Relationship with grief
photo by Sarah
Oh grief, you, changeable, multifaceted thing. You defy definition, play hide and seek, confuse and destroy and rebuild. They say that once you move in, generally unwelcome, there is no moving you out, only growing to accommodate our new roommate and companion. I have danced with you, railed against you, been wrapped up warmly in your embrace. I sometimes feel angry at you for how much space you take up in me, in those I love. The days you send me back to bed, the evenings spent in tears instead of in fun or lust, the confusing nights spent in fun or lust instead of tears. Conversely, I also credit you with so much of who I’ve become, more courageous, more authentic, more connected.
During my marriage separation it felt like I cracked open, bringing in both light and despair. It felt like death, and rebirth, and has cycled between them since, resting more firmly now on rebirth. It’s been 5 years, almost exactly, since both my world, and the whole world, imploded simultaneously. My co-parent and my “shapeshifting,” which is what I now poetically call that skin- tearing, soul- screaming shift we took, happened on the coattails of many other deaths. Our beloved black cat of 19 years, Pan, had passed just a few months before. My father had died suddenly of a heart attack about a year and half before that (and hers was to follow from cancer a year into Covid, along with our other 19 year old cat Angus), and I had had a painful break up with a lover (we had an open marriage the last few years). My brilliant dancer of a mother developed a degenerative disease of body and mind and has been slowly ebbing from this world ever since. I’d already been on Wellbutrin after all that, which was also for S.A.D. (and possibly off-label helping me with focus). Then of course Covid broke all of our hearts, on so many levels. The losses just piled up. My co-parent moved out after a year of cohabitating, we and the kids learned a new lifestyle (all of us still find parts of split householding hard), climate change , wars and political insanity persist, and just because that all wasn't enough, I decided to leave my job of 17 years and start the business of my dreams. Hm.
Into that heady mix bravely stepped my now partner Sarah, both gently and passionately holding my raw new skin. I had nothing to hide, and in fact couldn’t have been anything but fully me at that point. No masking my full and colorful self, no adapting to a relationship to survive. She saw me, sees me, and though I no doubt overwhelm her reserved and introverted self at times, celebrates me. We thrived in our Covid bubble of mutual adoration, in spite of the storms still raging within and without, and I hungrily ate up our yummy sexual connection (it was just what I needed). Until the windows of the world opened up more fully and we had to navigate the RETURN. I think a lot of people didn’t fully go back to how things were before, especially socially. But overall, she and I have been much more social, and I grieve the loss of our simplicity, our endless hours to dive deep. Work and obligations piled back up. Sarah’s parents both declined into dementia, Alzheimers and eventually died, her mom only recently (we surrounded mer mom and sang her into the Next). Sarah has been living with grief ever since, and it colors our relationship the greyish-blue of the sky just before dawn.
Navigating a sexual relationship with grief in the room has been a bit like trying to have sex while a big, slobbery dog is nearby watching and whining to be fed. You want to be able to focus, you wish connection with each other’s bodies were the only agenda, but it’s impossible to ignore that fool of a fluff ball. I chose a dog metaphor because dogs drive me nuts, but I am also fond of them at times, similarly to grief. Fond is perhaps a strong word for grief, but it is not without its blessings, and it rarely exists without love. Grief often makes Sarah soft and tender, snuggly. And it has made me a better person, in my opinion. If the metaphor had been about stress being in the room, another frequent sex killer, I might have used a mosquito metaphor! Though I even have empathy for those suckers, being single mothers just trying to feed their young (and science shows that we do need stress to survive). But I digress.
When I was the one in deeper grief, earlier in our relationship, we had the hormonal support of new relationship energy (NRE), plus me being me, so sex came easily. But it’s different now. Grief takes up more space, and we don’t have as much energy to ignore its presence. When I am holding Sarah these days, her sweet warmth against me, her tears falling onto my clothing and I have to redirect the arousal her contact with me brings. Her grief opens my heart, and that opens all of me. I’ve noticed that loving behavior, romance, are big sources of emotion for me, and arousing. Not in the wet underwear sense. It’s more holistic, where my nerves are alive and flowing. Like my body wants to scoop her up and stuff her inside me (a feeling I’m familiar with, from wanting her to do that to mine when I’m sad). It may be taboo to mention the maternal elements in my loving arousal, but they are by no means uncommon. We humans are simpler beings that we care to admit. Unlike for me however, for Sarah, grief can hit the breaks arousal wise. And we share a dynamic anyway where she tends to need more alone time, less intense/direct connection. We’re still snuggling naked in the mornings, giving massages, connecting through our hearts and words. Sometimes the conditions are right, the clouds clear, and we find ourselves in the right context for passion to flow (thank you Emily Nagoski for clarifying the importance of context!). Sometimes we can make a point of creating the right contexts, in case they might bear fruit, and sometimes we can’t. I hold those vibrant experiences in my greedy hands, and breathe through the rest. Being someone with a strong sexual desire most of the time, I do my best to cope with less sexual connection with Sarah by continuing to take care of my own sexual needs (recommended anyway). And sometimes, the sex we have is grief sex, comforting, a release where sometimes orgasms flow back and forth into tears.
It’s good to remember that everyone grieves differently overall, and differently from moment to moment. There is no right or wrong way to do it, though the process may require patience from those involved. The world tells us we should eventually “move on”, which is being proven unrealistic and inaccurate. I would say the “moving on” has more to do with developing “muscles” to schlepp this grief around with us, and knowing it might take over when least expected, indefinitely. For me, it feels like I’m both stronger, and softer, for flexing this expansion. Add to that the fact that sexual interest and arousal vary widely between people, in couples, and by the moment. It makes sense then that we really need to communicate in relationships about how everyone is doing, make containers for sensual and loving connection, and take turns offering care. Because remember, there is also vicarious grief. It may be their mother that your partner lost, but you may also feel grief about it, and grieve alongside them on their behalf. You may grieve the changes to your relationship because of what happened to your partner, how perhaps you’re placed in a bigger caring role. And the caring roles really add up for us middle aged folks! Plus any of your own grief you bring to the container. It all takes a toll.
Here is where community also plays an important role. I said in my last blog post that we don’t need to hold things FOR others, but we do need to hold each other, feed each other, swap childcare, share firewood, listen to stories 100 times. I know that’s how my good friends feel who lost their son. Not only are they being held and heard and fed by their whole community, but they know that we feel the pain of his loss with them (our own, plus our grief on behalf of our friends). It reverberates, such that everyone involved needs TLC, and since being human and loving others means living with loss, that means our whole human community could probably use some TLC. Especially these days!
And you, how are YOU doing? Are you struggling to maintain a sexual relationship during challenging emotional times? During grief, loss, depression, stressful periods, parenting? Send me your stories, share your hearts with me. I would love to support you.
Book recommendation: Sex After Grief by Joan Price (get here from my fave sex store)
