“We came out together. It felt safe because we had similar...

“We came out together.  It felt safe because we had similar backgrounds.  We’d both been in long-term relationships with men, so we didn’t need to explain ourselves.  Everything felt comfortable.  She was the chaser at first.  She had no brakes.  It was a Big Love: really fast, really deep, really far.  And she was the one who first verbalized it.  She put a name to it.  We came back from a holiday in Beirut, and she said: ‘Now this is a serious relationship.’  And from that moment things began to change.  Now I’m the chaser.  I always feel anxious about her true feelings.  I see every little thing as a rejection.  Like when she goes to sleep without saying goodnight.  Or when I see her spontaneously smile with her children, in a way that she doesn’t with me.  And then there’s touch.  I need it.  It helps calm my anxieties.  It gets me out of my mind.  It can be really small, just two seconds on the back of the neck, and I can feel grounded again.  But without it I feel complete rejection.  And she didn’t have a problem with it for the first six months.  But now she says she feels a bit cramped.  She needs a little space.  And then I wonder if it’s me.  I think of my dad.  Always needing hugs, always needing kisses, always needing reassurance, too much, too much, too much.  My mother felt suffocated.  So I think: ‘Maybe it’s me.’  And honestly, when I think it’s a problem with me, for a moment I feel reassured.  Because that means it’s not a problem with us.”
(Amsterdam, The Netherlands)