My girlfriend (f31) and I (30) have been dating for a year now and have lived together for the past 6 months. She is amazing and we are both planning to get married and have kids together in the future. Although our relationship is good, recently she told me some things that struck me the wrong way. She opened up to me about why we haven’t been having sex as often and told me that a lot of it is due to the fact that I should be taking control when it comes to initiating sex. For some background, we’ve had problems with sex before as my libidio is far higher than hers and sex frequency is something I’ve complained about before. Due to this, I’ve let off on initiating sex for a long time since I want to make sure I go at her pace and not guilting her into sex. So her telling me that I need to be more controlling of our sex life was kind of a shock. She also mentioned that her libido is not going to be the same as it was in the start of our relationship, where she initiated more often and more frequently (we were constantly having sex at the start).
This conversation made me feel a little self concious and emasculated. It makes me feel like I don’t turn her on as much as she’d like. Especially the comment about her libido dropping, I feel like attraction should grow over time and while the frequency may dip, I still want the same amount of desire from her as we grow deeper in love. I just feel like a bit of a failure to be honest. This is my first long-term relationship as well, so maybe this is just my inexperience showing. I don’t want to tell her how devastated I feel over this since I’m glad that she was truthful with me, but I’m having a hard time not taking this conversation personally. How do I cope with these negative thoughts that were brought on by this conversation?
tl;dr: My girlfriend wants me to be more assertive in our sex life and it is making me feel self conscious and in my own head.
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Why is it your job? Why does she get to decide it’s your job? Are you not equal partners?
She sounds emotionally immature since it’s obvious she wants something, either a reaction or a fantasy, but instead of discussion she dumps it on you and makes it your fault.
Major red flags here.
Attraction doesn’t always grow over time. It can, but it can lessen too. Comfort grows over time. Complacency does, affection and love definitely can. It’s very normal for couples to have less sex as the relationship goes on. This isn’t meant to invalidate your feelings about the conversation but know that receiving feedback doesn’t indicate a failure on your part, even if it kinda hurts our feelings a bit to hear it. You can always ask to understand her perspective more if it might help you move through this in a healthy way without carrying the burden of fixing this issue on your own!
I mean, they don’t call it the “honeymoon period” for nothing. Just because it’s not happening as much, doesn’t mean it’s a negative reflection of how she feels about you or anything. As for initiating, it’s tricky. Clearly, she’d like it initiated by you more, but by the same token, that doesn’t mean she’ll always want to, so communication and reading the room are key, along with not taking it personally.
It’s totally understandable that you’re feeling thrown off by this. You’ve clearly been trying to be respectful of her pace and boundaries, and now it feels like the rules shifted on you.
Why is it all up to you? You are supposed to be partners. You need to turn this a little back in her and tell her that is not fair to you. You need to feel wanted and desired by your partner as well.
Some women like a man to take a dominant role when initiating sex. Sounds like to me she wants you to initiate it in a dominant way where she feels wanted and taken. I wouldn’t take it personally, I believe she’s just telling you what she wants. She wants you to take control IMO. Release your inner beast and have fun