Searching for advice

[ConfusedUnicorn]

I am in a committed 2-year relationship with a girl and recently we've been having trouble with sex. To make things worse, we're in a situation where we're long-distance for eight months out of the year, which has admittedly made things a bit more difficult. Nonetheless, we've both worked hard to maintain our relationship, and I'm happy with it in every aspect, excepting sex. I have a relatively high sex drive (I am a 19-year old male, so that's probably to be expected) and she does not. This is perfectly okay - when we are in person, she enjoys sex with me, and it's wonderful, however when we're apart, her sex drive goes down to zero. In the first few months of our relationship, we would sext regularly, however she recently told me that she never enjoyed it and I have to admit, that hurt a lot to hear. The sexual interactions are an important thing to me, and for me they help me feel connected and close to her while we are apart, however she is satisfied without them and actively dislikes them. For a while, whenever I brought it up it would inevitably lead to a fight and one of us feeling awful about ourselves - me for needing something that she hates doing and her for not being able to give me something that I need, and it's started to take a serious emotional toll. I've been scrolling through a few other posts on here and there's that theme of a sexual partner believing that they're simply not good enough to satisfy their partner or that they're not doing something wrong, as well as the asexual partner believing that there's something wrong with them for not enjoying it, and I see that in both of us. We've tried compromise on this, first by only having sexual video calls once a week, then not having them at all and just sending pictures, then only sending pictures a couple times a week, then not sending them at all and instead trying sexual texts, and so on, and in the end I feel like the compromises make me feel awful because I'm not getting what I need and they make her feel awful because she doesn't want to do it at all. A few weeks ago, we tried compromising again - I won't bring up sex, and she said that she would do her best to give me that sexual affection when she feels up to it, however it's been weeks and this hasn't happened once and while she seems happier, I just keep feeling worse and worse. It came up during that discussion that she thought that she might be asexual - she's never managed to have an orgasm, during sex or just on her own, and she doesn't feel any desire for me sexually when we're not physically together. I know that this isn't her fault, and I know that she feels really bad about it, but emotionally it really hurts me whenever I think about it. I feel that I must be doing something wrong, or that maybe there's something wrong with me for just needing sexual affection so much. I'm also confused and hurt because I know that she sexted her ex throughout the duration of their relationship, so sometimes I get the feeling that it must be a problem with me despite that the rational part of my brain knows that this isn't something that I can do anything about. Additionally, she talks about having sex and having a family together and that just makes it more frustrating when I try to bring it up and she just shuts down. I truly love her and I know she truly loves me and this is just one more thing that we're going to have to figure out, but I'd love any advice from anyone who's been in a similar situation or just has anything that might help us. Thank you so much!

 

EDIT: I'm sorry the post is so long!

[Grimalkin]

I hate to say it, but the two of you sound very incompatible. 

 

What you want, of course, is for her to suddenly become the sexual person you imagined her to be. But I have a sneaking suspicion that she was never that sexual at all. Asexual people often start a relationship with sex as frequent as their partner desires, because new relationship energy carries them through the mental and physical toll it takes to have sex. They're excited about you, they're excited about trying new things... but they're not actually excited about the sex, even though it's hard to tell. Now the new relationship energy has worn off, and she's worn out. Sure, she talks about the future like sex is part of it, but asexual people are often much more into the idea of sex, not the actual sex. 

 

I'm making a lot of guesses here, of course. Maybe she's a sexual person but on medication that kills her libido, or needs to be on medication for a mental issue. Maybe she's just not that into you, and is pulling away. Maybe sex is bringing up some kind of past traumatic experience. I have no way of knowing. 

 

What I do know is that you're 19. I know it really, really sucks when people mention how young you are-- I'm still pretty young myself-- but just remember that sexual compatibility is a huge part of a successful relationship, and the lack of it is a perfectly valid reason to break things off. If you're already having problems at this age, imagine what the rest of your life will be like.

[Happi]

Hey friend!

I'll admit that I am not super experienced with this kind of thing but I want to try to give my two cents. Take it with a grain of salt or whatever sounds reasonable to you. The post is a bit long (not your fault) and my attention span and memory stinks so sorry if I've misunderstood something.

I think it's really great that you two are working really hard to make compromises with each other. That's really good. However, having a conflict in something crucial to you and her like this is going to make things incredibly difficult. To be frank, it makes you guys a bit incompatible and the only way to make everyone happy is if something changes. However, you can't make people change. You can't make her change how she feels about these video calls and she can't change how important  that sexual connection is to you. That's just the nature of how the two of you are. If they're going to change, it's only going to change over time naturally.
 

6 hours ago, ConfusedUnicorn said:

...when we are in person, she enjoys sex with me, and it's wonderful, however when we're apart, her sex drive goes down to zero.

 

It seems like the distance changes something for her. The only real solution I can think of is just closing that distance if that's something you guys can do. You two have to weather through that hardship to reach that point. I'm not entirely sure if that's the healthiest thing to put the both of you through.

I'm still a bit unclear on whether sex is actually something she wants and enjoys or not. I'm not sure if that's because it changed throughout the post or if you're unsure about it too because of mixed messages you've gotten from her. Or maybe my reading comprehension is worse than I thought.

If she doesn't like anything sexual like that at all, then I would say you guys are not compatible, even if everything else fits perfectly.

[Guest]

She enjoys sex and talks about wanting it when you're together again? Doesnt sound ace issues to me, sounds more like the distance and a disinterest in virtual sex. Which, a lot of sexuals dislike virtual sex, which is one reason LDR tends to fail... it ends up not feeling like enough. 

 

My wife finds it a struggle to stay interested in me during stretches of distance because we arent getting the emotional connection from sex. No cuddling, kissing, touching... it's not as intimate and thus not as appealing. We work on it, trying to find things we both can enjoy, but sex lives just fall short LDR a lot of the time. The connection is lost and, especially for those who are less visual and more emotionally tied to sex, it just doesn't do it the same way.