(I'd like to apologize in advance for this being so long. There's just a lot of background information that I think is important because I feel like some parts of my story are unique; I've been doing a lot of internet research, and I've haven't found someone in a similar position.) My boyfriend and I have been together for almost 3 and 1/2 years, and we've been living together for almost a year and half. We started having sex about 2 and 1/2 years ago. The core problem is that I feel like we don't have sex very often and it makes me feel bad. For the most part, this has been true our entire relationship. As soon as we started having sex (about 9 months after we started dating), the frequency of intimate activity dropped dramatically; when we were still fooling around (and virgins), he would want to do something 3 or 4 times a week. Now, we'll have sex/fool around/anything, maybe once or twice a month. It makes me feel unwanted, fat, and ugly. My self-esteem is in the tank. Also, because I've talked to him about this so many times, now I feel kind of dirty or wrong for wanting to have sex. And, I feel helpless because, in my eyes, I can't do anything about it. He has always been the one to initiate sex. I became too discouraged to try anymore a long time ago because he either doesn't notice when I'm trying to initiate or (when he does notice) he doesn't want to have sex. I've tried every trick in the book to turn him on, but it doesn't matter. The one time I managed to initiate he couldn't perform. So, we only have sex when he wants to, and as a result, I feel like I can't even turn him on, which makes me feel worse. He doesn't feel bad about the lack of sex. I'm not sure if he doesn't notice it, or if he doesn't need it. He says he doesn't often masturbate, and I know he doesn't look at porn. He's so busy that he usually just stays home with me, so I know he's not having an affair either. Whenever I've talked to him about it, he's never given me a reason for not wanting to have sex. Once he explained that he feels a little self-conscious because things don't always... "work" for me easily. I've told him that I don't care and that I just wish he would show me that he loves me and finds me sexually desirable (since he doesn't tell me that I'm pretty), but it doesn't matter. To me, it's not a physical need but an emotional one. To make things worse, the reason why I'm so hard to turn on is because I don't ever expect him to follow through. He likes to "tease" me, doing the same types of things he does when he wants to have sex but not follow through. He says he needs to touch me to get turned on, but that everything shouldn't have to lead to sex, so I shouldn't worry about it. But, I can't help but feel like he doesn't want me anymore when he touches me and doesn't get turned on. So, I don't know what to do. I can't remember the last time we had sex, and I'm starting to resent him. He tried to get us to have sex a couple of weeks ago, but I was still half-asleep, and he didn't even try to make things work for me. I feel like he's becoming a selfish lover, only concerned about his needs, which was never true before. I'm desperate. I can't go through the pain and humiliation of talking to him again. I've been trying recently, and I can't get him to have sex with me either. Since I clean up after him and take care of him (which is another story), I feel like a roommate or a mother, not a girlfriend. The whole situation makes me feel terrible about myself, and the plain truth is, we're not really that compatible in terms of our interests, hobbies, etc. either. I'm starting to question whether or not I can be with him for the rest of my life, which has always been the plan. What should I do?

I've met a handsome man. He is really cute. He is in my college and he’s volunteering to teach English so I went to him so he can teach me a little bit English, and I am deeply in love with him. The first time we talked together it was great! I mean, really great he was looking at me like he really in love with me! and he kept looking and me and like his mind was in different place and he kept moving and touching his face and his hair and he was very very shy! And he tried to be nice like he said a lot of beautiful things that off course I would like it! And we had to finish but he said no we have time you can stay. After that I met him a lot. He was just smiling at me and said hi but yesterday i had a tutoring with him again and he was talking about his girlfriend! Omg, he shocked me and he totally changed like on the first time he was so shy – sooooo shy – but yesterday he was not! I do not know why but he keeps looking at me every time I see him. I saw him looking at me. I do not know what to do. I am sorry I don’t speak good English but I hope that I write good meaning.

I have been seeing this guy for about a month. We have known each other for at least 20 years. We do not have sex. He said he doesn't associate sex with people he cares about. He said he always had sex with women that were one night stands or whatever and it doesn't mean anything to him. He says he is seriously attracted to me but he can't keep it hard or even get hard when were together. He said he associated love with hanging out and being together. We really have a lot of laughs together, and I enjoy his company and he always wants to get together. We've sleep in the same bed, no sex. We kiss, we cuddle, all of that is great, but nothing going on down there. I don't even feel comfortable bringing it up with him. I do not want to pressure him and make it worse. We are 39 and 40 years old.

My boyfriend. We’ve been dating for a couple months, but I have dated him before. This time it feels different since we are older. Today, he told me he would rather die for me and that if something happen to me that he would be shattered. I have never had a guy express his feelings like that to me. I don’t know what to do...

This post was published by a Click user. Please feel free to respond in the comments below. We sometimes edit posts to ensure Click is a safe, respectful place to share stories and questions. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________   Hello the Click Community, I am posting this thread because I am seeking advises and opinions from you. I have been dating someone for a month and everything was great. We had good time together, we had laugh and I feel very connected to her. Unfortunately she now wants to stop seeing each other, reason being relationship is down on her priority list after a few factors: she's buying her first place, she's preparing her sister wedding... Interestingly, we have been texting since we stopped dating. She keeps sending me long messages and wants to know what I got up to. This makes me wonder whether she was honest with me. Does she use these excuses because she doesn't want to hurt me? Did you have similar experience in the past and how did it end up to? Many thanks in advance.

My boyfriend and I have been together for 3.5 years. We are from the same city in the U.S. and about two years ago, he moved to Nigeria for a work assignment. We made it work because he visited four or five times a year. Last summer, it was my turn to go abroad. I was offered a unique experience to do humanitarian work in East Africa. It was only a temporary contract, but I went because of the rich experience I would surely gain. I took a risk to come, quitting my job, leaving friends and a place I called home for so long. My boyfriend was supportive of this endeavor. He said many times he was proud of me. We continued to talk every day, and he was extra attentive because he was in my shoes of moving halfway around the world not too long ago. So, we were finally on the same continent again. In February, we finally met in South Africa. It was our first time seeing each other since I had left the U.S. in July. The catch was that it was only for two days. We both had busy schedules and decided to give it a try anyway and meet up even for a few hours. The first day was very nice. It's always nice when you reunite. We went to the spa together and had lunch and dinner together while walking around Johannesburg. We had nice moments. At the dawn of the second day, I could already feel the pressure mounting, the feeling that time was not on our side. On the contrary, my boyfriend has always been the type of person who believes they have all the time in the world. So, he woke up early and left me for a few hours to play golf. That was ok with me. I had supported his love of the game and had also grown up on a golf course myself. I had learned upon his return that the subsequent plans of the day were to go shopping. I was to leave later that night. It was the fact that he didn't have anything special planned that bothered me. I grew upset. To me, he was throwing away a day, prioritizing everything else (his hobbies and chores) and not wanting to spend quality time with me. To him, we were an old couple and he expected that we'd be doing more mundane things together. I got so angry to the point that I refused to shop with him, choosing to stay at the hotel, because after all I came to see him not to go shopping. We fought. He said nothing makes me happy. He suggested I needed to work on me for a while and not be so focused on our relationship, not be so obsessed with it. We both know we've worked hard especially with the distance to make things work. I cried. We didn't part angrily. We actually mended things, or so I thought. We kissed each other goodbye. In the following few days, we exchanged the usual texts to see how each other's days were going, etc. I thought we dodged a bullet and avoided a break. On the fourth day, he just stopped communicating. I didn't know what was going on. At first I was calm about it, telling him that if this is a break we're taking, he can take the time he needs to clear his head. He never responded to any of my texts. There were many days where I felt so bogged down with sadness, but I didn't let it affect my work. I certainly had enough going on around me to be distracted. I don't feel I let my work suffer because of what was going on in my personal life. I was actually pretty good at keeping it private, but that came at the expense of suffering in silence and bottling up so that I spent many nights at home crying. I hadn't told anyone about what happened. Days turned into weeks and into months. We had never gone this long without communicating. We had a brief break right before he moved to Nigeria since he was unsure of the long distance, and it lasted for a month. This time, it's been four months. Waaaay too long. Not a peep from him. The man who was my best friend and confidant was gone. Actually, I didn't know what happened to him. Were we officially broken up? I was in the the dark. If it was a breakup, there was no closure, no definite green light to go ahead with my life. What was worse was that it seemed he abandoned me. This has been the most trying time of my life... being thousands of miles away from home, living in incredibly frustrating circumstances, and having to face big challenges everyday... and he wasn't there. I continued to text him even though I wouldn't get answers. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing he didn't block me. I made up excuses for him. Maybe he was giving us time to work on ourselves. He had a job search to think about with the upcoming return to the U.S. coming up in September and the whole idea of moving again. Maybe he was dealing with his kid's issues. He definitely was busy and didn't have time to deal with the standards I set for this relationship. At the three month mark, I started to become angrier. I went from thinking he just needed space to thinking he GHOSTED me. How could he leave without saying a word after almost four years together? More negative feelings began to take over. In my mind, he had already made up his and wasn't going to come back. Perhaps he had already moved on to the next woman, even with three months left in his assignment. I sent him angry texts accusing him of abandonment and being callous. At the same time, I made pleas, saying what I wanted from him. I said I only wanted to be closer to him and be more of a priority. I have spent the last few days feeling empty, feeling like my life has no direction. The life I dreamt with him would be left unrealized. At the same time, I have been pushing my stubborn self to let go. If he doesn't have the decency to communicate and if he is aware of the suffering he's putting you through, why put up with it? Giving the benefit of the doubt is why I'm still here. I don't have closure. I don't really know what happened. My contract is also up in August. I am now navigating my next steps. It can be a scary experience, feeling like you're free-floating with no direction in life. It's incredibly lonely here at this post, far from home and from friends and family. His presence would make things a lot better, but I know the burden is on my shoulders and no one else's.

A few weeks ago I connected with a woman on a dating app, this one is designed to work with your Facebook profile and recommends friends of friends etc., with the potential of finding someone more suitable. We’re both in our late 20s. We are mutual friends with another couple, me knowing the guy through university and her the girl through a previous job. The conversation quickly progressed and it was clear we found one another easy to talk to. We exchanged numbers and she was quite forward saying I could ask her what her plans for the weekend were. We arranged dinner for Saturday but on Saturday morning she asked if I wanted to meet sooner and go for a coffee and progress to dinner. Throughout the week she had kept telling me how much she was looking forward to our date. Our first date ended up being eight hours together with conversation flowing easily, no awkward silences or thinking what to talk about next. We then arranged a date for the following week – a dinner on Friday at a nice restaurant – and once again on the afternoon of the date she asked to meet earlier for a drink in a bar. Dinner is extremely good and again conversation flowing and it is apparent how similar we are. She invites me home that evening and that also goes very well and we end up spending the Saturday together talking and relaxing with the intention of spending another night together at my house. But a few hours into being at mine, she asks if she could go home as suddenly everything just got intense for her and she realises she hasn’t spend two nights in a row with a man before. I then get a message on the Sunday telling me that it all got too much too quickly and she would like to leave things there. It’s been two weeks now and I wasn’t quite ready to finish. Given how easy it was to be in her company I thought this had the foundations to be something serious and given how much more forward she has been than me, I thought it was mutual. I would like to reach out to her again but I am also respecting her boundaries. To me we were a good fit but I can’t quite understand why she didn’t just ask to slow down instead of completely stopping things altogether. She hasn’t told me she no longer likes me, just that it was too much for her so I don’t know where that leaves me. I haven’t felt that spark with someone I’ve dated in a long while that I did with her so don’t want it to extinguish.