It’s been two months since we had sex. Before that, there was a month-long gap. I’m 22, my partner is 23, and I’m in love with him. But I’ve started wondering whether he still wants me in the way I want him.
At the beginning, our sex life was intense. I didn’t have to search for evidence that he desired me; that part of being together felt obvious. Now I miss something that used to happen between us without becoming a question I carried around.
We’ve known each other for years. We were friends for years, too, so this isn’t someone whose place in my life begins and ends with our sex life. That history matters to me. I love a person I already knew, and it makes the distance harder to understand. Being familiar with him hasn’t made me feel less exposed when I wonder if he’s attracted to me anymore.
He’s busy with school and work. His explanation is that he feels too lazy to have sex. I know those demands are real, and I’m not pretending he has endless time or energy. Still, hearing that explanation leaves me with a question it doesn’t quite answer: where does wanting me fit into all of this? I can understand being busy more easily than I can understand feeling unwanted by someone I love.
And it isn’t only sex. He forgets to kiss me. That small piece of affection matters because it could make me feel close to him without either of us having to turn it into anything else. When even a kiss seems to slip his mind, the gap between the times we have sex starts to feel larger than a gap in our schedules.
I don’t know what he feels, and I can’t turn my impression into a fact about him. What I can say is that I don’t feel desired. There’s a difference between the explanation he gives me and the experience I’m having inside this relationship. I don’t know whether this is a stretch we’ll get through or how things will stay.
I’ve spent a long time quietly reading about other people’s relationships, looking for something I recognize. Now I want to hear from people who’ve been here: whether the closeness came back, whether wanting each other became part of their relationship again. I’m not able to supply that ending for us. I’m still in love with him, and I want to feel desired again.
