Apologies in advance for such a long post and for sounding too cold - I’m trying to be as objective as possible. I’m in my late twenties, and my dp is in his mid-thirties, together for just over 3 years, both in good health and shape. He is working in the city, where i worked previously as well, but have been out of work for nearly 18 months. I am working daily on my job search. Not contributing to any bills at all at the moment, but not spending much of his income at all apart from groceries and whatever the household requires. My dear mother buys my clothes and toiletries and gives me spare cash for when I go for job interviews.
Our relationship probably seems perfect for strangers, but I am really struggling with lack of intimacy. We have sex, on average, once in 10-14 days. And when it happens, I initiate it 95% of the time and it’s over in under 15 minutes including foreplay. He makes me climax more often than not, but it’s always the same old routine.
The trouble is, it has always been like this. I bring it up every two months, and 3 times I told him that I will leave if he doesn’t make any effort to improve the situation within the next 6 months. His usual response is:
he is tired (yes, but it’s not like he has got a terribly demanding job. he is normally home by 7pm. no children)
he needs to wake up early (but does not go to bed in time, just sits around watching tv, smoking)
that I don’t have a job, which puts him under a lot of financial stress (I understand that, but the mortgage is less than half his salary and I am working on getting a job. would probably help if he didn’t spend money on unessential designer stuff and other trinkets, but who am I to tell him how to spend his money?)
With varying degree the response ranges from “I’m too stressed because we are buying a house now” to “I’m too busy with work”. Another side of this is that he says that the fact that I try to initiate sex turns him off. Well, in my understanding a kiss on the lips in bed before going to sleep is hardly an initiation. He says that I don’t touch him in the right way, but when I ask how I should do it he mumbles. I tried to do nothing, to ignore him, to forget that sex exists and “act normal”, wear horrible pyjamas to bed, wear sexy nighties - without any success. I tried breaking our routine of dinners at home together and went to see friends. I made my presence very scarce for two months by getting a very busy temp job. He just doesn’t notice. He hugs/touches me sometimes, but not in a sexual way. When he is home on holidays or days off, nothing changes.
I don’t think my ways have changed since we met, really. So surely if we were so terribly incompatible in bed he would have ended it ages ago. In my previous relationships I never had to beg for intimacy.
Oh, and he never arranges for us to spend time together outside the house. Even if it’s a local cinema, it’s always my initiation. I am not even talking about a romantic dinner out. Spoke to him about that, he promised to work on that, without any results so far.
Back in 2011 we somehow decided to get married in 2014. Now he says that it would be unwise to get married unless “we both are on a stable career path, as we both need to work to afford our lifestyle”. Now do I need to explain how that makes me feel? However logically correct it might be, it smells like a graveyard of all hope and romance. Or am I being silly?
Generally he is a nice person, albeit being grumpy for no apparent reason too often. But in the last 3 years my self esteem was torn into shreds. I cry at nights more than I laugh during the day.
Am I overreacting? Is this fixable? Or shall I make arrangements and move out?