[englishrose]

I hope some one can help: I just don’t know what to do!

My boyfriend of 2 years just doesn’t want sex. We average sex just once a month and what we do have is short-lived and seems more a case of him relieving himself than an act of love. I can’t discuss this with friends or family as it’s too weird to talk about that kind of thing. I try to talk to him about it but he gets sulky and unresponsive: the most I’ve got out of him is that he doesn’t know why.

The situation has left me feeling unattractive, neglected and like I”m too much of an effort. I’ve never been “high-maintenance” and others have described me a beautiful, so surely that can’t be it: he chose to go out with me right? It hurts even more that I recently lost 20lbs and felt amazing, yet our sex life dwindled and he seems to treat me more like a friend or sister than his lover. I don’t know if I should even bother with the relationship any more. I’ve ended up stopping trying to initiate sex since it just results in rejection that if he does seem interested I have started pushing him away.

If we’re out with friends he makes jokes about sex, including between him and I, and speaks about it in a really vulgar way. I want to scream at him when he does that: why does he laugh about sex when we don’t get any?!

I love him but I just can’t go on like this. Is there a way out of this misery?!

Thanks in advance for any help and advice!

[Ask April Masini]

First of all, it’s hard to advise you because you haven’t told me your ages. Seventeen year old men naturally have different sex drives and physiology than seventy-seven year old men, so age matters!

You’ve also neglected to tell me how long you’ve been averaging sex once a month. This is important because if your relationship started out like this, and now at the two year mark you suddenly don’t like what was always the norm, that’s a different problem than if your boyfriend has stopped wanting much sex over the last six to nine months. A change in your sex life is more of a problem than a waking up and realizing this has never been the sex life you’ve truly wanted.

That said, your boyfriend’s response to your trying to bring this subject up is not acceptable, and a deal breaker. You need to tell him that it’s important to you to discuss this problem even if it makes him uncomfortable – and that he can rest assured it makes you uncomfortable, too, but that breaking up over it is not something you want to do, but that’s on the table, too.

If he cares more about your relationship together than about this problem, he’ll meet you halfway. If he doesn’t, you need to walk away from him. Misery is not an option here.

First and foremost he needs a physical exam with a doctor to rule out any medical problem — or psychological problems — that are causing his lack of desire. Medications he’s taking can easily cause this problem, and can be adjusted IF the doctor gets an honest assessment of health from your boyfriend.

Second, your boyfriend needs to be honest with you about what’s bothering him and why his sex drive with you has dwindled. Is he having sex elsewhere? Under stress he hasn’t revealed to you? You need to share information and find out what else is going on.

Third, you need to ask him what he’d like you to do to pique his interest. If he feels you’ve both fallen into a rut and he wants things spiced up, he may be too embarrassed to ask you for this change, and you have to make it okay for him to tell you his more honest desires. This calls for real intimacy — not the kind where you’re both naked in bed, but the kind where you’re both bare naked emotionally. This is a building block of relationships, and probably where your real problems lie.

Let me know if this helps at all — you deserve to be healthy and happy in a relationship and while sex is often a place where couples compromise, it doesn’t sound like there’s much of a compromise here going on at all.

[englishrose]

Thanks so much for your advice.

Apologies. To clarify, I’m 28 and my boyfriend is 26. We used to have a fairly reasonable sex life, especially considering we both live in separate, shared houses. He shies away from talking about sex in a close way but speaks about it flippantly and coarsely with his friends (and holds little back to the point that I’m sometimes offended by his comments). My past has been rather unpleasant at times, including abuse as a child but I have come through so much and feel I can trust him implicitly: I’m 98% sure he’s not getting it anywhere else. I am concerned about the possibility of something medical being the reason. He had surgery when he was only about 5 years old but seems more than ok in requesting I pleasure him orally. He’s prone to laziness so I end up feeling like he just can’t be bothered with making the effort when it comes to me. There’s very little tenderness, certainly in comparison to the way I see my friends with their partners. I’m trying to work out now if he is just selfish?!

Thanks again for your help.

[Ask April Masini]

Knowing that your boyfriend is only 26 really helps me advise you that something is wrong. Most 26 year old men have pretty hearty sex drives, so either he has a medical problem, he’s not into you, or as you just proposed, he’s inordinately lazy. If it’s the latter, you’ll notice this behavior in other parts of his life that up until now you may have ignored.

I think you may be on the verge of a deal breaker in this relationship. You are both way too young to have a two year relationship with sex only once a month unless something else is wrong.

If the two of you (did you hear me use the number TWO?? 😉 ) can’t work this through together in the next month, using the advice I’ve given in my prior post and your own ideas, then it’s time for you to cut your losses and go find Mr. Right. This guy doesn’t sound like he’s it.

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