I (f; 25) and him (m; 24) have been together for almost 7y (high school sweethearts).
He is young and inexperienced, wishes to but really struggles to provide for me and take lead, has what I would definitely classify as autistic traits, is really introverted, we only have sex every couple of months (unusual for our age), and he feels incapable of initiating. He doesn’t masturbate or watch porn either, while I sometimes do. I am rather low libido, but even I expected more.
I am in love, but have plenty of negative emotions and feel like big parts of an ideal relationship are lacking, yet I don’t want to lose him.
I’m a rather introverted, shy, controlling, restrictive person myself most of the time, and often I feel like we are too similar (a blessing and a curse) and that an active, outgoing, extroverted, leading man would be better for my mental health and my life. I’m sexually very passive, for example, but a man taking the first step, surprising me and leading me to new ideas and experiences excites me, and my boyfriend struggles a lot with that. It’s just not him, he has other perks.
He may have a low libido, he refuses to call himself gray-sexual, it may be stress at times, but I know it’s intrinsically part of his personality to be very mental and hyperfocused and get distracted and lost in thought and not notice hints or things that aren’t directly in front of him.
It usually takes continually bringing up extreme kink fantasies (like threesomes with women, and bimbos) for his instinct to awaken, most of the time he just forgets sex exists, and when he desires it, executive dysfunction prevents him from acting on or even think about his subconscious desire.
He insists I have to remind him and make him want it, and I do, but it never came natural and I don’t feel comfortable doing so in the long term.
As I grow older, I start fantasizing about imaginary guys, alternative relationships, sugar daddies, all kinds of sexual adventures, and I start seeing traditional marriage as restrictive, especially in the very long term.
When I bring this up, he tries to be open-minded, but he’s very possessive and says he couldn’t look at me like he did before if I slept with another man. And I myself worry it might permanently destroy the childlike innocence in our relationship.
Yet I start not associating our relationship with sex anymore, and mainly with problems, and see sex as this mysterious exciting thing that awaits me outside our relationship. Honestly, I’m frustrated and bored and exhausted, longing for a life that’s more simple yet exciting, and as if no matter what I’ll do or won’t do, it’s going to be wrong, feel bad and the outlook is negative.
My bf’s own ego and pre-existing insecurities had lead him to being quite sexist, cocky and pretentious (which I found cute at the time) and to pretend and try to force being someone he’s not, during great part of our relationship. He’d also taken on overwhelming responsibilities that a guy his age can’t handle alone, to prove something to himself. As I humbled him and his true personality came to the surface, he became self-aware and very self-conscious and is now at least as dissatisfied with our and his situation as me, and has begged me to help him improve and change his personality to fit his and my ideals.
I actually did need a strong, mature partner in the past, and as I noticed he wasn’t quite that and saw his struggles, for love’s sake I tried to accept him as he really is, but since that wasn’t his goal, I tried to push his ego further and empower him as I always believed in him and his vision, I took on a submissive role and sacrificed myself in the process, in order to help him grow. I was also quite delusional and through wishful thinking and forced logic I tried to convince myself to want things I didn’t want, not need things I did actually need, and I played pretend. But it’s been years, I’m getting older, I feel like I’m missing out, like my life is only struggle with close to no rewards, and that relationships should be about the present too and not only about a future vision, making life more challenging.
I’m a stay-at-home girlfriend (his desire too), and the last years were mostly centered around my relationship and me “waiting” for my boyfriend to come home, to finish college, to solve certain problems etc., and of course around assisting him. As i said, he’s quite introverted and very calm, anti-conflict and non-violent etc., so he has never forced anything on me or deliberately manipulated me, he just wished for certain things.
I took back some agency, and right now I’m trying to make it in my artistic endeavors. I took on some inconsistent online sex work to get by financially years ago, with his approval.
I’m quite emotionally unstable and generally dissatisfied with my life and past right now, and may suffer from borderline personality disorder (and things like anxiety and complex PTSD), that I mostly have in check, through self-control and a healthy lifestyle.
I’m his dream woman who he wants to have children with and he has no doubts about me being the one, he finds I’m the complete package and even adores all my flaws and is still really in love, butterflies and all.
He’s my other half and love of my life and especially our intellectual connection is irreplaceable. He’s a really handsome man, although his health visibly suffers a bit. We’re best friends too, we know everything about each other. I’m emotionally and practically dependent on him, I love him and wish him only the best.
He’s a guy with a very unproblematic past.
He’s very unique, intelligent, hard-working, determined, loving, affectionate, sweet, patient, generous and a handy man. He now finally has a stable job too and is continuing working on his career and passions.
Yet I could make a long list of all the (mostly superficial) things that I don’t like and that make me uncertain. Some icks (mundane things like, his way of speaking or the way chews food, his boring sense of humour, or how he behaves in social settings..) he gives me could also stem from some past bad experiences in our relationship, altough many things I already disliked right away, but swept under the carpet through my pink-colored glasses.
With my BPD, I go from adoring and being attached to him to being disgusted by and hating him in seconds, often times having bad moments and phases from the past come to my mind suddenly, and together with an overall dissatisfaction in life, I blow up and feel like even wanting to break up only to realize in despair and frustration that he’s the person I care about most, and that losing him would kill me, and that I should be thankful because he’s such a good, sweet person.
Most of the time, I’m calm and objective and notice both his positive and negative characteristics, and I’m just confused on whether I’m attracted to him and want this or not.
I’m also afraid I’ve just gotten so used to our relationship and deeply centered and built my entire life around it so much that there’d be no escape even if I suddenly wanted to. Since I’m quite unsatisfied right now, I wonder if I’d still choosen this relationship and route if I could turn back the time, but since I can’t, ending it is frankly not an option for me due to the intense love, affection and memories I share with my bf, including the fact that our lives (including professional, family) are extremely intertwined.
It feels like I’d have totally wasted my life and built up all this through pain and effort, for nothing, if I ended this relationship and emotionally survived it.
Seeking additional intimacy outside our relationship, even if he resigned, would hurt, since I care so much about his feelings and contentment.
I’m currently working on acceptance, compromises, lowering my standards, giving him strength, and slowly, patiently improving our relationship, but it doesn’t feel good, since, especially as a woman, I feel like I could have lived my twenties differently and I’ve been doing this for so long already.
BACKGROUND
We’re from the same town, it started out as a love at first sight fairytale, first love, we instantly felt drawn to and understood by each other. He was a virgin, I wasn’t. We were immediately included in each other’s family. He captured my heart because I had a traumatic adolescence and he gave me what I couldn’t have as a young teenager: We started out as a very innocent couple, had our first time after 1y of being together.
But I was unsure right away, because I was broke and weak at the time and with my tough past was actually looking for an older man, a provider to lead me and give me security.
I had been a very independent person up to that point and didn’t emotionally need a man, but as we grew closer, he became my second half and we became very dependent.
He was very affectionate and eager to marry and have kids soon in our lives, despite his age, and tried to allure me with hopes and dreams. He couldn’t keep up with those, as he overestimated life’s difficulties. We’ve had it rough due to his (our) high standards and unpredictable turning points in life and in the end, have worked as a team to solve all our problems, with rather little spare time.
We had a honeymoon phase in which we also were quite sexually active and happy (same kinks etc.), but in the end we couldn’t sustain it, and it didn’t come intuitive.
We now live together and spend most of our free time together.
Is all of this within the normal range of what long-term relationships and marriages just are like realistically, and are my expectations too high and influenced
by modern society? Or would you consider our relationship abnormal or toxic?
EDIT: It’s not that my ideal partner must be exactly extroverted. I just noticed with the years going by that his introversion can cause some issues, and has caused us sexual problems because I’m also introverted. Maybe just a little less introversion could solve the problem already. He isn’t just a closed person either, he often likes being social for example. Yet in sexuality, it’s become evident that he would like to act, but some barrier prevents him from being able to.
TL;DR:
My bf has some autistic traits and is an introvert (like me), which also leads to him not thinking about or initiating sex and to a “sexless” relationship of encounters only every few months. I don’t know if it’s healthy for him to force himself to change his tendencies and personality for his ego and my pleasure, and I don’t wanna leave him despite negative feelings. Is this normal?