What Does Love Need?
I’ve been having some hard conversations with my primary partner last week. The wounds are still raw, with emotion still oozing out painfully with every breath.
The last time I saw him was in February 2020 in New York. We took the subway, went to bars, partied in a huge warehouse with hundreds of strangers, and in general acted like the virus that was currently exploding across China wasn’t going to affect us. I remember us seeing a man in a full hazmat suit sitting on the subway and we laughed to ourselves, thinking man, this guy is being a bit paranoid isn’t he?
I remember the moment I got into the cab that would take me to the Penn Station. I kissed him and hugged him and told him I would see him soon. We had our wedding to look forward to in May, a honeymoon in Japan in July, and countless other plans. It was going to be a month at most until I saw him again, just how it’s always been. But February 2020 was fifteen months ago, and I haven’t seen him once, outside of zoom, the occasional selfie, and the plethora of childhood photos that his parents sent me as a funny Christmas present.
Despite running a magazine about sex and culture, and despite being someone who constantly talks and thinks about sex, I realized recently that it had been months since we had sent each other big compliments or risqué texts, months since we had tried to have a digital movie night or a fun zoom dinner. It was horrifying for me, and I was so disappointed in him and in myself. How did we get to the point where we weren’t caring for each other in such basic ways?
It’s easy, we were spending our time just trying to survive. The pandemic made it almost impossible for anyone to think of anything else besides where to get pasta or toilet paper. We became occupied with the immediate in front of our faces, in the present moment of every day as we saw death tolls rising, and in the intimate details of our apartments; the only thing that was keeping us safe from a world that felt very dangerous and very real.
Recently, we’ve started a process of conscious uncoupling, even though that’s a term that both of us loathe. It is trying to figure out how to break up with someone you still love tenderly, who didn’t cheat on you, who didn’t start snoring or stop cleaning up after themselves. It’s made me ask a lot of questions about what relationships need to survive. Because ours survived for so long without sex or even physical proximity. Hell, I would’ve given a lot just to be on the same continent as him. It’s forced me to rely on conversation as the sole means of emotional connection, and in so many ways we are realizing that we needed more than that.
It’s in the end of relationships that you often think about defeat; about failures to launch and about the embarrassment and shame and anger of feeling; everyone else is getting it right, so why didn’t you? We are going through that though, with all the tears and resentment that go with that. Why can’t we make it a little longer? Push a little harder, wait for a little bit more? But I think sometimes when we push love, love pushes back. It’s understanding that you’re not entitled to someone’s love and attention, and that learning to appreciate it daily will go a long way in supporting them when they can’t always give it to you. Love is sometimes not demanding more from someone, but being satisfied when you get less.
