I have been curious in my recent episodes of silence whether my understanding of sexual intimacy is a response to love or need.

In the absence of love, I suspect that at its deepest level, I have a human male craving for the needs of my libido to be met, and for it to be met regularly!

Despite my middle age, this intensity is not diminished!

In the presence of love, this deep and complex human need is fulfilled more fully as an expression of deep intimacy and closeness with another human being, in my case with my wife, in our marriage which has so far endured through good times and bad for thirty years.

There have been periods of my adult life, in which I have felt overwhelmed by my physical need for sexual fulfillment, however the cycle of my moods both within my own mental capacity and feelings of love towards my wife have not always been aligned.

Into this void space, my needs have been denied by either me or my wife in rejecting intimacy, or they have been fulfilled by hand which has maintained at least in my marriage the promise “to remain faithful until death do us part.”

Attached to this need, met in a void space has been feelings of immense hurt, feelings of rejection, loathing and guilt.

In recent weeks, having emerged from silent thoughts on these issues, I have spoken to my wife about the inner destruction I have suffered in responding to need without love.

I have asked for, and I have been granted a renewed level of intimacy and I have experienced the most fun, the most laughs and the most intimacy I have experienced in very many years, despite being a man in middle age.

I have arrived at an understanding, through my silent thoughts, that being curious about love or need and entering dialogue in the form of openness, honesty and truth have secured for me in the present, both love and need.

My next blog will be: “Not that one, that one”

William Defoe