Ask Anna: What to do when a partner wants ‘space’ (2024)

Ask Anna is a sex column. Because of the nature of the topic, some columns contain language some readers may find graphic.

Dear Anna,

I do a lot of travel for work, which makes it difficult to maintain monogamous relationships. About six years ago, I decided to try dating as an openly non-monogamous person, and for five years, it was going fine. Until I met this woman. When we met, we clicked immediately, and within a month, she was booking flights to meet me in different cities around the county, and I was trying to get back to her hometown as often as possible.

I was really falling for her, and she also let me know that she’d been seeing someone back where she lives who really wanted a monogamous relationship. She doesn’t necessarily want that, but the idea of stability, she admitted, was also pretty wonderful. She told me that she feels a little stuck. She’d already had the tearful conversation with her other partner and explained to him that she really didn’t know what she wanted yet.

She told me that as deeply as she cares for me, yes, the distance is hard. She genuinely doesn’t know if she wants to be with me, her other partner, both of us or neither of us. I shared some of what I wrote with her, and she told me she wanted to do some writing of her own.

She asked for space for the time being. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I’m now living in this fear that without seeing her, she’ll fall more into her other relationship. She’ll remember our time fondly, but it will only be a memory. I don’t know how to give her the space she needs without admitting the relationship might be over. — Polly In Love

Dear PIL,

Limbo is the toughest spot to be in when it comes to relationships — especially long-distance ones. You asked how to give her space, and the answer is to simply give her space. Don’t text her, don’t call. Don’t engage on social media. Just let it breathe, and let it be. It’s what she needs right now, and breaking a boundary that she’s set isn’t going to make her look any more kindly upon you or your situation.

I understand your fears truly and deeply. I’m going through a similar situation myself right now. I realize that “do nothing” is infuriating advice. But it really is the only advice in this situation. Letting her figure things out for herself is how you be a good partner to her now. If she wants to be with you, she will be. If she doesn’t, then she doesn’t, and no amount of brow-beating or hand-wringing will change that.

It’s OK to let go a little and focus on yourself (or others! There are lots of ways to express love to people.) during this period of time before you next see her. Letting go doesn’t mean giving up. It doesn’t mean you’ve resigned yourself to her walking away from you. It only means not allowing the swirling anxiety of “what if” to become the story you live by each day until you get an answer.

You mentioned writing as a way to process through this, and I think that’s an excellent outlet. One of the hardest things to manage when our beloveds are away from us is that we have all this love and nowhere to put it. In reiki, the definition of grief is when love has no place to go. To that end, give your love a home and write to her. You don’t have to send it. (Indeed, you probably shouldn’t send it.) Tell her how you’re feeling, how you’re faring with this, what you’re up to. Tell her your pains and your joys. Tell her what you love about her and what you miss.

Maybe once you reconnect, the words you write now can act as a springboard to other, deeper conversations, but they don’t have to. They could also simply be a way for you to shine a little light into this dark space where you find yourself at the moment.

Hang in there, PIL. You can’t know the future until it happens. Choose to exist in its brightness, and not go thinking every bud is destined to die in this winter soil before it has the chance to blossom.