As the title says, me and my partner haven’t had sex in 3 years. We’ve been together for nearly 6.5 years total.
Backstory: All of this started about 4 years ago when he was having some ‘performance issues’, not ED, but struggling to finish during sex. Before then, we had a very compatible, fulfilling and adventurous sex life. After this started, he started to initiate sex a lot less. Over 6 months, we would still be intimate, but I could tell he had this mental block, I tried so hard to do everything I could to keep him present in the moment, reassure him that we can still have fun etc. We still had great times, tried out new things, but they became fewer and farther between. After about 6 months, he stopped initiating at all. I kept on trying. We would do it occasionally but he wouldn’t finish and wouldn’t seem very enthusiastic. We spoke a lot and he said that he just realised he doesn’t care about sex at all, it was just fun at first because it was new to him.
Another 6 months of this go by and he started always rejecting my advances. My self-esteem and security in the relationship took a huge hit. After a few months of this, I sat him down and asked him what was going on. We had a very sad discussion, he said we just seemed like friends without intimacy and romance (during covid, no dates, no jobs, living with parents, it was rough). I agreed but it was him who was holding this up, so I didn’t understand why he would’t make an effort if he felt this. We took some time apart (still in a relationship, physically apart). We made the decision to make more effort in the relationship with romance, went on dates, everything was amazing. Honestly, I came to the conclusion that I love him more than I care about sex anyways. Maybe he was asexual and that’s ok.
Now: Fast forward 3 years from this. Our relationship has been great, we’re strong as a couple in every other way and still have non-sexual intimacy (cuddles, kisses, massages). I started to realise though that we actually haven’t even spoken about sex in 3 years. There have been lots of times where it seemed to be heading that way, and then just didn’t. I get too anxious about initiating now because I just can’t take the rejection any more. The last time i tried to initiate he said ‘why are you being weird?’. You can see why that was the last time. I think this all stems from anxiety/a mental block, but he refuses to admit to feeling anxiety of any kind.
We had a rough patch about a month ago where he was very stressed and shut me out for 2 weeks, it gave me time for my brain to run wild. I realised we also stopped speaking about the future, kids, marriage. Other aspects of our relationship changed too in the last few months, he stopped complimenting me, he started getting changed in another room, we don’t kiss beyond a long peck. It feels like we’re getting close to the point of no return which scares me to no end. We both want children and marriage (last time we checked), but he hasn’t even mentioned our future in a long time. Honestly, I think it’s because we have this huge elephant in the room. In the past, every time I bring it up he gets defensive and dismissive, like he’s embarrassed and won’t discuss it with me. I want to address this and bring sex back into our relationship, but i don’t know how. I’m ok with it being slow and hard work, I’m open to couples therapy and want to support him to visit the Dr to check his testosterone etc. I’ve written him a letter with how I feel as I wondered if this may be a better way to communicate it, without someone staring you in the face. He’s so busy at work at the moment that he doesn’t even have time to spend quality time together, he also seems very stressed so it doesn’t feel like a great time to bring it up. Sex doesn’t really cross my mind much now either, so I can see him just not thinking about it at all. I know we need to make a conscious effort to get this back, I just don’t know if he’d be willing to do the work.
What do I do? I love this man so much, I know he loves me. We live together, our lives are fully integrated. I’ve thought he was my soulmate since the day we met. He’s all that I want in a partner, I can’t imagine my life without him. He is truly everything to me and makes me so happy in every other way, but because of this issue with sex we feel extremely stalled and before I ask big questions like when/if we should get married, we need to address this. Please be kind in the replies, I’m feeling quite fragile on this and I’m looking for genuine support/help.
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TL;DR My bf and I haven’t had sex in over 3 years. We have a great relationship outside of that but this elephant in the room seems to be preventing us from moving forward. He’s very avoidant of the issue, I don’t know how to address this and bring intimacy back into our relationship.