We Can’t Do This Anymore (on transitioning from one type of relationship to another with the same person)

“I can’t have sex with you anymore,” he said, looking straight into my eyes with sadness. “This can’t go where you are hoping and I just don’t think it’s right.”

I was rejected. Lost. Confused. I was already lost and confused but now more-so. I had finally found something and someone who lifted up my spirits and made me feel sexual, again… And it beat what I was going home to - a baby and a toddler who extracted all of my resources in order to survive. A lonely house. Lots of tears and distraught emotion. Uncertainty.

And now…this was taken away, too. My mind immediately gravitated towards the door and I shared ‘I have to go,’ got up and left.

I stood out there in disbelief, trying to make conversation with some of the others in my group, but I was nervous sweating and I just needed to leave. “Call a car, I need to get out of here” I said. I was running away - my life strategy. Avoid.

The car didn’t come fast enough.

He came outside slowly, calmly and approached me. He was looking for me. I was confused - he didn’t want me?(.) “Do you want to hang out for a little bit?” he said.

I had spent the last few months getting used to being a single mom. My husband had left and I signed up for my coaching program all the way across the country. When I went out to Berkeley, everything I knew about vulnerability, love and support was turned upside down. I went from feeling misunderstood and alone to held, loved, seen. From depleted and used to plentiful, sexual and desired.

I’m passionate about working with others on creating relationship experiences that feel fulfilling and privileged. How many of us live in these spaces and time periods of loneliness and disconnection, even when we have all of these people around us? We feel like the one who is different. The one no one ‘gets.’

That was my experience for YEARS. Until I found my people, I just felt different. And I can imagine so many of us walk through life thinking that people don’t understand us because we don’t know how to be held by others. How to maintain a level of intimacy - or how to cultivate one in the first place. We spend so much time seeking control over others in order to make our insecurities feel more bearable. Or we’ll criticize and defend, a helpful tactic when we’re trying to avoid the seemingly soul crushing potential of being vulnerable.

Vulnerability is the way we create deeper meaning and more captivating fulfillment out of relationships.

So I stood there in that moment outside, looking at him, unable to comprehend why, after rejecting me, did he still want to hang out and have some type of relationship. I wanted to run and hide, ashamed of the woman who was (not good enough) for him.

If I hadn’t chosen to tap back into my vulnerability that moment and access my own openness to another possibility, I wouldn’t have created the friendship we have today. This rejection is one of the most meaningful rejections of my life - I learned that I was cared for so deeply, a tough decision was made - that our physical relationship wouldn’t define us. There was more there between us, beyond sex.

And so we transitioned, we nourished a different part of our relationship and continue to today.

It’s easy to run, I know this well. And I’m not referring to physically running, leaving your relationship or your family. But I’m talking about being checked out. Or halfway checked in with one foot out the door. I encourage you to jump in feet first, share your vulnerabilities and create meaning out of your experiences.

It is the only way to share authentic connection, to cultivate desire within and to experience a quality and high level of intimacy.