Sex, love and relationships

Sex, love and relationships, what a complicated subject. I find myself trying to work out what I want when it comes to those things and for now this is where my thoughts are at…

Sex?

Yes please, lots and lots of it. The last two and a bit years I have had very little sex. In fact it has been the most sex dry time in my whole adult life. That thought makes me terribly sad. I hate it. I have been unhappy these last two years in ways I have never been before in my life. Like truly fundamentally unhappy at the very core of who I am.

I have tried many ways way to find a path out of it and whilst there have been some happy moments. All the times spent with The Gentleman for example. Mostly they have led me to question more and more what is wrong with me and why I am not enjoying any of this?

I have spent a long time thinking about sex but also about relationships and love and trying to pick apart what really makes me happy. When I truly feel happy? What moments in my life have been really happy? When I have felt my happiest? What makes me feel safe and secure? What makes me feel good about myself? And so on.

I have laid awake at night pondering some of these things and floated in my hot tub and mused on it while walking the dog. Often times it has made cry and cry as it has bought back memories of love and passion and happy times from the past that I had lost. They were hard conversations to have with myself but they were necessary ones if I was ever going to stand a chance of working out what I wanted and needed from sex, love and relationships.

I should have known some of the answers really. After all I knew them once upon a time.

Before I met Michael I had my summer of swinging. It was an amazing, sexy, hedonistic time and I am very glad I did it and had the experiences that came with it but by the end of it, as autumn turned to winter I knew it was not going to sustain me long term. I craved a person. A connection with someone that ran deeper than just casual. I also knew I wanted to explore my kinks a lot more and I needed someone who I felt totally safe with to truly do that,

Along comes Michael. We fitted together perfectly apart from one aspect. He needed monogamy. Whilst I knew I was good at non-monogamy and actually enjoyed elements of it I was happy to compromise on that account because I knew that actually having that strong bonded connection with someone was what I truly craved and needed. It really made me happy and whilst I had enjoyed elements of the swinging in my relationships ultimately it had not made me happy and I was fairly exhausted by it.

It is funny actually, as I was talking to Michael about this post last night I suddenly remember that when we first met online I was dating and I absolutely hated it back then too. In fact when Michael and I first started being friends I had just cancelled my dating website membership and declared that I would just have to be on my own because I hated dating so much. I had forgotten that until our chat last night. So hating dating is not a new a thing. I had just forgotten than I hated it/not very good at it but oddly remembering this last night was just another confirmation in my thoughts on this subject.

Michael and I were happy. For many many years. We were not exactly monogamous either as Michael had other partners during that time with my enthusiastic blessing. I loved and enjoyed those relationship very much and have made an amazing best friend from one of them.

But then things went awry between Michael and I. Unrelated to monogamy, we separated although still lived together. So the last two and half years have been without that relationship. No more expectations of monogamy. I was free to explore and have fun and take all the self knowledge I had learned over the 8+ years with Michael to find a new happiness. To explore new relationships

And I tried. I really did.

I will say that Covid has clearly not helped. It has definitely made dating/meeting people much more challenging but in 2021 alone I have been on at least 12+ dates. Some have been fun and nice and some of them have been fairly scary. One of them briefly led to something but that soon turned to nothing and the more dates I went on the more anxious and unhappy I became. I lost confidence in me. I had no idea what I wanted or why no one felt right. I truly didn’t seem to fancy anyone and when people seemed to like me it just made me sacred and anxious.

As 2021 came a close I ended the year in a very unhappy place. Scared and lonely and dreading the next date, the next message, the next Cupid match and so I sat down and started to think really and truly about when I was happy and what I liked and wanted.

It didn’t take that long to know. I mean I have know for months really, in my subconscious. I truly don’t care that much about non-monogamy. I have no desire to be poly or even open if I don’t have that core relationship that nurtures me. In fact being happy and content and feeling sexy and wanting to share my body with someone requires that relationship. One of the things I definitely know is that solo-poly does not work for me.

I am not saying I am not non-monogamous at my core. Actually I know I am. I am good at sharing. I enjoy it and it works for me and if other opportunities arose to explore within any relationships I had I would maybe take them but not having them is OK too if the rest if the stuff is right. I need love and connection. I need my person. Fucking other people does nothing for me without that. In fact I mostly find myself having no desire for it at all. I guess what I have realised is that being non-monogamous is not as important for me as I thought. It is something I like and can enjoy as part of a relationship but having someone by my side day to day, a companion, a friend, a partner is far more important to me than having the opportunity to love or have sex with other people.

These last two and a bit years have been mostly fairly bleak for me. I have not been happy. I have made terrible choices and decisions but I have learned or maybe even relearned a lot of things about myself and who I truly am, what I want and who I want to be with.

Admitting you are unhappy is really tough to do especially when you have spent quite a bit of time convincing yourself that you are happy and this is what you want. Facing the raw honest truth and picking it apart is necessary work but hard uncomfortable work. I feel hugely better for having done it mind you and been really honest with myself in the process. The result is that I find myself feeling much happier already and I feel a sense of calm about the future.

So what of the future? I am not sure but I definitely have a much clearer picture of what I want when it comes to sex, love and relationships. I just need to give it all time and see how that picture translate into reality.