Dealing with partner's reduction in sexual interest towards me.

Tomcat27

New member
I am just over four months into a new poly relationship, and I am dealing with an issue that is something perhaps others have experienced. I'll start by putting the situation into context, as we all know all things poly are sometimes complicated and involve many details, so please excuse my long winded post. For anyone who reads this, I can assure it is at least interesting.

I have been intentionally celibate and single for about four years before becoming involved with my current partner. I chose to avoid romantic relationships due to both spiritual, and emotional reasons; and also because of my dissatisfaction with monogamy. The current relationship I'm in now was also a situation that I attempted to avoid, but I ended up deciding it was time to give romance a try again.

I live in a shared house and handle the sub-leasing of the rooms. We have six people living here including myself (it's a big house by the way). That means I'm the person in charge of the property and hold the main lease with the owner of the house. I've been doing this for over three years now, and have lived in shared housing off and on for almost twenty years. In that time I have witnessed and been part of various "roommate romances" that have not exactly ended well or been enjoyable to be exposed to. Since I am aware of the potential complications regarding these types of inter-household relationships, I decided to not get involved with roommates, and to not rent to couples.

The person I have become involved with, is currently renting a room in the house that I'm in charge of. In other words, I went against my own strategy of not getting involved with roommates! There is also somewhat of an age gap, she's 21, and I'm 34, and that was another reason I was initially was hesitant to get involved, but alas, her charm and beauty got the best of me and I fell for her.

When we first became romantically involved, I told her that I was not interested in a relationship and that we should not continue (this was before we had sex by the way). I told her that I was concerned with a monogamous commitment, and that I have had many difficulties in long term relationships in the past. I also mentioned that I have a history of driving away the people I love, and that I have a personality disorder that causes emotional turmoil when I get close to people. I wanted to make sure what she was getting into with me, and that it might be a lot of work. Her response was that she is poly (which I have to admit, I did not know what that meant at the time), and that she wants to be with me regardless of the hurdles involved.

After she explained to me what polyamory means to her, I figured I liked the concept, and that I was willing to give it a try. I felt like it was a safe for me to enter into a poly lifestyle, because it would give me the freedom I require to be who I am. I also liked the idea that she already had other partners, and if I ended up hurting her in some way (my behavior can be erratic), she would be able to fall back on her already existing support system.

Once we decided to give it a go we started having mind blowing, awesome sex. There was that excitement of a new relationship, and the release of the built up sexual tension between us. We started sharing a bed, and have ever since.

We talked about our boundaries and expectations. We are more towards the non-hierarchy type of relationship, and I do not desire to have any control or say about who she is with, or how she lives her life. I did request that she tell me when she has sex with someone else to see if I can handle it emotionally. When she did (with a previous partner that started up again after some time), I felt all those bad feelings of jealousy, insecurity, and so on, but I allowed the negative emotions to pass, and everything was cool. I decided this was something I could do.

It was a little before she had sex with one of her other partners that the "magic" in the bedroom started to subside. It started by her stopping me during intercourse (penetrative) because it was uncomfortable for her. I was totally fine with that, and we continued to pleasure each other in other ways. Then it stared happening a lot more often, and I was becoming uncomfortable with the re-occurrence. I wanted to know if I was doing something wrong, or if I could do something differently. She explained that she simply did not want to be penetrated, and I respect that 100%, but of course in my mind, I thought of it as some sort issue with me. I asked her if the same thing has happened with other partners, and she assured me that it was not uncommon. As of now we engage in penetrative sex once a week or less, which is creating all sorts of thoughts and emotions in my mind that are annoying.

There's another detail here that is somewhat difficult to process. One night when we had plans to hang out, she rushed out to meet someone else that she met on OK cupid, and ended up spending the night with him. The difficult part was she sent me a text that she would be out late, but never told me she was not coming home. I was sick with worry and felt abandoned and rejected (part of my personality disorder). When she came back the next day, she told me they had sex. I was frustrated because we had not had sex in a week or so, and she would refuse my request to penetrate her, but she was cool with some stranger doing so. She could tell I was hurt, and we thn engaged in really hot intercourse that made everything seem better. Ever since then we are more likely to have penetrative sex after she has been with one of her her partners earlier in the day. She gets real turned on by it, and that's cool, but that makes me feel kind of shitty, because now it seems that she only prefers to fuck me after fucking someone else.

I want to add that we do engage in other sexual activities regularly, and we are very passionate, and we do occasionally have penetrative sex too. So it is not as if she will only fuck me after fucking someone else, or that she has cut me off sexually all together, but consistency of our penetrative intercourse is way less than when we first started having sex.

As a man I feel like it's engrained in my genetic code to want to get my penis inside the vagina, so in a way I am not sexually satisfied unless I can have vaginal intercourse. I know this is just a biological thing, and I'm frustrated that I have this dissatisfaction. She has suggested that I find another partner to fuck if I need to fuck on a more consistent basis. I am currently trying the online dating thing with no luck so far, and today went to my first poly meetup. It is apparent that it is easier for her to find other partners, being young and hot, so I can see why finding other partners may seem like an easy thing to do from her perspective. I'm not grotesque by any means, but it seems that it is harder for me a 34 year old male to find other partners (I'm kind of picky too), than it is for her.

Today after she refused my request to penetrate, I started talking about my dissatisfaction. This is not the first time I brought it up, and she told me she no longer wanted to have the same conversation over and over again, and would not talk about it any more. I am now feeling resentment, and I don't know if she is giving me all the details from her perspective which is inhibiting my ability to build up trust (yeah I have trust issues too). At the same time I feel guilty that I cannot just enjoy what we do have, and that I am beginning to drive her away solely based on the sex issue. I really love her so much, and one part of me wants to keep things going, and another part of me is putting up flags, and telling me to abort and get out of the relationship. Well she is renting a room from me (although she spends most of her time in my room), so that makes things difficult. If we split then I'll just have to witness her moving on, and being content while I sit full of regret.

Ultimately I want to stay confident and strong, and to get past this issue. It seems like when I end up finding other partners myself that this won't be as much of a problem, since I can then fuck more often. Right now she is my only partner, so that might have something to do with it too. I have to mention that I adore her, and I feel so lucky to be with her in any sort of way, and intend to even if things end up as platonic.

It's pretty crazy that after four years of living without sex, I'm not happy unless I get to fuck every day. I guess that's a whole other problem I have to deal with that some might say has to do with a sexual addiction. I'm not a therapist, but I have researched the criteria, and there's potential that I may have something going on (along with other addictions I struggle with). Sexual addiction seems like a can of worms in the poly community though, so I won't elaborate on that one. Some people may venture to think that maybe I'm just too messed up to be in a relationship considering all of my personal issues (mental illness, addictions and whatnot). That is a question I'm constantly asking myself, but I know I deserve to be happy just like anyone else. I would love to keep sharing a bed with my partner, and keep our relationship going. Part of the problem with moving past this issue is deciding if my dissatisfaction is justified or not.

Have any of you experienced anything like this? Any advice or support is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
Back
Top