To keep a very long story short, I’ve been dating this man for 2 years now. He’s a genuinely nice person who deeply cares about our relationship and about me, and he is pretty emotionally mature in ways that I don’t expect from cis men. I met him shortly after I had to deal with a friend s**** assaulting me and we started dating while I was dealing with the fallout. He was mature enough to realize that I was probably getting into a relationship because I needed stability and love back then, which is something I don’t want to admit is true because I deeply care about him now. I wasn’t initially super physically attracted to him, but because it usually takes years for me to be sexually into someone I figured it would happen eventually and I really enjoyed spending time with him in the mean time.
While things seemed passionate at first, my libido has taken a serious hit in the last year while his seems to have increased. I want sex maybe once a week, every two weeks, while he wants it daily at least. I used to fantasize about giving bjs to people I liked, but I don’t do that anymore about him. Part of it is that his dick is much bigger than any I’ve been with before and repeated incidents of nausea and discomfort have made my brain start associating those feelings with any instance his dick goes into my mouth. It doesn’t help that I’ve been dealing with allergy-induced chronic nausea and stomach pain, so sex has gotten much worse in general.
In this period that he tried to respect my boundaries and not push me too hard (which there were instances where that happened anyway thanks to my trauma-brain telling me I had to to make him happy) he got really into porn. Which would be fine, I can enjoy it too, but he’s masturbating multiple times a day and still not ending up satisfied. I think it has to do with an ongoing sex addiction, but he is very reluctant to go to therapy or see a doctor about it. He says he doesn’t enjoy vaginal sex anymore and maybe never fully did, while I now have hang ups about oral sex with him. I was resorting to vaginal sex to satisfy him even when I wasn’t interested and now I found out he might have felt forced into those encountered because I was trying to act like I wanted it.
I thought earlier this year that maybe it was my birth control and stress mixing into an awful combination, but I changed brands and that hasn’t really helped. We bought a vibrator too to play around with the kink stuff that I used to enjoy, but even that only makes me wet, it doesn’t really arouse me or make me want him.
The upsetting part is, I am attracted to other people right now sexually. I’ve been having countless sex dreams about a messy ex and seeing him in person made me break out into jealous fits when I saw him interested in other people. When I reconnected with a old friend, we ended up sharing a tent for warmth and my body felt like it was on fire whenever I brushed up against her. We ended up cuddling and she seemed really into it, even asking me if I wanted a casual relationship. I really, really wanted to say yes because I felt so hot and starved for intimacy, but I don’t want to cheat so I turned her down.
I thought maybe it was just a heat of the moment thing, that it would pass and I’d use that energy to reconnect with my partner instead, but I still don’t feel as attracted to him as I’d felt to her, even in that brief moment. As I said, he is very perceptive and has been aware of my attraction issues from the start, even if he didn’t open up to me about it until now. I still don’t want to confirm that I’m not as attracted to him as he is to me, because I feel that would be worsening his own struggles with self-worth, suicidal thoughts and depression that have already been impacting our relationship outside of this. We talked about what an open relationship would look like for us, and while he likes the idea of getting to find a person who’s libido matches his while still dating me, he is still a very Christian and monogamous person at heart and just wants the problem in our relationship to be fixed.
He’s also straight whereas I’m pansexual, so while I wouldn’t necessarily mind having a girl in our relationship it still irked me that I wouldn’t be able to mess around with men in the same way. I can get very insecure about how non-feminine my body looks, so having a girl in our relationship might not be smart for things long term, but he has outright banned me from bringing any man into our relationship in this scenario because of his overprotectiveness and jealousy.
Despite all the hardships in this relationship, I can’t bear to let go, whether it is out of love or some burning desire to prove I can do better. I want our relationship to improve and I deeply care about him platonically at least, but I don’t know if it’s fair to either of us to put up with this level of sexual dysfunction and mental health drama until we both somehow work through our nonsense.
Do I stick it out? Should we try an open relationship? Do I make it clear that he has to go to therapy for if we stay together? What can I do to meet him halfway? Is that even possible?
1 comment
Therapy seems to be a good option for the both of you! Is he diagnosed with sex addiction? Or does he just have a high libido? Very different.
Like everything in life, try talking with him about how you feel. He seemed to respect you in the past, hopefully he will also respect you now and maybe you both can find a solution for what’s happening.
For the “sexual thoughts” about other people, try to not punishing yourself too much for having these thoughts BUT keep in mind to never never never act upon them when you are in a relationship.
An open relationship won’t fix the deep problems inside the relationship. It’s a distraction.