Me (36m) and my gf (33f) have a relationship for almost 3 years now. We live together for a year now, and we have a nice home, shared values, and generally similar opinions about the world (a very rare for both of us). I had a mostly work stress related health issues in winter, quit my job and took my time to get the batteries back on. She is now experiencing something similar and will be ending her job this year too. (We are not super rich but we do have the money to take a couple months off work each.) Our life is running ok, but I have to confront the reality that in the last year or so, we did not have much sex. I think that on average like once a month, or maybe even less. I know we both were not the best mentally in the last year so I always took it as logical state and always felt like I just need to be patient more… But now I think I am hitting my limit. I feel like there is zero erotica between us. We touch, hug and cuddle. But when I have the thought to make the interaction erotic, it just does not work. She is usually busy, or she has her mind on something else. Or she tells me she is too distracted or that she’s not feeling well. The only time when she herself seemed to be interested in sex in the last months was usually weird situations like when it was already super late, like 2 AM, I had an early morning and already took a sleeping pill, or when I had food poisoning and my stomach was hurting for days. I have no idea what to think about it or what to do about it. It’s like a miss after a miss. I just feel like I really have no idea what my woman likes now and how to get her in the mood. She also often explicitly says how hot I am and that she’s attracted to me, but honestly I don’t even believe it much at this point. Or more like I just don’t see it in any way. It’s just cognitive disonance for me.
We even try to schedule dates better so she would have more mental space and calm for it and not think about her demanding job for example. But lately we usually have to cancel most of it due to inconvenience or various medical complications (that I absolutely do believe she has and feels, she has an orthopedic condition that often causes pain or discomfort). She seems to be pretty aware of the state of things but when we talk about it she usually gets sad and tells me she feels like she’s not enough for me and she’s worried I will leave her. So I even stopped bringing it out, since it does not really help anything and actually has higher chance of making it feel worse. And I really want to state that I really don’t feel like some lame guy who’s just etting played. (But then again, I suppose they never do :D) I am honestly lost as to know what else can I do more. I feel super frustrated and on some undeniable level I just feel so starving for female sexual attention. I even think I may be getting depressed, because I (and I thought that she too) always had very kinky mind, but now I feel like what the fuck is life about if I’m supposed to live like a monk.
We even talked about starting the family together before, but at this point I just feel like “Really? And how would we even conceive that?” when the topic gets mentioned in conversation these days. And it’s not like I’d expect it to get better with a kid.
WTF do I do? I love how close and mature our relationship otherwise is, I’ve never had that before with anyone. And I am very well aware that it is foolish to keep expecting hyped chemical rollercoaster from a longer relationship. But is this what life is for me from now on? Just working, going to farmers markets, dinners with friends and picking pillow covers? And jerking off in depression from time to time…? I feel like I have great partnership. But I miss flirtation. I miss seduction. I miss female attention. Without that I just feel like a working drone with no purpose and no joy.
TL;DR: super confused about a great long-term high quality relationship that somehow does not seem to include much sex these days…