Thanks for all your responses.
I’ve resolved to withdraw a bit sexually and see what to true extent of her desires are. I think my discussing it has made her more inclined to feel less sexy than she already does.
Then your relationship is doomed. If you can’t discuss your issues without there being a negative consequence you will never resolve anything, and particularly in the area of sex which (as others have pointed out) can be difficult to get through if people see it different. Based on what you’ve written I’d say that you should move on, you’re too young , and too little into the relationship, to be stuck with someone who wants things fundamentally different to you.
Would the two of you consider a couples counselor with a focus on sex therapy?
It sounds like your partner has a certain amount of anxiety regarding sex. If so then you are right that just your talking about it, especially your honestly sharing how it makes you feel, may raise her anxiety level and be counter-productive. But your not talking about it, getting more hurt and resentful, also only elevates the stakes and slowly increase the anxiety level as well. Navigating through that, if it is to be accomplished at all, may require some professional help; ignoring it, martyring your emotional and physical desires, is likely to only make it harder to deal with it later and cause increasing resentment from both directions.
Have you read up on Lesbian Bed Death?
I’m not sure if that study holds up or if it’s been found to be a bunch of bullshit, but it seemed relevant enough.
Any chance of infidelity? That can wreak havoc on any couple’s sex life, gay or straight.
If you followed a sex columnist with regularity, you’d find out that mismatched libidos are in no way a petty issue. Read some back issues of Savage Love. You’re going to have to change the relationship fundamentally (which is generally unlikely to work) or end it. And in the future, don’t allow yourself to get entangled with someone whose libido doesn’t fit yours.
It’s not easy, but that’s your solution.
Also, having read that your girlfriend sets bizarre rules about when you can fuck her leads me to believe that she’s an utter control freak. I’ve never been in a relationship with a partner who set out rules for when sex is ok. That’s fucked-up. It sounds like she has some weird-ass sexual hangups, and you don’t have to subject yourself to that.
It also doesn’t matter how well you get along outside the bedroom. She sounds like a fun friend, but she’s undoubtedly not a good girlfriend. Emotional compatibility is important, but you’re going to have that with *all *of your *friends. *The major difference between a friend and a girlfriend is that you fuck your girlfriend.
I read/listen to savage love religiously so I know what Dan’s position would be - and I agree with it - because he’s given it so often on cases like this: if you have an issue like this so soon into a relationship (and under five years IS soon) and the other person won’t communicate about it, AND you’re as young as both people are, then it’s just better for everyone to end it now and move on to other people. Maybe there’s a gal out there for your partner who doesn’t see sex as that important either, and is happy with the frequency your partner wants it at. Currently you’re stopping her from meeting that person, just as she’s stopping you have the level of sex you would like. A couples counsellor this early isn’t, in my view, something you should need to resort to, and implies there are significant enough differences between you that you’re just not compatible.
**rachelellogram **makes an extremely good point that a good relationship outside the bedroom, particularly at this early stage of the relationship, can’t counter balance the lack of sex. Your girlfriend is supposed to be more than someone you hang out with.
Let me add my thoughts by saying it sound much like my first marriage. The sex was great at the start and got less and less frequent from there. I understood that libido’s vary so I wasn’t that concerned, but what does have me concerned is the same thing I went through concerning the “rules” of sex.
My ex-wife was very clear. Sex only every other day. I called it “every other day day sex” and it was horrible. Always on a schedule and it NEVER varied. If I was sick on sex day too bad you missed your turn and you have to wait until the next time. Get bonus sex for some reason on an off day? The schedule magically re-set itself so no sex the next night. It got to a point that sex was so predictable (including the act itself, like it was scripted) that I started to prefer masturbation to mounting up on that bat.
It seemed to make her feel in control and it made me feel terrible all the time. Like I wasn’t wanted and was being “serviced” and not loved. Since I said this is my ex you know how it turned out. Funny thing is she was married before me and I talked once to her ex about it, same deal. She is married again (trying to break Liz Taylor’s record I suppose) and every time I see her and her new husband I have to laugh a bit knowing what he is going through. It caused a lot of problems during our marriage and I would certainly not entertain marrying your partner until you get this worked out. You will grow to resent them for it.
Now, on the good side I am re-married myself to a wonderful woman who has a healthy attitude about sex. We have sex constantly and it is initiated by both of us. I never knew how bad my sex life was until I actually had a great one with someone else. I am very happy and feel very loved and wanted. I do realize that some of our female Dopers might think that the only thing that matters to me in a marriage is sex and you would be wrong. But, sex is such a major issue that if it isn’t working right it can bring down the whole house of cards by itself.
Oh and my use of the term “bat” above. She slept hanging upside down, wrapped in a cocoon of her own wings so the term is accurate. As you can tell I just love my ex-wife!
I find myself more and more wanting a way to upvote posts on this board, a la Reddit.
As someone with a low libido you have to be careful that sex does not turn into a chore. I will fully admit that there are times when I have sex with my husband just because it has been a little while. I don’t particularly want to but I go through the motions because I feel like I have to.
It is a fine line between talking about it openly and having the low libido partner feel like you are harassing them for sex.
I think you should have a frank talk about why she doesn’t want to have sex at particular times. I don’t like having sex when I’m menstrating or late at night. My husband likes to stay up late and I have to be up early with our toddler and baby. Often times I will just closing my book and closing my eyes when my husband will come into bed, snuggle up and want to have sex. This will cut 30-45 minutes out of my sleep, and when you have a baby that still might be getting up at night to feed, and a toddler that is up at 6 like clockwork, that sleep is needed.
Another example is daytime sex. He will stay up late, and then sleep in. I’ll head into the bedroom at about 11am after being awake for 5 hours to get something and he will want to have sex. He is great at tuning out the kids, I am not. So again I have to turn him down because I can’t enjoy it whith a baby crying and a toddler pounding on the door yelling for her Mom.
It’s not that I don’t want to have sex, it’s just that I don’t want to have sex then.
Now neither of these examples work for you, but it might be something besides just a difference in libido.
While I preface this: it’s nobody’s fault and nobody’s to blame, it’s like a deaf person making a hearing person stay in a room with a piercing alarm.
No libido- no problem
Libido not getting enough: a nagging itch that just won’t stop.
And the person that doesn’t want it has more and more and more reasons why now is not a good time, and the other person remembers when it wasn’t such an awful chore…you know…like they felt wanted. Because in a relationship, the feeling that your mate would be MUCH happier doing ANTHING else is quite the turn-on. You don’t come first, you don’t come second, you come 64th. If must see TV isn’t on. :dubious
Indeed the solution cannot be having sex reluctantly. The low libido partner does not want to feel harassed or be felt like they are an object. But that lower libido has to understand that the higher libido partner may experience being told “not right now” over and over again as a deep and very hurtful rejection. The higher libido partner may, with some good reason, think that if their partner loved her/him then (s)he would desire her/him, and even if the desire for sex wasn’t there at that moment, that their would be some pleasure in giving the other pleasure … at least a great deal of sensitivity to how much the higher libido sense of self gets hurt by the perception of not being desired. Maybe Ludy you have sex when you are not in the mood and it has been a while not because you feel you “have to”, but because you want your partner to know that you enjoy their enjoyment and because you know that sex is how he understands he is loved much more than saying the words communicate it to him.
Maybe even with professional help it is hopeless, but managing those minefields without it? Impossible.