Advice?
My gf (24f) and I (25m) have been together for 5 years. When we first met, everything seemed perfect inside and outside of the bedroom, typical honeymoon phase stuff. When we met, she claimed to be “very sexual for a girl”, whatever that means. We had sex all the time and it wasn’t just frequent but it was the best sex ever. Over the next few years, the frequency and quality of our sex started to trend downward. I always figured this was normal when people are together for a while, so I wasn’t extremely concerned. Everything was fine outside of the bedroom and we got along just as good as ever.
When I’d ask her about it, she’d things like “I don’t want it because it hurts, I’m tired, you only think about sex, etc.” It hurts or she’s tired? Perfectly understandable reasons to not be interested. Me only thinking about sex whenever I take her on dates constantly, perform acts of service for her, have always been patient and understanding up to this point? Bullshit.
I tried to be patient as months went by and nothing changed. I tried suggesting alternatives to penetration since she experiences pain, normal stuff, making out, giving/receiving head, etc. She then says she doesn’t enjoy any of that. She says she ONLY enjoys our life outside of the bedroom and PIV, although we rarely do it because she experiences pain due to ovarian cysts, hormones, etc. I ask if this is because I’m not satisfying her and she says nope, she never enjoyed anything sexual other than PIV to begin with.
What’s weird about this is that when we first met, this girl was down for just about anything together and was often the one initiating. She’d sit on my face, even use my dick to rub my cum off her face and into her mouth and swallow, all while having a huge grin, acting playful, etc.
The infrequent and vanilla sex continued into year 4, where we only had sex twice the entire year. No giving/receiving of oral, no making out, just PIV while she laid there and I did all the work. Obviously, great difference in libido started to have a strain on our relationship. It became a source of concern for me, because we’re not married, don’t have kids, and are still in school. She’s in graduate school and I’m on my last semester of my bachelor’s. We’re not even fully “in the real world” as adults, yet are having problems that I thought wouldn’t arrive until kids came into the picture, we have careers, all that.
Over this year of not being intimate, she made a million promises to work on it that never panned out. Eventually, one day I got mad because I began to just feel hurt all the time. The lack of intimacy was making me feel unloved. Heck, I was lucky to get cuddles or a peck on the lips throughout that time, although I’d still give her massages and rub her feet and stuff all the time. I felt used. When I expressed that this hurt was turning into anger, she basically said she doesn’t know that any of this will ever change and that I needed to accept it. We argued for about an hour and then called it a night. The next morning, we started arguing more through text and she dumped me in my attempt to express that I wanted to feel more loved.
After a couple days, she suggested we get back together. This was a few weeks before Christmas. Though somewhat reluctant, I did it because I love her. She says she’s willing to try to work on things.
January rolls around, and to my surprise, we start kissing more often again (just pecks throughout the day nothing more), cuddling more again, and even had sex three times in the month, which was already once more than the entire last year. At first, it felt great. My confidence was back to normal and everything was dandy. All three times, she wanted nothing but penetration, saying she “just wants dick” and that’s it. Am I crazy or selfish for thinking this is abnormal and very awkward?
I now fear that she wasn’t being her true self when we met and that she love bombed me until she knew she had me. Either that, or maybe I just wasn’t prepared for the problems that can come with serious commitment?
Any thoughts or advice are appreciated.
Extra info:
-we’ve lived together for 3 years
-she says that it’s “not me” when I ask if I’m not enough, stating she has no desire for sex with other people even, and that I’m “good in bed”
-we both had other sexual partners before this, but this is both of our’s first “real” relationship
5 comments
It sounds like she’s happy not having sex for the indeterminate future and you need to decide if that’s ok with you.
Do you understand her sexual accelerators and brakes? Does she? Grad school can be intense and exhausting and is definitely not helping her want to have more sex. It can be helpful to identify what her gas and brakes are like so you can see if some of these are temporary things (grad school) or more permanent (is this grad school setting her up for an intense and stressful career).
The fact that she isn’t willing to meet you anywhere between non sexual contact and piv is telling. Maybe she doesn’t know what her body likes and she’s not willing to devote energy to finding out. Maybe she doesn’t want to have sex and is looking for an excuse.
It’s been a year of this. You’re in your mid 20s. Sexual compatibility is worth making relationship decisions for. Unless you can find something specific that’s killing sex for you guys that is fixable it may be time to move on unless you’ll be happy with this for the next several decades.
>The frequency and quality of our sex started to trend downward.
I’d say this is normal to expect to some extent, such as you both getting bored with old ways and starting to try out new techniques in bed to keep it fresh, all the time. Just because you’ve been with anyone for a long time, does not equate to less or worse sex. If anything, a healthy relationship will lead to increasingly better orgasms.
Sexual compatability is worth ending a relationship over. It’s something to really sit down with a pro/con list to weigh out – consider.
This guide, which was partly written for folks dealing with sexual mismatches in a relationships, might be useful for you. Actually, it’d be useful for BOTH of you, if your partner is open to reading it but you can always start on your own: https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Bedroom-Repair-Manual-comprehensive-ebook/dp/B08M3WL3XJ
From everything you wrote, I feel like you’d benefit from it. Author is a psychologist who used Redditors as a major part of her research.
Is she asexual? She wanted to go a whole year without basically any sex. If you get married, you may encounter this same situation. You might be in a sexless marriage. I don’t think that’s fun at all and that’s even more commitment right there. Maybe you should rethink this whole relationship before spending a longer time together or committing to marriage.
I think you deserve better. I’d consider ending this relationship, even if you love her. She’s not being fair to you, and that unfair treatment has been going on far too long.