So I was hoping to get some advice on this. I have a very strong sex drive and my boyfriend does not. We recently became exclusive (prior we were open). He is okay with being open if only for my sake because he worries about not being able to satisfy me. However, I want to be exclusive. I already told my previous hookup partners that I was seeing someone. I deleted the hookup apps off my phone. I love my boyfriend and I feel bad for pressuring him into sex if he doesn’t want it. It isn’t necessarily that he doesn’t want it, but his medication interferes with things. I spend a lot of nights at his place and normally I would just jack off to deal with it, but I don’t feel comfortable doing that in front of him yet. How would you navigate this?
A lot of this situation hits home for me. I've been with my boyfriend for 6 years as of this past August. Like any couple in the "honeymoon phase," we were like bunnies for a while, between one and two years. During that time, sex was practically a guarantee every day we saw each other, and on many days, it was two or three times. We couldn't keep out hands off each other. Then we moved in together and basically immediately, I lost the majority of my sex drive. Like your boyfriend, I am also on certain medications that reduced my sex drive. But I think a (small) part of it was that we were getting out of that honeymoon phase and settling more into the pattern that most couples in a long-term relationship have where you have sex a couple times per week. Then it became once a week. Then every other week. And at its worst, we went two whole months without having sex. Although I personally was fine since my medication has all but eliminated my sex drive, it was a problem for my boyfriend and ended up becoming a problem for our relationship. It's still something we deal with now although I make an effort to be more attentive to him and his needs, especially because I recognize that having a sex drive as low as many isn't the norm. To be fair, I think his sex drive is higher than the average red-blooded male. So with mine currently being much lower than what might be considered average, we try to meet somewhere in the middle. Currently, we average at about once per week. We both have jobs and he has a son who stays with us on the weekends, so that frequency doesn't seem to be too infrequent for him, especially compared to some of the longer stints we've gone without sex. I can't speak for what your boyfriend's feelings might be, but for me, having a low sex drive means I very rarely get horny, which means I very rarely initiate sex. But if he starts initiating it and does some foreplay, I can typically get going and everything is fine for the most part. Sometimes I don't "get there," and he is aware of that possibility and is more accepting of it than he was at first. So maybe talk to you boyfriend and see if it works that way for him. If so, maybe you can have a discussion and try to meet in the middle. It sounds like he's going to want to try to make sure your needs are met as best he can, and relationships are all about compromise. Try to nail down what seems like a fair frequency for sex. Maybe even pick a set day and time for it. Yeah, it takes some of the romance and spontaneity out of it, but maybe knowing in advance when you guys will be having sex will give your boyfriend the chance to psych himself up for it.
