Birthday gift was sex every day for a year

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BY PAM KELLEY / McClatchy Newspapers

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When her husband’s 40th birthday approached, Charla Muller wanted just the right gift.

It had to be fabulous, over the top, something so special “that my husband would never have to pause and say, ‘What did Charla give me for my 40th birthday?’”

Let us declare now that Muller, a Charlotte wife, mother and public relations professional, succeeded on all counts. Her gift? Sex, every day, for a year.

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Charla Muller is author of “365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy,” a book about the gift she gave her husband, Brad, for his 40th birthday: Sex daily for a year. The book will be published in July. (Diedra Laird)

Charla Muller is author of “365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy,” a book about the gift she gave her husband, Brad, for his 40th birthday: Sex daily for a year. The book will be published in July. (Diedra Laird)

Soon, the world will learn of Charla’s gift. Her book, “365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy,” co-written with Betsy Thorpe, ($14; Berkley) hits bookstores in July.

In it, Muller tackles issues familiar to almost anyone in a marriage or long-term relationship: How does intimacy flourish in real, busy lives? How do you deal when one partner — usually the man — wants a lot more sex than the other?

Charla and Brad Muller are, in many ways, a typical couple. They have a nice house, two kids, a strong marriage.

And like many couples, they’d found sex had taken a back seat to the crush of daily obligations — work, parenting, running a house. Or, as Charla says in the book: “Intimacy had ended up like that box of Girl Scout cookies in the back of the freezer, hidden behind the frozen pizzas.”

But she loved her husband a lot, she says, so she set out to rediscover intimacy.

Her story begins with Brad’s 40th birthday looming. When she makes her proposal, his response isn’t what she expects. He tells her to think some more and they’ll talk.

“Obviously,” Brad Muller says now, “you’re not going to turn down an offer like that.” But he wanted to make sure she was serious, since his wife often had big ideas but wasn’t always strong on follow through.

Charla pleads guilty to this, explaining in her book that she once thought being “Big Idea Girl” was charming and now realizes it “can be expensive and often hazardous.”

And she has doubts, too. She wonders if this gift could turn into “a mistake that ranked up there with my mustache-bleaching incident.”

But after more talk, they decide to do it. They’ll schedule encounters, usually in the evening, after the two kids are in bed. Either party can decline — though Charla doesn’t intend to. Good TV is no excuse for canceling. (That’s why you have a DVR.) And quickies count. “In fact, quickies often are preferred if you’re doing this daily,” Charla writes.

They begin on Brad’s birthday, July 3, 2006. Before long, she reports, they’re happier. They feel more connected. And because they’re doing it daily, sex ceases being an issue in their marriage. “Sex permeates a marriage more when you’re not having it,” she writes.

For a book about having sex, “365 Days” is remarkably G-rated. The book calls upon an array of synonyms — romp, roll in the hay, intimacy — but doesn’t delve into details.

Much of the story chronicles aspects of their marriage, both serious and humorous, including Charla’s bout with depression a few years ago (“My cheese just slid ever so slowly off my cracker, so that it was barely perceptible at first”) and their argument about whether gifts from Santa should be wrapped. Brad votes yes. Charla, on the other hand, wonders: “Are you high?”

As months pass, Charla admits she’s tiring of daily sex. By May, “there are moments where I’ve hit the proverbial wall, and feel like beating myself over the head with the nearest newspaper or maybe a spatula.”

But she’s determined to make good on her promise. Brad says his wife adopted a kind of “we’ve come this far, we can’t stop now” attitude.

And for those 365 days, they didn’t.

They don’t have an exact final tally. They missed a few days when Brad was traveling for business, or he decided he wanted a break. But Charla figures they averaged 27 or 28 times a month.

Men and women have totally different reactions to Charla’s gift, the Mullers say. Men tend to give Brad verbal high-fives. Women are often incredulous and tell Charla they’d prefer their husbands didn’t find out.

Today, the couple no longer have daily sex, but they have a lot more than they did pre-gift. And they agree their year of intimacy improved their marriage.

That doesn’t surprise Lisa Terrell, a senior therapist at Charlotte’s Sensovi, a private practice and online education resource for relationships and sexuality. When couples take time to connect every day, she says, relationships benefit.

But that connection can be talking, touching and cuddling, as well as sex, she says. And she cautions that women risk becoming disengaged if they always feel they’re doing their husbands a favor when they have sex.

At the book’s conclusion, Charla Muller says she knows readers will ask her advice on how often they should be having sex. And so she offers a prescription. Without giving it away, let’s say this: It’s not daily.

Last July, Brad turned 41. What did Charla give him for that birthday?

“I think,” she says, “I may have given him a golf club.”