Irony

We're communicating more now than we have in years. It's kind of turning me on, which is a HUGE development for me - it's been a looooong time since I've been this interested in sex. And sex is one of the big things at the heart of the relationship problems we're having right now. Progress, right?

Not quite.

I'm miserable in the head, sick in the heart, owie in the tummy, but longing in the pants. And now that I'm actually interested, he's not, because he's miserable, too.

Not that I don't understand, because I think part of the reason I wasn't interested in sex was because I didn't feel like we were close. When we were both home at the same time, we sat in different rooms doing different things. We didn't do a lot together because it seemed like we were always broke. I didn't feel like I had a partner, I felt like I had a roommate. A roommate who wasn't interested in me beyond having someone to hang out with after work and on the weekend. I wasn't feeling respected, wanted, loved. And not that I specifically felt that I was being disrespected, unwanted or unloved, it was more a feeling I had that he was indifferent toward me. A feeling I had that if I was to disappear, that the only time he would notice would be a vague sense of "something's not right" at night when the bed was empty.

I'm sure he'd had the same feeling about me - that I was indifferent toward him. I can't say for sure which of us started feeling that way first, maybe it's a conclusion we reached at the same time. I just don't know. But since we've been communicating, the sense of indifference is gone. I'm not sure what it's been replaced by, but right now, at this very moment, I'm not 100% sure I care - it might be love, it might be hate, it might be frustration, it might be anger, sadness, despair, love, hope, faith, whatever... it's not indifference. And that lack of indifference in turn leads me to want to be intimate. Because there's a feeling there. We're feeling something for each other. Feelings make me feel a ton better than indifference.

But it seems to me that he hasn't yet been able to bridge the gap from anger/sadness/frustration to closeness, so he's not feeling it. I know that everyone's different and that some things take longer for people to feel than others, but with the lack of intimacy in our relationship being a big part of why he's been unhappy, I can't help but feel like I can't win.