The Space Between Them

A story about intimacy, perimenopause, and the things we don't say out loud.

"She had stopped reaching for him. Not all at once. Just gradually, the way a tide pulls back."

Sue stood at the kitchen bench waiting for the kettle to boil.

It was 9:42pm. Too late for tea really, but she wanted something to hold. Something warm. Something that gave her hands a job so her mind could stop circling the same thoughts it had been circling for months.

Chris was at the sink, rinsing his mug. He had left the overhead light off, so the room was mostly lit by the small lamp near the pantry and the blue glow from the microwave clock. The house was quiet in that particular way it became once everyone else had gone to bed. A hum from the fridge. The tap running. Chris breathing.

Sue closed her eyes.

Even his breathing irritated her now.

The thought arrived sharply and with it came the familiar punch of guilt.

She loved him. She loved this man. Loved the way he still warmed her side of the bed in winter, the way he remembered to buy the yoghurt she liked, the way he filled her car when he noticed the petrol light was on. She loved the life they had built, the children they had raised, the ordinary rhythm of their days.

So why, lately, did the sound of him breathing make her skin tighten?

Chris turned from the sink and dried his hands on the tea towel.

“Want one?” she asked, nodding towards the kettle.

“Yeah, thanks.”

His voice was gentle. Careful. They were both careful now. That was part of the problem.

He moved behind her to get a mug from the cupboard and placed one hand lightly on her waist as he passed. It was nothing. A touch he had probably made a thousand times over twenty years. A familiar touch. A married touch.

Sue’s whole body stiffened.

Not much. Not enough for anyone else to notice.

But Chris noticed.

His hand disappeared.

“Sorry,” he said.

“No, don’t be sorry.” Her answer came too quickly, too brightly.

The kettle clicked off.

For a moment neither of them moved.

Sue hated this part the most. The tiny injuries. The almost invisible ones. The way his face changed when she pulled away. The way she saw him pretend he hadn’t felt rejected.

She reached for the mugs.

“It’s just been a long day,” she said.

It was always a long day now.

Long day. Tired. Headache. Early start. Not tonight.

She had collected excuses like spare coins in a drawer. None of them were lies exactly. She was tired. Her head did ache. She did have an early start.

But none of them were the whole truth.

The truth was harder to say.

The truth was that somewhere in the last year, her body had stopped feeling like a place she lived in and started feeling like a place she had to manage. It woke her at 3am. It soaked her in heat. It forgot words mid-sentence. It stored weight differently. It dried out. It ached. It snapped at the people she loved before she could stop it.

And now, it recoiled from touch.

Not all touch. That was the confusing part.

Sometimes she wanted Chris to hold her so badly it made her chest hurt. She wanted to lean into him on the couch, to feel his arm around her, to rest her head against him and be still.

But a hug was no longer simple.

A hug could become a question.

A hand on her thigh could become a negotiation.

A kiss could become a doorway she didn’t want to walk through.

So she avoided the beginning to avoid the expectation of the end.

Chris took his tea and sat at the kitchen table.

“You okay?” he asked.

There it was again. The careful voice.

Sue stirred her tea though she hadn’t added sugar.

“I don’t know,” she said.

It surprised them both.

Chris looked up.

She could feel the words rising, but they came tangled. She wanted to say, I love you. She wanted to say, Please don’t leave me. She wanted to say, Please stop wanting me until I understand what is happening. She wanted to say, I miss myself. I miss wanting you. I miss not thinking about my body every minute of the day.

Instead she said, “I don’t feel like me.”

Chris put his mug down.

Sue stared into her tea.

“I know you think I don’t want you.”

He didn’t answer straight away.

“Do you?” he asked quietly.

The question hurt because it was fair.

She swallowed.

“I don’t know how to explain it. I love you. I want to want you. But my body…” She stopped, embarrassed by the tears already pressing at her eyes. “My body feels like it’s saying no before I’ve even had a chance to decide.”

Chris leaned back in his chair, his face unreadable.

“I thought maybe you weren’t attracted to me anymore.”

Sue looked at him then.

And there it was. The thing sitting between them all these months. Not anger. Not even resentment. Hurt.

“Oh, Chris.”

She wanted to go to him. She wanted to put her arms around him. But even that felt complicated now.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” she said. “And I’m scared if I touch you, you’ll think it means something more. And then I’ll have to either disappoint you or push myself through it.”

The words sat in the kitchen like something fragile.

Chris looked down at his hands.

“Have you been pushing yourself through it?”

Sue’s silence was answer enough.

She thought of the times she had said yes because it had been weeks. Because he had been patient. Because she felt guilty. Because she wanted to prove something to herself. Because she thought maybe if she just started, her body would catch up.

Sometimes it didn’t.

Sometimes it hurt.

Sometimes afterwards, lying beside him in the dark, she felt lonelier than she had before.

“I didn’t know,” he said.

“I didn’t either,” she whispered.

And that was the truth. She hadn’t known that desire could disappear but love remain. She hadn’t known that pain could make the body cautious. She hadn’t known that hormones could change the texture of a marriage. She hadn’t known there was a name for any of it.

She had only known that she was tired, dry, irritable, ashamed and afraid that the man she loved would eventually stop reaching for her altogether.

The kettle made a small settling sound behind her.

Chris stood, slowly this time, and came around the table. He stopped a few feet away, not touching her.

“What do you need from me?” he asked.

Sue let out a breath she didn’t realise she had been holding.

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “But I think I need us to talk about it without it becoming a fight. And I think I need help understanding what’s happening to me.”

Chris nodded.

For the first time in months, the space between them felt less like rejection and more like somewhere they could begin.

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