The morning after we finally had sex again, I woke up wanting to cry. More than two weeks had passed, and I had been the one to initiate. I wanted to feel close to my husband. Instead, I came away feeling as though he had completed something he would rather not have been doing.
That was my experience of it, anyway. My pleasure seemed barely to register, and the sex left me feeling more unwanted than the wait had. At 25, barely a year into living together as a married couple, I had not expected to be wondering whether this was the beginning of the end.
What made it especially hard was that I had recently started to feel hopeful. We had already had a serious conversation about our declining sex life. Afterward, we were having sex more often. There were moments that felt passionate to me. I thought we had found some room to move toward each other.
So we talked again. I asked whether there was something I did not know: someone else, a problem with porn, something that might explain the change. I had no evidence of either. They were questions from someone trying to understand, not discoveries I had made.
His explanation was that this was simply how he was. He did not feel the same need I did, and he described that as consistent with the way he had always lived. He also said he did not really miss people. I was trying to understand a distance I felt between us; he was describing something he did not consider new.
I asked whether he would consider seeing a doctor to rule out a physical issue. He said he could not make himself do that. I know that decision belongs to him. Still, I had hoped he might be willing to explore what was happening with me, even if neither of us could promise a solution.
Then I mentioned the improvement I thought I had seen after our earlier conversation. He told me he had not made a special effort. The change I had been holding on to, he said, was in my head. We had apparently lived through the same weeks with very different ideas of what they meant.
I told him I was beginning to wonder whether he still found me attractive as a woman. He said he loved my personality. I believe he loves me. But that answer did not tell me whether he wanted me.
He said he could not change who he was, and that if I was unhappy, he could not make me stay. Divorce was possible. He also said that if we brought this subject up again, it should be to discuss whether we were divorcing. We were both exhausted by the conversation.
Outside of this, there is still so much affection. We cuddle, laugh and enjoy being together. I am not describing a husband who is cruel to me throughout our marriage. I am describing a man I still love and am attracted to, while missing passionate kisses and sex that feels wanted on both sides. I do not want him to have sex out of obligation.
I do not want a divorce, either. But the next conversation about the part of our marriage that hurts me most may now have to be a conversation about ending it.
