Member-only story

Featured

My Interest In Casual Sex Fell As Quickly As It Piqued

Maybe it’s better to wait for the relationship I really want

Michelle Marie Warner
Sensual: An Erotic Life
4 min readDec 27, 2024

--

Photo of a gray haired light-skinned heterosexual couple, both wearing white tee-shirts, in a bed with white sheets, smiling like they just shared a laugh, snuggling together.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay

My dad met my stepmom in 1982. I was 10, and my future stepbrother was 11. They met through my dad’s childhood friend David, then fell in love and got married soon after. That’s 42 years of staying in a long-term relationship.

My parents know each other’s routines. They share meals, TV programs, household chores, and a bed. They show their love through a hundred tiny actions every day.

I want to find this for myself.

I met someone special in 2001. We were drunk in a bar, and he was married with young children. I got sober two years later and saw him where people meet to stay sober. We were friends and one-time neighbors.

We started dating in 2008, fell in love, and he moved in. Five months later, he had to move out when he relapsed.

Our relationship was over before it had begun. Losing the “us” that our hearts once held broke me in ways I still can’t express without crying. He left me with an empty space on the left side of my bed.

By 2015, I had two children with a man with whom I didn’t feel the same deep love. He struggled with relapse, too. Our kids kept us coming back to each other for a while…

--

--

Sensual: An Erotic Life
Sensual: An Erotic Life

Published in Sensual: An Erotic Life

We publish essays about sex, sexuality and erotic relationships.

Michelle Marie Warner
Michelle Marie Warner

Written by Michelle Marie Warner

Grateful, sassy, sober GenX mom with plenty to say and enough energy to listen. Learning to laugh a little more as I age gracefully. Bring it on.

Responses (1)