My husband and I have been together 31 years. Thirty-one. And about eighteen months ago something shifted and I genuinely did not have words for it at the time, I just knew I was... absent. Like my body had quietly changed the locks and not told me. Sex became uncomfortable. Then painful. I started making excuses and he didn't push, because he's kind, but I could feel this gap opening up between us and I didn't know how to explain it because I barely understood it myself. I thought maybe I just didn't fancy him anymore, which was its own horrible spiral to be in. It was only reading things here that I went, oh. Oh this is a thing. This has a name. GSM apparently, which sounds like a mobile network but is not. I've written some notes down for my GP because I know I'll go in there and my brain will go blank and I'll say "I've been a bit tired" and walk out with nothing. So I've written: dryness, pain during sex, recurring UTI-type feelings that come to nothing on the dipstick. Just the facts, on paper, so I can hand it over if I lose my nerve. I haven't talked to him yet. My husband. I keep almost doing it and then finding something urgent to do in the kitchen. But I think I need to. I think he deserves to understand what's been happening, because right now he probably thinks it's him and it absolutely isn't. Anyway. 58 years old and writing about my sex life on the internet. Here we are. x