A U.K. woman says her boyfriend of one year seems to be losing interest in her so, naturally, he must be gay, right?
“I am 31, and have been dating my boyfriend, J, for a year,” she writes in a letter to advice columnist Annalisa Barbieri at the Guardian. “I am developing deep feelings for him, but have an inkling that he is a sexually repressed homosexual.”
The woman says she doesn’t want to fall in love, marry, and have kids with someone “only to find out that, although he may have loved me, we never truly shared a sexual attraction.”
“Despite his tender and affectionate nature, I have never felt him to be sexually attracted to me,” she laments. “I often initiate sex (and am often ignored).”
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All her other boyfriends, she says, made “consistent unwanted advances” and she was constantly “fending off” their desires for sex. Her new boyfriend, on the other hand, only wants to have sex with the lights off and then immediately goes to sleep after.
“When I raised the idea that he might not be sexually attracted to me, he flipped out,” she writes. “He mentioned early on that he separates ‘sexual desire’ or ‘sex’ from ’emotional connection,’ which left me aghast: the feeling of being in love, for me, is deeply bound up with sexual and emotional intimacy.”
“I am very troubled and need to know if he wants me.”
In her response, Barbieri tells the woman that not feeling sexually desired in a relationship can be “demoralizing,” but maybe she needs to shift her perspective just a wee bit.
“I wonder where you learned that a man ‘wanting you’ was defined by ‘consistent and often unwanted’ advances rather than the ‘tender, affectionate and caring’ man you are with at the moment?” she says.
Barbieri consults sexual and relationship psychotherapist Murray Blacket for help with the matter, and it’s Blacket who says the issue could be any number of things, and assuming J is gay is a cop out for trying to find the real answer.
Says Blacket:
J may be less sexually experienced than you – or the men you are used to. He may be shy, lacking in confidence or experience; or you may have mismatched libidos, or ways of initiating sex. If in response, you are asking J: ‘Are you gay?’ or ‘Why don’t you fancy me?’ in response, that would feel like an attack for any man – but especially if he’s lacking in experience and already nervous.
Barbieri suggests the pair try couple’s counseling. Either that or find a better way of communicating since, obviously, something’s off.
“You both need to take responsibility for your part in it,” Barbieri writes. “Putting him on the defensive isn’t going to make him feel great. Remember: there are two of you in this relationship.”
What do you think about this situation and what advice might you give the woman? Sound off in the comments section below…
marcinmass
I suspect he may have been sexually abused and his trauma unresolved. Many victims can’t link intimacy and sex. Several clues lead me there. The lights off, the cold shoulder after feeling remorse, and the sense sex has bad repercussions for him.
gaygeezer
Why am I not surprised that a person born and socialized as a female in western culture feels bad about herself because a man doesn’t find her attractive, or live up to some fairy-tale expectation of a gleaming future? Never mind the crazy-making trap of making self-worth contingent on someone else’s opinion or behaviour. The load of similar unrealistic expectations is also heavy on us. From earliest boyhood we are conditioned to believe that there is something wrong with is if we don’t grow up to be sharks in the marketplace, fathers who come home at the end of the day with industrial-strength patience with children, and devils in bed once the little ones are asleep. My opinion is that in the case of the letter writer, the “problem” is the woman’s, and all she’s doing is blaming the guy.
Doctor Benway
Maybe he is asexual.
Or maybe she’s ugly and stupid (that would explain a lot).
Chipper
May be he is just not interested in her anymore. As far as the lights on or off. MY wife, when I was married, we did it both with them on and off. no big deal. She may think he is more appealing than she is. Who knows. He could be. maybe a late bloomer.
Chipper
People change, people grow. He just may not b e in love like he thought. Maybe a late bloomer. He could be just tired of her. There could be a number of reasons. If he is gay, then let him be gay. Having sex with the light on or off really does not make any difference,. That would be the least of her worries. maybe she just lays there. who knows.
HereWeGo
She had men making advances at her – and she didn’t like it. Now she has a man NOT doing that – and she doesn’t like it. ??? Maybe she should find out first, what she wants before accusing her partners of being or doing ”wrong’. On the other hand that’s what girls always do: blame it on the men, no matter what!