In our first session, Henry spoke so softly that I had to lean forward to hear him.
I had asked him what had brought him to treatment. At 72, dressed in a clean suit and bow tie, he was not my usual patient.
“I want more sex,” he repeated, louder this time, lifting his eyes to meet mine.
“I just came out two years ago and I’m coming out. But I’m 72 years old,” he shrugged, smiling. “Something has to change. Before I die, I want to have more sex!”
“Well, okay,” I said as I sat back in my chair, taking this moment to calm myself down. “Let’s talk about what gets in the way.”
Sudden life changes were nothing new to me, either in my patients’ lives or in my own. Last year, I ended one significant relationship and started another under unlikely circumstances.
I met Ben walking around the Tate Modern in London on a short layover. To my surprise, we had kept in touch, at first a little, then a lot. He lived in the British capital with one of his two eldest daughters and ran a company there. I was a single mom in New York City with two daughters of my own, both still in school. He also had a full-time practice to manage. Neither Ben nor I were about to move anywhere, so a long-term future seemed out of the question.
She had always been a follower of the rules: the dutiful daughter, the sensible single wife, the mother together. My life had followed a carefully planned course. But Ben was an exception. Although—or perhaps because—the relationship had no future, there was a freshness, a newly unwrapped excitement. But, like Henry, he didn’t quite know how to let it go.
Over the next two years, Henry and I did a lot of work to open up his story: why he never felt comfortable coming out, and how his childhood, filled with complex trauma, had given rise to crippling shame. He had never been in therapy before, but he was open, vulnerable, and honest. As we worked together to expose Henry’s secrets, I became aware that he had begun to keep my own.
Even though my closest friends and family had known about Ben from the beginning, their skepticism, and my reluctance to expose my girls to someone who wouldn’t stick around, convinced me to take our relationship underground. At first, I found it surprisingly easy. As the rest of my life progressed predictably with parent-teacher conferences, rushed packed lunches, and scheduled play dates, I met Ben for delicious hotel room dates and stolen moments in his many work trips to New York as well as during the weekend vacations we took. together, making time whenever we could.
“Even though my closest friends and family had known about Ben from the beginning, their skepticism … convinced me to take our relationship underground. At first, it felt surprisingly easy.”
We laughed as we walked around the Met, took long, sneaky walks exploring New York’s neighborhoods, and sat in the back of movie theaters having a good time. Because we exist outside the confines of a traditional relationship, I never worried if he would get along with my kids or want to come home with me to my high school reunion. In time, I felt the reins loosen in my hands. Those old habits of control, the continuous self-control he was used to, began to recede.
“What is your goal with sex?” I asked Henry one day, realizing as I said it that he might have asked me the same question.
“I want to lose myself,” he replied. “I don’t have much time left to try new things. I have spent my life giving pleasure to others; now it’s my turn”.
Henry couldn’t know how moved I was by his words as he absentmindedly touched my shiny collar, under which was hidden a kiss that Ben had left in the heat of passion the day before. I let my patient’s words sink in: Could it be that she was having a sexual awakening at the same time she was going through menopause?
“You want to know what it feels like to not be the giver,” I ventured, “to let go.” He nodded.
When therapy works, past and present converse; so do the lived experiences of the patient and the therapist. Henry had learned from a very young age to follow his mother’s mood closely. When he flew into one of his rages, it was his job to smooth the edges of his anger so that his younger brothers would avoid the brunt. These grooming habits proved difficult to break. The unevenness inherent in personal growth and change was a reminder of the chaos of his childhood. So he closed the door on whole parts of himself as he focused on being the responsible family man. Now, at last, he seemed to be getting those locks.
Like Henry, I heard the lines of an inconsistent father. For my father, nothing I did was ever good enough. My perpetual sense of inadequacy led to crippling shame and a lifelong habit of prioritizing the needs of others over my own. Wanting for myself became anathema.
“I think you went from being the dutiful son to being the dutiful father,” I said one day, omitting the familiar that seemed to me. I saw the tears welling up. I continued softly, “You were always in control. Now, maybe it’s time to try something else.”
He wiped his eyes. “Maybe it is.”
Was I ready for this too?
Henry joined Grindr and had a few short-lived affairs. Learned all about the differences between Cialis, Viagra and Levitra. I helped him decide if meeting a man on a bus and asking him for coffee was a date. We talked about how to convey that just because he was male didn’t mean he was a “superior.”
“I’m definitely not a bear,” he told me once, as if he had just solved a difficult riddle.
“You’re not a bear, but are you a bear hunter?” I answered He laughed with laughter.
In my patient, I was able to follow closely what it was like to relinquish control from a clinical distance. But in my own life, the same thing felt dangerous and dizzying. In my relationship with Ben, doomed as it was, a desire arose, a desire I had always rejected. As it had happened with Henry, sex promised a means of escape from my self-denial, a way of avoiding the shame of desire. Sex with Ben became more and more primal and adventurous, closing the gap between pain and pleasure. The feeling was like being pulled by a strong ocean current, tossed and turned by the waves, until I finally resurfaced.
But as our relationship went on for a year, I found that the desire I felt for Ben could no longer be limited to sex. I wanted to wake up next to him in the morning, to be my best man at weddings, my reluctant partner at professional functions. The secrecy surrounding our relationship no longer seemed exciting; it felt degrading. Yet, trained to ignore my own needs, I continued to pretend the relationship didn’t hurt me.
“What are we supposed to do, Sarah?” Ben asked, genuinely bewildered, when I brought up my dissatisfaction. “This is what we have, can’t we enjoy it? Is it better to lose everything?” Hungry for more time, I accepted his logic, even though deep down I knew it meant giving up once again what I realized I wanted most: sharing a life. But like all rationalizations, this one only lasted so long. A year and a half into our relationship, I finally started to recognize that I wasn’t just lying to those close to me; I lied to myself.
“I found that the desire I felt for Ben could no longer remain confined to sex. … The secrecy surrounding our relationship no longer seemed exciting; it felt degrading. However, trained to ignore my own needs, I continued to pretend the relationship wasn’t hurting me.”
One day, Henry sat on the edge of his chair for our session, a mischievous expression on his face. “I’ve met someone, Doctor,” he told me, beaming. “He”is a librarianHe paused, gauging my reaction. “A very, very hot librarian.”
“That’s lovely,” I said. “I take it you’re doing a lot of reading?”
“I have a new respect for books,” he laughed. “Seriously though, I feel like for the first time I’m letting myself go, not just sexually but in life. Like, completely. It’s pretty sad that it took me to my mid-70s, huh?” He frowned sadly.
“It’s not sad.” I shot back. “Brave. You got there by letting yourself be desired. This was the first and most terrifying step. This is a strength, not a weakness. A lot of people never get there.”
I swallowed hard. I knew at that moment that what was true for Henry must be true for me as well. My relationship with Ben had run its course. Like my patient, I had allowed myself to let go and was surprised at how emotionally deep I went as a result.
But unlike Henry, I was still choosing men who left me wanting. As hard as it would be to end things with a man I truly love, something authentic would be preferable to something inauthentic. Although I had let certain appetites surface with him, a basic denial of my own longings had remained stubbornly the same. It was time to fully acknowledge that I wanted to know the parts of him, and of us, that a long-distance relationship wouldn’t allow.
“You taught me not to be afraid of my own needs,” Henry said, his voice breaking.
As my eyes filled with tears, I knew that Henry’s fearlessness had done the same for me.
Names and details have been changed to protect the privacy of people mentioned in this story.
Sarah Gundle is a psychologist living in Brooklyn with her two daughters. In addition to his private practice, he is a member of the faculty at Mount Sinai Hospital. She is currently working on a book about breakups.
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