A fictionalized account of mismatched desire.
After years of difficulty around sex, my wife and I agreed to make time on Saturday evening. I felt hopeful. When Saturday came, she was tired and suggested Sunday. I agreed, then spent much of Sunday waiting for the evening to arrive.
I made breakfast, arranged lunch, prepared a light dinner, and offered a massage. I told myself I was creating a pleasant day. I was also quietly building an expectation that all this effort would lead somewhere.
The hours passed. By one-thirty in the morning, when we finally began to be intimate, we were both exhausted. I lost my erection. She became upset about being kept awake. I felt rejected and ashamed, though the evening had been uncomfortable for both of us long before that moment.
The meals and massage had not bought an outcome. Her earlier agreement had not removed her right to change her mind. At the same time, my disappointment did not disappear because I understood those things.
What we had scheduled was a hoped-for resolution to a longstanding problem. We had not discussed what each of us wanted, how to end the evening kindly if it was not working, or whether late at night was a sensible time for either person.
Another calendar entry could not answer those questions. We needed to discuss the pattern outside an encounter, without one person defending a refusal and the other defending a failed attempt.
Scheduling time can help with availability. That night showed me its limit: it cannot make an anxious, exhausted couple feel ready simply because the date was agreed in advance.
