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The original was posted on /r/relationships by /u/b52boombagel on 2024-01-23 23:38:30+00:00.
Firstly, sorry to anyone who saw me post this this morning. My post was taken down due to not doing the TL;DR thing the right way.
My boyfriend (28M) and I (31F) have been together for almost 3 years. He's quite literally the best relationship I've ever had, no exaggeration. His family also loves me, which is a first for me in relationships.
Backstory: I have Borderline Personality Disorder, and it's a nightmare to deal with. I'm on meds and go to my appointments, but it's still rough. It took me a year and a half to truly trust him and feel safe with him. He was so patient with me, I could never repay him for that love and acceptance.
Which is why I feel torn about how I'm feeling. I don't know if what I'm feeling is "right", or if I'm the one who needs to look at things differently. Please let me know, because I really want to try to be looking at this in a fair way.
I had a high sex drive when we first started dating. Within a couple months, I realized (and he told me) that he has low testosterone and just doesn't crave sex. He tried taking testosterone for about 6 months, but it didn't change anything. I appreciate that he at least tried. His past girlfriends would make fun of him for it, so I promised him I'd never ever degrade him for that. So, I changed my perspective to look at the quality of sex when it does happen.
But the longer we went without sex, the more I lost my own sex drive. When we do have sex, it's 10 seconds at best and he cums. Typically no foreplay. He never makes an effort to get me off or simply be passionate during sex, despite me talking to him about it before. When he does (he's gone down on me twice in the last 2 years), it's usually because I brought it up recently and it's fresh in his mind. Hell, I even love fingerings and he knows that, but it only happens after I've brought it up. And every time I have to bring it up just to get that, it makes me less motivated to even bring it up at all.
The last time we had sex, I was so tight from not having sex in a couple months that we had to go slow at first. Within a couple seconds, he asked if I was doing okay and I told him yeah I was and that it just hurt, and he says "it's about to 'go' anyway" and he cums. Like, who says that!? I actually felt really weird after that one. I just went to clean myself up and left it at that.
Now here's my problem. When I bring anything up about it to him, I always (and I mean always) get the "well why don't you do ____?" And flips it back around on me. Then I'm left there babbling, feeling like it's my job to fix things. And, I don't know. Is it? Am I missing something here? Then it usually results with his feelings being hurt by my frustration and lack of solutions to give him, so I try not to talk about it much anymore.
I stopped initiating sex about 8 months into the relationship when I realized there was nothing in it for me. I didn't realize that until just recently. I just assumed I got over my drive and that was that.
He's honestly an amazing boyfriend except for in the bedroom, and I feel like this is potentially fixable, but I don't know if I'm the one who's doing something wrong here. If so, I want to make it right.
TL;DR amazing boyfriend (28M) and I (31F) experiencing a dead bedroom and not sure if it's on me to find a solution or what to do about the way we talk about it, what do I do?