u/Medical_Horse_8612

Me (m25) and my gf (f25) have been dating for 5.5 years, and we go months without sex. It’s killing me and to be honest, I want to leave because of it, but it feels like such a stupid reason to ruin my entire life over. Just because I have this need. I feel so guilty about it all the time. We met when we were 19 on an exchange type scheme so we’re from different counties. The first 2 years of our relationship were long distance. For the next three years we lived together, and sex was something we just… didn’t do much I guess? We worked so hard to be together I didn’t care for a while.

I love her with all my heart. She is everything to me, I can’t imagine her not in my life, which is why this really annoys me. The sex is awful and almost nonexistent. Like 5 times a year. I just need to be touched for fuck sake. It’s gotten to the point where I wish I didn’t have a stupid brain and I could just have sex with anyone, no guilt, and be happy forever in a lie. There have been opportunities too. When you haven’t been touched in months, and a girl openly wants to put a collar round your neck and have you put her through a mattress, I SAID NO!!!!!! Do you know how much I want that, how much I need it. I don’t even care how bad of a person I am from ending up in that situation. I can easily say that I have never even touched another person in a romantic or sexual way the entire time we’ve been together, I’ve alway cut it off. But I’ve wanted it every single time, and I feel like I’m denying myself a sex life.

It’s not like we don’t talk about it either but I’m sick and tired of ‘ohh well sure we can try that’ and then nothing, and I mean nothing, one time it was nothing, not the slightest sexual move for over 5 months. I do the dishes, I cook, I vacuum, I work 8 hours a day, I moved 5 hours away from anyone I know, she is the only person I see some weeks and still, we never have sex and I’m fucking sick of it. I’m sick of asking, I’m sick of trying, I’m sick of doing anything to relax her to see if that will help her get in the mood, and IM SICK OF FEELING LIKE A PERVERTED GUILTY ARSEHOLE FOR WANTING TO HAVE SEX WITH MY GIRLFRIEND.

I don’t want to leave her, she is everything and outside of sex she is just amazing. I think I would have broken up with her if it wouldn’t be so complicated. She moved here from another country, where we live is small and we would both have to live here for a while before we could move, everyone thinks our relationship is just perfect, and I don’t want to tell people I left her because I want to have sex. I feel like the world’s biggest arsehole for that.

But I know I have to, I can’t have these thought for other people and keep it to myself and basically lie. I just feel so awful about it, why can’t I love her enough to never want sex. I HATE SEX. If I could remove my genitalia there wouldn’t be an issue. I feel like I’m cheating on her and I haven’t done anything with anyone else, but I just need some for of satisfaction. We’re just so unbelievably mismatched in the bedroom I don’t know if I can do that forever. But I love her so so much. She has defined everything about me and my life. I feel like I’m betraying her, like I’m evil, like I’m lying to her because when I was 19 I didn’t think about this issue.

My favourite painting throughout history is ‘The Creation of Adam’ by Michelangelo. If you somehow don’t know, it depicts God giving Adam the divine spark of life. A nine foot canvas representing both heaven and earth, and the most important part is near invisible when viewed in the Sistine Chapel. And that archetypal invisible spark of life is everywhere, from the grand towers of New York marketing teams to graffiti in the city’s underground neighbourhood. It’s what makes me almost believe that some people really are speaking with Gods. Because, at the time of creation, science hadn’t figured out that nothing in this universe has actually ever touched, that it’s all just energy, or that creativity on a scale of imaginary is what makes us so human. And yet, it’s all right there. Michelangelo could tell, and everyone who’s ever gazed upon that invisible spark could tell too.

It’s a human need, to connect with each on some level deep enough that we can translate this spark with the presence of only who we are, because somewhere within us lies the answer to everything. Our only struggle, has only ever been, and always will be, expressing that spark of life. And fuck me do we try, we try art, we try religion and, science, philosophy, capitalism, travel, technology, and just about any other school subject or news page banner header. To me, that’s why love is so special, let it wash over you and it says everything.

You once told me once that ‘I don’t fulfil your soul’. It might be most painful thing anyone’s ever said to me. But it has finally taught me what to do about us. For a while I thought I wanted to date you, but, I don’t know you well enough to want that and, unless your unhappy with xxxxx, I don’t think you’ll look for that in me. So, why do I love you, why do I yearn to let your wash over me, and me to you. It’s because when I was with you, I didn’t for a second feel like I needed to translate myself to you. You just knew me, and, in my heart, I think you felt I just knew you.

It’s what you did afterwards that’s always hurt me. I couldn’t even tell I was hurt I was so heartbroken by your absence. You put this ideology, this cookie cutter template of how you define these relationships you have with people between us. At the time I thought to say something, but I just assumed you were right, so I too am to blame for how long this has gone on. But after everything we felt in just one night, you tried shoving me in. A knee jerk reaction at this point. I’m also sure it’s worked almost every other time, and if it didn’t, then there was another pre-existing definition you could use, from lover to enemy. I’m not saying I’m so special that I must burn brighter than all who have come before, or be so shapeless that I’ll never fit. I just think everyone you met before managed to go through the square hole, and for some reason I don’t. I find it sad you can’t figure out the one I belong to though. I find it sad you can’t just let me be your friend.

If you think me being around will help you place me there, then I’ll continue as I am, settling into some form of a routine. But, I also understand that you might not be able to do this, there is a part of me that I’ll have to kill too. Because I want to kiss you, I want your lips serenading my neck, my hands exploring every inch of your body, feeling every detail to see if I had imagined it right. I want to indulge in your every lustrous desire, feeding our animalistic dreams, I want it to hurt, to burn, to make me scream in both pain and pleasure. I need our urges to be so strong it leaves me bruised and bled, broken in a way that heals, till time stands still, and we’re just two people existing only in that moment. I can even feel a part of it just writing this, the part that centre’s my existence to only you, the part that needs to be your dog of submission. But we both know I can’t be this, not yet. Maybe never.

If you think you can’t have me both in your life as a friend, while also dealing with these feelings, then I need to leave. Because knowing you can do that is all that stops me from booking a flight to xxxxx and satisfying every one of these needs. It takes all of me, all of my time, to not indulge in such a selfish act. If this is the case, I want you to have my number, my address, my emails, I’ll get you a fax if needed, but when you’re ready, contact me, show up at my door, and we can be friends. But I will also need your number, because, while you do break me, I’ll never not leave the door open to being able to fulfil your soul. It’s too sweet a cake not have the potential to both have it and eat.

All of this is written with more love than I even knew I could hold. Something you have taught me. It’s also why some of it hurts to read. I hold so few people in my heart like this, but once you live there, you live there forever. No matter what you do. You live there forever.

Your friend,

W