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They had ordered separately at the anniversary dinner. Tom had ordered the steak. Linda had ordered the fish. They had not even looked at the wine list together. The waiter had asked if it was a special occasion and Tom had said yes, eighteen years, and the waiter had said congratulations and brought a complimentary champagne. They had both said thank you. They had clinked the glasses. They had not made eye contact. They drove home in silence on a Wednesday in March. Tom drove. Linda watched the side window. The car was a Lexus they had bought two years before and Linda had not driven once. There was nothing wrong with the car. There was nothing wrong with the silence either, technically. They had been driving in silence for about three years. When they got home Linda went upstairs to the master bathroom. Tom went to the guest bathroom on the first floor. They had stopped sharing a bathroom about eighteen months earlier. Linda had not said anything about it. She had just started using the guest bath some nights. Then more nights. Then most. Then he had moved his things down to the first floor without saying anything either and she had moved her things into the master upstairs and that had been that. He brushed his teeth at the first-floor sink in front of a mirror he did not look at. He listened to the sound of Linda's water running through the ceiling. He thought about the eighteen years. He thought about the four years. He went up to bed at 10:14. Linda was already in bed with her book. He got in his side. He said goodnight. She said goodnight. He turned off the light. Tom was fifty-two. Linda was fifty. They had two grown kids. They had been intimate the last time in March of 2021. He could remember the date because it had been a weekend they had taken in Asheville and the trip had been the one where they had gotten the dog. The dog was four now. They had not touched each other since the dog. Tom had been to his doctor at forty-eight. Total testosterone 281. The doctor had told him he was a candidate for therapy. He had started a gel. He had moved to injections. His levels had come up to the 600s and stayed there for three and a half years. His desire had stayed exactly where it had been at 281. Which was somewhere underneath a long list of other things. The doctor had told him it was "normal for this stage of life." His wife had told him, kindly, when he had brought it up around the second anniversary of the dog, that "we're just at a different stage." He had nodded. He had not brought it up again. He had been on the right number for three and a half years and they had not slept together in four. Tom played golf with the same four guys on Saturday mornings. They were all between forty-eight and fifty-six. The senior member of the group, Roger, was fifty-six. Roger had a wife named Pat. They had been married thirty-one years. On a Saturday morning in late March, on the seventh hole, Roger had said to Tom while they were waiting for the foursome ahead to clear, "How was the anniversary." Tom said, "It was fine." Roger said, "Fine how." Tom said, "Fine." Roger took a swing. He watched the ball drop into the fairway. He said, "I want to tell you something. You don't have to do anything with it. I'm not asking." Tom said, "Okay." Roger said, "Two and a half years ago, Pat and I had not been together in six years. I was on the injection. The numbers were where the doctor said they should be. Nothing had changed in our marriage in either direction. We loved each other. We were not in each other's bodies anymore. I had accepted it. I was fifty-three. I was telling myself that was just where men were now." Tom did not say anything. Roger said, "Then her sister out in Phoenix told her about something. It was not about testosterone. It was about the nervous system. I had spent thirty years building a company. My body had been running on emergency since the eighties. The testosterone could not fix the part of the wiring that had been disconnected by thirty years of being on. The body had filed away the want because the body had been busy doing other things. That's how she explained it to me. You can fuel a car all you want. If the ignition is off, it doesn't run." He hit his second shot. He turned around. He said, "We are back to once a week now. We are old. We are not the version of us at twenty-six. But once a week is once a week, and four months ago it was zero a week. The thing she had me do is called Liven. There's a protocol inside it. Nine minutes a day. Quiz at the front. Three minutes. Mine came back at 91." Tom said, "Why are you telling me." Roger said, "Because last Tuesday night Pat asked me how you were doing and I told her you and Linda had eighteen years coming up and Pat said 'oh god those two.' That's why. Look it up. Don't look it up. I'm not your wife." Tom took the quiz the next morning at 6:30 AM in his home office before Linda came downstairs. His Dysregulation Score was 82. He sat at the desk for a long time before he started the protocol. He did not tell Linda. He did the nine minutes in the office every morning. Linda did not ask what he was doing. They had stopped asking each other what they were doing about a year before the dog. Five weeks in he was in the kitchen on a Tuesday morning making coffee. Linda came down the stairs in her robe. She walked past him to the fridge. She paused at the door. She said, without turning around, "Did you sleep okay." She had not asked him that since 2021. He said, "I did." She said, "Me too. The bed has been stiller." She got the creamer out of the fridge. She poured him a cup. She handed it to him. Their fingers touched on the handle of the mug. They did not say anything. He drank the coffee at the island. She stood next to him. She had not stood next to him in the kitchen in three years. Four months in, on a Saturday morning in late July, Linda was at the kitchen sink rinsing dishes. Tom was at the table reading the paper. He looked up at her back. He stood up. He walked over to the sink. He put both his hands flat on her lower back over the bathrobe. She did not move for a second. Then she turned off the water. She turned around. She put her forehead against his chest. She said, into his shirt, very quiet, "I thought we had become roommates." He said, "I thought so too." She said, "I thought it was me." He said, "I thought it was me." She said, "What changed." He told her about Roger. About the golf course. About the score. About the nine minutes. He told her standing in the kitchen at 9:18 on a Saturday with her forehead on his chest. She said, "Why didn't you tell me." He said, "I was waiting until I knew it worked." She said, "How long did you wait." He said, "Four months." She said, "Don't wait that long again." They went upstairs. Tom is fifty-two. Linda is fifty. They have moved back into the same bathroom. The guest bath has become the guest bath again. He still does the nine minutes every morning. He told Roger about it on the eleventh hole in October. Roger did not say anything. Roger nodded. If you are a man at fifty or fifty-two or fifty-five and you have been on the injection for years and your numbers are right and your wife has moved into a different bathroom and you have both been telling each other you are at a different stage — the question is not whether you are at a different stage. The question is whether your nervous system has been on since the eighties or the nineties or whatever decade you became responsible for things. The link to the quiz is below. Roger sent it on a golf course in March. Tom wishes Roger had sent it the year of the dog. Link's below.