How to stop feeling lonely/sad/dejected after sex?

[sandpiper]

Hi everyone!

I haven't been here in a while -- I think 4 years? Love, love, LOVE the new format and landing pages. Super cute. I really appreciate the work you all continue to do and have referred many a young person to Scarleteen over the years, and have made many a reference to discussions I've had and perspectives I've heard here, especially all the thoughtful things Heather had to say to me a few years ago. I'm really grateful for how generous you all are with your time.

I'm still in the same relationship I was in when I first posted some 4 years ago. Things are good, and keep getting better. We are good at talking about sex and sexuality and creating our own out of what works for us. He has started cooking me tasty dinners.

Big picture, though, the sex still follows the same pattern it did when we first got together: the overwhelming vast majority of it is about his physical pleasure, and I end up feeling alone and sad for a while after. (We have had a lot of conversations about this. The ratio of sex focused just on him vs. any amount of attention on me "receiving" has improved mostly by the vehicle of us having less and less sex in general. Which does not feel like an "improvement" at all since it's not really about having more sex that feels good, but it does make the situation feel less urgently bad than when I was on the "giving" end every single night and on the "receiving" end a few times a year.)

It's a work in progress, and we talk about it. What I'm looking for here is concrete advice in what I can do to feel better in those after-sex moments. (Though empathy and a vibe check about the situation and how I should deal with it never hurts. Obviously I am feeling a dejected type of way about it even if I am trying to act like this is a purely productive answer-brainstorm post.)

I had a bit of a breakthrough today after this happened again thinking about Emily and Amelia Nagoski's Burnout book, and how sexual arousal is just another kind of arousal -- or stress -- for the body, and that cycle needs to be "closed" in the same sort of way.

Here's what happened today: he was folding his laundry. I was feeling turned on. I initiated sex and went down on him. We enjoyed it. He finished and immediately put his clothes back on and kept folding his laundry, telling me he didn't want to do anything else (which is 100% okay) because he needed to get so much done, like finishing his laundry.

That's fine. And I just went and cleaned the kitchen. But I felt the familiar gnawing excited-sad-empty feeling growing in me as I folded towels and put things back in the fridge.

I know there's kind of two things going on here:
1. I enjoyed that interaction completely, but after I also found I wanted sexual attention on my self and my own erogenous zones, and felt weird being left in the lurch with it suddenly being over, and
2. Even "non-sexual" aftercare (just cuddling) would have helped me come down some from that state of bodily stress and arousal.

He didn't want to do 1 then, which is totally valid. In retrospect I should have explicitly asked for 2. I was feeling bad and quiet and just moving on autopilot and hadn't thought to ask for that. After a while he noticed I seemed far away and quiet and we talked about it and he understands where I am and what I'm feeling.

I'm also just..... REAL sensitive about all this after four years of having sex like this. Sex that's physically all about him and then too often he immediately leaves for work or goes to sleep or goes back to doing something else. And it feels like maybe it'll always be this way and the only way it'll change is us just having less sex overall. I should be more cognizant and vocal about what would help and ask for it, and I'm still learning. (I also just read Come Together, the new Nagoski book on sex in long-term relationships. Excellent stuff. Lots of wisdom there. He's still saying he's gonna read Come as You Are, but hasn't yet. I've given my copy away to three different friends and keep getting new ones.)

But if this is just the kind of interaction I might have a lot, I want to learn how to be more resilient about it on my own and take care of myself better.

Honestly, I should have just snuck off on my own to masturbate after. We live in fairly small quarters together and I feel sensitive and self conscious about all this (e.g. what if I make him feel bad about himself, etc.) so it's tricky but I think I need to get better at just doing it.

We have also talked before about how he could just hold me (and stay awake, ideally) while I get myself off occasionally, so I could have asked if that was something he was up for doing. Though I do, at a certain point, just feel needy in a way that feels gross and I don't want to be pushy, especially since I'm "woke enough" about sexuality to know that I shouldn't be pursuing goals in sex, that orgasms aren't necessary, etc.

I want more ideas about how I can make myself feel better, by myself, in this situation. Today I ended up sitting down and doodling the hexagons from our shower tile, which turned into doing weird math and proving geometric sequences on paper for myself. Which was a... really strange, dorky form of play, but a really fun one that channeled my unresolved energy and lifted my spirits with the excitement of discovery.

I think I could also go for a long walk by myself or go to the gym or something.

After this happens when I feel lonely about it I always want to talk to someone -- outside of my relationship -- about it (like I'm doing here, I guess) but most often do not since it feels like a problematic impulse to share intimacy with someone else (no one in particular, I just want to feel seen and understood in this) by talking about something that feels bad in this monogamous relationship. This feels to me like "emotional cheating" which feels really frustrating since sometimes I just really, REALLY want someone to know how much this hurts, without me having to get both of us down in a spiral of feeling bad about it or risking making him feel insecure about it and not wanting to have sex with me at all.

(Also, yes, I do talk to him about it after. It's constructive -- or feels that way -- but I'm still here in this dtate a lot. Change is slow, I guess.)

Anyone have any other closing-the-stress-response-cycle ideas specifically for when you're left feeling high and dry and alone after sex? How to do aftercare for yourself, especially if the other person has to go do something (like, say, go to work right then) and can't help? Or if you just want to get better at taking care of yourself sexually, sensually, emotionally so you don't feel this disappointed and helpless every time?

Thanks a million!

[Latha]

Hello Sandpiper, and welcome back! Thank you for the compliments! I’ll be sure to share them with the other volunteers and the staff.

I’ve read through your previous posts, and I’m glad to hear that your relationship has gotten better in some ways! Before we get to your actual question, I want to talk about somethings that stood out to me from your post. Essentially, I’m wondering if trying to stop how you’re feeling all on your own isn’t the best approach. I hope you won’t mind.

“Though I do, at a certain point, just feel needy in a way that feels gross and I don't want to be pushy, especially since I'm "woke enough" about sexuality to know that I shouldn't be pursuing goals in sex, that orgasms aren't necessary, etc.”

To begin, nothing you’ve described reads as pushy or needy to me, nor does it seem non-woke. When people say that orgasms are not necessary, I think they are reacting to a narrative that makes orgasming singularly important, to the exclusion of all the other pleasurable parts of sex. When people advise against having goals, I think their point is that pressure to achieve specific goals during sex can take you out of the moment. None of this means that it is wrong for you to want to orgasm. That is a very reasonable desire.

Something that is necessary is your happiness and satisfaction. It is okay for you to make being happy and satisfied a goal. If your partner only wants to have sex that focuses on his pleasure, that is fine. But I think he should be honest and upfront about that, instead of making promises that he doesn’t seem to keep. And if he can have needs, so can you.

I can clearly see that you care a lot about this relationship. You want to respect your partner’s boundaries and keep him from being hurt by your actions. However, you cannot self-care and problem solve your needs out of existence. If you really want, we can talk about ways to take care of yourself here. But I have a feeling that you must have great self regulation skills already - you’ve lived at least four years like this. Your ideas for how you might handle this on your own are great, but I’m a bit hesitant to suggest any more, because they would only be a temporary solution. Even though you are trying to be in productive brainstorm mode, it seems like you are unhappy. With all respect, I’m not sure this situation is sustainable.

Help me understand something. Has your partner really indicated that he feels bad about himself when you masturbate? If that is the case, he is putting you in a difficult position. Setting aside the fact that masturbation is not an exact replacement for partnered sex, this would mean that he takes no initiative to center your sexual pleasure, and doesn’t support you when you try to do so yourself. That seems unfair, and it puts disproportionate pressure on you to manage his feelings, even when you are in need of care yourself. I know you’ve said your relationship has improved, and I believe you. However, at least with this subject, it seems like your partner never meets you in the middle or takes active steps to help you. You’ve framed this as a problem where you just need to communicate and handle your feelings better, but I’m not sure that is the case. You have done quite a lot of both already. It is good that your partner listens when you are hurt, but he needs to make actual changes.

“…when I feel lonely about it I always want to talk to someone -- outside of my relationship -- about it (like I'm doing here, I guess) but most often do not since it feels like a problematic impulse…”

I’m honestly glad you came here to talk to us about this. Confiding in other people about things that are bothering you, wanting to be seen and understood… these are not cheating. I think they are essential to healthy relationships. Trying to solve issues in any relationship without external support is difficult. Other people can provide us with support, help us feel better, and give us perspectives that we don’t have.

I’ve said a lot already, so I’ll pause here. How do you feel about this so far?

[sandpiper]

Hi Latha!

Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. It was really validating to read and got me thinking.

When it comes to masturbation: I don't think it is a huge thing that makes him feel bad about himself. Personally I still feel a bit self conscious about it and also logistically have a hard time sorting out when/where/how to do it when we live together. We always had separate bedrooms until around 3 months ago we moved into one, which makes things a bit more challenging privacy wise (though I value the opportunity for time and touch together and him helping me reel in my circadian rhythm going to bed together consistently, and I hadn't particularly liked, used, or valued my last several too-tiny-for-furniture bedrooms much, so I don't regret it). The other room is still there but is kind of an in-transition storage space as we prep it for a friend to move into when she comes home from teaching abroad.

A few years ago he felt more insecure about it, but I think now he's mostly fine. If I mention the fact that I masturbated earlier when talking about my day and what I did, or what I was doing at a particular time, he's kind of frowny and apologetic, like it reminds him of a sense he isn't doing something right, though he knows cerebrally that's a perfectly normal thing for me to do. He makes a weird sad little face and says sorry, but it doesn't become a whole conversation.

So I guess he does indicate he feels a little bad about it, though I also feel like that... Isn't my problem? I dunno, I'm gradually getting better at kind of not giving a damn about this stuff and just trying to do what works for me in my own private life anyway. Still, I find it hard to find and make time and place -- though this is as much about my own priorities and self-care as anything else, since I really wasn't great about making time for it for a few years when I had my own bedroom and a bit more privacy anyway.

I recently quit a full-time physically-demanding job that kept me out of the house all the time, and am now home more often working on a business and working a few events outside the home a few days a week. He has a hybrid job where he ends up working from home most days, and also has some computer based hobbies (like DND) he takes up from a desk in our bedroom. I'm trying to find out ways to carve out space on my own to masturbate without it being a whole thing I have to talk about, and/or a way to talk about it that isn't a vibe-killing amount of weird. I've just found it hard to get myself to do with both of us home since we moved in together some 2-3 years ago, but that's my own sensitivity as much as anything else.

He's said he's okay with me just doing it next to him while he's asleep but I can't shake how weird that feels, either? Like I'm both alone in an isolated way and I still have him as an audience to be conscious of. And I'd always want to ask if that's okay as a courtesy regardless; last night I actually did ask but he was already asleep, so I ended up just lying awake feeling weird about it all for a couple hours.

A part of what feels indiscreet to me is that I tend to use a vibrator much of the time -- I can do it by hand too, but I always take around an hour or more to reach orgasm which is valid and fine but also quite difficult to schedule around. So it's either a method I'm paranoid is noisy, or a kind of prohibitive amount of time to set aside.

Once or twice the last couple months I've explicitly asked for him to hold me and touch me while I masturbate after he's finished, which I found nice as long as I could get past a vague paranoia he might be feeling weird about it. In any case it felt better than the times he'd listlessly tried to "finish me off" with a vibrator after but I could tell he wasn't into it and no part of it was particularly exciting or sexy to me and thus we both just felt an awkward sense of having to get something done (my orgasm) that no one particularly wanted to do, sitting around waiting to check off the list. That sort of experience always made me feel like I was using him, everyone involved was bored, and it just wasn't fun.

I think he's just done after he's finished and doesn't want to do much else sexually, which is fine. I could be better at asking to at least cuddle and connect for a time after. When I brought this up most recently his only suggestion was us somehow trying to make simultaneous orgasm a goal, which seemed... difficult and counter-productive, considering that's kind of an unrealistic ideal in even the best of circumstances, and the few times we've tried at something similar have just been me trying to "force one out" (orgasm goal-seeking in a not-great way) just to "get it done" while doing something else for his pleasure, splitting my attention and, to use the popular phrase, half-assing two things.

All this makes me feel rather bored and uninspired. I think another part of this dynamic is that I usually initiate, and that initiating always consists of taking a lead in some (fun for both of us) activity mostly focused on his physically "receiving" my touch. I guess I could try to initiate more in an asking-for-something-else way. I just don't know how to do that. How are you supposed to initiate that sort of sexual encounter? It feels instinctively to me like trickery, or like asking something of someone you can only assume they aren't in the mood for and putting them in a weird position.

As I've started to give less of a sensitive damn about all this the last six months or so I've started openly talking about when I'm feeling particularly horny as a sort of initiating middle-ground, where he can decide what he does with that information.

(For me it's mostly the week before my period -- for some reason I get really turned on that week, but am also more emotionally volatile generally, and the impending period feels like an incoming week of lost opportunities, and the periodicity of it reminds me it's been another month since having a certain kind of physical attention... all of which makes this stuff feel really especially sensitive and upsetting once a month. I talk about this basically every month, and he is well aware of it.)

He doesn't really do anything with that information, and also dislikes scheduling sex, which we tried at some point.

When I think of the time in my life I felt the most sexual excitement and pleasure... it was an idyllic summer we spent apart a few years ago, when I lived with several great female friends (one of which is coming to live with us in a few months) and went for long walks and burned nice candles and masturbated to my heart's content in my large-enough-for-bed-and-desk room. I was self-conscious about the friends hearing my vibrator, so that summer I really learned to enjoy doing it by hand, lazily, taking my time and enjoying myself.

Then fall came and we moved in together and I haven't been able to shake a certain space-awareness of coexisting and interacting with him whenever we both are home -- which is most of the time I am home -- both of us hearing each other and interacting even when not in the same room.

Counterintuitively I'm hoping adding more people to our apartment will create a fun living-with-friends atmosphere where I feel more like my own person instead of that thick awareness of two people exclusively living in each other's space, so even though we will have less privacy I think it will feel like more; this is what it has felt like whenever we have friends come to stay in our new temporary guest room, and we both are excited and want to have more friends around. Frankly, I want to feel more like roommates and less enmeshed in each other's feelings, and I've been working on getting there emotionally, and having more people around helps.

A month or two ago he expressed maybe he just doesn't want to have sex anymore for a time and honestly, I felt relief. I felt elation thinking of us in more of an explicitly sexless QPR, just two best friends who get along famously and throw great dinner parties and cuddle. I've kind of been trying to mentally think of us as such for the last 6-8 months -- as bonded best friends foremost, as people in a monogamous dyad, who may or may not have sex together, but without the cultural baggage of "boyfriend"/"girlfriend" heterosexual expectations.

We talked a lot about this -- very casually, with no tears -- and felt very comfortable that we are both on this page, where just being friends and supporting each other is the important thing and all the cultural "romantic relationship" stuff felt just like extraneous stuff. I was okay with having a sexual relationship with this person, or not -- either one is fine -- and the "not" felt like a relief because it felt like freedom from this cycle of frustration if we just wrote it all off entirely.

Luckily/unluckily he felt so seen and liberated by these conversations that in a day or two he decided he does want to keep having sex after all. And I am happy to do it too, in the moment -- it's just after that I feel weird and alone sometimes.

Sorry this is a bit of a messy ramble -- just spilling miscellaneous thoughts about this as I sort it all out!

[Ro S]

Hey there sandpiper,

Sometimes a messy ramble is what we need to piece together our thoughts!

I want to focus on the sense of "relief" you mentioned when the option of not having sex with your partner was present. This feeling of relief after not having to do something indicates to me that something is unsustainable and without change to the current state of things, will be costly on your wellbeing and relationship. Relief often comes when something is weighing too heavily on us.

I agree with Latha that we should focus on the relational aspects that lead you to feeling lonely/sad after sex rather than self-care and dealing with things on your own because it seems to me like you're already doing a great job at recognizing your needs and have been dealing with a lot of things on your own.

"Once or twice the last couple months I've explicitly asked for him to hold me and touch me while I masturbate after he's finished, which I found nice as long as I could get past a vague paranoia he might be feeling weird about it."

I recognize that asking for things may feel difficult especially if this has been an ongoing conversation since 4 years ago. I can also appreciate that you're looking out for how your partner is feeling and making sure they feel comfortable. AND I think you can trust that your partner will voice when they're not feeling comfortable and/or they're not wanting to engage in that kind of touch. It's not up to you to always be on high alert on what they may be thinking. Do you feel like this form of intimacy while you masturbate helps with feelings of loneliness/isolation after sex? If so, bringing this up to your partner as something that feels really good and helps you feel more connected might be a good idea.

All this makes me feel rather bored and uninspired. I think another part of this dynamic is that I usually initiate, and that initiating always consists of taking a lead in some (fun for both of us) activity mostly focused on his physically "receiving" my touch. I guess I could try to initiate more in an asking-for-something-else way. I just don't know how to do that. How are you supposed to initiate that sort of sexual encounter? It feels instinctively to me like trickery, or like asking something of someone you can only assume they aren't in the mood for and putting them in a weird position.

In relationships, especially longer-term ones, people tend to fall into sexual scripts. It seems that in your relationship, you're following the same pattern of things with the way sex is initiated (you always being the one to initiate). I think that taking the route of asking for what you really want rather than starting sex as a means to get touch/feel connected may help break out of this script. This can look like being up front asking for being touched in a specific way or place. It can also look like asking for something that you really enjoy when you and your partner have sex. The beauty of this, is that by asking we give our partners the permission to say no. Asking in this way is not only a good way for you to practice voicing your desires but also a way to find some freedom from normative sex scripts.

I'll share this piece with you on this topic of initiating sex: Partner never initiates sex. I feel unwanted. What can I do? The second half of this article is focused on some of the things we've talked about in regards to initiating sex. Give it a read and let me know if anything comes up that you're wanting to chat about more?

[sandpiper]

Hi Ro!

Wow! That piece you shared was a lot more relatable than I expected. I'd assumed it would be the standard sort of primer on spontaneous/responsive desire and how it's okay for one person to initiate more, how curiosity is a valid place to explore sex from, etc. But the person asking the question does sound a lot like me in a lot of ways (not the name calling anymore -- though a couple years ago he used to jokingly refer to me as a harlot, strumpet, and other old-timey names for sexual women afterwards, but I told him to stop and that's not a thing anymore, lol).

I think we both have some weird discouragement left to unravel about this dynamic. I can understand that repeatedly talking about this might only feel like more pressure from his perspective to do things perfectly, which might be discouraging.

I know that in most of those rare interactions where I feel like I am receiving more physical attention, much of my brain has been occupied by trying to make the most of it, enjoying it "right," constantly demonstrating my enjoyment and enthusiasm and being encouraging, squeezing everything out of this opportunity -- including an orgasm, not for my own enjoyment, but to make him feel rewarded and good about himself. I have mostly shaken this off -- I feel like I'm just hitting a tired level of "I don't really care" in reaction to that too-intense level of concern about someone else's emotional well-being for years, and that honestly feels really good to access, is finally being able to be in places of "Whatever, I'm over it, I don't care, I'm tired, I want to feel good."

It still feels tricky to untangle interpersonally, though. For instance, I'd been vocal for a while about that intense performance and spectatoring taking up all my attention, so over the last year or so sometimes while receiving I ask if it's okay if I try to just be quiet and focus on my own pleasure, trying to take pressure off myself to perform encouragement and enthusiasm. He always says yes, go for it. But in our last big conversation about this, he said it has actually felt really discouraging and like he's getting no feedback when I try to step away from performing in that way. He made it sound like those experiences were actively discouraging him from trying again.

(Not that I'm just lying there entirely limp -- more like I'm trying to tone down the moaning and writhing and just focus on paying attention to my body -- although, since I'm ultimately doing this as just one more strategy to "achieve" pleasure in some more authentic way to please him, this ends up just being a quiet and still not very fun self conscious time of trying to squeeze something out.)

So that didn't really work as a strategy. I do feel like I'm getting to a point where I'm accessing a sense of "I don't really care to wade through levels of how we feel about each other and this, and you can tell me if you're not feeling something" that feels liberating.

Leaning into that, I think I can ask for things more explicitly, more often and just accept that it's ultimately not for me to try to parse out how he's really feeling about it or decide for him whether he wants to do it. Easier said than done, but I'm working on it. Feels weird to call that I'm-done-I'm-tired-I'm-over-it feeling a good thing, but it feels like a relief and a step towards just unashamedly feeling my own pleasure without overthinking how he might be feeling about it.

[sandpiper]

I want to focus on the sense of "relief" you mentioned when the option of not having sex with your partner was present. This feeling of relief after not having to do something indicates to me that something is unsustainable and without change to the current state of things, will be costly on your wellbeing and relationship. Relief often comes when something is weighing too heavily on us.

This is definitely true. There have been times when this stuff feels really exhausting breaking-point unhappy for me, like something really, really needs to change. Usually then we have a conversation about it where I feel heard and seen that releases the built up resentment pressure for a handful more months, even though ultimately things kind of stay the same.

I did find something really interesting in the new Come Together book by Dr. Emily Nagoski related to this. She says no sexual difficulty is ever worth breaking up and otherwise good relationship over, and if it feels like it is that's a sign the sex is coming to represent more than just sex to you -- say, that you take your self worth from it more than would be healthy, or it is your only form of intimacy, etc.

I am definitely guilty of initiating sex from a place of "I feel like I need to thank you for something or demonstrate appreciation"/"I want to feel lovable and connected"/"I feel scared something is breaking and want to fix it"/"this is just what I assume we do now" and any number of other reasons, though as I've started initiating less frequently over the years we've been together (and thus we've had far less sex) I've largely cut down on these.

In the beginning it might have been fair the sex emphasized an overall imbalance in effort in the relationship, but ultimately things feel a lot better now. I feel extremely supported -- by and large I actually feel happy and like I am getting "the better deal" -- which funnily enough feels wrong to me. It feels like I am having a streak of good luck that is going to run out / that I did more than my fair share for a time and that's the only reason I can have this, but it will end. It's a weird feeling and one that does make me feel like I should be "giving" sex in this way to "compensate" for everything else being good sometimes. Regardless, sex feels like the last frontier and everything else feels pretty good and supportive now.

[sandpiper]

Oops, sorry to come back here three times in one day!

Just serendipitously I ended up getting curious about and reading Emily Wilson's article, "How to be Naked in More Ways than One," on this site. I thought that was a really beautiful piece.

I felt really seen in the discussion of the pressure for women to perform pleasure and really inspired by the discussion of vulnerability: "I believe that sexual pleasure with someone else can only truly be found through vulnerability, through the radical act of maybe not knowing, in being willing to potentially even embarrass yourself in the pursuit of something greater. "

For me, I connect this with the insecure, excessive need-to-make-sure-you're-100%-okay-and-really-want-this paranoid sort of impulse I get whenever receiving any kind of physical sensual and sexual attention. I'm realizing I only really am making sex "worse" (more awkward/stilted/self-conscious/forced) by excessively reminding my partner he doesn't need to do anything he doesn't want to do, etc., over and over again. He knows that. Either I need to be able to trust his ability to emotionally take care of himself and continue to mentally move on from that emotional spiral risk or I need to move on and just not have sex with someone where I'm so caught up in that impulse.

He agrees with me on this -- that this sort of insecure quintuple-checking, as well as an urge to somehow make up for the fact I'm happy and fulfilled right now in this relationship, or prepare for it to end, or to "pay it back," all betrays a sort of emotional lack of faith (not as in cheating -- as in having a hard time believing he's really okay and enjoying this as he says he is and this relationship can feel good, for me, long-term).

I know he's frustrated by this and has expressed at times a frustration that I seem to be reacting to a way he used to be, and not a way he is anymore. (A non-sexual example: he used to get really jealous and insecure about me hanging out with a mutual friend of ours without him, and felt like we were excluding him. I've let that friendship really fall to the wayside since I got in the habit years ago of not wanting to ever hang out or talk much without him. A few months ago I really nervously asked if it would be okay if I called this friend and he was like, what? And had apparently completely forgotten about that being a thing. He frankly is on the level about the fact he was kind of a jerk in a lot of ways for especially the first year or two we were dating, and apologizes for it, and still understandably can feel a little frustrated at times when my mental model of him isn't who he is now.)

I guess relationally, maybe a better, more honest question here for me is... how do I work on changing that model and trusting and believing the ways someone has changed when they used to be kind of a jerk? How do I create more of a sense of calm comfort and confidence in myself that a person isn't who they used to be, that I don't have to emotionally take care of them in this really careful on-eggshells way, that I can take risks and do things like ask for what I want and can revel in feeling supported and happy and at peace in my relationship (and frankly go about repairing things effectively where I'm not)?

I do feel that every time we have the big sex-and-attention-and-effort conversation I get more frank and over-it honest and thus it improves. I'm moving away from a hyper-sensitivity to ever possibly hurting his feelings with time -- not that I want to hurt his feelings or don't think about it, but I'm getting better at acting like he's a mature adult. I guess that gets better with time and experience and there's no one way to go about healing that sense of faith and trust in a person to be able to handle themselves. But I would be interested to hear any advice.

(Anecdotally from the trenches: we had really good sex last night and again today. Last night I explicitly said I was going to masturbate, was that fine, and he said it was, and I believed him and didn't do TOO much are-you-sure circling and just did it and he held me and traced circles on my skin through my silky pajamas and ended up taking over for a bit and it just felt lovely. Then today, I initiated just making out but then we moved to the bed and he focused his attention on just touching me, and I did a little bit of "are you sure you don't have to do anything you don't want to" but noticed it only really took away from the experience. So we had that rare experience of him just paying attention to me again for a while before I turned mine to him, and it felt really nice. Then I wanted more afterwards and just said I was going to finish myself off, and he held and touched me during again which also felt really good. So, progress! I think I just... need to keep it top of mind for him by being more assertive and spending far less mental energy trying to hold his hand emotionally and make sure he's 1000000% comfortable and ego-happy all the time.)

[KierC]

Hi sandpiper!

I am so glad you found the advice article that Ro sent helpful. I really like that piece, too, and I want to say the emphasis in that advice answer that this is work for him to do seems relatable to your situation too. It sounds like you’ve communicated your feelings and experiences to him multiple times; in my opinion, it’s time for him to take that in and do the work to approach sex differently.

I also hear you that, after feeling like you need to take care of his emotions for so long, when you do finally receive attention, you feel concerned about the performance of it, or making the most of it. I am glad you have moments of liberation from this feeling, and those moments should be celebrated! I can appreciate the natural reaction to want to perform, but I do also think that could be a form of continued focus on him and his needs, know what I mean? It sounds like he’s taking steps to focus on you more, but his response to you expressing those feelings about performance and spectatorship suggests to me that he may still be centering himself in sexual interactions.

I’m wondering if the distinction between performance and organic feedback might be helpful for him to understand; too, the idea that organic feedback during sex doesn’t always look like a huge spectacle. But again, I don’t want you to put that on a docket of things to tell him or make the work easier for him, you know? I don’t want to sound harsh at all, as I know he is communicating with you and making some changes here, but I want to say that the journey he’ll go on with approaching sex differently is not one that should be made easier through you doing more work; it’s a part of the process for him to work through some more challenging self-reflection.

Leaning into that, I think I can ask for things more explicitly, more often and just accept that it's ultimately not for me to try to parse out how he's really feeling about it or decide for him whether he wants to do it. Easier said than done, but I'm working on it. Feels weird to call that I'm-done-I'm-tired-I'm-over-it feeling a good thing, but it feels like a relief and a step towards just unashamedly feeling my own pleasure without overthinking how he might be feeling about it.

You know, coming to accept your own needs as priority can be a process, especially after a time of your needs being ignored. The little moments that feel liberating should be celebrated! Listen to that feeling of relief, I think those good feelings are an indication that you’re on the right track. I hear you that it can feel weird to call it a good thing, but if I might, I have a feeling that the moments of guilt could be a little twinge of remnants from “focusing on Only Him”’s past. Does that make sense?

Ooooh, I love Emily Nagoski’s work, especially her new book. I saw her speak at a conference in December with some Scarleteen colleagues, and she talked about the new book and some of her favorite insights from it. I agree with that insight that, when sex feels like a dealbreaker, it indicates a deeper entanglement between sex and something else. So, if you’re feeling like sex has become entangled with feelings of what we owe the other in a relationship, or feelings of performance, we can certainly feel that the sex is the problem.

Did you read the part of her new book about pleasure mapping? I’m wondering if you had thoughts on that. I liked the element of using pleasure maps with a partner to help them understand where you’re coming from with pleasure and arousal, including what your needs are to get to a place where desire and arousal can be accessed; did you have thoughts on that part?

I also think what you said here is spot on:

Either I need to be able to trust his ability to emotionally take care of himself and continue to mentally move on from that emotional spiral risk or I need to move on and just not have sex with someone where I'm so caught up in that impulse.

Choosing to not have sex with someone where, because of how they treated us in the past, we feel caught up in that impulse to focus only on them, is a self-protective and liberatory measure to take, in my opinion. Is there a reason you’re hesitant with that part?

With regard to how you’re feeling about this being a stroke of luck or that things will go back to the way they were, my answer to that ties in with my advice on how to trust that he’s changed, which is to simply let him show you, while keeping your boundaries with him intact. What you quoted here is so good: "I believe that sexual pleasure with someone else can only truly be found through vulnerability, through the radical act of maybe not knowing, in being willing to potentially even embarrass yourself in the pursuit of something greater. " Applying this idea, I think the way to trust if he’s changed is to let him show you if he has changed or not. I do also think it could be worth asking you directly: do you feel like he’s changed meaningfully?

[sandpiper]

Hey KierC!

Thanks so much again for your thoughtful reply. You sure ask some good questions. I've been spending a little time thinking about them, and just reading around the site too. There were two more pieces I read that made me feel really seen: an advice column called "Why Do I Feel So Bad Later When It Feels So Good at the Time?" and the "Safer Sex... For Your Heart" article. (I also reread Heather's "Immodest Proposal" article I remember reading several years ago and felt really inspired by the possibilities there. I sent that one along to my little brother!)

Choosing to not have sex with someone where, because of how they treated us in the past, we feel caught up in that impulse to focus only on them, is a self-protective and liberatory measure to take, in my opinion. Is there a reason you’re hesitant with that part?

That's a really... validating perspective, thank you. I think frankly I have never considered just not having sex (with him) anymore because it was a sort of out-of-the-script suggestion that never occurred to me as something you could do. I also honestly am feeling less acutely distressed by it right now (since we had a recent validating conversation and also a couple of sexual interactions that felt good during and after) and so I have this sense of "it's not a problem anymore, carry on." But considering it's been a cyclical thing and something I've been sensitive about for years, probably it behooves me to keep doing some serious thinking about it and planning potential things I could do in the future even if not acutely upset.

Honestly, reading those articles and advice columns, I am really feeeeling the feels about the way I had sex that just didn't feel good during or before or after for a long while. (And so now I guess, at least feeling good during but not after feels like an improvement? Lol.) Looking at the checklist of "symptoms" in the "Safe Sex For your Heart" article, I was hitting every single one for the first year or two of our relationship. Especially the first year. Everything is a lot better now, but I think that first year kind of did a number on me. I really wish I hadn't done all that but I guess hindsight's 20/20. I had a vague sense -- through conversations I had here -- that participating in sex I really didn't want (even by myself) just to "get it done" or accomplish something was maybe sort of like traumatizing myself, but I kind of felt empty and devil-may-care about it since I was generally depressed, had no prior or positive sexual experience, and thus kind of felt like everything felt bad all the same and I didn't have anything to lose.

It hurts to think about the fact I spent so long -- a year isn't that long, but also yes it is -- having so much sex that I wasn't enjoying during, that I was biting my nails feeling the pit in my stomach about before, and that I felt so lonely and isolated after. I feel like to a certain extent my ongoing sensitivity to these feelings now is a bit of an emotional hangover -- because the situation has never 100% resolved, sure, but also feeling outsized in response to things that happened way, way before.

I know there's no easy or straightforward way to heal from that; even Nagoski in the chapter about relationship change and about healing past hurts in the new book basically says there's no one straight way to it and it's really hard. There's an exercise in there (after thinking of the hurt as a third thing outside the two of you and not feeling really personally at-fault and reactionary about it) where you daydream about an ideal "what if?" followup for when the hurt happened. Like, what if I had exactly what I needed to feel better and reconnect in those moments? I haven't really let myself dive entirely into that yet because it seems like a lot to feel -- even just reading that chapter for the first time, without directly consciously connecting it to anything or knowing why, really made me want to cry -- but I'm going to try to go there at some point.

So, lot of weird grief there, I guess. It always feels like an ugly unresolved corner, something I could really blow up in my head if I wanted to feel bad on purpose. Closure is a thing you gift yourself and I guess I'm going to have to figure out how to do that for myself, since I know I won't get any real answers to why everything was so weird (and in retrospect kind of cringe and terrible) the first year of our relationship. He doesn't know why either, and has apologized over and acknowledged more and more with time he was kind of a jerk back then.

It feels really strange to me -- often like we were in an arranged relationship of some sort, except I "arranged" it myself by starting a relationship with someone I wasn't really attracted to (he was a really nice friend I had had a little "makes class more fun" crush on at some point a year or so prior, but by the time we started a romantic and sexual relationship I was mostly over it, he started sending me more and more sexual memes and the like, and I think I was so overwhelmed by the attention and the sense I'd always had that this would never happen to me -- and yet here, it was, happening -- which both seemed incredibly exciting in the validation of something about me being want-able and also terrifying and sickening, and that the thing to do is to go along with it, that there really is nothing else TO do) and getting through some weird rough times, through to a point where we are, overall, good life partners (as best friends who can be really uniquely silly together) and people who can really enjoy sex together, just some corners of it all still feel weird.

Like, it feels weird and dirty and like digging up an ugly past to talk about all this. I like him. I can hear him brushing his teeth right now. I guess it's on me to figure out how to put all that strange grief to rest and move forward.

You know, coming to accept your own needs as priority can be a process, especially after a time of your needs being ignored. The little moments that feel liberating should be celebrated! Listen to that feeling of relief, I think those good feelings are an indication that you’re on the right track. I hear you that it can feel weird to call it a good thing, but if I might, I have a feeling that the moments of guilt could be a little twinge of remnants from “focusing on Only Him”’s past. Does that make sense?

Yes!! All this felt super good to read, thank you. Part of me feels cold and uncaring embracing that certain "whatever, I don't care" attitude about the tiring endeavor of trying to deal with his feelings for him, but I know it's a good thing for my *self* -- I just have an instinct to shut it down because it's not nice.

Did you read the part of her new book about pleasure mapping?

Yeah! I'm still thinking about it for myself. I've talked about it with my partner and he doesn't really know where he is on the map either. I know the big favorable spaces adjacent to lust are seeking, play, and care. We certainly do a LOT of play -- I think the deepest, most authentic part of our relationship is our ability to be silly together way more than with anyone else, our all-day playfulness, our excellent comedic chemistry. I want to say there is such a thing as too silly where it's not sexy, but really when I try to think of examples that's not necessarily silly, it's just anything that strikes as annoying or belittling or disingenuous. If I'm actually laughing and giggling and having fun, I think that's a phenomenal place to access pleasure. Like, I stayed up really late last night installing a new operating system, and we were REALLY gigglysillyloopy, and I think even though I was super tired (maybe especially because? I seem to receive best when I'm too exhausted to run in circles) that would have been a great place to receive pleasure.

I don't think we connect intellectually as well as we do comedically -- I mean, we're both smart people and we have interesting conversations, but out of really different fields and I think we don't connect as deeply there. So that's not it for me -- at least, with this person -- I do feel like if I were with someone that intuitively "got it" more about the things that matter to me that Seeking space would be a cool place to seek pleasure from, but in this relationship that would end up being frustrating.

I think I need Care but I don't trust it. Warranted or not, I think I have both a very strong secret desire for someone to take care of me and a sense that nobody should do it, that I'm gonna owe them if they do, etc. (I was raised to be very independent and my parents never did a lot of demonstrating care, which may not help the whole "raised a woman" moment.) So I think that could be a great place to access pleasure from someday but I need to get more comfortable with it first. (I actually had a weird epiphany a couple months ago, playing a monotonous card game with friends and having the first positive under-the-influence experience of my life, where all of a sudden I was overcome by tears and said "I think I.... need someone to take care of me... I think I need to go journal for a bit. And then I did that while they got tacos, lol.)

I do also think it could be worth asking you directly: do you feel like he’s changed meaningfully?

Yes. I think the sexual scripts have been changing very very slowly by degree, but a new script where we both routinely feel satisfied with sex and our sex life remains to be seen. I'm open to it. He does really listen to me when I talk about it and that re-opens me up to it. A part of me does feel hopeless (or emptily matter-of-fact) a fair amount of the time that this is just sort of an unfixable incompatibility and this is how it's always going to be. But also, people are always changing and I know I have my own stuff to work through.

Outside of the sex, overwhelmingly yes. He was kind of a not great partner for the first year and I want to know why but I feel like there really is no answer -- stress with COVID/hardest year of college? Lack of experience? Being raised a male only child by really overbearing parents who did everything for him? I can speculate but I won't "find closure" by getting some correct answer there, I guess I need to work through it for myself.

I do believe he is an entirely different person now than he was then, but it's a strange thing to come to believe. (It also weirdly kind of freaks me out because it is so effective AS evidence of the fact people are always changing. Like, what if he changes again over time to become more of an asshole? If it can go one way just due to life and growth and the way of the winds, why not the other? And what if I become really hurtful instead?)

And even if I believe it cerebrally, I think my nervous system is still sometimes working on old assumptions. I was raised in a household that was pretty volatile and unpredictable, so the eggshells felt like home to me. I don't know what to do out here except keep tiptoeing.

Thank you all for bearing with my long-windedness. It's really helpful for me to talk myself through these things in the critical-thinking way I do for an audience of people who really know what they're talking about and are happy to support me, and I'm really grateful for your patience as I talk to myself in circles and for the services you continue to provide for everyone here. <3

I imagine conversations like this one take a lot of energy and focus, and I'm not in any sort of acute distress, so feel free to really take your time to read and respond if you like.

[Heather]

Hey, sandpiper. I have been following along, but not posting until now.

I do have a suggestion for you:

Closure is a thing you gift yourself and I guess I'm going to have to figure out how to do that for myself, since I know I won't get any real answers to why everything was so weird (and in retrospect kind of cringe and terrible) the first year of our relationship. He doesn't know why either, and has apologized over and acknowledged more and more with time he was kind of a jerk back then.

Here and in a few places, I hear you voicing a desire for more conversation with and introspection from your partner around this, which is something I'd also suggest you ask them for. I think if you're still going to be in this kind of relationship together, it makes sense for you (and they!) to need more of that, including some of those answers, which I do think he'd probably be able to give you with some more introspection on his part. That introspection might also be something best aided by talk therapy, either on his own, for himself, or for you both as a couple.

I also feel like you probably need more of those answers to keep building something different. It sounds like you want to stay in this relationship and in it as a sexual and romantic relationship, so for sure, resolving what you can from the past, making some real sense of it, and using what sense you make of it for you to both move forward together all sound like necessary things to me. You also voice that you are worried he'll change "back," and I think it makes sense you're worried about that particularly since it sounds to me like you have done a lot more introspection around this than he has, and because you don't feel like you know from him why he thinks he was the way he was before, or why he is now different.

I do want to at least one more thing here to give you some permission, in case you need it at any point: relationships we really like and value, in whole or in part, aren't things we have to stay in forever if and when they just don't feel right for us anymore, including because we have past hurts in them that just don't seem to go away no matter how we try. In a lifetime, I think it's fair to say that most of us will have relationships that offered us and the other person in them good, valuable things which we, the other person, or both of us chose to move on from or change the nature of because it was just time to do that. So, if it turns out that things do ever go back to how they were before, or you just can't shake the yuck-parts of your history (including because they dovetail with other big yuck in your life, which for sure, can be hard to get our neurological systems to shake!), I want you to know that it would be okay for you to choose not to be with this person as a partner or at all at any time if that is what feels best for you, is what you want or feels like will make it more possible for you to find a partnership that is more of what you want. <3

[sandpiper]

Thanks so much for this Heather. <3 You've really given me a lot to think about.

[Heather]

Glad to be of help. <3

[sandpiper]

I've been thinking about the advice you all were so kind as to give me in this thread for a couple of months. What was most striking, I think, and surprising, was what KierC said here:

"Choosing to not have sex with someone where, because of how they treated us in the past, we feel caught up in that impulse to focus only on them, is a self-protective and liberatory measure to take, in my opinion. Is there a reason you’re hesitant with that part?"

I know I quoted this before to show how it struck me, but the more I think about it the more interested I am. I keep thinking about this. "Self-protective and liberatory" rolls around in my head. It seemed like a funny statement when I first read it, but it's making more and more sense to me.

I guess when I initially started out this relationship feeling very not interested in sex but feeling like it was something I had to learn to do, I was very eager to "work on myself" and learn to be sexual to be with a person in this way. Even though I might have known hypothetically I didn't have to have sex, something culturally felt compulsory in a way that pushed me that way. Yet, now that my partner is expressing maybe not wanting to be sexual together, I immediately am super understanding to him and worry that I may be making him uncomfortable. I'm immediately able to take up someone else saying this isn't something they want, but I still really wasn't giving myself permission at all or conceiving of the fact I could be not having sex with this person -- especially because I have already had this sexual relationship for over four years. It feels kind of like toothpaste you can't put back in the tube. Like, I know relationships can change at any time, but it's just hard to adjust to not doing something that you used to do before, for years, sometimes -- and I genuinely just never really thought of it as an option.

When I think about it now, what do I feel? Still mostly relief. The weird grief about all this still gets at me for much of a week or two out of every menstrual cycle. It feels like a very body-as-clock, mechanical sort of hormonal thing that happens: 14 days or so out of every month I am super sensitive to feeling grief, resentment, and anxiety about this relationship, and the sex in this relationship, as I have had for literal years.

The cyclical nature of this is frustrating to me. I'm not willing to go on hormonal birth control but part of me almost wants to do so just to stop hurting about this cyclically, which feels like kind of a funny reason to go on BC. (Outside of relationship negative feelings, my PMS experience generally is not great, but has never been officially diagnosed as PMDD, and I am generally able to cope and very aware that the peak in depression and shame spiraling is hormonal and temporary and try to be kind to myself. I think the relationship stuff in particular feels like a weird sticking point where it does feel like there's an actual problem my brain should be solving, or processing, or feeling the feelings about, which is what leads to me inevitably trying to Have a Talk About Sex during the premenstrual week a few times a year just to try to clear things up and accomplish things. If I'm no longer going to be having sex with this person, should I just start treating this like a non-solvable, "past" grief I should just try to be kind to myself and comfort myself through in whatever way works until it passes?)

I guess I'm thinking about two things here:
1. I want to really try setting a boundary and not having a sexual relationship with this person. But also, the idea still kinda freaks me out, like I'm throwing something away for no reason or like if I'd worked a little harder it would have been good. I feel like I've been in a hopeless kind of acceptance for years that this is somewhere we may simply be not compatible in some way, but I'm always willing to keep trying it as if it will get better. There's also just been so little recent sexual experience between us to go off of that I worry I'm throwing something out "for no reason" and that the actual problem has been "solved" and that only my own haunting old bitterness is to blame (though rereading Heather's thoughts I am reminded that hurt is enough of a reason for this to just not work). Even though that sexual relationship has had a lot of pain in it for me, there were good times and things I enjoyed too, and I still feel a great sense of grief here, as well as a sense of difficulty in how, practically speaking, one actually changes a long-term relationship like this. I want to take this into more overtly queerplatonic relationship territory where we're here for each other but maybe we're not having sex and in general my goal is to feel much less interpersonally enmeshed and more like our own people with our own lives. We are apart right now for work and every time we're apart I feel like I'm waking up to being my own person again and I don't want to go back, then I go back and I forget and I slip back into it. I'm just not sure how one actually goes about changing the shape of one's long-term relationships in this way.
2. How do I kick the (frustratingly cyclical) grief, resentment, etc about sex in this relationship to the curb? It's a certain combination of feeling more emotional, feeling horny, and feeling a visceral reminder of the passage of time once a month that always makes me feel alone and heavy about my sexual relationship. Even if I'm not having sex with this person right now, there's the new grief of losing that form of connection as well as the same established ghost of old resentment and bitterness and wistfulness. I have no idea what to do with any of it or how to deal with the feeling it's gonna keep showing up like clockwork simply because hormones.

Thanks so much for reading and for sharing any thoughts!

[Heather]

Hey sandpiper. It's really good to see you, but I'm sure sorry this is why.

I'm just passing through at this moment, but I saw this, and something you said particularly leapt out at me I wanted to be sure to say something about, and that's this:

But also, the idea still kinda freaks me out, like I'm throwing something away for no reason or like if I'd worked a little harder it would have been good.

I want to invite you to look back at your posts here about your sexual life with this person and see EXACTLY how hard you have been trying. Oh my goodness, so hard, and so often in what has sounded like deeply lopsided effort on your part where so much of that trying has been you and this partner not doing or even considering anywhere near the effort you have been making.

If you trying could have fixed this, it would have, because, friend, YOU HAVE TRIED. Boy, have you ever.

You won't be surprised to know that I would strongly support you moving on from this as a sexual relationship, particularly because it would give you the space and the ability to seek out the kind of sexual relationship you actually want and, IMHO, actually deserve. So long as you are holding on to this? You don't get even a chance of that, you know? I hear you, and you're right: there's grief involved in closing a door, moving on from something, and letting something like this go, even though there was also a lot of unhappiness and a lot of frustration. Allow yourself that and time and space for that for sure, but I personally think letting go of this is pretty much the only way you have a chance at creating a sexual life for yourself that is actually good and actually satisfying for you. <3

[Heather]

Another thing:

I want to take this into more overtly queerplatonic relationship territory where we're here for each other but maybe we're not having sex and in general my goal is to feel much less interpersonally enmeshed and more like our own people with our own lives. We are apart right now for work and every time we're apart I feel like I'm waking up to being my own person again and I don't want to go back, then I go back and I forget and I slip back into it. I'm just not sure how one actually goes about changing the shape of one's long-term relationships in this way.

I think observing how you feel in these apart times is really illuminating and a good clue for how to change the nature of this relationship and your attachment to it. It sounds like time and space apart is one of the keys, clearly. How might you feel about asking for some extended time apart so that you can get more of that time of learning who you are on your own, give yourself more of a full reset, and then see what actually feels right when it comes to a platonic relationship with this person?

[sandpiper]

Hey Heather,

Thanks so much. It's really validating and interesting to hear your perspective when I've just kind of defaulted for so long to the idea that not having this relationship be a (sexual or romantic) thing anymore isn't really an option.

(Heck, I remember the very first time we physically got together and spent a while kissing after a while texting over a long, covid-related school break, walking home thinking well, that felt like absolutely nothing, I'm bored and I kind of wish this wasn't a thing, but it's too late to back out now! Lol. And I feel like I've tried really hard and built a lot of Feels Like Something that wasn't there before but I feel like I may be hitting the limits of what I can or should "fix" here.)

This is my first romantic and sexual relationship and I feel like there's still purity type stuff I'm going to have to face at some point -- a sense of relief and security that I got it on the "first try" and won't have to have had those kinds of relationships with multiple people over a lifetime. I've never been actually religious in a helpful and believing way, though I did grow up with OCD with strong religious overtones, and that combined with purity culture, as well as the general sense that I will never have a shot at having that kind of relationship with a person -- or, now, that I will never get ANOTHER shot -- has always made me feel like well, this is my one chance I get. There will be no more after this. Which I realize, in an objective life-is-long sense is probably short-sighted. I really hope it is, because otherwise I feel like on some level my life is over and I've already formed all the significant relationships in it, and that feels rather empty right now.

I also dunno to what extent I even really want a romantic or sexual relationship. I don't really experience sexual attraction, and the space I've created where I feel comfortable having sex with this one person..... it felt like so much work and I just don't want to have to do it all again. It sounds exhausting to do all the disclosure and conversation and (if with someone raised as a man, potentially) wading through the ceaseless more of Gender Stuff for both people. It just sounds exhausting to do all again.

Maybe I don't feel any great urgency to do it or to have it right now and I just need to really focus on wholly being myself and living authentically and doing things that feel real and good and true in ways they haven't in a long time (not just about this relationship -- I've wandered away a lot over the last 5-6 years from the things I actually like to do in favor of what people think I should be doing, career wise and the like, and I'm trying to reconnect with all that.)

It feels weird that there's a part of me that, coming out of all this, WANTS a sexual relationship with another person that feels good. It is both something I originally really did not want or need at all, and also something that feels entirely impossible, and like it will take years and years of work. I do have a sense that I'm rather picky and no one I know would be the right candidate right now, but I also have the sense that this current partner also wasn't a particularly right candidate to start with, and having never really experienced sexual attraction I feel like maybe no one is ever a super right candidate and probably something adequate and good can be built with anyone over a long time with a lot of work. It just sounds impossible and exhausting.

I dunno. I'm open to feeling more sexual and romantic attraction to people in the future than I ever really have. I feel like the magic to grease the gears and make things feel "easier" trying to start up something new is missing, and the idea of sort of brute-force making it work over time again just sounds like way, way too much work. It just makes me feel so tired to think about. I'm left with a weird feeling of grief I don't have this thing I've gradually grown to believe is at least hypothetically possible for some people -- the fun and fulfilling sexual relationship -- and like there's no way for me to ever get there. I guess I need to learn to put that weird bitter bad feeling aside and try to just live my own life.

With regards to space... I've actually been daydreaming this whole week (at a sort of work retreat in the woods) of like, buying a van and being largely alone with nature for a long while. I've caught myself looking for outdoor education jobs and summer camps that are still looking for this summer as a way to take some space and time away from that relationship and space and be with silence, nature, new people.

We do live together, which is a challenge, though we just had a new roommate (old friend) move in this week so at least some sense of guilt has been alleviated when it comes to the idea of leaving someone with the whole lease or entirely alone at home. Still, I'm having a hard time figuring out how to do space when we still live in close quarters. I can try to ask for some more space and see how it feels, though we'll obviously still both physically be there, you know? Unless I do find a way to take a very physical escape for a while and live somewhere else.

[Heather]

Hey sandpiper: I just wanted to let you know that I saw this, but I have an interview to run into shortly before I can respond. I'll circle back sometime this afternoon. <3

[Heather]

Sorry for that wait!

There are a few things here that are grabbing my attention that I want to talk about:

1) I think thinking about what you want to be doing most for yourself, without thinking about what anyone else's wants from you, or demands from you, might be, is absolutely the way to go here. I think if there's any way to make that daydream you have been having into a reality, on top of that kind of thing just generally appealing to me as a person (being alone in nature is also my jam), that sounds like that could be just perfect for you at this particular crossroads in your life. Same goes for the things you mention you've lost sight of that you wish you hadn't. I also think that if and when another intimate relationship feels right for you, it's much more likely to happen and be something good if you are coming to it from this kind of space, where you've felt able to explore the kind of life you want, and where the things that are important to you stay important. Our best relationships will always happen when we're bringing as much of our whole selves as possible to the table, you know?

2) I had forgotten you two live together. Frankly, my best advice would be to start thinking about changing that. If you share a bedroom, that seems like a particularly problematic setup, and not just when it comes to trying to make a switch to not have a physical relationship anymore. Just even having the kind of space you'll need for yourself to transition out of this relationship as it was is going to be pretty darn impossible if you're cohabitating. I get that that isn't a change you might be able to make immediately -- and I have been there, I've lived with more than one ex for a while post-split, mostly because of economics, and while that's gone a range of ways, the real separation only was ever able to happen once we weren't living together anymore -- but I'd start making a plan to change that. If you want to talk more about that, from an emotional standpoint, a logistical one, or both, I'm here for it.

3) I think that your experience of all the things being grueling work around all of this that you've had has probably had a lot to do with the dynamics of this particular relationship, and the fact that it's long sounded like in a lot of ways, this just wasn't a good fit. I'd say that if and when starting new sexual/romantic/otherwise intimate relationships feels like a mountain of work or like a drag instead of an exciting adventure, that's because the relationship just isn't right in major way, either because one or both people don't actually want it or want big parts of that relationship, or because the people involved, again, just aren't a good fit. In my experience, when we all actually really, deeply, excitedly want to be together in these kinds of relationships, and when we're overall pretty compatible, it doesn't usually feel like work at all. Sure, sometimes some parts of things may take some effort others don't, but on the whole, I'd say building a new intimate relationship with someone should feel pretty easy when it's right, and when it doesn't, it's because something isn't right, and we do best to figure out what that is as early as possible, and when we find it, determine early if it seems surmountable or not.

Flatly, I think all the clues were here with this particular relationship right from the start, from the sounds of it, that it wasn't a good fit, or what you wanted. You just either didn't know back then how to tell that and that it's best not to keep going with something that feels that way, didn't feel able to walk away from it, or from it turning into something sexual, or didn't have the feedback from other folks to help you know any of that. Of course, sometimes too we just have to learn things by going through them. Goodness knows I have had more than my fair share of relationships I stayed in longer than I should have, in hindsight, but I obviously just had to learn the hard way.

To be clear, you talk about brute-force work on a relationship, and to me, if and when it feels like that? Well, it's probably already over, honestly. I really hope for you that whatever you want or don't in the future that you only choose to pursue intimate relationships that feel about a million times easier and less conflict-full than this one.

We can also talk about the purity culture hangover stuff if you want, and the idea that this relationship is your only shot. If it feels extra helpful to talk to someone like me in particular, who is in their 50s, and who has had several major and important long-term love and sexual relationships in their life (and many casual partners), I'm happy to pitch in as is useful to you, but that's also something you could talk about with anyone here, too. By virtue of a handful of things, while I pre-date purity culture, I was privy to religious shaming about a few things growing up, but it was something I was miraculously resilient to, so that aspect of the conversation might be best had with someone who has felt a little more like you have. <3

[sandpiper]

Hey, Heather! I hope you and the staff had a productive and hopefully at least a little restful in-service.

In the last week and a half, here's what I've gotten done:

1. I applied for and secured a job as a camp counselor this summer. It starts in a week. I'll be out in nature, helping kids, doing things I feel I'm good at, with plenty of structure and exercise, and it pays pretty well for the industry. I am genuinely SO excited about this, like I haven't been about anything in a long time. It'll be eight weeks, which should be a good amount of time to start to get to know myself again and think about what I want to do next.

2.I came back from the rural residency trip and initially went right back to the relationship as usual -- there is just so much pleasure in it in that we are genuinely such good friends, and I go into this slovenly sort of half-asleep state where I'm convinced this is fine and how could I ever leave it?

We had a couple of initial conversations about orienting this relationship more as a QPR, or almost a more hands-off best-friends-with-benefits sort of relationship, or something... but it kind of felt like we were circling around and I wasn't going far enough. He started referring to one of these conversations half-jokingly a few days ago as me having broken up with him, and I was like what? No, I haven't broken up with you.

But I've been doing a lot of reading and journaling in response to prompts about de-centering men, and today I think I fully broke through and acknowledged the fact that I've never really dreamed of or wanted a partnership like this. Never in my life have I yet genuinely wanted to be dating or have this kind of partnership. I never fantasized about this. I was desperately lonely for companionship and wanted to be understood, and this came along and I took it as, well, I guess this is happening now, you know?

I called up a half dozen different dreams I had for my life before this relationship, and realized they were all about me being alone exploring a new place or creating community with friends, living alone communing with nature or building out artistic networks, moving to far-flung places and doing service work, moving back to get to know my relatives in my parents' country..... all things I wanted to do by myself. I realized that even though I always list other reasons for these things, since we've been together I've all but stopped dancing and writing, two of my great loves. I've been always frayed, burned out and exhausted.

He has grown in this relationship, misses me greatly when I'm gone, feels he has gotten infinitely healthier and happier while with me, more inspired and energetic, losing weight, gaining hobbies, building friendships, savings, a career. I feel like the opposite has been happening to me the last four and a half years: I feel increasingly stunted and stultified, have had a series of jobs I hate, lived in places I don't want to, gained unhealthy weight, felt more and more isolated, no longer done things I really like, etc.

He has been acknowledging in these conversations that he's always felt like he's holding me back and I'm like a bit of a caged bird, and he's uncomfortable with this and doesn't like it and has felt like it's always been that someday I'll put it together and decide to actually leave. I think today I'm finally actually breaking through to that point.

As for our living situation: we've never liked sharing a bedroom. We had two separate rooms in our most recent apartment, then we invited a friend of ours to move in with us who was coming home from abroad. (If I'm entirely honest with myself, in inviting her a tiny part of me was hoping to replace myself with another person that could be on the lease and be a roommate for him so he wouldn't get lonely if I ever left. I didn't dare really acknowledge this to myself, but it does feel like I've been making preparatory moves for the last 6-8 months.)

She just moved in a couple of weeks ago. As we prepared that room I initially moved into his, but I couldn't sleep and didn't like it at all. I actually own a very minimal amount of belongings and have slept on the floor by choice for years, so I built myself a cute cubicle in the corner of the living room out of two cube shelf units and a privacy divider, and all my personal affects are in there, as is my bedroll that I sleep on. I genuinely enjoy my cube and it is enough space for me, and it is fine for now. I leave for the 8-week camp next week and will think about where I want to live and what I want to do next then.

He and I are still best friends and are adamant we still want to be best friends. I think there's a certain sense of relief for both of us. He was pretty distressed and resistant the first handful of times around trying to have conversations about this, but I feel like we've almost been breaking up by degrees and he's now really agreeing that I have seemed pretty caged the whole time and he wants me to go off and live my fullest life. He doesn't seem to know at all what he wants for himself, but I can't help with that.

We're still friends and affectionate and still care about each other, and I think I am in a place where I am probably more likely to flourish and live the cool sort of life I'd love if I were not in the sort of relationship that takes up so much of my energy, bandwidth, commitment, focus. Probably going to think and journal about all this slowly and gradually over the coming months to figure out what my next steps are towards living my own full and centered life rather than just kind of tagging along with someone.

Thanks so much as always for your advice on this <3 When I came home I really felt like "Well, Heather and Co. think we SHOULD break up, but I really don't WANT to!" But the more I've been reflecting on it, the more I feel that, in myself, I have felt caged and limited and like I've stopped growing for years. I'd just been accepting that as the acceptable collateral. It hurts and feels confusing since this relationship is, in many ways, so good. But I want to live my own life.

It feels a little like how I have a really hard time getting myself out the door and out of the house sometimes, but then when I do I feel so vibrantly alive and wish I'd gotten out of the sludgy stale dark indoors sooner.

[Heather]

Sandpiper,

I read this this morning before I even came into work. I was already tearing up when I read about the camp job you got, and it just only got better as I kept reading. I'm so, so incredibly happy for you and so glad you've gotten to the places you have when it comes to figuring out -- and standing up for, even with yourself -- what you actually do and don't want, what is and isn't right for this relationship, and what really sets you up for the kind of life and relationships you DO really want, or at least, think your might, in the right conditions. I'm glad you have realized this relationship isn't and wasn't those conditions.

I really hope you'll keep us in the loop with how you're doing. If we don't hear from you before you leave for the camp job, I hope you have an incredible time, and I really look forward to hearing how it went! <3

[sandpiper]

Hi, Heather and friends!

It's been a little while!

So sorry I didn't send my thanks and an update sooner. I left for camp soon after your post, and then wasn't able to respond while at camp because this site was blocked by our internet (lol).

The camp job was great. I mean, it was utterly exhausting and bonkers and I don't want to do it again, and if I wanted to work 80+ hour weeks I probably would have made more money doing almost anything else, but it was great to be immersed in a new community, beautiful nature, a summer adventure, and to feel awake and alive because my entire day is a highly structured work schedule and someone is feeding me good meals.

I got back a week ago. Since then I've been trying to keep the independent, energetic, productive vibe of camp going in trying to secure a new job with consistent, easily provable income and then an apartment. (I somehow managed to apply to around 50 jobs in my few minutes of free time a day while at camp, but of course have heard next to nothing back.)

I'd hoped to ideally have something lined up as soon as I got back. This hasn't happened, but I'm still trying. Four interviews this past week and I'm hopeful.

I'm struggling with the current living situation logistically (3 adults in what is technically a small 1-bedroom apartment, sleeping in a corner of the living room, with no privacy or functional work space) but the relationship with the housemate and the I-guess-ex-boyfriend has been fine.

He and I didn't call while I was at camp, and texted infrequently and sporadically. I didn't miss him at all. I felt like I got to stretch out and be my own person and was having all sorts of moments of remembering dreams and things I'd wanted before being sidelined by a relationship that, in retrospect, I'd never really wanted at all. He had been quite resistant at first but as the summer progressed admitted feeling more free, having ideas of things he wants to do, hobbies, ways he wants to change up his life.

We're still best friends and we're far funnier together than either of us is alone. I still think moving out is what's best for me and am working towards making it happen as soon as possible. He's resistant and sad and really doesn't want me to move out, but also acknowledges it would be best for me and maybe for both of us.

I've considered a little whether the three of us just moving to a bigger place where each of us has a proper bedroom would solve the problem, but I was really looking forward to the adventure of living alone. If nothing else it'll be a valuable new experience and if I really want to I can move in with them again later in life.

Being back together in person, our relationship and what we do together is largely similar to how it had been -- seeing as there had been relatively little romantic/sexual/intimate contact the last couple of years anyway -- but without the expectations and disappointments of expecting "more." I really feel no urge to do anything romantic or sexual with him, and it doesn't seem to be a huge strain for him either or something he's expressed he really misses, which is making me realize what a strange and extraneous project it was to try to force that vibe for almost five years. It's kind of hilarious, really.

He has expressed since the initial conversations a few months ago that he really wants to live with me and he's sad to think about me moving away (still in the same city, but probably an hour away by train because.... availability of remotely affordable housing). Never once really that he's sad that he won't be able to do some sort of romantic or sexual thing with me. That mostly feels like a relief on both ends.

All that said, I really haven't grieved at all about this? I haven't ever been sad about it or really felt anything other than relief, and the sensible caution of wondering whether I'm making the right move.

I am sad to move away from him, a little, because we are so funny together and great at hosting people together and generally make each other laugh often. (Someone told me we should have a podcast instead of a partnership and it's really stuck with me how true that was, haha.) That's what's making me think, should we just keep living together? But the current setup isn't tenable, and I really think to flourish and fully live my own new life I need my own space. All things considered it's probably easiest to let the two of them keep the current place and move on to my own to stretch out into my new life.

I wonder whether I'm being a fool to move away from, and spend less time with, one of those great precious things in life -- really laughing with friends. But then, we might be better off doing that intentionally while out and about doing something or attending each other's dinner parties once or twice a week, rather than being around each other 24/7 and sharing in each other's stuck-in-life malaise.

All this is to say: camp was great. Moving to just having a platonic relationship has felt suspiciously easy -- though this may be because we've had a few months apart and our relationship was largely platonic already, besides expectations and efforts that felt unnatural and extraneous all around and an incompatibility that never went away.

Separating our domestic relationship is both logistically difficult (hi, job market!) and feels a little sad, and I do wonder whether I'm making the right choice, but I also really want my own space to breathe and I guess if we really miss living together we can do it again someday after this experience. And maybe we should start a podcast. End of update.

So much love and appreciation for you all as always. Hope you're having a great summer! <3

[Heather]

Hey there, sandpiper. It's good to hear from you again. I'm so sorry you got so overworked, but I'm glad that you seem to have gotten most of the good stuff you were hoping to from it.

Everything I have heard you say before and everything I am hearing you say right now tells me that moving out and looking to live separately from this relationship is the right thing for you. Might it be sad? Yep. Hard? Yep. And you might also find yourself having mixed feelings about it for a while, because, of course, you're never going to be able to know for sure about what would have happened if you made a different choice.

....except that you kind of can. After all, you know how it's been, and nothing suggests to me that it would be any different save that it probably would just keep going more and more downhill. Staying only because someone else wants you to stay or because they feel sad about it wouldn't be a good basis for this kind of decision, you know? It also seems likely to me that it might be a lot more difficult to stay in a platonic relationship, and it sounds like you have discovered you were right about that being what is better for you, too. Maybe you can look to that decision to bolster your confidence about this next one?

You can still be friends without living together, and I'd guess your friendship will benefit from this change, even if you both need a little time to grieve and adjust. <3

[sandpiper]

Hey, Heather! It's great to hear from you again.

I think you are right -- that this might feel really weird and mixed-up, but physically "moving" on is the best move for me here.

And it's interesting that you suspect it wouldn't always be easy to keep this a platonic relationship. Generally the transition has felt really easy -- like we've just dropped away a stressful artifice we had to work really hard at that never quite felt natural or clicked -- but I can imagine unexpected moments coming up where it would be difficult.

Over the summer thinking about this, and in the spring considering this change, I found it really difficult to consider no longer having sex with this person -- not out of particularly wanting to have sex with this person specifically, but more out of habit and the sense it's hard to draw new lines and just... never do a thing you used to do with a certain person again? It's like that thing about how at some point your parents picked you up for the last time. Weird to consider just never doing a thing with someone again, but I guess endings happen all the time, and we don't always notice or draw much attention to them.

Today I kind of accidentally kissed him. (I gave him a hug and due to height differences and habit, my lips just kind of smacked into his neck. Oops.)

We stood and looked at each other for a while. It felt like a moment that held colossal risk of "unlocking" something and taking us back to the way we had been. It was really interesting how overwhelmingly large the difference suddenly felt, between the way we'd been physical together and how we are now.

Though that's kind of a cartoonish instance, I think living separately and spending less time together will indeed decrease the likelihood of such potential-slip-up moments and increase moments of feeling richly alive on my own.

(The logistics are progressing... Got a job offer today! It's not the one I really want the most, so I'm using it to try to get the other company to expedite their decision, but I'm one step closer to finding the new place and moving out!! )

[Heather]

I hear you! And wahoo on the offer! Congrats!

[sandpiper]

Thank you!!! Offer fell through for complicated reasons so I'm back to previous logistical squares. Have had some good networking lunches etc this past week and have kept applying so hoping for something better soon.

Last night the ex- (I guess??) boyfriend and I had one of our first moments alone together (other roommate in the shower, house guest at the gym) and he ended up coming behind me and very gently kissing the back of my neck on each side. I just kind of stood there very still -- enjoying it tremendously but also keenly feeling this is NOT what we are supposed to be doing -- and then eventually moved away and we just kind of sat and looked at each other, both pained and turned on, as I tried to issue weak words of "we shouldn't be doing that" while acknowledging both of us felt turned on and had enjoyed it.

Since then, I hate how much of my brainpower this thing has taken up! I'd mentioned in some in-passing way I felt like I was PMSing to him, which historically he knows means I'm relatively easily aroused. So yes, now that it's something I "can't have" I'd been fantasizing a little about sex with him -- impossible, selfish, unrealistic sex -- knowing that what I wanted was impossible and not feeling sad about it or actually planning to do it, just enjoying the fantasy for what it was.

So this little moment really lit me up with arousal but also, the more time has passed, familiar anxiety and distress and the feeling I'm going in circles. I think I basically still don't trust this thing -- that it's fun to fantasize about the possibility of us feeling like complete, disentangled, whole people living our own lives in our own spaces, and feeling cool and free and hot and him coming over to my beautiful new apartment and eating me out -- but if presented with the real possibility of having sexual interactions again with him I feel both excitement and also a very familiar sort of anxious grieving feeling, like knowing I'm going to be hurt and disappointed again and again.

(At this point most of the overthinking happens, as it literally always has in trying to prove or disprove this narrative: in telling myself I'm not being fair and I'm holding grudges and forgetting all the good times on purpose to feel like a victim or something, and trying to dredge up evidence to prove to myself the validity of this feeling or why I might be manufacturing it, but the fact is, I guess, that it's a feeling that's there, whether it's fair or not. I go down the spiral as I always do, of trying to weigh how it's been and whether this state of feeling about it is at all fair and berate myself about how maybe it totally isn't, that I've been making it look bad or feel bad just to feel bad, but the fact is that it feels the way it does -- anxious and insecure and like I'm just going to be disappointed again and can't trust something enough to feel hopeful about it again.)

It's the same sort of overthinking spiral as always and I hate it! I catch myself thinking and feeling strongly that my own desire is the problem -- that it's incredibly selfish for me to... only be wanting the kind of sex I want? I feel like a terrible person for fantasizing about selfish, lazy, soak-in-the-sun sex that is entirely about me receiving attention and initiative and effort, with him initiating and pursuing that, rather than the scripts we've fallen into before (me initiating something that feels entirely "about him," or VERY occasionally him initiating the same, and I do absolutely anything to try to desperately prove to myself that I'm desirable and then after I feel used, lonely, disappointed).

I don't think that would be a realistic thing to actually pursue -- even if he were down I couldn't shake the feeling of guilt, the desperation to read and cater to his feelings and his ego, to perform for him to feel good, to quadruple check if he's okay all the time, to worry he resents me about it, to desperately try to make an orgasm happen to make him feel good about himself and prove this was "worth it..." I should probably leave this firmly in the world of fantasy. Seeing the possibility of it in the real world again hurts again, as it always has. It just has always felt like those rare precious moments that feel like he's initiating something are something I have to jump on and take full advantage of, and it's really hard to hold back that instinct. And then I just can't stop thinking about it and the weird anxiety and grief settle in.

Had a dream we hooked up last night and it was just me going down on him for 5 seconds and then it was over, lol. And me just feeling the typical sort of way of, well, alright, it's over, that's how this goes.