Couples therapy: My partner is frightened and apprehensive about … – iNews
Each week i asks experts to answer readers’ questions about love, sex and relationships
I have been with my boyfriend for nearly eight years. We met at Glastonbury and he’s the funniest person I’ve ever known. We have good times together and he’s the opposite of me – he’s very extroverted and confident. He has brought me out of myself and we have built a stable little life for ourselves. He’s dependable, hard-working and takes care of his family.
However, there’s just one thing that I’m finding difficult – we don’t have sex. From the very beginning, we’ve never been rampant in the sack and over the years, our physical intimacy has declined to absolute zero. It makes me feel so unattractive and really hurts my feelings. He has never instigated sex with me in eight years. It is always me trying to get it on and recently he has refused point blank to reciprocate. It physically hurts my body when I am turned down by him.
Appearance-wise, I have done everything I can – I go to the gym, I quit alcohol, and I take good care of my appearance. For Valentine’s Day, I offered to bring us to a spa hotel for a two-night romantic package but he said he was “too tired from working” and shut the thought down.
On the few times that we have done it, it has always been me doing “the work”. He appears to be frightened and apprehensive when we do it, to the point of shame. We never talk during or after it, and have never discussed anything even remotely resembling pillow talk, desires or fantasies. Afterwards, he just wants to shower and go back to whatever he was doing. There has never been cuddling or loving playfulness.
This is his first long-term relationship and my second. In my previous relationship, we had regular sex and it was never an issue. I had a redundancy lately which led to money stress, but ultimately, I do not believe he fancies me. When I think about it, he only says he loves me after I have said it to him first, and he doesn’t say it fully – only a flat “love you’” It has left me very despondent and I am afraid to approach him about it because I feel it will not be good news.
Recently a friend brought her new boyfriend to dinner with us, and afterwards, he commented that my partner seems “very camp”. I cannot stop thinking about whether he might be gay. It honestly never occurred to me before now – he appears to be a lad’s lad, his friends are all married, and has told me about his many dalliances with females in his youth. He has never given me any other inkling, but I suppose it could make sense.
What do I do now? Get straight to the point and ask him if he is gay?
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Nicola Foster sex and relationship therapist at realrelating.com says:
You’ve been trying to change things about yourself but this is probably not about you, this is about him. There could be myriad reasons that he is not feeling sexual to do with depression or stress. He may be asexual or maybe there is a relationship issue that is not being spoken about. Finally, some people simply find intimacy really difficult. I wouldn’t jump to conclusions. Please don’t make yourself wrong, you are worthy of desire and touch and sex.
So what could you do? He is probably bottling up something so I would suggest creating some time to share. I would start by asking your partner if you can have a conversation. Don’t spring it on him, arrange a time, not after dinner or over dinner, not with booze. Share how this lack of intimacy in your relationship is affecting you. Avoid getting into blaming or placing each other in the wrong. Then give him the opportunity to also speak without interruption; the key is to hear each other even if what you are hearing isn’t easy.
The second stage is figuring out what to do. Mismatched desire is really common. One in four people are affected and either gender can be the more highly sexed partner. Not Always in the Mood: The New Science of Men, Sex, and Relationships by Sarah Hunter Murray is a great book. Sexual intimacy ebbs and flows in all relationships, there will be times when it’s going well and times when it isn’t.
Being sexually unfulfilled is a reason why people come to therapy and it presents difficult choices about whether to try to rebuild sexual intimacy or whether the relationship isn’t going to work.
As told to Marianne Power