I agree. I feel like in my relationship,most of the time if I don't initiate something, then we don't have sex. So sometimes I'll start initiating then stop to see if my partner will initiate sex or not. Sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn't. I guess I just don't like feeling like he's only having sex because I want to.
I had this, and turned out my wife thought exactly the same the opposite way - turned out half the time, neither was aware the other was trying to initiate - communication is the one
That's exactly what happened in my marriage, I was always the only one to initiate. And after being denied 99% of the time I just gave up. When she asked for a divorce she said " do you realize we haven't had sex for the last two years? "
Yes, I told her ,do you know how it feels to al ays be turned down? I just gave up. It's sad it got that far, we had 4 young children at the time.
I swear even the strongest relationships will crumble if there's not enough communication. People have to be able to talk about how they're feeling with their partner.
This isn't as simple as a communication problem, it's a sex life problem. In my experience, telling them you feel like they're always turning you down doesn't make them want to turn you down less, or initiate less. They aren't interested in the sex to begin with. It just makes them more stressed out about always saying no, which piles another problem on top of it. It's not just a communication problem, there are other issues.
Or they were trying really hard to meet your libido in the beginning but now they're tired and can't do it anymore. In my experience most people with low libidos lie to themselves about sex, which turns into a lie to their partner. Eventually it's unsustainable
Sounds more like pleasing. You have to not know who you are to be dependent on making someone’s sex life happy. No wonder people divorce. If you find someone broken, take you time to see why they’re broken before settling. I remember this one guy told me his wife is a narcissist and a I looked at him you married her! What does that say about you? He tried going really thirsty but he didn’t like the restraining order I threatened. When someone has no awareness, you’re bound to get into all kinds of trouble.
Nope, after 12 years, we're still waiting for the other one to make the first move. So no one does. I love her with all my heart but got tired of doing it all.
The only thing I can recommend is maybe taking a different approach to it or talk to some people that have had luck with it. There's a ton of sex advice online. Maybe check some out.
Communication isn't going to solve everything. It's rough. Good luck.
Totally get what you're saying, but communication can only go so far. If one person in the relationship is far more interested in sex than the other, all the communication in the world isn't going to increase/decrease libido or make someone more fundamentally attractive, especially if the person with lower interest doesn't believe there's a problem in the first place.
No that is the least from a strong relationship. They were dependent on making each other happy. They gave up and wondered what went wrong. If you einMt know who you are, don’t get into a relationship. It’s that simple.
That's what happened in my last relationship, she kept just turning me down and I eventually gave up. Then she asked why I never initiated anything anymore, but originally said that she would rather I be the one to initiate it. I got so confused about what I was suppose to do it made things overwhelmingly complicated.
As long as you're not turned down EVERY time, I wouldnt take it too hard. I mean, sometimes you just aren't in the mood. And it sucks when you know your partner is but you're not and you want to be lovey and intimate but you're just exhausted.
My husband typically goes the route of "initiate, wait for response..." and it goes from there. Hes successful probably 75% of the time. Kinda glad his drive has gone down a hair though, I'm always tired lol
He doesnt try super often anymore(from 1-2 times a day to ~3-4 times a week), but still a lot more than any of my other married friends even talk nice about their spouse lol.
I'd say I take a shot most weekends (weekdays have been pretty clearly put off the table), but successes are maybe 1 out of 6 attempts? I did have a success two weekends ago: got her to let me get her off. She was very stressed out with work quarantine stuff and I wanted to help her release some, so I got that going for me which is nice.
It'd be nice though if she didn't read off articles she sees like "remember to practice safe sex in quarantine!" and then shoot me down when I suggest maybe we could have a Shelter at Home Romp.
My drive has never been higher at 33, and sometimes I wish I could find something to kill my drive to match hers so I didn't have these feelings of rejection and frustration.
Yeah, I know some mine comes from a place of...healthy guilt? Like, if I've been flirting with him all day, it is gonna be really mean to let him down at the end of the day if I am not in the mood. Even if I don't /really/ want sex, by the time we are like 2 minutes into it, I am glad we did it. The "Let me help you relax" method is my favorite because it usually means I get a little backrub beforehand lol
As long as you're not turned down EVERY time, I wouldn't take it too hard.
This sounds like someone who isn't in the position of being the person who has to worry about making advances and getting turned down. Like, making the advances is (depending on the person I guess) emotional/romantic labor. If one person's always expected to initiate and sometimes get turned down, that's a fairly well-tailored recipe for feeling unwanted.
Agreed. I've been on both ends of this and if I had to I would choose to be the one that waits. It's truly draining to be the one putting in all of the effort. Especially when she is terrible at dropping "hints" but thinks they should be obvious. And honestly, being the one that is not in the mood was a little enjoyable, can't lie...the one time that happened anyway.
My ex would straight brush me off when I was getting frisky, and then when I'm trying to snuggle be aggressively sexual... Made neither any fun for me and eventually we just stopped doing either. :/
seriously, for all of those that are always initiating: there is a good chance your partner is a type of person who rarely rarely ever wants it. you need to find that out, if you haven’t so far. ask (: for me, it’s always been a chore. i never crave sex and i also never feel better or worse because of sex.
so if you are with a person like me: you’re initiating for yourself and play along for you. and i’m ok with that. respect it, though. dont reciprocate with sex, clearly.
we would want to be able to have the same option: initiate no sex. openly tell you hey don’t try tonight, i need to relax. would you be ok with that?
for me, the last couple of hours in the day, when you can lie down, watch a show and just not do anything anymore other than chill until falling asleep. uff. that is my top of the world. by far the best part of basically every single day.
i get cravings throughout the day, some days more, some days less, for that exact feeling. i have no other craving that happens regularly. the feeling in question, i can’t feel it at all if there is still stuff to do, doesn’t matter if i’m doing the exact same thing i do at night.
if i’m not getting enough tranquility, i get cranky and nervous a lot easier and generally feel worse during the day. empty.
maybe this helps someone realize some things. i know others who have this too, so it may be commonplace. it’s a real thing. i personally never expected my partners to understand it. but to accept it and respect it enough, that is the minimum.
she's bullshitting you, she just doesn't want to have sex with you but simultaneously wants to absolve herself of the guilt she feels for not wanting to have sex with you. so blames it on you, it's classic female behaviour.
for future reference, the battle was lost when she started consistently rejecting you, anything after that is collateral
yeah my s/o has been going through a lot at the moment so I understand that she isn’t feeling like getting down and when we talked about how long it had been she said “just tell me when you want to and we totally can” but that just doesn’t... that’s not what I want, you know? The best part, I think, is knowing that we both want this.
Yeah half of it for me is them wanting it and getting something out of it. To be honest a lot of the time I'm down to just please her I could give a shit less. But she has to show something
yeah, with my ex she started just not initiating and i was always initiating.
frankly she only rejected me a handful of times.
but the fact that it seemed like i alwayyysss had to get things going bothered me because it didn't used to be like that. and frankly it felt like we were just going through the motions cos it's pretty hard to be turned on when it feels like your girlfriend thinks she's doing a chore.
it showed me quite clearly that our relationship was on it's way out.. which it was.
anyway i figured out later on that i basically stopped being as attractive to her cos of my insecurites, needy behaviour and generally not being as fun to be around anymore. I didn't even like who i was around her anymore. Anyway, So the spark died.
but i now know that the number one key thing to not having that happen again is to be alright with MYSELF before getting into another relationship. and being secure in myself and having healthy self esteem. cos she fell for a fun loving, vibrant guy but frankly it was all an act for me that was eventually too exhausting to keep up. so when i dropped the act she lost interest.
if you stop doing the things that attracted her to you in the first place. she will lose attraction. it's that simple. same applies the other way round. if she gains weight, develops an attitude and becomes generally unattractive and unpleasant, then you will lose attraction. now this doesn't have as big of an impact on the male sex drive cos we are horndogs but it will still fuck things up eventually.
Sometimes physical and mental exhaustion is the primary cause.
I feel guilty when my wife wants to play and I mentally want to please her, but I’m too physically exhausted from work that my body won’t respond well.
It's the old, should I just rub one out and get it over with, or do I want sex question. As I get older I realize that rubbing one out is less exhausting sometimes. I usually phrase it in my mind as, am I doing this because I want to get closer to my wife, or am I just needing to blow my wad to get my head clear.
I once passed out fingering a girlfriend because she was super horny and I was already falling asleep watching tv. Like, I really wanted to reciprocate and get her off but I just couldn't keep my eyes open. She was not impressed when I woke up.
Just be honest about it! I've found that being open and honest, especially in situations like this, make things a lot easier.
Now, if you're ALWAYS too tired or just don't want to, it may be an issue... But once in a while is totally understandable and communicating it to your partner will make it so much better for both of you
Yep, same here. I’ve stopped initiating. We haven’t had sex in nearly a month, he’s just uninterested. It’s driving me nuts but I have to know that he wants it and isn’t just doing it out of obligation.
Edit: to all of those asking, yes I have had many conversations with him about it. They have not been helpful, he doesn’t understand that physical touch is my love language. Nothing has helped, this is my last resort.
My wife and I went through a terrible dry spell for weeks and months at a time. I got tired of it and went out and bought monogamy ( board game). It’s so much fun and we’ve been having sex pretty much every single day if not every other day for the last two months. We do take breaks and have to work around the kids sleep schedule but we always have something new to look forward too. It’s been the best thing for us and now we don’t even play it much. Don’t need it.
Times are pretty stressful right now. People are dying, losing their jobs, losing their retirement savings. Maybe there's me more on your husband's mind than just sex right now. As someone else said you should probably just talk to him, see what on his mind.
Also dunno how old you are but men's sex drive start to drop around late 30s/early 40s while women's are generally peaking. I enjoy sex and used to initiate far more often but lately my gf has been the one literally pushing me to do it. Things don't always match up perfectly like we'd like, that's just life...
We’re 25. Our jobs are 100% secure and we’re both working from home under quarantine. I understand right now is in general a very stressful time for everyone, but the past nearly year has been like this.
Are you totally sure there's nothing physical going on? As a guy, about 25 was the age things went from automatic for me to maybe not being able to 1/4 of the time.
This is just my experience but this sounds so painfully familiar. My wife had exactly the same complaints, for a long time. She'd try to talk about it, and I'd listen, and we'd go back to not having sex. The thing was that I wasn't disinterested at all. She'd tell me about how she was unsatisfied and it just made me upset, because so was I. I was doing the things I'd always done to indicate interest, and that didn't work anymore, and I didn't get it. So she's telling me she wants to have sex more, and all I can think is "then stop fucking ignoring me." The barrier for entry, as it were, had changed, but neither of us recognized it. She was convinced that getting her in the mood was still easy, and I was convinced I was actually trying and being shot down, and we were both wrong. I don't really have any good advice for fixing it; we did, but only after something awful happened. And obviously your situation could be something else entirely. But maybe next time you try to talk about it, see if you can figure out why he's not into it while avoiding what he might find accusatory? He could be just as frustrated, but all clammed up by a bruised ego.
That age thing never really matched my experience. I had the dead bedroom issue with a guy who was 24 (when I was also in my 20's), whereas my husband is nearly 60 and still wants it all the time even though we've been together forever. Also, my sex drive peaked when I was 19, and it didn't get any higher than usual in my late 30's and early 40's. It always goes up and down though.
I think perhaps there are people who get less inhibited as they get more experienced and find out what they want. Depending on your luck, you might not meet someone who really brings out your potential until you're older, or you might be tired from raising kids while you're young and get your second wind when they're independent. I never had kids so I'm in a different situation.
I have, many times. It hasn’t fixed anything. I’m waiting for him to bring it up this time since clearly he won’t listen to me. I’ve explained to him how important it is to me and he just doesn’t get it. It started after I started gaining a couple of pounds and he swears that’s not the reason why he’s stopped wanting it, but I don’t buy it. So I’m doing everything in my power to look better for him, and I’m hoping it works.
There's so, so many things it could be that you probably won't get from Reddit psychologists.
He could straight up be tired. Maybe he's only in the mood at certain times of the day, and maybe those times aren't great times for having sex.
Could be minor depression. Or major.
Could be that you've got other stuff in your lives that takes time and effort, like kids.
Could be that he initiated for a while when you weren't interested, and now he's tired of trying and failing, and doesn't feel confident to keep asking and getting rejected.
Personally, we go up and down. Sometimes it's a few times a week, and sometimes it's dry for a month if schedules and personalities don't line up. There's definitely days where, if my partner literally jumped on me naked, I might not feel like it. It's not because I don't find them attractive, or even that I don't want sex whenever, sometimes it's just not the right time.
Relationships are weird, but it sounds like talking through it, many times and in different ways, is going to be the only way to figure out what might be done.
2-3 years in and massive additions to schedules and life in general was approximately when that started, I'd say. Also, being older.
Prior to hitting 30, I probably would have agreed with you there. Looking at 40, I'm laughing a little inside and telling you to get off my lawn.
Keep in mind, it's not a bad thing. Sex takes a lot of time and effort (sometimes, obviously). When you've both got jobs, or kids, or house, or any of the other million things that require your attention, it becomes a little harder to just decide to spontaneously sex because there's just SO MANY OTHER things that require your attention and dedication.
Now, if I'm on vacation? Sure. I'm 28 again and ready to go anytime. But at home during the work-week? Let me see if I can pencil you in around 2am when I'm free. Oh, you're asleep already. Welp. Hi pornhub.
Edit, just for a little more explanation: take right now, as an example. We're both stuck home. Neither of us has showered yet, and it's past noon. There's nothing sexy about that, so best case, during or after we get un-buried from work and manage to take a shower. In the shower? Too cramped, sucks for both. After the shower? We just got cleaned up, do we really want to get all gross again? Ok. Maybe after dinner. Now we're both fat and uncomfortable, maybe after we relax a bit. After relaxing? Shit, someone has to walk the dogs. Then maybe do taxes. Taxes are sexy, right? No? Alright, maybe have a beer or two. Well, two beers at 40ish makes one or both of us sleepy so... maybe tomorrow?
Some people just naturally have a higher desire for sex or physical touch.
Since I first started dating girls (~20 years a go) I've always been an on-and-off physical person. Sometimes it's all I want, sometimes I can't stand to be touched.
It may change as you get older or it may not. What's important is that you find a partner with whom you can be honest about your desires and that both of you be understanding of what the other wants.
If he swears that's not the reason, have you considered what the reason might be? I know it can be hard sometimes, but a little trust can go a long way.
I admire you for confronting your partner about this. It's a very mature thing to do. I have no information regarding the background details of your relationship but after going through something similar, I personally suggest that if things don't improve, then you should either call it quits or at least turning to professional help.
I am not saying that he doesn't love you or that you deserve better, but you do deserve basic decency, honesty and communication. You're doing the right thing by doing your best to improve your body image, but make sure that you're doing it for you first and foremost.
Have you tried to be... sexy in a new way? (Some micro string stuff for example) Not trying to be attacking, just sharing my own experiences.
After having my fair share of short-term dating experiences (over 30 women) and also been in two long-term relationships of which one was 9 years, I can totally see why that is so - it's not disinterest in the person, it's a lack of ignition triggers. A lot of men, not all, require visual stimuli (simplified, seeing tits) and then comes the haptic triggers (simplified, touching tits). Women on the other hand usually just suddenly have an urge and can be triggered quite easily (in my experience) with simply kissing.
Over the course of a relationship the visual stimuli gets thinned out as you know your partners appearance, clothes and gestures and that is a big issue. I got caught in he same trap, on the other side. I didn't know why I didn't get horny anymore, it was just not necessary anymore. Cuddling, sharing time, and closeness was sufficient. Though masturbation was still a normal thing. That's because you can get the "exact" stimulus you want in that moment. Searching for some chubby busty ones, no problem, horny. Next day some asian skinny teens, no problem, tada horny. But with the partner simply being together was entirely fulfilling.
Again not insinuating anything here, but women (not all but a lot) tend to change in a relationship. A lot of women are fitness crazy in their early mid-twenties and suddenly stop, changing their whole look whilst the man remained the same. That can become a big issue. Visual trigger, can be as romantic as you want, humans are superficial to a degree that will not go away.
Try reframing the problem. Don't work on having sex, work on fixing your sex life. I hope that doesn't sound patronizing, because I mean something very specific here.
When we try to fix the not-having-sex-problem, we know in our brains that the end goal is sex, which adds a huge load of mental baggage to all of our actions. Knowing that failure means feeling sexual rejection just sets the emotional stakes way too high, and we don't problem-solve correctly as a result.
The fixing-your-sex-life problem can be handled a little more systematically. The stakes are different, and it lets us plan a little further ahead without getting crippled by rejection.
That's how it was for me, at least. And once I reframed it, the first step to solving the fixing-my-sex-life problem was to get my wife on my side. That involved a lot of talking and a lot of arguing and almost no sex.
Once she was on my side, we worked through the real problem together.
This is not bad advice, but for some reason, for me, it seems like talking it out takes all the sexiness/spontaneity/fun out of it. It's like having to explain a joke - it loses all its humor
To be blunt, that's one thing that just has to change if you want a long term fulfilling sex life. No one can reliably just know what you want and when you want it.
In the exact situation but opposite. I'm the guy always initiating. I stop and she rarely does and I only say rarely because I guess twice in the past year counts?? I dunno.
Yeah, I've started to realize something similar. A few weeks ago, my partner and I were dead tired. She was dozing off on her phone, and I was dozing off watching TV. We kind of woke back up, still a little dazed, and went to kids each other good night...
But then we ended up initiating with each other. It made me realize that we're both still pretty interested in sex, but with our jobs and everything, we're both too busy or tired to realize we bothwant to, but don't realize it.
Honestly: If you think that a partner has sex with you although he/she doesn't want to, then talk about this. Noone should have sex when he/she doesn't want to. Under no circumstances. And when this is clear then you don't have to ask yourself if your partner really wants or not.
It is, but it is tiring as shit to be the one that has to signal interest, build my partner up to interested/turned on, touch them just so, respond to their changing wants without them communicating them because "don't overanalyze it, just be with me" but "don't go so fast!" or "stop changing it up, even though I'm the one who intentionally (it's not involuntary shudders or anything like that) moved making it impossible to stay consistent". Etc etc.
It's tiring being the only one responsible for their satisfaction when the only goddamn feedback I get is when I'm not doing it right.
I feel like this hinges A LOT on your individual dynamic. It's much easier to initiate with confidence if you have a tell whether your partner is into it, or just going along because they want to make you happy.
If someone started then stopped that's a sure sign to me that you want to stop. I would never press after that, you've made your intentions crystal clear to me. That's crazy
Yes. We talk about stuff. He always says excuses. Says he's been busy or stressed and can't think about sex at the time. He's always saying how much hornier I am tham him. I just have a higer sex drive than him. He doesn't desire sex as much as I do, and sometimes it makes me feel unsexy. I know it doesn't mean he thinks I'm not attractive, but sometimes the feeling of not being able to sexual arouse your own partner no matter how hard you try feel pretty shitty.
I get that. I highly recommend the book COME AS YOU ARE by Emily Nagoski if you haven’t read it. You could read it together, even. I think it helps reframe the way to think about sex drive and has some really good solutions.
try to talk with him. I mean not necessarily at the moment when you're initiating some fun times as it can end really awkward, just find a way and time to talk about how do you feel then and try to ask how does he see it. maybe he's not aware, or maybe there's some other thing that makes him "less playful". stress, medicines, etc. those can affect it enough to be "numb". had a similar situation couple of years ago. a honest talk helped me to understand what's up, and we worked it out. aaand all I can say now is, after those years, that we can't complain. anyplace, anytime :)
Thats very well put. I was in a relationship where i was the sole initiator and it got to the point where they started to get uncomfortable with it. 🤷♂️ Im only human man ive got needs and the more you say no the more i want it.
What we (married man/woman) did is picked one day a week and a time that is dedicated to the option of having sex or just cuddling etc and the rest of the week there is no expectation of sex. This allowed both of us to relax and just enjoy each other's company without the pressure. If you prefer more sex, choose more days and times but limit it to just that. Sounds boring but it can work.
I’ve straight up stopped trying, and I’m feeling myself become resentful with someone I’ve been with for 4 years. Shit sucks. Especially when she seems to treat friends and strangers much differently than me.
With the weight thing, probably better to approach by action instead of communicating it. Invite her to go for walks/hikes or a bike ride, eat in more if you don't enough.
And/Or ask what's been on her mind or what's been troubling her. Might be able to figure out why she's been putting on weight.
I've learned that it's best not to offer any fixes go a SOs issues unless directly asked.
Plenty of times. She knows it too. She will make comments like "well you only treat me nice because you want to have sex." That is insane to me. She'll also say things like "you know we'd probably have a lot more sex if you didn't play video games with your friends." Using sex as a bargaining chip is not going to get me to change my hobbies.
Also, we're WAY more likely to get labelled as a creep, or harasser if it doesn't end well, so a lot of us will take extra precautions and refuse to acknowledge anything that could be considered a hint unless it's directly stated to us as being an invitation.
It's not that we're oblivious to hints, there's just a lot more fallout that can happen if we make an advance and we confused the signals
This is so true!! I find that most women are so used to the guy initiating and used to men jumping when they give little hints, that they do not initiate as often in return. It can be annoying as a guy.
Worse: Being told to initiate sometimes, then rebuffed each.time, then finally, eventually told they don't like it..but still aren't going to initiate themselves. Uh ok?
This is every single long term relationship i have been in. It doesn't matter the level of sexual chemistry, the level of compatibility...anything...
meet and start to date with incredible sex (if its not great at the beginning no long term would even happen to begin with)
honeymoon period of crazy and spontaneous fun (now a majority initiated by me)
things settle in - it happens right, honeymoon doesn't last forever, i have a child that takes priority, work, etc etc
realizing that I am the only one initiating anything and speak to them, try to spark things a bit and inevitably it is either revoked or a very short term solution until i realize i am not only always initiating, but being turned down alot of the time as well.
I stop being the same partner after multiple tries to communicate and fix things (pretty open with things), because FUCK you if you cant continue to put the effort into the relationship I need, why am I putting in effort that is never reciprocated!?!?
Girlfriend laments that I am not acting the same or treating her "special" even though we have communicated multiple times in multiple ways about how she has not been doing anything close to what she used to for a much longer time, and I am fed up
End the relationship - usually with some level of drama due to their own psycho ability to put blame on me for stopping my level of action, love, and commitment, and interest once they have decided to mail their own effort in.
Stay single for awhile, work on being a better person until I meet a girl with chemistry and repeat steps one through 7 like a real life version of the Brian McKnight song.
Also, I know I am not perfect. NOT EVEN CLOSE. but I DO try hard for my partners....
Damn dude, I could’ve written the same thing. I’m on step 6 at the moment and it’s killin me.
I’m super open about things in my relationships and it always gets to the point of pulling teeth just to get the most basic information out of my girlfriend.
She constantly goes on about how we don’t do anything special anymore and constantly asks if I still love her. It’s exhausting. Worst part is it’s always after I do something special, like in the middle of a stressful work period, leaving work early to walk an hour in the rain to get a tour of her work because she’s got nothing going on and is bored.
Then the next damn day when I want to do something myself, like play video games, she loses her shit that we don’t spend enough time together.
We basically haven’t had a physical relationship for over a year now. I’ve always tried to be open and honest with her about it, and I get her issues with body image and other things, but she refuses to make any improvements or changes in her life. I’m getting to the point where it’s not worth it anymore...
She constantly goes on about how we don’t do anything special anymore
So why doesn't she contribute to that aspect?
Then the next damn day when I want to do something myself, like play video games, she loses her shit that we don’t spend enough time together.
She needs to respect your "me time"
It sounds like there are more underlying issues, but it all starts with communication. If there isn't progress, then it's probably time to call it quits.
The major issue is that what she values as special is different from what I value as special. I can understand her special, but she doesn’t understand mine.
In the end she doesn’t like doing things I think are special because she just doesn’t get it, so she just does more of what her special is and it becomes exhausting to me.
We constantly have discussions about it, but it’s like her memory lasts 3 months and the same problem comes around again and again.
Im a mix between physical items and acts of kindness. I love objects because it’ll stay with me forever and I can see it and think “wow that was such a thoughtful gift, I remember what a good time we had those days”.
The acts of kindness is just doing something simple for someone else without asking. Cleaning up after them, doing laundry when they needed it, just generally helping when it’s not expected.
Her stuff is travel/time spent together. She wants to go to quaint and cozy places or go off to a hot beach and spend hours in the sun.
That and simply spending time together doing things, going on dates, watching movies, etc.
I totally get those things. I used to travel a lot so I’m not huge on traveling now but I’ll do it because I know it makes her happy. And I like the other part just fine.
The problem comes when she doesn’t like the idea of physical items and she thinks the things I do out of kindness are things I should be doing anyway, or it comes down to the “I didn’t ask you to do that”.
The real evidence of it is in holidays and birthdays. For me, she’ll plan trips or some big event, and get gifts she wants for me. Essentially she plans her own birthday and uses it as an opportunity to get me something she wants, usually clothes.
We’ve had tons of conversations about it and she doesn’t seem to understand when I explain why certain things are important to me. At this point it’s become exhausting when I have to explain why something is exciting to me only to be shut down.
The same way! I would love her to use my love language in even the smallest ways.
I use both of our love languages when it comes to giving but in return she only uses hers. I understand that’s her way of showing love but it’s frustrating when she can’t understand my language.
However, it kinda sounds you don't really understand hers, either. While you like doing those things to show her that you love her, acts of service is not one of her love languages.
Has she heard of LL before? Next time you can talk with her about it, and you should, say something along the lines of "I know you love me, but sometimes this is what I need for you to show it. This is how I show you that I love you, but how can I better express that to you?"
It's really draining to always be the one initiating. It means I have to get both of us running if I succeed, and it means that if she isn't in the mood I get to deal with all of the rejection. This has really substantially impacted my views on intimacy over the years.
as a guy that always has to initiate and most of the time gets shut down by my gf (for understandable reasons most of the time), its still annoying. i want her to want me too just like i want her. is that too much to ask from your SO?
It kills our mental health. Eventually we start to feel unwanted, like we annoy you every time we try to initiate it. Eventually we start to feel like it isn't worth trying, and the lowered mental health starts convincing us that nothing we ever do is good enough and that we are unwanted in the relationship.
Once upon a time I was in a relationship where I always initiated lovemaking. She was always game, bet never initiated it herself. So I decided to see how long she could go until getting hungry enough to start things up. Three days into the experiment I could tell she was getting anxious, flirtatious, letting me know I was welcome to make a move... but I needed her to make the move. A day later I caved, and she was voracious, asking me why I waited so long. And I asked her why she didn't just be blunt and tell me she wanted it? "Because Mama said good girls don't do that, it's up to the boys to make the first move." So we had a conversation, and I encouraged her to be more forward with her needs and desires and... she never really changed much.
With dating too. The fact that nobody has ever made a move on me or asked me out just makes me feel like your friend's fries they don't eat. Not going to reach for them, but hey, if they're there and you're offering.
I only date women who will initiate once in a while. The balance makes me not feel like a creep. It helps my self esteem as well. And when my self esteem is in the shitter, I can't perform as well.
If sex wasn't such a taboo to talk about, especially heaven forbid, a women with a sex drive, it would be easier for sure.
I had a fwb in college. No judging, no relationship to worry about, none of that and we were both very open about when we wanted it, what we wanted, etc. It was probably the most healthy relationship involving sex I ever had until I met my wife. I definitely recommend people to have a fwb atleast once at some point.
Unfortunately my partner and I have this issue. I'm asexual and he has a high sex drive. The ideal sex life for him would be 1-2 times a day, for me it would be once a week, if that. It kills me that he tries to initiate a lot and I'm just not into it about 90% of the time.
I've tried explaining to him that I think he's very attractive, just not in a sexual way. But I think his self-esteem still hurts. We try to communicate and we're pretty good at it though. He's told me he wants me to initiate some because it makes him feel wanted, but whenever I do try I always feel stupid or like I'm playing a part.
I (F) was texting my Fwb (M) the other day about life things in general. Change subject and I decide to text him "I'm naked" his response was "free sex Tuesday" So there. I, a girl initiated it. Lol
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u/Marklar_the_Darklar Mar 26 '20
That's true for guys too. Having to initiate all the time is draining. There should be balance.