A fictionalized account of relationship ambivalence.
During fertility treatment, our life filled with appointments, injections, waiting, and disappointment. Sex stopped feeling separate from the rest of the process. I understood why there was less room for it. Understanding did not prevent me from feeling lonely.
Over time, I stopped reaching for my partner, Alex. I concentrated on work, cooking, cleaning, and the things I could manage without asking whether the other person wanted to join me. We had tried talking, counseling, and making time. None had given us a simple return to how we used to be.
Now that treatment was behind us, Alex wanted to work on our intimate life. I wanted to be pleased. Instead, I noticed how far I had withdrawn.
One morning I watched Alex sitting with our dog and felt irritation where affection would once have been effortless. It frightened me. I still cared about the person. I no longer knew what I wanted from the relationship.
Calling it “the ick” made the change sound sudden and trivial. It had neither quality. It involved accumulated disappointment, a difficult shared experience, and feelings I had not understood while they were changing.
Alex had not owed me sex during treatment. I did not owe an immediate recovery of desire afterwards. That left us with a harder, more honest question: did we both want to try rebuilding closeness as we were now?
I could not answer by remembering how much I had once wanted it. I needed to say what had changed without making Alex the villain, and listen without promising an outcome I could not yet imagine.
