I (22M) am frustrated and don’t know how I’ll make it through a 1 year LDR with my girlfriend (23F) of 5 years

TL;DR
My gf of 5 years and I will be going into LDR this September. I’ve been feeling sexually frustrated in the relationship recently and feel somewhat neglected when we are restricted to only communicating over the phone when we’re not together. I don’t know how we’re gonna make it through a year of LDR, especially with all the new influences and people that are obviously going to enter my life in the very near future. Any advice would be appreciated…

My (22M) girlfriend (23M) of 5 years will be going into a year of long distance this September, when I start my master’s degree in our home country. She’s finishing up her degree this year and wants to come back then as well.

We were on vacation together a couple weeks ago and we had an amazing time together, but for several months I’ve been feeling quite sexually unsatisfied. I want to explore my sexuality and try new things out, spice things up. I bought us new toys to try on this trip where we could just be with each other. I wanna explore kinks and discover our bodies and consider sex and intimacy as a deep bonding between us. There’s been times when it’s been amazing, which is why I’ve never given up – I know what’s ‘possible’ from her side, because she’s made me feel so insanely amazing.

But recently, she constantly rejects my advances, to where when she initiates I feel like I have to go for it, even when Im not in the mood, or bitter, because it feels like “its the only chance I get”. Afterwards I often feel kind of shitty and empty and impulsively start aimless arguments. Sex and intimacy is super important to me, but I find myself not wanting to cuddle afterwards and more annoyed than really in ecstasy (which used to never be the case!). On this trip, we spent so much quality time together and we loved it. I put in extra effort to speak her love language, so I organised activities, took care of her and also made sure to be just her bestie, which is what she needs to feel loved. Yet the love didn’t feel reciprocated…

This is where the long-distance comes in. She’s currently on vacation with her childhood best friend will stay with her for about one more week. I obviously completely understand she’s busy and doesn’t have much time to text at the moment. The thing is, my girlfriend is terrible at texting in general. I usually don’t hear from her for hours and hours on end, she doesn’t send me updates of where shes at or pictures of her vacation, or respond to any flirts or pics I send to her. Well she does respond, but literally just that – she doesn’t flirt back to pictures or ask anything back.

When she does send pictures it’s because I have to ask and they aren’t (for lack of a better word) ‘creative’. It just seems so effortless when she does text me back… Over the course of the day I’ll send her pictures, updates to my day, funny pictures of my dog, a couple flirts etc. 15 hours later I receive a one word reply to every single thing I sent; so if I started with a flirty picture, followed up by a sad text or update to my day several hours later, they both receive the same attention in her basic replies, a day later when the spur of the moment is gone.

I fully understand that she is quite busy with her friend, but she is like this also when she’s alone – she’s just a bad texter. Additionally, she also doesn’t call me, or initiate a conversation, making me feel so neglected and dumb for sending things to her all day long or trying to call her and it just being declined 9/10 times. Again, in person things are fine and we always have so much fun together, but texting is just so disenchanted…

I just don’t see how we will make it work through long distance. I need the flirty and playful attention, and the small hints of intimacy to feel loved. I won’t be able to receive either of these when we’re in LDR, and I’m terrified that I’ll just build (more) resentment and frustration. And either I’ll be unhappy in the relationship because I won’t feel the love I need, but I’m even more terrified that I’ll go monkey-brain and jeopardise the relationship due to it, making stupid mistakes. I’ll be in an entirely new social field, make new friends, meet new people. These were opportunities I feel I didn’t maximise when I started my bachelor’s, because I was in a relationship, and she was in the same university as me, living basically with me. Everything will be new, I’ll have a clean slate and she won’t be part of it because of the physical distance, but also emotionally because I just feel so boxed in, frustrated and sulky.

All in all, there’s been this subliminal frustration brewing inside of me for several months, regardless of having to go into LDR. I’ve communicated this to her so often already. She tries, she says, but I just feel this September ‘deadline’ creeping up slowly, and I don’t know how we’ll do it after then. We’re planning on seeing each other once a month at least, but I don’t know how that will be sufficient to explore the intimacy try new things, especially if I just show up with this pent up frustration. We still have one trip planned together (although we’ll be with my family) before splitting, so maybe things will resolve themselves then.

I just feel quite hopeless at this stage, so I’m turning to reddit what I should do?

Thank you for reading! <3