Sense and Sensuality

Women have come a long way since Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, and I am one of those women, who has decided to turn sensibility into sensuality.

As a child I was influenced by strong female role models in my family - my mother, paternal grandmother and aunt - who all kept advising me never to become dependent on a man and always stand on my own two feet.

Born and raised in Germany, I was lucky enough to live in a liberal household, and the 1970s women's lib movement encouraged millions of young women to live a more fulfilling life than their mothers and grandmothers did.

But of course, century-old traditions and values are hard to overturn.

Sexual liberation in the 1960s was seen as debauch and hedonistic, and even today some taboo subjects like extra-marital affairs are still met with a lot of negative judgement and condemnation.

So, despite initial free-spirited living, I opted to get married to be with the man I loved for the rest of my life.

Divorce wasn't an option for me. My parents stayed together for 47 years, until my mother died in 2001. When a distant aunt and uncle got divorced, that was frowned upon. "Why couldn't they pull themselves together?"

When the parents of one of my classmates got divorced, I felt terribly sorry for my friend. I couldn't understand, why people did that, when they once loved each other and had children together. But that was me at 13. I lived in a simple world.

Little did I know, that "for the rest of my life" can be a very long time indeed, and that people can change slowly over the years without realising.

My mother never talked to me about sex in marriage, except "Sometimes you have to do it, even if you don't feel like it." I made a mental note, that I'd never do such a thing. That of course led to the breakdown of my marriage.

During my marriage, I have tried to follow the rules and be sensible. Be faithful. Make an effort. Stick with it. Talk things through.

Still, divorce wasn't an option.

How many other couples are stuck in an unfulfilled marriage and just accept it, because sex in marriage is still a taboo subject.

How many couples admit that they have an issue, and if they do, what are they doing about it?

We were too young and ignorant to realise that despite our deep love for each other we were sexually incompatible. We didn't want to know that. We brushed it under the carpet and escaped into work, holidays, hobbies, buying houses and adopting a child.

We didn't split up, because we still got on with each other and enjoyed being together. My emotional well-being was completely depending on my husband, who was, and still is, my soulmate.

There, I said it: I was emotionally dependent on my husband.

My free-spirited personality gradually turned into a clingy and reliant shadow, and it took me twenty years to realise.

It slowly dawned on both of us that sensibility was no longer an option.

We both needed to reclaim our sensuality, but we couldn't do that together. We both had different needs and desires.

It took a great deal of courage and integrity to acknowledge our situation and act upon it.

Today we are at peace. No more pretence, no more trying. We both have different partners, but we still have love for each other.

And it works. We've found our mojo, and it feels right.

Having rediscovered and expressing my sensuality has taken me full circle. I'm the free-spirited woman I used to be in my twenties - independent, confident, passionate, liberated.

And it feels good.