So I’m in a little better place to think this through today. As is the case for anyone, I bring my own not always entirely open and accepting perspective to this. I’m still fighting this, but I know that means I’m resisting things I’d be better off accepting and working with, or the resistance is wheel spinning when I might be able to affect some change. You know, take responsibility for stuff I didn’t cause or ask for.

Even now I want to argue, like there’s a healthy alternative to taking responsibility. Change the things I can, accept the things I can’t change, and take heed of the difference. I say “take heed” because I damned well know the difference.

Thanks again.

Oh, and Anita, yes, I’d like to be desired for my body. I can’t lie about that. I wonder if those who have that experience really know what it’s like not to. And likewise, those of us who aren’t lusted after probably fail to see the downside. I’d take my chances, though. And I’m sure my sex makes a difference. There’s really little disadvantage to being a really attractive man.

Take care.

I’m going to respond to some of the recent comments in another comment a bit later, but I wanted to thank those of you who have responded. I’m having strong emotional reactions to some of the comments, and I’m trying to avoid simply reacting out of that emotion, and instead thinking about my feelings and what they may mean. This is painful, which for me typically means growth or masochism ;).

You’re right about my confidence being shaken, Valora.  I’m here talking to people on the internet because I feel like I can’t talk to her about how I really feel, because that may kill any attraction she may still have for me. That is so frustrating.

Strictly talking about feelings now and not claiming those feelings are facts, but I feel like how she regarded me lessened. Maybe it changed along a predictable course, but it felt like it diminished, and I felt like I lost something important. That shook my confidence, in myself and maybe in us, or in the hope I had that we’d be different than most couples. Seems like a pretty childish hope now. And when I felt a loss, or several losses, I talked about it, which turns out to have been bad form. I should have stoically accepted the loss, and maybe she would have seen that as attractive, or at least not as unattractive as me asking for what I needed. Somewhere someone told me that being vulnerable was a good thing. Maybe I don’t do vulnerable right.

So here I am, feeling a loss and feeling helpless to do anything about it, other than accept it with equanimity. Obviously I’m not there yet.

Thanks for responding Valora. Regarding your question, she’s not much for giving feedback. She has said, a few times long ago, that she admires my thoughtfulness and my passion for things I believe in. I believe that she believes I’m good for her emotionally, supporting her honestly and challenging her when that’s needed. That’s something I’ve mostly inferred from our interactions, and not something she says directly.

Another piece to this puzzle is that our physical relationship is nowhere as intense as it once was. We’re both 60 now, so I should expect some changes, and 20 years bring changes for people who start out at 25. But I doubt that we’d have sex at all if it was left to her. She’s responsive once we start, but she frequently has other priorities and having to negotiate some time for sex that she’s not much interested in until 15 minutes after we start, with a woman who doesn’t seem much attracted to me is kind of a downer.

And I know there are lots of explanations for her lessened interest in sex, plausible ones, that have little or nothing to do with me. Her age and the direct impact that has on her physiology, her age related aches and pains, her thoughts about her aging body, our time together. I get all of that. But we started out quite hot. Whatever drew her to me, I had no doubt that she wanted me. Most of the comments I’m talking about started about 10 years in. Her interest in sex waned about the same time.

We’ve talked about sex at length. It’s exhausting, and thoroughly unsexy for both of us, but whatever the reasons, wanting someone to want you when they don’t, or when they can’t spontaneously show you they do, is a real boner killer for me and I’m sure not a great way to seduce her.

But I don’t want to over emphasize the sex part of this. I’m 62. I’m not as driven as I once was, and I know how to take care of myself. Our sex life is relevant to this discussion more because it leaves me feeling like I’m not enough, as do her comments. Absent the comments, I think I could see our sex life as sort of naturally ebbing. And really, at this point that’s how I think of it. But I’m still feeling like what I thought was true about us, and about her feelings for me,  wasn’t. That her feelings changed, or the basis for her attraction to me wasn’t as strong as it might have been, and maybe that hastened this along.

I feel like I’m writing a story and the only way to characterize this couple’s once intense love for each other is that it faded, which is sad enough, but also that it never was quite what one of them believed. I find that a sad story if it ended there, but it doesn’t. And I don’t really know how to write it from here.