Our Sex Life Is Terrible But We’re About To Get Married

Q: I’ve been in a happy relationship with my boyfriend for 21 months, and we’re going to get married this December. Everything is great in our lives except sex issues. (As a note, he’s never had sex with anyone else.) The problems are:

1. He’s never gone down on me ever — even after guiding him to do so — while I’ve done it multiple times for him (though I don’t like to). I have communicated my thoughts to him, and he says he’ll do it next time, but he doesn’t.

2. In our two years together, I’ve orgasmed only a handful of times; 98% of the time I don’t orgasm at all. I’ve told him that this makes me not that excited to have sex regularly, but he doesn’t get it. We’ve tried multiple positions, and creating a more romantic vibe, but nothing has worked as a permanent solution. He is also not open to using sex toys.

Please help!

A: You need to get really serious about whether you want your life to be like this forever.

If he were to tell you that he’s not going to change at all — which is exactly what his actions are communicating — what would you do? If your sex life were exactly the same or worse than it is right now for the rest of your life, would that be OK?

I ask because without a lot of effort that he is currently not willing to give, your sex life will probably continue this way. Or (and I think this is more likely) it will deteriorate. It’s inevitable that your sex lives will evolve over the years; for a lot of people, it gets better: You learn each other’s bodies; you grow more comfortable; stressors change or disappear. It happens. But those things happen to couples whose communication gets better and better, not worse.

Right now, you are on a trajectory for thoughtlessness (from him) and resentment (from you). I don’t foresee a situation in which he magically realizes that he needs to put in effort for you to orgasm. You’ve already told him, and he doesn’t seem to care.

You Deserve A Satisfying Sex Life

There are, of course, people for whom a good sex life is not important or desirable. You do not sound like one of them. (After all, you wrote to Bustle to get help with your sex life.) So I’m going to address this with that perspective — that good, satisfying sex is crucial to you. I am of the same mindset. If I’m only going to be sleep with one person ever again, I’d like it to be hot!

Your concerns are valid; subpar sex is not the price of a long, loving romantic relationship. On occasion, sure, it might be frustrating or meh; however, there should also be times that sex is banging hot or euphoric.

There’s a misconception that long-term, monogamous relationships lead to sexual boredom, and while I don’t think that’s always true, I do believe that incompatibilities can widen over time if both partners aren’t actively interested in addressing them.

At the very least, he needs to be open to listening to what you’re asking for, and he has to be honest with you about his feelings. You are communicating clearly and truthfully (“I want you to go down on me”), but your partner does not seem to be. He’s not doing any of the things he says he will.

It’s OK for someone to not want to do a certain sex act — that’s fine! But he needs to tell you his preferences and needs so you can make decisions about where to go from here.

You Don’t Have To Put Up With This

I think you need to have another Big and Serious Talk with your fiancé. Be very specific about your sexual desires and needs. It seems like some of his hesitation might be from a lack of experience, which is a fair reason, but it cannot be the lifelong excuse for you to not enjoy physical intimacy. That just doesn’t cut it.

Before you have this talk (which will really be the first of many talks; this isn’t going to be solved overnight), you will need to think hard about what you are asking for and what you will do if he isn’t receptive or willing to make changes with you.

The talk could sound something like this: “I feel like you aren’t taking my sexual concerns seriously. I have repeatedly expressed that I am not enjoying our sex life, and while you say you will make a change, you don’t. With that being the case, I am concerned about being with you long term and about marrying you in a few months. It feels to me like you don’t care about my pleasure, only yours. Can you tell me why you seem unwilling to put in effort here?”

Ultimately, for this situation to improve, he needs to embrace tackling this situation head-on. He’s going to need to get over his own ego, which I suspect is part of the problem if he’s ruling out sex toys — which are great in bed. (In fact, personally I would be like, “You have two months to figure out how to demonstrate real effort for us to have better sex, otherwise I’m using sex toys in bed with or without you. Good luck.”) He also might need to talk about this with a therapist, either alone or with you, to address his emotions around sex.

You have a partner who doesn’t seem to care if you are enjoying yourself or experiencing pleasure. For now, the problem is in bed, but this also gives you some broader insight that you should ignore. What if you’re unhappy in other parts of your life down the road? Will he care? Will he help you? Will he dictate the rules for how you must behave?

Consider the years ahead of you. Your life will continue like this until you decide to either have a big conversation or walk away. He has very little incentive to change, unfortunately, since he doesn’t seem to understand or care that you’re unhappy.

You should not have to compromise this much less than two years into a relationship, and you should not have to beg a partner to care about you. I firmly believe that your partner should want you to experience pleasure. If you agree, this may not be the right person for you.

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