Eighteen months in, and nobody warns the woman how lonely the first year is

We are eighteen months into me leading and the thing nobody warned us about is how lonely the first year is. Everything written for beginners is written for the man. Almost nothing is written for the woman who has just been asked to take charge of a marriage and is not sure she is allowed to want it.

Thirty four and thirty six, south of the river, together seven years, married for two. He asked. I said no for a long time, mostly because I had decided that wanting it made me a bad feminist, which I now think is nonsense, and which took a year and one very patient friend to get past.

What we would like is contact with other couples somewhere near the same point, and with couples further along who would tolerate our questions. Not play. Conversation. Specifically about the unglamorous problems. Money, in laws, what happens when one of you is ill, and how you stop the whole thing turning into another item on a list of chores.

We can offer the same in the other direction. If you are where we were a year and a half ago, and you would like to hear from a woman who spent a year refusing and then changed her mind, I will tell you all of it.

Not looking for anybody to join us. Not looking for a couple who want to instruct rather than talk. Not looking to meet anywhere that requires either of us to perform, since we would both be dreadful at it.