I (30M) am dating someone that is HIV+. (His diagnosis doesn’t bother me, I’m on PRep and we use condoms.) He (51M) has times where his diagnosis messes with his mental state, it’s somewhat new to him. It leads him to not want to have sex. When we met, 6 months ago, we were all over each other. We were going 2/3 times a day for the first two months. Its slowed almost completely to mutual masturbation once a week. We’re open, so the option to go out and have sex is there but I really only want to have it with him. I love him, he loves me. I like him, he likes me. There’s just the HIV problem. When he feels dirty, because he’s poz, he doesn’t want to have sex.
It seems like he’s trying to come back into his body and reclaim his sexuality for now but I don’t know how to even start because he doesn’t communicate when he’s ready to go again. He’s usually the one that makes the first move before we do it. I don’t wanna misconstrue what could be an innocent gesture. (He usually wakes me out of my sleep for sex by pushing his hips back.) I do think that I should try to make the first move tho, even if it’s not full on sex.
I miss his sexuality. I miss the confidence he carries when he’s had sex. I don’t want him to think that I’m pressuring him to do it though. I just want my guy back, sexually and mentally.
TL;DR My boyfriend is HIV positive and doesn’t feel sexy, how do I bring the sex back to our relationship?
Comments
This is pretty much entirely on him. You are rightfully worried, and nobody has the answers except him.
Sit him down for a talk. Explain that you don’t want to push AND you don’t want to get a signal wrong. Ask him for a clear sign that he’s ready for you to initiate, or ask if he’d prefer you waited until he initiates. Repeat that his well-being is the most important thing, and you want him to feel secure.
Is your boyfriend in therapy to help him deal with all these feelings?
He needs to see a therapist to process his diagnosis. He’s 50, that means he was raised surrounded by the intense 1980’s and 90’s messaging that getting HIV was a death sentence (because at the time it was). Even if he knows logically that it’s safe, It’s going to take a bit of work to override that old traumatic messaging that’s had 40 years to carve deep pathways in his brain.
I’m 42 and I remember being terrified of getting HIV when I was a teenager in the late 90’s. The messaging was seriously everywhere and it was terrifying. I knew a few of my parent’s friends who died of AIDS when I was a child. I bet most people my age and older knew someone who died from AIDS.
Anyway, while his trauma makes complete sense, it is negatively impacting his current life and relationships, and therefore he needs to unpack this with a therapist.