Just the Tip is a sex and relationship column hosted by queer non-monogamous kinkster Jera Brown. Here you will find interviews with sexuality researchers and educators as well as smart and compassionate responses to anonymous questions. If you would like to be interviewed or have a sex or love question you’d like Jera to answer, email justthequestions@gmail.com or DM Jera on Instagram or Twitter @thejerabrown.
I came across an article of yours and I could really use some advice.
I am 39 and I’ve been in a healthy relationship with my boyfriend for over a year now. I say “healthy” because in total we’ve been together for just under 3 years, but for the first two years the relationship was toxic. We were on and off again, caught in a trauma bonding cycle. We’d get in a big fight, breakup, then reconnect; usually through sex.
Our sexual connection was always very strong. I’d never had real intimacy with anyone like this before and he felt the same. We felt free to be ourselves. I had just gotten out of a controlling marriage, and to feel fully accepted in all of my sexuality was vastly rewarding. We were open at first, he felt he was polyamorous and for me it was important that I not be strapped into a serious relationship so quickly after a divorce. Especially because I’m bisexual and spent most of my life hiding it.
We both struggle with mental illness, which made us very close, but it also caused a lot of problems. The toxicity was rampant in our relationship as we both worked through trauma with poor coping mechanisms. There was addiction, self sabotage, manipulation, cheating, depression, even a suicide attempt. The open relationship never worked out. I learned that any time I acted on something, no matter how careful I was with not crossing boundaries, he would still get hurt. We went though some very dark and difficult times and we hurt each other very deeply.
Things came to a head when he hit an all time low. We broke up and this time it stuck for longer than the other break ups. Separately we were able to focus on healing ourselves. Major growth happened, and eventually we cautiously came back to each other as friends with the mind that we were healing and we would need to learn to trust each other again. Over time, we realized that under all the pain there was real love between us. We decided to work through the hurt we caused each other in the years before. It took a lot of work, but we have really grown into a healthy couple. We’ve rebuilt broken trust and learned to communicate mindfully and respectfully. We have grown so much and I’m very proud of the love and compassion we hold for each other.
However, a few months after we got back together his interest in sex started to die off. He was depressed and felt empty. Being that he’s mentally ill, he had also been through different medication changes that messed with his libido and drained his energy. Ever since that point in our relationship, our sex life has been completely different. I get worried he’s lost interest in me, but he assures me that isn’t the case, and he wishes that he could feel more sexual but he just doesn’t. We have been monogamous over the last year, I think mostly because we are both dedicated to making this work and being there for each other. But I know that for me I’m also scared that openness will break us apart again.
We’ve talked about his sexual changes and how I’m struggling with it. He knows that something is different, but he can’t identify what it is. His best guess is medications. However, he was always on meds, sometimes it would cause him to have difficulty with sex, but overall his desire was so much stronger in those earlier, unhealthy years. I know that sex in a long term relationship will change over time, but this all seemed to happen so abruptly and it seems drastically different from before. I feel a lack of connection when we have sex and sometimes I feel like he’s just going through the motions. When I’ve told him I feel disconnected he doesn’t understand and says that he isn’t feeling a loss in connection. I’m happy being with him, but this sexual disconnectedness has made me wonder if I’d be happier if I could date other people to fulfill this need. But I’m so scared of what that would do to him.
I’ve stopped talking about the disconnected feelings with him, it only seems to make him feel like he’s not enough, and he doesn’t understand why I feel this way. I am trying to work through my feelings and keep these thoughts to myself but if isn’t going well. I’m often frustrated with his lack of interest and energy. I feel grief and sadness for the loss of our previous sex life and some days it weighs very heavy on me. I am often hung up on a hope that this will get better some day. But I’m not even sure if that deep passion I am craving was ever real or healthy and therefore will never be again. I love him very much and I believe we have a great relationship. I tell myself I should just focus on the positive things and be grateful. But how do I move past this grief over the loss of our old sex life?
Grateful and grieving
Dear grateful and grieving, the deep self-reflection you’ve done is obvious from the way you summarized your journey and relationship. You and your partner have come together again in a very intentional way, and I applaud the work you both have done.
In order to move past grief, I think there’s work to be done related to trust, acceptance, and intimacy.
1. Working With Trust
I don’t think you can move past the grief if you’re afraid. What struck me when I read your email is the complex nature of trust in your relationship.
You explain that you’ve rebuilt trust after manipulation, cheating, etc. And your communication has grown exponentially. But it also sounds like you have a hard time trusting that his change in libido isn’t directly connected to his level of interest in you, even if he’s telling you it’s not.
You’re also worried that being open again would damage the relationship, and this fear is also intimately tied to trust: trust in the relationship, trust in each other, trust in yourself.
I think we oversimplify trust. We talk about it as if “Do you trust your partner?” is an easy yes or no question. I think we tend to build trust in certain aspects of a relationship while struggling with trust in others.
So where are there still gaps in trust in your relationship that you can work on?
And this isn’t just about whether you can trust him or trust the relationship. Are there ways you’re not trusting yourself that is leading to fear?
When I’m afraid to trust a partner’s interest in me, often it’s not about them: it’s about me not believing I’m worth their interest. And sudden changes in interest are hard not to take personally. But sometimes it’s not personal.
2. Working with Acceptance
Another necessary part of moving through grief is accepting what has changed. But acceptance is just as nuanced as trust.
It’s all about perspective.
For instance, there’s a major difference between working on accepting that your sex life with your partner will be different than it was in the past and accepting that your sex life will never be as good as it used to be.
Personally, I find it way harder to accept something when I don’t feel I have agency around it. When I feel a situation is being forced on me. I wonder if that’s part of what’s going on here: you have a partner you love, but to be with that partner (who he is today) means sacrificing sexual passion. In other words: maybe you feel stuck.
So what would happen if you shifted your perspective?
Right now it sounds like you see an open relationship or living without sexual fulfillment as your only two options. What if there are other solutions you haven’t considered?
Now, I do want to point out that it’s really hard to work on acceptance when you’re also working on finding a solution. I would recommend reflecting on what you know you need to accept before jumping into what you want to fix.
And acceptance and trust can work together. What if you work on accepting that the physical intimacy you experience with your partner will be different than it used to be while trusting that the overall love and committment your partner has for you is stronger than ever?
3. Working on Intimacy
So changes in medication can work quickly and have dramatic effects. It is very possible that his medication changed (or even the way his body responded to his medication changed) quite abruptly.
And, as you pointed out, sex changes in long-term relationships. It changes with age. It just changes.
So I’m not saying that working on intimacy can magically get you back the sex life you had. But we get stuck believing that there’s only one kind of intimacy that can help us achieve that deep emotional, even spiritual, connection with our partners.
A question for you: is the problem more that you feel disconnected from your partner or do you just miss having intense sex?
If it’s the former, what if you recommended exploring other kinds of sensual intimacy that didn’t rely on a hard-on? Ways that you could still show your desire and feel physically connected to each other. Check out my earlier article on rewriting sexual scripts for tips on this.
Finally, if things continue the way they are, you might consider working with a sex-positive therapist or intimacy coach.
This shit is deep with trap doors and stuff happening in the subconscious, and a trained pro can help you navigate perilous ground. If this is your person and you plan on spending the next decade of your life with him and sex is super important to you, it could be worthwhile to invest in a guide.
Now, I’m a bit of a skeptic about the claims that sex coaches often make about how working with them, reading their books, or signing up for their courses can lead to better than ever sex lives. I’d go in without preconcieved expectations of what the end result will be. But I do believe that a good therapist can improve communication to unblock intimacy.
My hope for you is that wherever you land two years from now, you feel the same gratitude for your growth and the love that you’ve been able to experience that you expressed in your email. I believe our lives always turn out differently than we expect, but if we look for it, we’ll always find things to be grateful for.
Disclaimer: As always, there’s no perfect solution to any relationship issue and you may benefit from the help of a neutral, trained professional. Jera is not a licensed mental health professional, just a writer living as authentically as they can.
Photo by Becca Tapert on Unsplash