Me (21M) and my girlfriend (19F) have been together for a year now and my confidence for sex has reached zero.

For context, she has depression and takes fluoxetine for it as well as taking hormonal contraceptives. Me, I have not been diagnosed with depression however everyone around me especially her say that they think I am depressed and should seek help however I refuse (That’s a whole separate issue).

So the thing is that throughout our entire relationship she has initiated sex less times than I’ve got fingers on one hand. At the beginning it was understandable because she found it embarrassing to initiate especially so early into a new relationship. That’s what she said so I thought, fairs, that’s okay, I don’t want to put pressure on her, sooner or later she’ll get comfortable with me and won’t find it as embarrassing. So a while after, nothing changes and she seems very comfortable with me in literally everything so I started thinking if I’m doing something wrong. Is she not wanting to initiate because she doesn’t like it and only accepts my advances to not upset me? Because since I’m the only one initiating then I’m the only one getting rejected and it also seems to happen rather often so pair that with the fact that she doesn’t initiate at all, I don’t really react too well. I get upset, however I hide it because I don’t want to upset her because she gets upset whenever I get upset. But eventually every so often I get too upset and feel the need to say something and we end up talking about it and she says that she’ll work on it because she wants me to be happy. However, this is typically short-lived. She’ll initiate once on like the same day later on or the next day and then it’s just me all the time again until we again have the conversation. The issue is that she is quite forgetful, with everything, including that. She told me once that she “forgets to initiate”. She isn’t a horrible person or anything, I know it might sound like it but believe it or not she is the most empathetic and kind person I’ve ever met, to the point where it’s annoying because she finds it difficult to not be kind, even to horrible people. But the whole forgetting to initiate kind of messed me up because I thought, if you enjoy something how do you forget to do it? Which then messed up my confidence further because I started thinking that she just doesn’t enjoy it.

Pair that with the fact that before her I was in a 2 year relationship with someone else and at the end she told me that at no point of the relationship did she actually want to have sex with me and that she was only doing it so I stayed with her. She didn’t say it out of spite or anything, we broke up on good terms. So at that point I’m just thinking, those are the only 2 girls I’ve ever had sex with, could it be possible that neither of them have ever truly wanted to have sex with me? Is my whole sex life a lie?

So back to my current girlfriend, I spoke with her recently again about this, my confidence already in pieces as it is, and asked her if she enjoys having sex with me, whether she wants to have sex with me, and what’s up with the whole “forgetting”. She said that she does enjoy it and want it but “her and sex have a difficult relationship with each other.” She then elaborated and said that she doesn’t care whether she does or doesn’t have sex. And that pretty much hit it right on the nail. How can you want to have something but not care if you don’t get it?

I’m just really beat down about it and don’t know how to make myself feel better, I’m not exactly sure as to what my question is but I’m just hoping for any suggestions as to what I can do to make this better, make my confidence not so low anymore or anything because at this point I just feel stupid any time I even think of initiating sex with her.

2 comments
  1. If she is on anti depressants then that explains it. Im on anti depressants and it pretty much kills your sex drive. Ill have sex when my partner initiates but other than that it doesnt bother me wether i do or not. That doesnt mean I dont enjoy it though just that I dont have the initiative to start it

  2. M37 – I have been on fluoxetine before and it made it almost impossible for me to cum. I already had trouble with low sex drive and cumming before taking it (which I put down to depression / anxiety) but it was worse on fluoxetine.

    It definitely messes with your sex drive. I had a lot of side effects while on it too, nausea and headaches.

    If I were you I would see if there is anything you can do to help her get through depression. If you can help her to get to the point where she can go off antidepressants things might improve. I know that helping her will be hard or might not be possible if you are also depressed.

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