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In need of opinions and a little guidence

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  • #191551
    Livy
    Participant

    I am new to this site, I was just googling places where I can seek opinions and help and this site seems helpful and not judging.

    I need a bit of help and really have no one to go to with this. I will try to make a long story as short as I can.

    I have been with my boyfriend for a bit over 3 years now, and living together for 3. Before I go into my upsets I want to start by saying I have never been treated so kindly by someone and he is a great person. Communicating is not a problem and neither one of us strays from it. I guess I can say we have been having some relationship problems for 2 years now but even deeply this past year. It all mostly has to do with the lack of affection and intimacy he shows me. We will not have sex for weeks and months on end. I feel like he barley looks my way. I have communicated my upsets about this what feels like 100 times. It may be better for a week but goes right back to the vicious cycle. It is leaving me insecure and distanced. I don’t know how to feel close to him. He says he loves me so much and has no idea why he is like that and why he keeps bouncing back to being so comfortable and unaffectionate with me. The problems go deeper in that area but I’m trying to sum this up into a brief read.

    Today is what became the final straw for me. I saw on his phone that he had been watching porn. I asked him about it and immediately he told me how sorry he was, ashamed and dirty he felt, that it was a one time thing and he was unsure what even led him to do it. He has been telling me this and apologizing all day and feeling horrible. I feel horrible too.

    SIDE NOTE – I understand other peoples  stances on porn, and I respect it. All I have ever read so far is people saying how normal it is and that he is a man of course he will do it. I can’t stand that caveman way of thinking. We have our own boundaries with our partners and this broke one of ours.

    Anyway, I feel so betrayed. I have spent countless days and nights crying over how he can not look my way and how upset I am over our love life and relationship, I have been put through so much pain, only to see he can spend his time watching porn. I feel like if we were in a better spot in our relationship I could have gotten over this better. But it feels like a huge blow to me, and it’s hard for me to look at him the same. My current state of mind is that I’m in the process of ending our 3 year relationship and it hurts so bad I can’t put it into words. I don’t want everything and our future thrown away, I don’t want to lose my best friend and all I know, but at the same time I can not keep feeling like a fool and forgiving over and over only to be hurt again. Once again this is just a quick story of the problems I’ve been going through and it goes further. I am depressed and not sure where to go from here. I could really use a little insight from an outside perspective.

    Thank you so much.

    #191587
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear  Livy:

    Was there a drastic change in his behavior following the first year  of the relationship: was he affectionate and sexual with you the first year… and then changed, or was he always rarely affectionate and sexual with  you?

    And, I  wonder, if there was any talk about porn between the  two of you in the past, where he shared about it, you asked him, anything like that.

    anita

    #191591
    Livy
    Participant

    He was never like that when the relationship started. It slowly started dwindling down about a year and a half into it. I understand that “honeymoon” phases end, but the change is too extreme to ignore.

    I’d also like to side note so nobodies heads go there, that he would never cheat on me. We have both had crappy people in our pasts who have done that. That’s one thing I can always find comfort in and don’t worry about no matter how bad things get.

    No we have never discussed it before. It’s hard to explain but we know each other very well, you really get to know a person and and the unspoken boundaries with stuff like that.  Which is why I got the reaction I did and why he was so upset that he hurt me.

    #191593
    Inky
    Participant

    Hi Livy,

    Some people are just asexual. It just doesn’t naturally happen.

    So watching the porn that one time might actually be a good sign. He’s curious! Something’s going on down there! He has hormones! Yay!

    Anyway, that’s the way I’d see it.

    Hope that helps!

    Inky

    #191595
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Livy:

    For a year and a half he was affectionate and sexual with you, then he slowly behaved less and less affectionately and sexually with you, about  two years. there’s  less and less affection and sex to the point  of not having sex for moths at a time.

    You wrote that communication between the two  of you was always good and  after you communicated to him your dissatisfaction, he improved but then the affection and sex lessened again. This has  been a pattern, a “vicious cycle”, you called it. He told  you throughout that he has  “no idea why he is like that”.

    You wrote: “The problems go deeper in that area but I’m trying to  sum this up into a brief read”- it is okay with me if you make it a longer read. I have the  time and the  motivation to read and learn. Would  you like to elaborate on the problems. I need this information so to understand.

    anita

     

    #191601
    Livy
    Participant

    I could mention relationship woes but I am trying to stick to the problem at hand, and I feel most of them are normal and have not had too much of a lasting effect on me.

    I’ll try to go as deep as I can with this for as much as I’m comfortable talking about.

    Like I mentioned, we are always open to talk and that goes both ways. Although usually I am upset and cry about this situation and discuss it over and over and over, sometimes I can’t help but yell and feel resentful. Small things in our everyday lives will bug me because of it. I’m a calm person but have felt hostile and bottled up.  I am not perfect at all, but I can easily say I have not wronged or hurt him deeply in our relationship. It seems all I do is forgive. I carry a lot of baggage from him but none of it was direct. He never MEANS to upset me but it seems it always finds its way. I tell him that I feel like he does not love me. I really try to wrap my head around it but can’t. He insists every time how much he does and how beautiful he thinks I am inside and out. I wonder if you love someone you will do all in your power to see them be and stay happy. He tells me how much it kills him inside that I am sad and he is the one causing it. That sometimes he doesn’t want to come home because he believes in the long run it will be best for me. This hurts me terribly too and I let him know that. I always wish I can find solutions. I’ll sit with him, communicate, and its like he has no idea what to say or says he doesn’t know. The attempts and ideas seem to always fall on me. It really bothers me. I have googled and considered asking him to see a doctor, maybe take testosterone to help hormones.  Whenever I search online I can’t find existing blogs with the same problems I have and that’s why I’m finally trying to reach out for help and air out my stresses.

    It also bothers me how out of left field this was. I would not at all define his as a “typical man”. He is very caring and sensitive. This is VERY out of character and that is what I’m trying to stress, so of course I was left shocked and confused. no matter how much I try to reason with it and tell myself maybe I am overreacting I can’t get past it. Like I mentioned I believe a big reason why I’m so hurt is his lack of attention towards me but capability of doing this. I feel very bitter and angry. I’m unsure how I can ever look at him the same let alone be intimate again. I don’t know if I’m trying to spark something that is dead or if there is a shimmer of hope left. I guess that is up for me to discover.

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by Livy.
    #191605
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Livy:

    There is the chicken and the egg element here: what came first, his dwindling affection or your anger. I don’t know. What I do know about this vicious cycle you mention is that you yelling at him, crying, going on and on, showing him how unhappy he is making you, all these behaviors kill one’s motivation to be affectionate.

    It doesn’t matter what came first in regard to this pattern: these behaviors are incongruent with him behaving spontaneously and affectionately with you.

    When you tell him how badly he makes you feel, crying and so on, he is put on alert: scared to cause you more pain. He is no longer free to be spontaneous, and open communication is not possible.

    You think communication is not the problem, but it is because although you have felt comfortable expressing your misery to him, he has not felt comfortable to express his unhappiness in the relationship.

    At this point, the way I see it, is there needs to be just that between the two of you: better communication. But it is not going to be easy, to make it happen because he is already cautious, already on alert, feeling guilty, uncomfortable, scared to tell you what is on his mind and heart, scared of hurting you more.

    What you can do to improve the communication with him is to take personal responsibility for your feelings and behaviors, to no longer blame him for these. Only if he is assured that you are responsible for these, will he feel, over time, safe enough to express himself honestly.

    anita

    #191609
    Mark
    Participant

    Livy,

    I agree with anita about you owning your feelings and behaviors.  You say it kills him that he is making you sad, that sometimes he does not want to come home and that you are tired of forgiving him.  Plus you are the one who is looking for solutions to his lack of sexual interest.

    The problem between you two is that this is not a sexual relationship and he has no interest in changing that.  You cannot make him do anything.  He has made his choice not wanting sex.  I cannot guess what would be the underlying reasons why but I certainly would think it has nothing to do with you.

    He knows what the issue is.  You made it very clear to him what that is and how that is affecting you and the relationship.  The burden of responsibility lies on his shoulders.  It is up to you to deal with his decision to not work on resolving his lack of sexual interest.  It is not up to you to fix him.

    It is up to you to decide if you want to stay in a non-sexual, platonic relationship.

    Mark

    #191871
    RoxySue
    Participant

    Dear Livy- I feel like I could have written your post. Prior to my current relationship, which a few of he posters on here are aware of, I was in a 26 year relationship almost identical to the one you are in now. The signs appeared very early. We were in therapy the first two years we were together even before we got engaged. I was young – 22 when we met. We ended up getting married and the problems never went away, despite how badly he felt about it. He didn’t seem to want to want me. You see what I am saying? It one thing to have issues either medical or psychological that prevented him from wanting me, but the fact that he didn’t seem to care enough to try  to make a change was the part that was damaging. And similar to your situation, we would go in cycles. It would get better for a spell then revert back. It got to the point where my confidence as a woman was completely destroyed. I did not feel emotionally safe with this man because I was always afraid of being rejected. After such a long time of not feeling desired, I felt undesirable. It took me 26 years to see the light and get out to save myself and my sense of womanhood. He may have had psychological issues and/or medical issues,  but eventually it became ingrained in our dynamic. And he just didn’t seem interested. I don’t want you to waste all those years like I did not feeling like the woman you want to feel like. I am 49 years old and starting over. I am now in another relationship which is now physically gratifying but emotionally depleted. The dynamic in my marriage affected me deeper than I could have imagined.  And I realize that it is all on me that I should have left when I saw the signs.  But regardless the bottom line is the way in which I receive love is different from how he wants to give it.

    Feel free to write back with questions.  There is a lot more I am happy to share because your situation sounds eerily similar.

    xo

     

    #191917
    Livy
    Participant

    RoxySue, thank you very much for your reply. While everyone above made some valid points it is hard to hear most of it and that’s been another one of my problems. Nobody can relate and it’s really hard to hear advice from others who haven’t been in a similar situation. Being told that I am intimidating and he is scared to communicate with me has been weighing on me to hear because it is completely untrue. I have swallowed some tough pills and I remind him not to hold back and communicate openly. Maybe the part of he is scared to say something to hurt me more may be true, but I remind over and over please never hide any feelings from me. I can reassure he does not. I will be turning only 22 in April and I have been with him since I was 18. I love him very much, he is beyond wonderful to me in every other aspect, so I am just hurt and confused. It kills me to think that lack of a love life can so easily tear apart everything. It’s so easy to keep telling yourself it will get better next time, until a year later no changes have been made. He has been staying else were and respecting my space I need and now 4 days later I am able to look at him and calmly be in the same house. I have A LOT going on in other aspects in my life to do with family that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, my father is an addict, and this week in particular has been the most mentally draining and exhausting. I am really trying my hardest to take this one day at a time and make some big decisions. I can not think of questions off the top of my head, honestly my mind is shot. But if you have any advice, words of wisom from one person to another who has been through it, absolutely feel free to share.

    #191923
    RoxySue
    Participant

    Dear Livy,

    The more you tell me, the more I see the similarities.  I too was told I was “intimidating” and he was scared to communicate with me.  Sadly, eventually, what did happen, was that I did become intimidating and scary to communicate with. It is hard for a man (or woman) to confront that they may have intimacy issues. And, what I found was that I was compassionate at the beginning, but over the years, I became more and more impatient, as I saw my life slipping away. I was getting older and I wanted to be able to have some years left to salvage whatever piece of womanhood I had left. I ended up getting cancer a few years ago and that really hit me in the face that we have one life (as far as I know) and one chance to have the type of love that enhances our desire to feel beautiful and wanted. And, that is OKAY to want to feel that way…women who are wanted and desired by their partners do not always understand the emptiness we feel. And, I can tell you, from my own experience, and from others with whom I have spoken going through similar things, it does not change. You cannot force someone to change or feel something that they do not. And in saying that I am by no means saying there is anything about you that is causing it because most of the time, their resistance come from deep-rooted issues from childhood, which require confronting and serious change from within.

    I want to tell you that if I were you I would try to extricate myself from the relationship, encourage him to get the help he needs if he wants to, of course. In the meantime, you can work on yourself (and some of the other issues in your life, as well – note, I had co-dependency issues bc of some of my family dynamics, e.g, not receiving the love I wanted from my dad…so settling for a relationship where extracting love from my spouse felt very familiar to me…maybe take a look at how your family dynamics play a part in your willingness to stay in a situation in which you feel like a part of love is missing), and regroup in a year or so, to see where you are.

    If he does the work, then maybe you can reconnect…you are young still. But, I know this is hard to do if you do not feel it in your heart. But, what I do not want to happen is for your self-confidence and sense of womanhood to get chipped away and eroded over time. Even though intellectually you may be told that it has nothing to do with you (as I was…I happen to be very attractive physically, but it does not even matter bc I felt inadequate), if you feel undesired and rejected by your partner, it erodes your core.  And when you say that it kills you to say that a lack of a love life can so easily tear things apart, it kills me too. But think about it this way…it is a LOVE life. That is what separates it from a friendship or roommates. Feeling loved in the way you want to receive it is important and you are worthy of having that.

    I found this quote from an article I read on the subject: If one partner is more apathetic than the other in this regard (emotional and physical intimacy), it can impact self-confidence and passion in other areas of life. Feeling unloved and undesirable pushes the less apathetic partner into a corner of inner pain and loneliness.

    Also…this was blog post on the subject: As a wife/woman, I want to be wanted. While I understand the no-pressure communication tactics here, I feel hurt and embarrassed enough already that my husband has so little drive for me. Initiation on my part, I have found often results in polite forms of rejection. Even when I do not initiate at all, the rejections come via body language and other subtle ways indicating that he would not be responsive. The subtle messages make for a lack of free flow of intimate expression. My husband was a kind, supportive, great friend to me, but I was terribly wounded by being kept at bay in this area. For me, it is so much more than the sex act itself. It is the closeness and intimacy that I need. I love you and I want to show you love. Inside of our relationship is where I should be safe to feel uninhibited and desirable.  Instead I feel stifled, rejected, hurt and sometimes shameful.

    This is what eventually happened to me…and I lost a lot of good years of my life worrying about being rejected from my own spouse. I am sorry for the long response, but I wish I could make you see that, if having romantic love is important to you, this type of dynamic is insidious and will permeate other areas of your life, making it even more difficult to deal with some of the other issues you have going on. So, as I said, maybe you could consider either ending it or at a minimum, taking a break to get yourselves together and if he does do the work, check in after a certain period of time to see how things going.

    xo

     

     

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