I hit a point where I felt completely stuck. I loved him. Every other aspect of our relationship was great. But I was literally so touch-starved it hurt.

I felt more undesirable and unwanted than I ever had in my life. Every day, I was constantly on the verge of tears. Every night, I would fall asleep crying. It hurt to lay on the other side of the bed from him, wanting to touch him and to be touched by him. I’d talked to him so many times, told him what I needed…I felt like my voice went unheard. I’d tried engaging in cuddling without intimacy and he said that every touch felt like it carried the expectation of sex, so it made him uncomfortable. It felt like all I could do was wait and let him come to me when he was ready…and I was starting to believe he would never be ready.

Eventually, I started to feel numb, like I was disconnecting. In a moment of weakness, seeking any sort of validation, I started chatting with someone online. I met him in one of the dead bedroom forums I had turned to for advice and his situation with his partner had a lot of similarities to mine. Everything was anonymous with zero expectations of anything beyond chat, but our conversations became very…flirty. For a short time, we made each other feel more desirable than either of us had in years. In the end, though, neither of us felt right about what we were doing and severed all ties.

The brief interlude was enough the distraction me from my downward spiral, though, which helped me reach the next stage…