Hi virtual friends,
My boyfriend of 2 1/2 years, who became long distance about a year ago, is completely disinterested in sex. No, he's not cheating. He's not like that and I just know he's not -- just to get that out of the way. He was sort of never really that into sex, but I thought it was nice at first to be with a guy who didn't want to get laid 24-7.
Well, it's progressively gotten worse to the point where we hardly ever have sex, and if we do it's always my initiation and he is barely into it. We only see each other once a week, every three weeks if we're lucky. And so many times those weekends have passed without him touching me in a sexual way. And many times he's pushed me away when I've tried to initiate sex -- saying he's too tired, not in the mood, etc. It's heartbreaking to me and makes me feel fat, undesirable, unattractive and it lowers my self esteem and confidence.
So... we're still together of course, with its ups and downs because of the long distance, but all in all aside from the sex issue things have been going really well.
Here's the funny twist though -- He's very affectionate and lovey-dovey with me. He holds my hand and kisses me and tickles me and holds me in bed while we're sleeping -- but, it's almost in the way that you would be affectionate to a kitten or a baby. Everyone thinks we're the perfect couple and that we're so in love (which we are, aside from the fact that we're barely having sex)
I spoke with his ex (they were together for about 2 years) some time ago and she told me that hewas completely disinterested in sex with her too, and after a while she stopped even attempting to initiate it because it hurt her feelings so much. She said that toward the end of their relationship, 9 months had gone by where they didn't have sex even once!!
That said, I don't think that it is "me", because I still attempt it but, like his ex, I am having my self esteem shot down when he rejects me and pushes me away. And he never initiates anything and is quite content to just fall asleep together after a quick kiss every night. I feel like it's almost a non-issue with him; like he would be perfectly fine being in a relationship and just not having sex... but that's not how I feel at all, and it's not going to fly with me. And I feel damaged by his rejections. I know he doesn't mean to make me feel this way, but it's destructing me and our relationship.
Things came to a head last night, as he was down visiting me for five nights in a row and never initiated anything sexual nor did he bring up the issue of our sex life. And so around 11pm when he was falling asleep I brought it up and was hurt and crying and he blew it off and said he just needed his sleep and would talk about it some other time. But he never wants to talk about it no matter how often I bring it up -- it's always a "bad time" or he has other "more important" issues to deal with.
I'm beginning to think that this is a pattern in his relationships and that there is nothing I can do to change him to make him more sexually attracted to me -- that perhaps his lack of truly allowing any real intimacy or perhaps feeling so close to me that I'm more like a family member or something than a girlfriend? I don't know what it is, and when I've asked him he says he doesn't know why he's not sexually attracted to me either.
I can't be in a sexless relationship, and from what his ex told me, it's not abnormal for him to become this way in a long term relationship. I think to the future of getting married and possibly having children, and think, how could we even have children if he never wants to have sex with me?!
What does everyone think I should do? How can I bring this up so that he'll deal with it? Help!!!
Diane von Furstenberg
Temperley London
Nicole Farhi
He's gay.
1I am going to have to agree with Luisa on this one. All signs point towards that direction.
"We are all the same colour when you turn off the lights"
2Forget about if he's gay or just has a super-low sex-drive.
The bottom line is that you KNOW what you want, and what you want is a relationship that involves sex. For whatever reason, he can't/won't give that to you. And not only that, he doesn't want to discuss it with you.
Tell him you don't want a sexless life or sexless marriage and he either needs to figure out what's up and fix it, or you're out of there. Just make sure you're ready to be "out of there" if he doesn't follow through.
3I agree with pop. Whether he is gay or just doesn't want that much sex, you obviously can't deal with it. And to answer your question: "How can I bring this up so that he'll deal with it? " I think what pop said is your best bet, tell him he needs to talk to you about it and figure something out or you are gone. Because right now, he is perfectly happy, so unless you give him a reason to change he isn't going to. And I actually think that is another one of his problems...you would think that making you happy would be enough incentive for him to at least try and address your problem...I would at least. So that's just something else to think about...I would have more of a problem with the fact that he doesn't even try to work out problems between the two of you than the sex problem.
4I have to agree with Luisa. He is gay. Either that, or he has an abnormally low sex drive. But I still think it is more likely the case that he is gay and not out of the closet yet. Is it possible that he is sexually involved with a man that you do not know about, particularly since this is a long distance relationship? He could be having random sexual encounters with men, that you don't know about. I really, really hope that you are using condoms all of the time, because women can contract HIV from this situation. Anal sex is high risk and if he is doing this with other men, he could really be putting you at risk here.
I know that you don't want to hear this, but I have known quite a few men that were gay and not out of the closet yet. Some of them had gf's but did not want sex, just like this situation.
5It is just very unusual for a man to not want sex at all. I think that he cares about you a lot, and possibly really loves you, but just not sexually.
But the situation just is not fair to you, obviously you want to have sex. I imagine that it must be very difficult as a gay man to come out because it is just not accepted by our society. I would suggest that you check his computer's history for gay porn. If you find any, you have your answer because straight men would never view gay porn.
But either way here, you are not happy (rightfully so) and I think that you need to find out what is really going on. Because if this is actually a case of low sex drive, there could be a medical problem that might be fixable (for example, testosterone shots). But if you think this is what is going on, and he won't access medical help, then it's probably only fair to yourself that you end the relationship.
Good luck to you and I hope that you find out what is really going on.
i agree. he wants the girlfriend around to have a girl friend and also to keep up appearances so other people don't question him. he doesn't even want to deal with the issue so usually thats what it means. he just doesn't want to be physical with you. i have plenty of openly gay friends who are very affectionate with their girl friends. he barely ever sees you and he'll pull the "i'm tired" thing to get out of being intimate with you. if i don't see my boyfriend for more than a day i can't get him off of me.
my signs point ot him being gay or he has an extremely low sex drive and/or some type of dysfunction that he's embarrassed about. he needs to see a doctor or a therapist. maybe even both.
and you need to find someone else. you can't change him, neither could his exes and this problem isn't going to go away. it will only get worse over time and you will continue to make yourself unhappy.
6I def. agree with Luisa.. it's either that or he has some kind of erectile problem and doesn't want to be embarrassed..
7Post A Comment
To post comments, please log in or register.