Six Years, No Goodbye: What I Learned About Love (and Myself)
Six years is a long time to love someone. Long enough to build routines, inside jokes, and that shorthand where you can tell how your partner feels just by the way they sigh. When we met, I was in love, no doubt about it. For years, we were good. But the truth about love, identity, and who we really are has a way of showing up whether you are ready or not.
Ours wasn’t a breakup with slammed doors or final words left unsaid. It was more like a mirror being held up, one we couldn’t look away from anymore. We were both headed in different directions, and we could feel it. For months there was a heaviness between us, almost like we knew where this was going. We held on because it was familiar, because six years is hard to let go of. The love was still there, but over time that love began to take a different shape.
When we first started dating, she was presenting as male. For the first few years of our relationship, that was simply who we were together. Then, two or three years in, she came out as trans. I was proud of her for being so open and honest with me. I told her that, and it didn’t feel like a big adjustment to start calling her my girlfriend instead of my boyfriend. I was still very much attracted to her and still very much in love.
For most of my life I thought of myself as pansexual. Gender didn’t matter when it came to who I was drawn to emotionally or romantically, and for a long time I believed that. But slowly my attraction to men became stronger and my attraction to women started to fade. I didn’t want to admit it at first. It came with a heaviness I couldn’t shake. I found myself pulling inward, hiding in writing, in music, in anything that made the noise in my head quieter.
The guilt was overwhelming. I loved my partner, and I still do in many ways. Attraction is fluid, and it doesn’t always make sense, but my heart kept turning toward men. At some point my love for her shifted from romantic to platonic. It broke me to realize that, but it also freed me. I’ve always had a soft spot for twinkish, otterish, playful younger energy. It felt unfair to deny that or shame myself for wanting it. Everyone has types, and as long as you lead with kindness and respect, there is nothing wrong with knowing yours.
When the breakup finally came, it was easier than I expected. We were both in a reflective place, and she was the first to say maybe we weren’t right for each other anymore. I had been open about my growing attraction to men, and she understood. She told me we shouldn’t be together in that way. And instead of fear or anger, what I felt in that moment was relief. Relief that I was allowed to ask for the kind of love I truly wanted. We promised we would support each other, and that was enough.
The lesson I took from it is simple. Sometimes the best love story you can have is the one you have with yourself. I am grateful for those six years. Our love didn’t die, it evolved. And because of it, I stand here now as a proud gay man, finally able to embrace who I am and the kind of love I know I deserve.
© Dereck Pritchard, 2025. All Rights Reserved.
