In fifteen years of a mostly sexless relationship, my partner has spontaneously pursued me three times. Three is an easy number to remember, even across that much time.
I’ve always thought of my desire as pretty ordinary. I wanted intimacy with the man I was with. I wanted him to want it, too. Almost every time anything happened between us, I had been the one initiating, dropping hints, or flirting. The possibility of closeness depended on my willingness to keep reaching for it.
For years, I agonized over that. Wanting him was tangled up with wanting some sign that the feeling went both ways. I kept bringing my interest to him, hoping for a response I wouldn’t have to coax into existence.
Then, two years ago, I tried again, and he rolled his eyes at me.
That was the moment my desire for him disappeared. Completely. I didn’t make a decision to withdraw it. I didn’t tell myself I was finished and then spend weeks trying to believe it. Something that had occupied me for years was simply gone.
The part that surprised me was the relief. After all that agonizing, I no longer wanted him to want me. I could stop reaching, stop hoping that this attempt might feel different, and give my attention to other things.
Two years later, that desire still hasn’t returned. I feel peaceful about it. The relationship’s history hasn’t changed, but I’m no longer living inside the same yearning. I’m glad that moment happened because it released me from something I hadn’t managed to put down on my own.
I can’t promise anyone else that this will happen, or say when it might. But for someone who can’t or won’t leave, for any number of reasons, I understand how consuming the wanting can become. I also know now that it can stop.
I used to want him to reach for me without being asked. These days, that wish no longer follows me around.
