Hi all. New to the forum. I'm 22, female, engaged to my fiance whom I've been with for over 4 years. We will be getting married on our next anniversary.
We have been struggling with many issues. A big one is that for several years I was on the Pill which completely killed my sex drive, and even now after being off it for roughly a year and a half, I do not fully have my libido back. Prior to starting the Pill I was masturbating at least once a day, and I remember having a lot more sexual desire at the start of our relationship. I still love my fiance, but I know I am not meeting his sexual needs. I will have spurts every once in a while where we have sex twice in one week or something, but in general if it were left up to my sex drive we would probably have sex once a month, if that. I miss being able to feel sexual and sensual, and I don't like the discord that my sex drive being out of whack had caused. He is always asking and I am always saying no.
In regards to opening up our relationship... I would have no problem with opening our relationship, and I would gladly let him be with a woman whose sex drive matched his own. I've even told him recently that if he ever got the desire to have sex with another woman, I wish he would tell me and we would talk it out and he would have my blessing, because I do not want to sacrifice the solid, loving relationship we have just because he has sexual desires for someone else. He was surprised that I said so, and said something very brief to the effect that it doesn't go the other way (that he wouldn't do the same for me with another man).
The challenge is that I actually do want to be able to have sex with other men and women. We got together very young and both of us have limited sexual experience (he was a virgin, I had only had 1 one-night-stand with a man). I feel like part of my lack of sex drive is both of our lack of expertise in the bedroom. (EDIT: I should add that I've been unable to orgasm with either of my partners, though I'm perfectly able to do so alone.) I also feel like the rest of our lives is a long time to spend just having sex with each other. I want to have the variety of experiences that sex with other people could give me. I want to have three(or more)somes as well, which he has been open the idea of as F/M/F but not really M/F/M.
The real kicker is that thinking about myself sleeping with other people (and thinking of him with other people) has actually sort of turned my sex drive back on, at least a little bit. I actually tried to initiate sex the other night for the first time in a loooong time (though he was exhausted from work and not really in the mood for once, so we didn't). I'm also struggling with the fact that there are two different people who I would like to be with if we DID open up, and I haven't spoken to either of them about my "crush" on them, but I get butterflies around them in a way that I haven't with my fiance in a very, very, very long time. I have missed that NRE with my fiance, and I feel like it is coming back again with him by virtue of being interested in other people as well.
I don't know how to tell him that I'm really interested in opening our relationship. I don't know how he would take it. I don't know if now is the right time. Instinct says maybe we should wait until we're married, or maybe we should get our own sex life revved back up to where it should be before I try going off with other people. I am worried that if we did open up, it would be him doing it because I want it, not because he's genuinely OK with it. I'm worried he would see it as a threat to our relationship. Most of all I'm becoming frightened of the idea of being chained into monogamy for the rest of my life. I want to be with him in a relationship, in a marriage, for the rest of my life, but do I seriously want to be locked into a monogamous sexual relationship for 50+ years? That's a long, long, long time and I feel like if I don't experience all that life offers I am wasting my life away. I'm not looking for a romantic relationship outside of what would be my primary, although we have discussed causally that we could see ourselves in a polygamy type of situation with more than one wife or making it a romantic threesome...
We are also not currently the best with communication. We hurt each other's feelings a lot, and he is big about teasing me which I don't always mind but sometimes it gets to be too much. I want to communicate better whether we open up or not.
This has gotten long because I really need to get my thoughts out somewhere. Any thoughts are appreciated. I'm afraid that trying to open up will ruin our current relationship.
We have been struggling with many issues. A big one is that for several years I was on the Pill which completely killed my sex drive, and even now after being off it for roughly a year and a half, I do not fully have my libido back. Prior to starting the Pill I was masturbating at least once a day, and I remember having a lot more sexual desire at the start of our relationship. I still love my fiance, but I know I am not meeting his sexual needs. I will have spurts every once in a while where we have sex twice in one week or something, but in general if it were left up to my sex drive we would probably have sex once a month, if that. I miss being able to feel sexual and sensual, and I don't like the discord that my sex drive being out of whack had caused. He is always asking and I am always saying no.
In regards to opening up our relationship... I would have no problem with opening our relationship, and I would gladly let him be with a woman whose sex drive matched his own. I've even told him recently that if he ever got the desire to have sex with another woman, I wish he would tell me and we would talk it out and he would have my blessing, because I do not want to sacrifice the solid, loving relationship we have just because he has sexual desires for someone else. He was surprised that I said so, and said something very brief to the effect that it doesn't go the other way (that he wouldn't do the same for me with another man).
The challenge is that I actually do want to be able to have sex with other men and women. We got together very young and both of us have limited sexual experience (he was a virgin, I had only had 1 one-night-stand with a man). I feel like part of my lack of sex drive is both of our lack of expertise in the bedroom. (EDIT: I should add that I've been unable to orgasm with either of my partners, though I'm perfectly able to do so alone.) I also feel like the rest of our lives is a long time to spend just having sex with each other. I want to have the variety of experiences that sex with other people could give me. I want to have three(or more)somes as well, which he has been open the idea of as F/M/F but not really M/F/M.
The real kicker is that thinking about myself sleeping with other people (and thinking of him with other people) has actually sort of turned my sex drive back on, at least a little bit. I actually tried to initiate sex the other night for the first time in a loooong time (though he was exhausted from work and not really in the mood for once, so we didn't). I'm also struggling with the fact that there are two different people who I would like to be with if we DID open up, and I haven't spoken to either of them about my "crush" on them, but I get butterflies around them in a way that I haven't with my fiance in a very, very, very long time. I have missed that NRE with my fiance, and I feel like it is coming back again with him by virtue of being interested in other people as well.
I don't know how to tell him that I'm really interested in opening our relationship. I don't know how he would take it. I don't know if now is the right time. Instinct says maybe we should wait until we're married, or maybe we should get our own sex life revved back up to where it should be before I try going off with other people. I am worried that if we did open up, it would be him doing it because I want it, not because he's genuinely OK with it. I'm worried he would see it as a threat to our relationship. Most of all I'm becoming frightened of the idea of being chained into monogamy for the rest of my life. I want to be with him in a relationship, in a marriage, for the rest of my life, but do I seriously want to be locked into a monogamous sexual relationship for 50+ years? That's a long, long, long time and I feel like if I don't experience all that life offers I am wasting my life away. I'm not looking for a romantic relationship outside of what would be my primary, although we have discussed causally that we could see ourselves in a polygamy type of situation with more than one wife or making it a romantic threesome...
We are also not currently the best with communication. We hurt each other's feelings a lot, and he is big about teasing me which I don't always mind but sometimes it gets to be too much. I want to communicate better whether we open up or not.
This has gotten long because I really need to get my thoughts out somewhere. Any thoughts are appreciated. I'm afraid that trying to open up will ruin our current relationship.
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