Change Is Inevitable: Processing Fluctuating Emotions
Something is happening in one of my relationships that is very intruiging. I’ve had some of the BEST sex of the year with one of my polyamrous partners, and I have been profoundly grateful to find someone with a sexual appetite that matches mine. But then, a few months into our relations, which had been evolving smoothly and satisfyingly in every other dimension, I had a slight change of heart… but oddly, it was not anywhere above my waist! For some reason, I had an issue connecting sexually to this delightful lady, and I was genuinely confused by the entire ordeal. We were attempting intimacy in a public place where intimacy had previously occurred, yet for some reason, things did not connect. I couldn’t answer why, and I wanted to know for my sake and hers!
Thankfully, she did not let things end so quickly, and I honestly did not want things to end either. But I did tell her that I needed space to figure out why I was feeling discrepancies between my body and my sexuality. The term I want to apply to the mode of behaviour that I began to experience is “drifting close by.” I felt a simultaneous push and pull, and most importantly, I KNEW I didn’t want it to be over with her. I just felt that some parts of me were not attracted to some parts of her. I was very much intending on keeping our connection as strong as possible, since I felt that a complete separation was not the answer to the problem I was experiencing. If she had wanted a separation, I would have respected that… yet she didn’t, and she was interested in exploring why our physical chemistry had fizzled in particular moments, when our emotional and intellectual chemistry was firing on all cylinders. I was drifting away from her, but staying close by at the same time, since I didn’t know what was happening with me. It was a new twist on the typical breakup cliché excuse, except instead of the “it’s not you, it’s me,” my version was “it’s you, and it’s me, but it’s also not you!”
We eventually chose to recreate something similar to our initial sexual encounter to see if that would spark the flames of desire… and goodness gracious, did that ever solve the issue. We had a passionate resurrection of our sexual connection, and I felt like myself again. I let parts of me drift away and process the issues with myself and with her. A few days before we had smoking hot sex again, I told her the things about her that were repelling me from what we had to the best of my comprehension, taking personal responsibility for what I was not able to offer, as well as articulating what she was not able to provide in regards to my ever-evolving needs and desires. It was a very mature and honorable exchange, and the result was the scripting of a special relationship that had a few chapters of very thin emotional connective tissue. Then through trial-and-error and focused faith on the future, what was experienced next was a balanced sustenance of both our renegotiated desires.
If she did not let me “drift close by,” I might not have returned. Thank you to her faith and passion for not giving up on our fiery connection!
In love,
Addi Stewart
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