Is That a Maybe?

Sometimes when a couple hasn't been sexual together for a long time, it all gets complicated. One or both of us starts to put things off. The other becomes increasingly uncertain that any advances will be accepted and stops making them.

Yes, I know. I shouldn't do that. But if you restrained yourself from asking for weeks or months at a time, and then finally gave in and asked and the answer was still no, well, you can see how that would become very discouraging. I don't ask any more. I feel so crappy when the answer is no over and over again that it seems better not to ask in the first place. Luckily, thanks to Thursday's Child, I know I am not alone in this.

A specifically sexual distance grows. We can be very emotionally close. We can be great friends. We can be great co-parents. But with any real possibility of sex put off over and over again, the sexual conection becomes very tenuous. The light flirtation that used to be a big feature of the relationship gradually disappears. If a mildly flirtatious or suggestive comment is greeted with a look of anxiety, it isn't fun any more. It's just "pressure", which apparently makes things worse and defers any possibilities even further into the distance.

Over time, it can be hard to maintain my own interest, at least in sex with him. It's hard to maintain an attraction to someone who seems so unattracted to me. It's just too unrewarding. I can love that person. But desire? Desire is a fickle emotion, anyway, flickering arbitrarily between people who are totally wrong for each other. It's not easily domesticated. And it's not easily summoned up at will, either.

And yet, if the situation is allowed to continue for too long, it is a major threat to the relationship. A person gets filled with resentment and melancholy and vulnerable to an affair.

Neither of us want the relationship to end and so it all becomes a delicate question of what to do.

Sex after a long break is actually a little wierd. Physically, I am hyper-responsive. By that stage, months and months of occasional arousal followed by little or no release means that the sense of relief is huge. But emotionally, it's quite strange. After a long period without sex, I go into myself. I become introspective. Those borders of myself that are open when we are both emotionally close and physically involved, slowly become sealed. To open them again feels like a wrench. Almost like an invasion.

The Big Dude has intimacy time planned for tonight. I wasn't sure if that included anything sexual, so I asked if there was anything he'd like to do. He said, "Get out the whipped cream". So we are probably on for tonight.

I am pleased. It's been lonely, being apparently the only one who cares about our sex life. But I'm a bit anxious, too.

That's the trouble with sexual anxiety. It's catching.