Boyfriend in his 30s is wonderful but rarely wants sex

[RoseKitten]

My boyfriend and I are both in our 30s. I love him deeply. He is kind, very attentive, ambitious, good with my friends, family and nieces, and very attractive. He goes to the gym 5x a week, and it shows: he is in incredible shape. I dream of marrying and having children with this man. I know he would be a wonderful husband and father.

However, he seems uninterested in sex. I knew something was a bit 'off' when we first started dating: he didn't invite me to his place until about date 7 or 8, and that was only because I basically invited myself around. When I went around, I was expecting to stay the night (although it wasn't explicitly discussed), but he told me he had to go to bed early because he needed to be up at 4am, so he dropped me back at about 10pm.

When we do have sex, it's fantastic. He is an amazing lover, and I find him so physically attractive, but we don't have sex enough for my liking, and I just feel it is not important to him. He very rarely initiates, and he always wants to take me out rather than spend time with me at home. Maybe I am being paranoid, but he seems to do everything possible to spend as little time as possible at my place or his.

Some other things that did/do not 'add up' for me:

• After about date 5 or 6, we were WhatsApping one night, and I asked when he would invite me around. He wrote something like, "Netflix and chill is low-effort. I need to take you out to nice places." I wrote, "The "chill" part is nice, though, no? ;)" He then wrote, "If you want a f*boy, I am not the man for you."
• Despite his seeming lack of interest in sex, he has no problem showing me affection (kissing, holding hands etc.) in public, and he DOES initiate these things most of the time.
• I am a bit ashamed to admit this, but I did once go through his phone when he was out of the room, and there was nothing in there that suggests he is cheating.
• As I said at the start of the message, going to the gym is a big part of his life, and he looks amazing. He is also quite particular about his appearance - teeth, hair, skin, everything. I know the gym and grooming etc. have all sorts of benefits, but surely one of them is to look sexually attractive. In other words, I've always felt that men who put so much effort into their appearances do so at least in part because sex is important to them, and they want to look as good as possible for it, yet... sex is not a priority for him.

To finishing things up, 98%, 99% of our relationship is so good, but this final 1-2% is so important, yet I feel almost greedy wanting it. I want to discuss it with him, but a) I don't know how to approach it, b) I am not worried about his reaction (we have discussed difficult topics before, and he has always been calm, respectful, understanding and helpful), but I am worried that he may tell me something I have not prepared for.

So,

1. What do you think the issue(s) may be?
2. How do I approach discussing them with him?

Thank you.

which is not enough for me

That's surely your answer then. There's been a lot of theorising about the reasons behind why he doesn't want sex with you (most of which has likely been absolute bollocks) but none of it is really important.

The only important fact is that he only wants sex once a week to a fortnight, and that's not enough for you. And this is likely the high point, this is the want to rip each others clothes off phase. It's only going to get less frequent from this point, not more.

You have a fairly massive mismatch in expectations and needs. You're not compatible as a couple. You may be in lots of ways, but this one is an important one.

Surely that's all the information you need to knock this on the head.

Is he a perfectionist? He sounds like someone who would hate to do something if it wasn't amazing.

And that could include sex. Maybe doesn't want to do it unless he can put full effort in and make it awesome for you.

Maybe he's actually quite anxious and uptight, deep down and needs to control the environment to feel ok.

I wouldn't like to have kids with someone like that. Kids are unpredictable, messy and inconvenient. Could he tolerate that I wonder

@canisquaeso

No 🤷‍♀️

Agree. This mismatch will cause unhappiness in resentment in the long run. The reason doesn’t matter nearly as much as the reality.

What?

He has been snapped up. Hes with the OP.

And there are plenty of shit, ugly, dim people in relationships, anyway.

As I said later in that post, he is regimented but flexible.

He is great with my nieces, and, yes, he has cleared up their sick before, and he has taken one of them to play football a few times and has no problems with her muddy boots etc.

@everything he does is regimented - gym, food, cleanliness

Hmm, makes me wonder if there some ND. That's not particularly normal, from my experience of heterosexual, NT men!

Ultimately though, none of this theorising is relevant. Is he gay, porn addicted, does he just have a low sex drive, or is he actually not that into you? It really doesn't matter. The fact that you want sex more than once every two weeks is, and I promise you that this is the most sex you will ever have. The longer your relationship goes on, the less frequent it will be. This relationship is doomed to be one of sexual frustration for you that will get worse as time goes on.

So how much of your life are your prepared to waste on this man who doesn't satisfy you sexually? That's the real question.

I respectfully disagree.

There are all sorts of reasons desirable people are single in their 30s.

Hiya, I can kinda relate to your post. I've been with my boyfriend for 2 years, not living together and also in our 30s. We probably have sex a few times a month. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

The only difference is that my boyfriend is very open - we frequently have chats about how he finds it difficult in that men are expected to basically want it all the time, and if they don't, there must be something wrong with them. This sometimes makes him feel like he's "not a real man" and things like that. Sometimes due to work tiredness, stress etc he is not in the mood, and that's fine with me.

Like you, there's so many other things about him that I value such as deep intellectual conversations about our nerdy interests, going out to eat or seeing obscure live bands that no-one else has heard of, and the few times a month sex doesn't bother me, as I genuinely love his company and when we do have it, it's really good.

However if it does bother you, I think you need to try and have a good chat about it. I think id feel a lot differently about my partner if he wasn't so open, and likely feel like there was something wrong with me. How he reacts to that conversation would be the difference to me staying with him or leaving, as it's important to me that we are both open and honest about things and that both respect eachothers opinion.

Smells of sex!

Yes! He's very complimentary, and makes me feel attractive with his words and actions. When we do have sex, he pays attention to all areas of my body.

I was seeing a guy once (terrible idea, rebound from my broken marriage) and he sounds like your guy. He was also absolutely obsessed with the gym, it was almost his entire personality. The sex was decent, but he never ever initiated it and when i did, it took all of my will and might to get him going, which was the most red flaggy red flag ever in hindsight, but alas, I was young and desperate. He dumped me when things/time was getting too expectant for things to progress into something more serious. I then had the world's biggest light bulb moment and realised he was almost certainly gay, and had been using me to pretend to himself and others that he wasnt. OP I feel you might need to start noticing things more on this possibility rather than him cheating on you. Chances are the dots will join fairly soon. Sorry xx

I'm going to go against the grain and say I couldn't walk away from a guy this great just because his sex drive was lower than I'd like.....but not would I judge anyone who did.

Oh and one other point that occurred to me.

The 'fuck boy' comment early on in your relationship sounds defensive to me. I suspect that previous relationships have ended because of a lack of sex and those women told him as much. So he was warning you, right from the start, not much sex happening here lady and if that's what you want, walk on by.

@RoseKitten you’re setting yourself up for a life with no sex if you stay with him, which is fine if you’re ok with it

Personally I’d hate it but it would make me feel unattractive and undesirable as it went on

It sounds a bit like you’ve made your mind up to stay with him tbh

Hmm, another question that might seem odd, but... is he British? Other less consumerist cultures don't lean so heavily on "sexiness" as the highest attainment in life. A man can cultivate himself physically and mentally in ways that have nothing to do with presenting himself as sexy. It's hard for us in the UK to get our heads round...

@RoseKitten I dream of marrying and having children with this man.

Have you and he been talking about it at all?
You said he wants children - do you know if he would want marriage?

There are two sides to this.

He sounds like a really attractive, intelligent, kind and interesting guy. And you are having sex, just less than you would like.

To me, it sounds like a decent conversation could sort this out. He agrees to make more of an effort, even just to please you more of the time, if he is too tired to want sex. And you agree to enjoy his good points and not focus overly on the lack of sex.

Ultimately. Of course, if that doesn’t work for you, you need to let him go. But you may find a guy with far fewer good qualities who also goes off sex as the years go on.

Only you know what compromises work for you, though.

Gay.

This is definitely a factor: everything he does is regimented - gym, food, cleanliness, and when he organises dates, especially when we first started dating, they are planned like military operations, and he'd always have a plan B or C if something was busy.
It's a quality I really value in him: he leads yet is not a dictator, and although he is regimented, he is not inflexible

Sorry @RoseKitten but this is how gay men who can't come out are. They need to stay in control of every aspect of their life so that they don't slip up and let their secret out. They tend to become a lot more relaxed, easy going and change quite a bit once they've come out.
As for the sex, it sounds like it's a performance.
Sorry. Could be completely wrong of course but that's what I take from the situation.

Thank you for this message, Elise. As you say, our experiences are similar. I think my boyfriend may be very similar/the same.

How did you have the initial conversation with him? Did it come up organically, or did you sit down and have a talk with him?

I do wonder whether he may be ND. Some other small things that on their own are okay but together may indicate something:

• He seems sensitive to loud noises.
• He wears sunglasses a lot, even when it is not sunny.
• He doesn't like strong scents. I once asked him which of my perfumes he liked the most, and said, "Honestly, I don't like perfumes, but if I had to choose one, it would be this one." He chose the weakest one.
• He says he find socialising for long periods exhausting.

Just on the porn use OP, incognito mode can hide it for ages until there's a slip up. I apologise if I sound jaded, but it took me years of irregular sex & occasional search engine checks to catch it. I'd stayed in a low sex relationship because like you, everything else was perfect on paper.

If you do want to check for porn use - depending on what the limits of your own relationship are with checking devices - myactivity.google.com is a better indicator than search history as more saves there. You may need to check far further than you think to see anything, if he uses incognito mode regularly. If his gmail is logged in, you can also check if he has an onlyfans account by doing a password reset request. Checking social likes, saves & follows too - but most are too savvy to get caught that way.

I really do hope he's one of the good ones, and that you can find a way forward together. Maybe framing intimacy as for you, and non penetrative might help? Connection without pressure can help.

He is British, but he is not a typical British man: he doesn't drink at all; he finds "banter" tedious, for example.

He lived abroad for 10 years (from early 20s to early 30s).

I think he initially brought it up. We were good friends that ended up dating, so we're already comfortable in having often deep conversations about our feeling and the world in general. He felt guilty for not wanting to do it that often, reassured me that it was nothing to do with me, and we'd likely had a drink but I was fine with it. But we do talk about it reasonably frequently.

I've been married before and my husband was very abusive. For me, sex is not the be all end all of a relationship. Id rather be with someone where I feel like I can be myself, genuinely enjoy eachothers company (doing all manner of things other than sexual!) but also have that close connection, other forms of physical intimacy, and very good sex when we do have it! Everyone's different though, my relationship might not be satisfying to everyone!