Esquire sings with neurological romance, using brain scans to tell a husband’s stirring story of the brain in love:
Against all odds, I’m still hot for my wife. Chemically, I’m at the most unmanly point in my life. A guy’s testosterone drops when he gets married. (I’m nine years in.) It also drops when he has kids. (I’ve got three boys.) “Every time you cuddle with your children, you’re likely to be driving down your testosterone,” says Fisher. I can feel this. My sex drive is in neutral a lot of the time. Before the results came in, Brown told me to keep my expectations low. The sex regions might stay dark. She told me, “I actually think men in your situation” — meaning married with young kids — “should be encouraged to go to the Internet and look at pornography, because it brings novelty into the home. When you look at [porn], you’re going to have some hormonal flooding. Which is needed in the ‘captivity’ situation.”
And yet, according to the MRI, my libido is surprisingly strong.
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“You do love your wife,” says Brown. “It’s just in a more complicated way. The way most people love their long-term spouses.”
I love her, but not with the junkie’s high. “But don’t give up on that,” says Fisher. “I think those children are going to grow up and you’re going to have the experience of being madly in love.” In fact, she and Brown want to put me back in the scanner each year for several years.
So there’s something to look forward to.