lovelikelightning

Mikayla I'm very sorry to hear that. I'm glad to hear that you and your husband still have an amicable relationship and that you are staying positive about everything. Still, that doesn't mean this is easy for you so I hope you're alright and that this process continues to go relatively smoothly.

Call My Name by Prince

imnosaint, These developments in your life are terrible, and though I don't know you I'm very sorry that you have to go through them. It sounds like you're dejected and lost. You feel like you've been betrayed and something precious has been taken away from you. You mentioned that you think you're too old to deal with the stress produced by this situation. You know what I think? I think you're too young to let yourself get swallowed up by this. It sounds to me like you're someone with nothing to lose, and though it might be a low point in your life, I guarantee you're more dangerous than you've ever been. You're dangerous to everything that has ever held you back from being exactly the man you've always wanted to be. I'll bet you're angry at this guy and at your wife for everything that's happening right now. Become something so beautiful that either one of them would be ashamed to look at you. You could be a goddamned super hero. Dedicate your life to helping others, those who are less fortunate. Winter is coming, help hungry people eat and cold people get warm. What's a personal trainer going to look like next to that? So what if he's in good shape? He's six years older than you are, start working out diligently and you could look like an Adonis in six years. You have so much time to become extraordinary. Paul Newman didn't start his charitable "Newman's Own" branch until he was 57 years old. By the time he died that organization had raised over a quarter of a billion dollars for charity. Sure he was famous, but you don't have to be famous to change someone's life for the better. You lost something important, but you also lost something heavy. Get rid of the rest of whatever's weighing you down. Don't waste another second of your time on NCIS or CSI or Law and Order. Turn off "Nothing but a Miracle" and start listening to Saul Williams's "List of Demands." You could be a machine, a beacon of all the best things. Right now you might be motivated by hurt and spite, but once you become what you're capable of being you won't even want to make them jealous (even though they will be). You're going to want what you deserve, and the better you make yourself the more you'll know just how much that is. You can come out of this a much stronger man. I know I've never met you but I believe in you. Good luck.

Thank you all for the advice and support. Reading over my own post it's clear to me now that I outlined a pretty good explanation for our mismatched sex drives at present. Obviously the stress from school and living with her parents and other factors is more than enough to diminish her libido somewhat and I should feel fortunate that we are able to make time for sexual intimacy as often as we do. I think I was just having trouble because I wouldn't react in the way that she does to all of that stress, and so I was looking for some other explanation to help me understand. It's just frustrating to think about sex so often when your partner is not. But these things ebb and flow, and with any luck I'll get to go through plenty more dry spells and monsoons with her. She really is wonderful, and we have a great time together no matter what. Thank you for giving me a place to talk about our situation. And again, thank you all for your advice. And an extra-special thank you to Mikayla, as I've read your articles and posts for some time now and have greatly enjoyed and appreciated them, so to see that you responded to my post was pretty cool. Thanks!

My girlfriend and I have been together for about a year. We are very much in love. I'm 25 and she's 24. We're both physically fit, though she's the type that stresses out when she balloons from her usual 120 lbs to a staggering 125 (I hope my hyperbole doesn't offend anyone, I personally think she looks better with a little more meat on her bones). Our sex life is complicated. On one hand, we are not having sex as often as I'd like or as she says she'd like; on the other hand, when we do have sex it is always terrific. It is more intense, intimate, and delightfully filthy than I've ever experienced with anyone else, and she has said that she feels the same way. That said, we have sex (or do anything of a sexual nature) about once every week and a half or two weeks. My libido is very high. In an ideal world I would engage in some sort of sexual activity (preferably not alone) several times a day. So it stands to reason that it is my lovely girlfriend who is experiencing the libido-recession which results in us having sex less and less often. Now, in the grand scheme of things a year is not an awful long time to have been together, and in all fairness there are plenty of contributing factors to her loss of sex-drive. I live in an apartment with a roommate, but she lives with her parents. My roommate doesn't get in the way, but when we're at her place she has said that it's difficult for her to get "in the mood" when she knows her mother is just a few rooms over. I'm obviously undeterred and wouldn't care if my own mother was right outside the door as long as I was fairly certain she wouldn't barge in, but I can understand why she has trouble with it. The reason that she doesn't move out is that it is cost effective to take advantage of rent free living while she is going back to school to become a teacher. School is stressful and time consuming, so of course I understand how that must have a dampening effect on her mood. Another factor which complicates things is that she is aware of how much I desire sex, it is one of the things which attracted her to me in the first place as she had heard from a mutual friend that I was a "sex addict," (I'm not, I just like sex a lot). She has since hinted that she doesn't quite believe that I enjoy sex as much as I purport to because of the fact that I don't hassle her about sex. I make it a point not to complain about how little it happens, as it seems to me that doing so would only make her feel pressured, and sex would become a responsibility for her. I would feel awful if I suspected that I guilted her into having sex with me. Unfortunately, despite the way I've tried to handle things, I suspect that she is either intimidated by my high sex drive or resentful of it, which would be another obstacle. Outside of our sex life, there's plenty of other life, and I might sound like I'm tooting my own horn with what's next but there's a point to it all, I swear! I'm pretty close to perfect as far as boyfriends go. I'm supportive like woah. I mentioned that she's in college, well I proofread and edit all of her papers (she's an artist, writing isn't her strong suit), and I mean all of them. My desktop is cluttered with her rough drafts and my revised copies. I know that she's a struggling student so I try to help her financially however I can. Nothing so huge as to make her uncomfortable, but I'll fill her gas tank or buy groceries for her whenever I can. I don't skimp on romance either, for example: she has a burgeoning interest in gardening, so for christmas I got her a 600 square foot garden plot at a local community college and grew all of her plants from seeds in my apartment. We worked out there together to plant corn, squash, pumpkins, sunflowers, cucumbers, tomatoes etc. and we mulched the whole plot and the plants are thriving. I took her out there for a picnic last week, the night she finished her first summer class and I made all the food so that it would be ready when she got out (I knew she'd be hungry). Just last night she made herself a late dinner after returning from class and I knew that she had errands to do later so while she ate I washed all of her dishes so that she would have more time. These are just examples, I could list more but this is already far too long. I know it sounds like I'm bragging now, but I don't call attention to these things when I do them, the point isn't to make her aware of how great of a boyfriend I am, the point is just to make her life easier and more special because I love her. So here's where I need help and it's probably stupid, but I'm worried and though she and I can discuss these things I don't want to do it too much lest she should feel badgered: I worry that in being exceptionally supportive I'm somehow turning her off. Could that happen? Is it possible that she sees my kindness as sort of pathetic in some way or something? This insecurity has its roots but this is long enough and we don't need to get into that. Thank you so much for reading all of this to whoever gets to the end. Any thoughts you have would be helpful.