I have been with my boyfriend for a little over a year. Outside of sex, he’s absolutely wonderful. I am his first long term relationship. We connect really well, and even still to this day when we are laying in bed giggling I get butterflies. I slowly and deeply fell for him, different from anything I’ve experienced before. He actively shows me he wants to spend time with me, his gifts are super thoughtful, he consistently makes time for me (ie making sure to text me good morning and good night and just checking up throughout the day). He is super great with my friends and family as well. Everyone enjoys him, as all my previous relationships were pretty bad.
However, he is not very great at expressing his love. He says he tries to show it through actions because he’s never been good at verbally expressing emotions (we still communicate other issues effectively though). He has never called me beautiful. He has never talked about his attraction to me physically or sexually. He sometimes calls me cute. That’s all I get. I always have to say I love you first. I’ve sent deductive photos only three times. The first he didn’t respond at all. The second he only responded with fire emojis and then proceeded to talk about video games. The third he responded with heart eye emojis. I confronted him about it and told him about how it made me feel and he said he thought the emojis were a compliment and he’s not good at expressing stuff. He doesn’t ask for them. So I stopped sending them. Our texting is never sexual.
Our sex life is….not the greatest. Let me start by saying I am a big girl. He is a small guy. He is also pretty small in the package department. So we have to work hard to get it right if you know what I mean. However, since the beginning he has only initiated sex twice. He also loses his hardness easily. He says it’s performance anxiety. He is pretty quiet during sex. He doesn’t really get into it. He doesn’t try to dirty talk back with me. He’s pretty vanilla. He also never offers oral. He’s only gone down on me twice and he says it’s cause he’s not experienced or good at it. One of the times he initiated sex was in the shower and I turned him down (cause big girl and showers don’t mix) and since he refuses to shower with me.
We talked about the hardness issue and and the lack of initiative and I told him I feel like he isn’t attracted to me. He says that’s not true, that he wouldn’t be with me if he wasn’t attracted to me. And he’s a fairly honest genuine guy, so I told him I wanted him to see about his T levels and maybe viagra. He still hasn’t done either. I also talked to him several times about complimenting me more. He said he will try to better. But he still doesn’t.
I was straddling him in my bean bag chair and I was trying to get him going but he wasn’t reactive so I asked him “do you never just get turned on by me, is it only when you happen to be in the mood?” And he said yes. And then he got annoyed I was still straddling him. And I cried. He came to comfort me and he said he does find me attractive and he wouldn’t be with me if he didn’t. He just hardly is in the mood like that. So, I decided to what you shouldn’t do; invade privacy while he was asleep. I didn’t find anything. His phone is quite boring. It’s just a lot of gaming stuff. He doesn’t have anyone he texts aside from me (after he got sober 5 years ago from drinking he just works and games and plays music). Just before I was about to put it back I realized he uses an incognito browser sometimes. So I clicked on it, and my heart dropped. It was a Reddit thread and the title was something along the lines of poster not being attracted to their girlfriend. The details were about a trans man and trans woman and how they love them but aren’t attracted to them anymore. This was right after our attraction conversation. I didn’t and haven’t told him I’ve seen it but I did talk to him again and basically gave him an out by saying if he’s just trying to not hurt my feelings now is the time for him to be honest and he said he just wants to be with me and he loves me and is attracted to me and he’s not the type to lie or lead someone on like that. He said he just wants to make me happy and he said he will try harder at complimenting me and reassuring me.
Every relationship I have ever been in or anyone I’ve ever dated has wronged me. Cheating, lying, hiding drugs, using me for sex. I can’t help but assume the worst. I can’t help but think he’s lying. I have no clue what to do or say. We even just bought a PS5 together and have talked about moving in together.