[scramble]

My boyfriend and I are very much in love with each other. He cares about me and often responds to all my complaints. But one area that hasn't improved is our sex lives. It seems that he is too busy with schoolwork that he is never in the mood for sex. At least not as often as I am. We are in our early 20's.

For the record, he does not have physical problems getting an erection. He also does initiate sometimes, though too rarely for me. When we do have sex, everything seems perfectly normal. He also enjoys it. It's just that he seems perfectly fine going 1-2 weeks without having sex. I already don't like it when we go 3 days without it. Oftentimes I would start playing around with his penis hoping to have sex, and he is clearly getting erected, but he manages to halt a couple of minutes later saying that he has to go work now because he has a lot of hw to do... or he just moves my hand away and falls asleep because he is tired.

I did talk to him about this a couple of times, and he just says that he feels bad when he has work to do and he feels pressured to get them done first. And then I tell him, well, right now, we've been fooling around for like 20 minutes already while taking a "study break", you can't spare additional 20 minutes?! Then I tell him that we will always be busy, and we need to make time for things like this otherwise we will never have a sex life. And then he feels bad and makes initiatives for the next couple of days. Then it's back to what it was before.

I feel bad that I am always the one bringing this up, I feel ****ty because it seems like I always want to have sex with him when he has more important things to do, and then I feel guilty as if I am pushing this too hard. I feel like a lot of the times when I lead him on hoping for sex, it doesn't end up with sex, and I feel like I am just bothering him. Then I feel unwanted and whatnot. When I do talk to him, he just reacts "well I'm not sure what I can do, I am a senior in college, I have my thesis, I am applying to graduate schools, I have classes with assignments, I just don't have time." And clearly he's ok with having sex so infrequently. I am not. He is an incredible boyfriend in every aspect, but I just feel like we're on too different planes when it comes to how much sex is enough.

Also, for the record, he is certainly not up till 3 in the morning doing homework. B/c of his thesis/applications, he is taking far less courses. I definitely feel that his workload is manageable with a bit more time reserved for our bed-life here and there. I don't know what to do... He is also not "depressed." He's a very happy, chatty, outspoken guy.

[jns]

He obviously doesn't value sex as much as you do. Have you asked him if he has been more sexually active in the past and if he will change in the future? It is not you wanting sex too much, rather he wanting it too little. Does he have reservations about having sex because he worries that you will get pregnant?

[scramble]

Bah I don't know. He was sexually active in his previous relationships, though I don't know if it was the same infrequency or not. It's not something I like to ask details of.

It may be my memory being skewed, but before he got circumcized at the end of last year, I thought he was more enthusiastic. I have hesitation saying this because (1) maybe he was more active back then because we had started dating a few months prior to that and at that point, he had been relationship-free/sex-free for ~2 years so perhaps he was excited about resumption of sexual activity, and (2) if this were the case, I feel that he would have also noticed a change in his sexual drive rather than just saying he is too busy/tired. I don't see any signs of him feeling "ashamed" or anything due to the circumcision. Also, even back then, I don't think it was all THAT frequent. I just mean a tad more than now.

I only point that as a point of reference because he had to get circumcized due to medical reasons and I remember not being able to have intercourse for ~2.5 months before the procedure. Then we were not able to have intercourse for another ~1.5 months for his recovery, then he cited his penis feeling a bit too sensitive as the reason for additional ~2 months or so. It's now been almost a year since the circumcision. His erection capabilities and all that has not changed since the circumcision...

No pregnancy worries because we had that worry over a year ago and decided to go with both birth control pills AND condoms.