Whether I like it or not, I've ended up in what I'd call a fairly conventional relationship - one man, one woman, a child, a pet, a (rented) house, a cat.
I didn't want to be in a conventional nuclear family. I wanted to be open to more possibilities. I didn't want to be restricted by what I saw as a very patriarchal structure.
It's not love that I was against, or even declaring love in front of loved ones (I was once married). It was the idea of being isolated from others in a house in the suburbs, cooking for two (plus kids), expecting one other to fulfill all needs emotional and physical.
And yet here I am. How I got here involves many little tiny steps, very few of which I regret. I have more love than I dreamed was possible before I had a child. And also, just by dint of having lived a few more years, I have learned some things about the parameters within which "romantic" love can survive and thrive.
And it is this latter which has paradoxically thrown me into what I would consider a non-conventional relationship - one which doesn't and may never again involve any sex (regular or otherwise).
Now as I write this I realise that there are many couples who have been together a long time who no longer have sex. But we haven't been together a long time (just six years) and in fact there's been very little sex almost from the start; pretty much from the moment that depression entered the scene.
Depression killed dead (is there any other kind of killing?) my partner's libido. It also shot his self confidence down in flames.
At first (well, for a few years) this burned me up, nearly consumed me, and us. I'd always felt very strongly that life was not worth contemplating without it. Everyone, for me, sparkled with that lovely sheen of sexual possibility. I don't mean that I fantasised about sleeping with everyone, but I was aware of that part of people which made them sexy. And I felt good about that part of me.
We went to relationship counselling and discussed different ways of maintaining intimacy, but ultimately this didn't happen because my partner doesn't want to be physically intimate. He can't handle much physical closeness at all. It's just part of his illness and part of who he is now.
For some time I thought about seeking sexual contact outside the relationship. But I couldn't bear the pain this would cause him if he found out. And I don't know how I could keep that sort of thing secret for long. It's not a big town really.
I don't know why but slowly somehow things have changed for me. I no longer need to be seen in that way by my partner. I no longer miss it in our relationship. I don't feel like I'm missing something. I feel quite content. I'm appreciative when a stranger is attentive or I get a compliment but I don't need too much of that. I feel flattered when it happens, but not tempted.
The relationship is still a romantic one. It is deep and unique - there's an exclusivity to it but it's not based on sex.
I have no idea whether I'll continue to feel this way or whether the sex will return to our relationship if/when his depression lifts. Although I am a bit wistful about the excitement and adventures around sex, this is an easier place to be right now.
Flo
It's the same for me. Sometimes I feel fine about it, and some times I worry that my acceptance of it is not a healthy thing. Will I someday regret having given up years of sexuality for this man (my depressed partner)? I just don't know.... Thanks for writing about this so frankly.
ReplyDeleteDear Flo,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thank you for starting this blog. I just recently stumbled across it and I am so grateful to have found it. Sometimes I think I could have written your posts, although not as eloquently. Thanks so much for sharing your experience. It is heartening to know that one is not alone in this experience and that others, even those far, far away, understand.
As I read this entry, I wondered if you felt like there was anything that you could have done in the early days to help things..as you saw his confidence start to decline. I don't mean to imply that you didn't try to change things...I just wondered if anything stands out now in retrospect. My partner has recently started on antidepressants and it is affecting his libido but it had changed before that due to the depression as well. I'm not sure if there is anything different that I could be doing in approaching it with him. I miss the way it was. It's not an easy thing to talk about with him, on top of everything else.
Thanks, Ellie
Thanks for reading and for posting your comments - it's great to hear back from people and know that our experiences are similar.
ReplyDeleteEllie, I wish I knew what I could have done differently. I don't know that anything I did could have changed the directions things were headed in, or could have affected the way he was feeling about himself.
I thought that maybe if I had chased less that might have helped me feel less foolish, but that wouldn't have been me really.
Maybe I could have insisted on relationship counselling earlier? It might even have raised the depression as an issue that was affecting our life together earlier and that might have changed the timeline of seeking treatment?
I'm sorry you're going through this. I think the only thing I can see looking back in my case is that what I did had so little impact. That's kind of deflating in itself, but it also takes the pressure off in some ways too.
Flo
you are not alone in this
ReplyDeleteNo, you're definitely not alone in this. And in this hyper-sexualized society of ours, it can feel very strange indeed to be living a life of enforced celibacy, particularly when this sort of thing is never talked about. Thanks for being honest enough to bring the topic up.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog, by the way. It was recommended to me by a friend in London, so you have a wider readership than you may be aware of.