Been together almost a year. We’re both divorced, with kids from the divorces. We’ve hit bumps in the road finding time together in the past, but once the kids met and could spend time together (and they get along great), and we could sleep over while kids were around… ever since we crossed that bridge together, things have been really great. Until two weeks ago.
We went away for a long weekend so I could do a running event. We did a trip like this about a month into dating, I did a 10K and we had great sex all weekend… I think I was in my 20’s the last time I pulled off second and third rounds like that (sorry if humblebrag).
Anyway, so we go away for a different event but with a similar plan for the weekend, but this time I’m running a marathon – and that’s unusual for me, and it takes a TON of out of me. We get there and have sex the first night, but the second night before the run… I go to bed early because I have to wake up at 5am to get ready. I do the run, that goes well, but I’m absolutely exhausted after. We finally go to bed around 10pm and we’re cuddling, I think she’s trying to start something but honestly I don’t have enough blood flow left to keep my eyes open – certainly no blood flow to get anything else working LOL. Suffice to say, the sex was not happening. And she had some words for me.
Apparently she had uncommunicated expectations that this weekend would be like last time. And then she brought up her ex, and opened up for the first time about their sex life, which was apparently daily – and the only good part of their marriage. The conversation didn’t last long, she left for the living room couch with a blanked, but now I could not sleep. Maybe 30 minutes later I walk into the other room and we talked more. She was crying and said she just wanted to communicate but it came out very poorly. She apologized, but it wasn’t very long and to be candid… just didn’t really make me feel better.
I’ve been in a bit of a fog since then. Sex wasn’t the healthiest aspect of my marriage, and I wanted to get it more right this time. I thought we had a great thing. But she stuck a nerve for sure. But to me dating 101 is that you NEVER compare current partner to priors. And I don’t just mean with sex, *comparison is the thief of joy* for all things in life. It just causes pain, it’s unfair, and I’m VERY careful not to do it. And she had been fairly limited in details in the past too.
It just kinda ruined this image I had of our relationship being so intimate and connected, and our prior marriages being NOT – so it was wonderful we found eachother and it’s all good. Kinda hard to have that image shattered. I probably need to get over it because she’s a wonderful woman and I do see a future. But it’s hard to remove this splinter from my brain. She apologized that night, and the next day we quickly revisited, but I’ve clearly been distant for the past 10 days and she seems a bit hardened on *I don’t know what else to say*. Maybe it’s just time to put on my big boy pants here, but I’m not sure how I move myself past this – or maybe I just needed a bigger apology? But no apology puts the genie back in the bottle, and now our relationship feels… *lesser* to me.