[santanabanana]

Hi. I'm a 19 years old and I am already experiencing problems with a low libido. My boyfriend and i have been living together for the past 2 1/2 months, during which time our sex life has taken a nosedive. Pre-cohabitation we were having sex 5+ times a day. Now it's down to 5 times a week or so. And it's because I don't want to have sex. I feel to urge to have sex anymore. When I go along with my boyfriend's advances, I enjoy it... but not nearly as much as I used to. And I never initiate it anymore. But I think I know why... my boyfriend is always asking if we can have sex. He doesn't try to romance me or even use any foreplay anymore. He just... asks. He did actually romance me about a week ago an,d it was great. It was ideal both physically and emotionally. Whenever he initiates sex without romancing me or use foreplay, I feel rushed, unimportant and disrespected so there's no way I want to have sex with him all the time like I used to. I talked to him about it today after he spent most of the day complaining about how mean I am for not wanting to have sex with him and we tried to have sex with lots of foreplay. The foreplay went on for 5 or a 20 minutes then he said "you should touch my penis." And I told him "I'll get there when I get there. Please don't tell me to do stuff like that during foreplay it makes me feel rushed." He got incredibly offended and told me i made him feel awkward and bad and that he didn't want to have sex with me anymore. Please help. I want to want to make love to my boyfriend again. I love him very, very much and he loves me as well. Is it my problem, his, or a combination of both?
For the sake of background info, my boyfriend suffers from retroactive jealousy and had made me feel quite bad about myself and my past so I don't really feel beautiful and sexy anymore... I just feel used and undesirable...

Thank you,
Santana

[jns]

It sounds like the playing field has changed for both sides. How long did the foreplay go on when you were having sex 5+ times a day? Did you have your hands on him or was it just him doing foreplay on you? What did he do to romance you those multiple times a day? I want you to look at then and now and see if things have changed and how they have changed. Has he changed a lot? Or was he always somewhat like he is now, but it didn't matter?

I think that there has been a communications breakdown. You want something different than you wanted before, at least to some degree. That's somewhat understandable, doing the same thing too often gets boring. Further, you probably want him to step up his game. But you haven't communicated it very well. He probably feels that you are unilaterally changing the rules and doesn't know where you are going with it. He may very well be feeling unloved as well. Maybe you should have a session where you two just talk, no foreplay and no sex.

[a_dub]

Men and women must be different.

[santanabanana]

Thinking back to before we lived together, it was usually mutual foreplay, but it was never very lengthy. Sex used to be spontaneous for us. Now it's become routine and quite frankly, I am very bored with the routine. I feel like he expects me to have sex with him under less than ideal circumstances because we live together. Over the past few days we've been working on it and trying to bring the romance back into our sex life and it's going well so far. A big factor in my lack of desire for sex is that he always seems to want it when I'm busy. I usually tell him to wait a bit and we will, but he gets frustrated with me and says he thinks that I won't have sex with him at all, which in turn frustrates me and makes me not want to at all. I've tried to explain to him that not now doesn't mean no, but he looks for instant gratification in almost everything in life, including sex. I came to the realization a couple days ago that I feel very anxious when I feel rushed by him. I don't feel as comfortable having sex with him as I used to because of the hurtful things he's said to me about my past. I love this man with my whole heart and I want to be the best girlfriend to him that I can possibly be, but I just don't know how to get over this anxiety...

[jns]

You could incentivize the situation by giving him a chore (something you do now) that needs to be done and done well before commencing sex. You could even incentivize the foreplay part of it. Men can be very good at goal oriented tasks, even though they become single minded in doing them. You would be teaching him delayed gratification. Of course, once he did his part of the bargain, you should uphold your part of the bargain. Maybe give him something so you could get what you are doing done and then relax a little before he is done.

As far as the hurtful things, what has he said? Somehow a compromise has to be struck and moving on has to be done. Maybe an agreement to never bring up things before you two got together. He has to be less jealous and he should be if the past isn't brought up.

A lot of foreplay was never the situation, so I could see why he doesn't want to do it now. You will have to condition him to enjoy giving you a lot of foreplay. And yes, you should respond in kind, at least to a degree.

[Ashlee T.]

Lots of things at play here. First, you're living together and it seems like the romance and excitement has died. Chances are, you moved in together prematurely. If you date long enough prior to living together, you often see those things creep out as red flags. Once you're living together, you have so much more invested that you're more prone to ignore the red flags. Another thing is, are you on hormonal bc? At points during the 8 - 10 years I was on BC, I totally lost my libido. I grew almost repulsed by the thought of sleeping with my boyfriend at the time. Since going off bc, I'm amazed at how clockwork my body is. And I have ZERO issue with sex drive. I'm not recommending you go off BC because at this point, I don't think risking pregnancy is your best option. However, do consider your alternatives for safe sex.

Retroactive jealousy. It's great that it has a fancy name...but in reality, my opinion is that a man (or woman) who says ugly hurtful things to you to make you feel bad about yourself, to bring you down..... can't love you in the way you deserve to be loved. Sorry if that's harsh, but experience has proven this to be true in my case.