Your story sounds similar to mine. My ex fiancé and I had this electric chemistry. Every day we made each other laugh so hard we cried. All the things that seemed so banal to me in the past, like getting married, buying a house, having a baby…I was elated to do those things with him.

Sex was never perfect between us. He had bipolar disorder and the medications gave him ED. He went to the doctor and got medication to help it, and it worked. But sex kept dwindling. He didn’t take the medication anymore. We had so many talks about it where he’d promise to change, but never followed through. He swore he loved me, thought I was beautiful, etc and I believe him. I loved him so much, I thought it was just something I’d have to deal with. But my resentment bled out in other ways. We starting fighting a lot. We stopped being on the same team. When it was time to fill out marriage paperwork, I physically couldn’t put pen to paper. I imagined the rest of my life without the intimacy. I imagined only getting sex to have a baby.

We ended it a year ago. I don’t hurt over it anymore, but I do miss him. Wish we could talk, wish we could be excited for each other and all the great things happening for us in our own respective lives. I still mourn the life I thought we’d have together. But so much of the time we did have was truly magical, and I don’t regret any of it. I heard a quote about life not being like a book with a buildup to a resolution - that it’s really a series of poems. And that’s how I try to look at it.

I think you can love him and love the time you had together. But you have to love yourself more.