose to be angry at some thoughtless side comments, but I don't. It's aired. It's fleeing from me. Good riddance.

I have my house in order, and I love my house. I am the warm effervescent center of it, and outsider commentary doesn't get to sleep in my attic.