A Relationship Strained

I keep having to process my desire because it hasn’t gone anywhere…

& that’s pretty frustrating, most days. Really. Especially when you’re the type of person who constantly craves touch, even non-sexual/not a prelude to sex touch. I know some of you are having to deal with a much worse situation (isolation without even the possibility of touch), & my heart goes out to you. I dearly hope that changes soon.

Just over two weeks ago, my wife & I decided to take sex off the table entirely for a month. The idea is/was that there are other, bigger issues that keep coming up between us, & having to try to navigate/deal with the sheer intensity of my libido comes in second. Naturally, this decision came with a great deal of sadness for me. I was thinking that we were starting to reconnect after a long & rocky road. It still stands as a major sticking point with me because, as I’ve already mentioned, I always want some form of touch. But there are, of course, other aspects of our relationship to work on, to be caring, to be involved in each other’s life without the pressure of desire or expectation taking an awkward course (occasionally an unmitigated disaster in my attempts to suggest we go to bed).

When I have tried to approach her, though, & partly because I experience such a great deal of intensity surrounding desire, partly because I’ve had a tendency towards being extremely selfish since becoming ill, my approaching her becomes something she dreads. Whereas I love the bare fact of being desired, she becomes anxious & pulls back. I believe part of this dread, for her, lies in not really knowing how our relationship is configured at present. She told me, recently, that she’d heard that young marriages are more prone to burst when one person gets sick; makes sense: there hasn’t been as much time invested, the relationship developed, the knowledge of the other person that longer term relationships have already established. Hence, they do better when one partner becomes ill. So much of the frustration each of us experiences stems from this massive problem in our lives; or, at least, my illness has seriously complicated all aspects of our life.

I don’t really (never really thought I would be here) think marriage/monogamy is the best idea ever; it smacks of an artificial & economic sense of control. I have enjoyed some aspects of it, but overall I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. The dissolution when things goes sideways…well. For all that, I love my wife & want to stay married; I have chosen this monogamy: she’s an incredible, beautiful woman. Perhaps it is & isn’t too late to change the configuration of our relationship. She wants a kinder, gentler, less-passionate, less-intense version of me. I want someone who finds energy & connection viz. touch, touch, & some more touch. But do we know how to unify these goals?

I don’t think they are actually antithetical. I believe we can exist happily with both of these agendas, & both of us “win”. But we won’t if, as she’s been saying lately, at a gross clip of “maybe” heading to bed once a month.

Believe it or not, I do understand lower levels of desire. I don’t live it, but I understand how life/stress/people get in the way of the libido; I understand all energy transfers don’t act/react the same way. So, I do think it’s absolutely fine if she doesn’t want to have sex at least once a day (a clip I might not even be able to sustain as much as I might want to). But then, for me, I still want some kissing, nuzzling, light petting. Something. Some form of contact.

A woman whose work I respect very much here recently published a story where she suggests/asks if we can begin taking the expectation of/satisfaction of desire off the other’s plate. Yael Wolfe writes,

Can we let go of our desire? Experience it, but expect nothing to come of it? Can we let go of our assumption that the world owes us the satisfaction of our desire? That our partners — or someone who isn’t yet a partner — owes us that satisfaction? — “Can We Let Go?”

The last part of this, I am fully on board with. I don’t, categorically do not believe that anyone owes anyone sex. This concept of deserving it, forcing it out of someone else is to fundamentally be in a relationship with an (sex) object. But do I really know how to let go of desire in practice? It is this constant pressure in me, forever reaching, forever demanding. But what it demands isn’t that the other get me off. I understand that I don’t need to make my satisfaction/desire/needs(?) as dependent on my wife’s fulfilling them. I’m not stamping up & down talking about “wifely duties”, or “having a right” to have desire fulfilled. Never mind that noise: there are no “wifely duties”.

At the same time, we entered into this relationship with a fairly decent connection, one that got complicated on the way, & then totally fizzled. Now perhaps our expectations somehow get built up out of the/a relationship’s early encounters. I know very few couples (if any) can sustain the passion of the “honeymoon phase”, but at the same time, don’t we come clearly into contact with our partner’s level of sexual energy? Isn’t there a kind of complementarity that becomes evident (i.e., sexual compatibility)? I believe I have always been eager & energetic in this department, although in the early days of my illness this issue was complex.

But what seems to me to be the important thing, the thing that gets unraveled in the complete absence of sex, is the form of connection our lives take.

Hear me out. It may not be that an earth-shattering orgasm is the bedrock of every good relationship (let me go way out on a limb here & say it is unequivocally not the bedrock of every good relationship); but what goes away, when sex goes away, is time devoted exclusively to the other. This is a connection unlike any other. You cannot substitute this time with a date (too many distractions, other lives cross into the picture); even the (proverbial) walk along the beach doesn’t make for the same sense of connection (there remain distractions). A couple months ago, we’d spent over 3 hours naked in bed, talking, fucking, laughing, loving. Neither of us was rushing to finish. Neither of us was demanding anything of the other. Rather, we were deeply immersed in connection.

So I thought. So I read the situation.

To be at this point, now, knowing we’re both taking this time, this sex-less time, to reflect on how we want to be together, if there even is a together, & what’s important or how does that love get fleshed out (or not), is kind of discouraging. It’s terrifying, too, in some ways. I love this woman. We’ve been together for nearly eight years now. But how does this go on, each of us wanting/wishing for something that the other isn’t capable of/inclined to give?

I don’t know. I feel fairly secure in my desire to stay with my wife & daughter. Beyond the sex, I really love our lives. I know we’ve got issues. I know I may be a bit insane, but I love these two. But not so far apart from my wife.

Not so far apart.

J.D. Harms 2020