Hey y’all, relatively new member here who needs some relationship advice.
I’ve been with my gf for about a year and a half. We’re really happy together, I’d say. We have great and active professional lives and enjoy our friend groups. Our arguments aren’t frequent, but they are sort of complicated. I’ll just say that what it revolves around is me being conflict averse and her laying down really rigid but unclear boundaries with things that, to me, deserve some compromise or explanation. I can give examples later on if it’s helpful, but I just think it’s important to say that this is a feature of her personality, which is otherwise very well adjusted and extremely charming and cool. (I think this impulse comes from a past bf who was maybe controlling and tightly-wound. So now she’s like the other extreme: she owes me no explanation for anything and can lay down her boundaries without compromise on anything.) Our sex life was always pretty good; the biggest thing that got in the way was how busy we were. But she was usually down once or twice a week and into trying new things.
So, we became long distance (and I mean long distance) about a month ago, likely for two years. In the weeks leading up to the move I gave everything I had to helping her prepare for this big life change, setting my needs and obligations aside to focus on supporting her. I wouldn’t have done it any other way. But this is to say, it was a chaotic time, and while I would have liked to focus on us a bit more, she was fixated on endless goodbye parties and, understandably, the emotions of such a big change. She was entirely resistant to sex during this period and I felt guilty voicing any needs of my own or for our relationship, sexual or otherwise. Regardless, I don’t think we spent enough time discussing how we would communicate once we were long distance. Our first week apart I woke up horny one day and texted her something flirtatious. She responded as if she wasn’t interested, almost like she was doing something else, though I knew she wasn't. I took the hint. I tried initiating something another time and she flat out said, “not into stuff on the phone.” And that was it. I was sort of taken aback but wanted to be understanding. I thought, surely she isn’t saying she doesn’t foresee any sexual interaction for the next two years, except for the few weeks we’ll be physically near one another…
I tested the waters again this morning, telling her how much I miss her, being sexy and romantic, talking about how much I missed holding her in the morning, feeling her hand around my big morning wood, etc. She responded alright-ish to that, but I sent her a pic of my bulge and she didn’t respond. I asked her what was up and after a few minutes of silence, she completely blatantly just told me she wasn’t into doing anything over the phone. But almost in half sentence tone, like when you are at a work meeting trying to urgently text something brief and important to someone. Then I said something like, 'aw man!', in what I thought was good humor, and she told me to go jack off to porn.
If we knew for a year that we would be long distance, and I just assumed that, of course, from time to time we would have phone sex, exchange pics, etc. Not that it’s my preference, but the alternative is not maintaining any intimacy and basically becoming just a pen pal. I didn’t respond well this morning after the porn comment, and said I really wished we had discussed this before she left; long-distance couples need to have some sort of strategy for maintaining their sex lives, and we can’t just avoid it for four months or we’ll lose our connection. It’s just nuts to me that she thought this didn’t warrant any conversation or explanation: almost like, no we're in a sexless relationship, bye. Now it’s like, if I try to initiate sex—something I am actually sensitive about—I’m overthinking it because of the fear of being rejected weighed against the longterm ramifications of having no intimate connection. Over the course of our conversation she became defensive and it wasn’t productive. She said she wasn't comfortable talking to me about this. Maybe there's more to the story? We agreed we would talk about it later.
Anyhow, I am writing here to ask generally, men and women, gay and straight, single and married for 50 years: what do you think? Is there a productive strategy for managing this? Has anyone dealt with this in long distance relationships? I guess for me, even just feeling that she is wiling to compromise a little bit would go a long way. I really don’t see this as the stereotypical problem where the dude wants to get his dick wet and feels ownership over his girlfriend or wife. To me, it’s the absolutist, nonchalant “no, never” that comes without conversation or sensitivity, which just makes me anxious because it’s like a sign she doesn’t care about our relationship. I don’t see it as a question of my needs, but the needs of our relationship?
Sorry this is so long. Thanks for your thoughts.
I’ve been with my gf for about a year and a half. We’re really happy together, I’d say. We have great and active professional lives and enjoy our friend groups. Our arguments aren’t frequent, but they are sort of complicated. I’ll just say that what it revolves around is me being conflict averse and her laying down really rigid but unclear boundaries with things that, to me, deserve some compromise or explanation. I can give examples later on if it’s helpful, but I just think it’s important to say that this is a feature of her personality, which is otherwise very well adjusted and extremely charming and cool. (I think this impulse comes from a past bf who was maybe controlling and tightly-wound. So now she’s like the other extreme: she owes me no explanation for anything and can lay down her boundaries without compromise on anything.) Our sex life was always pretty good; the biggest thing that got in the way was how busy we were. But she was usually down once or twice a week and into trying new things.
So, we became long distance (and I mean long distance) about a month ago, likely for two years. In the weeks leading up to the move I gave everything I had to helping her prepare for this big life change, setting my needs and obligations aside to focus on supporting her. I wouldn’t have done it any other way. But this is to say, it was a chaotic time, and while I would have liked to focus on us a bit more, she was fixated on endless goodbye parties and, understandably, the emotions of such a big change. She was entirely resistant to sex during this period and I felt guilty voicing any needs of my own or for our relationship, sexual or otherwise. Regardless, I don’t think we spent enough time discussing how we would communicate once we were long distance. Our first week apart I woke up horny one day and texted her something flirtatious. She responded as if she wasn’t interested, almost like she was doing something else, though I knew she wasn't. I took the hint. I tried initiating something another time and she flat out said, “not into stuff on the phone.” And that was it. I was sort of taken aback but wanted to be understanding. I thought, surely she isn’t saying she doesn’t foresee any sexual interaction for the next two years, except for the few weeks we’ll be physically near one another…
I tested the waters again this morning, telling her how much I miss her, being sexy and romantic, talking about how much I missed holding her in the morning, feeling her hand around my big morning wood, etc. She responded alright-ish to that, but I sent her a pic of my bulge and she didn’t respond. I asked her what was up and after a few minutes of silence, she completely blatantly just told me she wasn’t into doing anything over the phone. But almost in half sentence tone, like when you are at a work meeting trying to urgently text something brief and important to someone. Then I said something like, 'aw man!', in what I thought was good humor, and she told me to go jack off to porn.
If we knew for a year that we would be long distance, and I just assumed that, of course, from time to time we would have phone sex, exchange pics, etc. Not that it’s my preference, but the alternative is not maintaining any intimacy and basically becoming just a pen pal. I didn’t respond well this morning after the porn comment, and said I really wished we had discussed this before she left; long-distance couples need to have some sort of strategy for maintaining their sex lives, and we can’t just avoid it for four months or we’ll lose our connection. It’s just nuts to me that she thought this didn’t warrant any conversation or explanation: almost like, no we're in a sexless relationship, bye. Now it’s like, if I try to initiate sex—something I am actually sensitive about—I’m overthinking it because of the fear of being rejected weighed against the longterm ramifications of having no intimate connection. Over the course of our conversation she became defensive and it wasn’t productive. She said she wasn't comfortable talking to me about this. Maybe there's more to the story? We agreed we would talk about it later.
Anyhow, I am writing here to ask generally, men and women, gay and straight, single and married for 50 years: what do you think? Is there a productive strategy for managing this? Has anyone dealt with this in long distance relationships? I guess for me, even just feeling that she is wiling to compromise a little bit would go a long way. I really don’t see this as the stereotypical problem where the dude wants to get his dick wet and feels ownership over his girlfriend or wife. To me, it’s the absolutist, nonchalant “no, never” that comes without conversation or sensitivity, which just makes me anxious because it’s like a sign she doesn’t care about our relationship. I don’t see it as a question of my needs, but the needs of our relationship?
Sorry this is so long. Thanks for your thoughts.
