This will probably end up being a long post so I appreciate anyone who goes all the way through and chimes in. I'm not sure if I'm looking for advice so much as to see if anyone has been in a similar position and can relate or if I'm dealing with something unique though advice is welcome if constructive. I apologize for the rambling nature of the post, my thoughts are a bit all over the place.
To begin, I've been in a relationship with a guy for almost 5 years now. We met when was 23 and just out of school and he was 18 and just going into it. He was my first real boyfriend I was his second. I was in great shape and going places with my life, he was in great shape and trying to go places too. We had a first date that lasted 6 hours and would have gone longer if his crazy sister hadn't intervened. We saw each other pretty much every day from there on out and had a great time. We thought of ourselves as the epitome of relationships. A few months after we met we were going to go on a cruise together when my gall bladder decided to die on me. I had emergency surgery and we almost missed our cruise but went anyways. My bf and I had a very active sex life up until then and when on the cruise he pushed me for sex even though I wasn't in any position to do so. Basically, he wanted sex all the time.
After my surgery I was unable to do hard physical activity for almost 3 months and so was largely out of work (I'd owned a maintenance company for aquariums / ponds) and I couldn't work out either. I gained quite a bit of weight that I struggled to get off afterwards. Despite that, my bf wanted sex with me just as much as before. About 2 years into our relationship he started to become inexplicably depressed. He changed overnight and got worse with time. I spent months taking him to doctors for this and trying to get him the treatment he needed. At the same time he developed a wart in his urethra that had to be removed surgically. Before it was removed he would sometimes bleed during sex. This made him even more depressed and he blamed me for the wart because I had been very sexually active before we met and he had only had one partner. We had bareback sex after being together 3 months and being tested together. I've never had any STD in my life including warts. I took him to surgery secretly because he didn't want his family to know and saw him through recovery. He sunk deeper into his mood and eventually I got him to see a doctor who prescribed him an SSRI which rather than help made him more depressed and changed him in ways I couldn't understand. He dropped out of school and 2.5 years after getting together, he ended things with me abruptly. We hadn't fought or really had any signs of a failing relationship other than a reduced sex life which was my own doing as I'd developed a narcissistic need to be with other people. The prospect of life-long monogamy scared me and I wasn't as into it with him as I would have liked because he was very vanilla after 2 years and I was already a caramel and chocolate lover before I met him. The sex just didn't excite me like it used to but we still had it and I still loved him dearly.
I was blindsided by the breakup and basically wouldn't talk to him even though he said he wanted to remain friends because I was too hurt. The last communications we had he sounded insane and like a totally different person. He was going to be an actor or a politician or run the world it wasn't clear. He realized how I'd been the cause of all his problems and he was pretty nasty to me in general. Pretty sure he called me fat at some point too. I told people my boyfriend had died because the person in his body was not the one I knew. A month after the split we got back in touch due to mutual desire. He still seemed different, preaching messages of love and still on about becoming famous but we hooked up a few times and talked about getting back together maybe. He told me hed been having rampant sex with people in the gay village here (protected) but I didn't think much of it. After a few weeks though he met some guy at a bar one night and they hooked up and I realized we weren't getting back together and backed off. He and the guy proceeded to drink themselves into a stupor for the next few months while he experimented with hard drugs as well. I dated a guy for a bit but it didn't go anywhere.
5 months later he and that guy were on the rocks. He started getting back in touch and told me he was coming out of a manic episode. He'd realized he had manic depression and regretted his actions of the past few months. 6 months in and he helped me move into my condo near the village and the next day dumped the other guy. He started hanging out more and more and it got awkward, especially when it was time for him to leave. He seemed more like himself again and I enjoyed his company. When he got back from a family wedding in Vegas, I was the first person he called. I decided this was a bit much for me to handle because it made it difficult to think of dating others with him around so much. We spoke and decided either to get back together or stop seeing each other as much. We chose to get together. At first he wouldn't let me even touch him when we got together, saying he wasn't ready yet. Over time we got much more comfortable, but a regular sex life never emerged.
When we got back together I suggested therapy and perhaps medication for his condition. He refused to do it at the time saying he believed the mania might have just been a result of the SSRI. He wasn't convinced he was bi-polar anymore. I pushed for a while but he didn't budge and things seemed to be going well so I let it go. He moved in 6 months later and we've been living together since. We had a pretty good run, things were pretty pleasant for a long time. We worked together at 2 bars and he started up school again part time, things were good I thought. We had sex once in a while but it was pretty dry for a long time. I didn't notice it as much when we were both working 6 - 7 days a week but it became more pronounced later on. We had a pretty bad experience with the last bar we were at together and ended up both quitting. I had a substantial savings by then and decided to go back to school to get a new degree that might actually get me a job in another industry and he went to full time with his schooling. Things seemed to be going well until December of 2012. Somehow he'd managed to spend through all his bar earnings as well as the government loan he received for school halfway through the year. He needed a job and became obsessed with getting one at a bar we'd worked at p/t through the summer in the village. He thought drinking with the group would get him "in" with them and lead to a job. In the end he did get the job but I don't think it was because he was drinking with them, a job just came up.
I recognized in January that he was not himself. He was manic. Too happy, too up and not in touch with reality. I noticed school slipping and got worried. He was coming home drunk a lot and puking or destroying things when he fell through them. I could barely deal with it. I'm not accustomed to substance abuse and while I've been drunk many many times in my life and smoke pot it was never a lifestyle or something I did every day. I started to think he wasn't at school when he said he was, and caught him working a shift at the bar when he was supposed to be in class one day. I started confronting him more and more about it trying to get him to stop, not fully realizing what bipolar disorder was or what it meant, I thought he was just an alcoholic. After 2.5 months of sleepless nights trying to help him, missing my own classes because I was too tired from the night before or too upset about something that had happened recently. It was all I could do to keep myself together and finish school. We still weren't having much sex, and when we did he was often drunk. He assured me it wasn't that he didn't feel attracted to me, he just didn't have a sex drive. He never jerked off as far as I knew and it seemed to be true. I circled my wagons and called every close friend and family member I had for support so that they'd be there in the event I decided to end things. I was very close to doing so because I didn't seem to be able to help him and his lifestyle was becoming destructive for me as well. I looked into bipolar disorder some more and realized this was the problem and not just simple alcoholism as he fit a lot of the symptoms perfectly.
We saw silver linings playbook together on a "date night" I'd requested to have weekly so I could be with him while he was sober and spend some quality time and also keep him away from the bar he worked at which was also where he did a lot of the drinking. He recognized himself in the bipolar characters there and started to come around for the first time in months. He leveled out a bit and apologized for his behavior and agreed to see a therapist. We had a few pretty good weeks before he saw therapist but very little sex. The therapist worked wonders and he got my bf to take Lithium which has done amazing things to stabilize his mood and racing thoughts. He came clean about a lot of things, dropping out of school when hed claimed to be going, doing cocaine with a friend, being in thousands of dollars of debt etc. Just before he began the lithium and for a few days afterwards, we had sex every day. It was a miracle. I thought maybe the dry spell was over. After a few days on the Lithium thought it stopped. I read that Lithium could sap a person's sex drive so since lack of sex had become a bit of an issue for us already we spoke about it and he told me he didn't have a sex drive again.
We spoke a bit more about it for a few days, but reached no real conclusion. A few nights ago he seemed upset and was lying in bed depressed. This was something I hadn't really seen since he started on Lithium so I asked him what was wrong. He didn't want to say but I was concerned because his mood stabilizing was important for both of us. He said he didn't want to say it because it was too awful a thing to say to me and of course that made me want to know more. He eventually just came out with, "I'm not attracted to you anymore." He went on to tell me his sex drive had come back with he Lithium but not for me, for others. We had a long talk, cried and discussed breaking up but neither of us wanted to do that. We both love each other a lot, and are each other's best friends. I have not gotten back into the shape I was in when we met, though I am in fairly decent shape now I'm not gym fit anymore though Im working on it slowly. We got all emotional and he wanted to cuddle with me after to calm things down. While doing so he got incredibly hard, leaking even and told me afterwards he'd wanted to have sex. I was in no mood so it didn't happen.
The next day, he didn't want to have sex again and we had another sad talk. He had just reached the full dosage of his meds that day. The next day he said he was feeling more positive about the situation. The therapy we'd agreed to have he no longer felt was necessary. We had sex that night. He said he felt a new era of sexual exploration opening up for us and that our sex life should not be a problem in the future. The next two nights sex wasn't really possible due to our schedules but he said his drive was back and he made many references about us getting it on. Then tonight happened. We were getting changed to go to the local store and grab some stuff for my sore throat and while I was getting changed he started to feel me up. He eventually got us both excited and told me to forget the store for now and proceeded to start having sex with me. Everything was fine till we got to anal. He got going but after a very short time I could feel him losing his erection. We changed positions but it didn't help. We tried restarting but it didn't help. Eventually he gave up. Afterwards we were both kinda off... Neither one wanted to say anything but we were both thinking it.
It eventually came up as it had to and he said that when he looked down he didn't like what he saw and that was why this happened. We cried some more and he implored me to wait and see if things got better but he also said he didn't think he'd ever been attracted to me really. He said he was young and his mental health issues made him just want to have sex and he didn't care with who. He said falling in love with me had been incidental and now he was in a position where the worst thing he could imagine was us splitting up but at the same time he didn't know how to fix this. I couldn't see how it could be fixed if he was never attracted to me at all? He wants to go to the couples therapy again now, and he keeps saying we can be happy and have a good relationship one way or another but I'm more and more skeptical.
I feel like I've poured so much time and energy into him I don't want to throw things away just yet, but the revelation that he doesn't find me attractive has left me feeling dirty, ugly and abused. I know it shouldn't but I can't help it eroding my confidence and eating my hope. He apologized constantly, told me I was a good person, that I saved his life, that everyone around me knows how good I am and that he and I would be fine. It wasn't much consolation. I cried like I haven't cried in a very long time, he tried to comfort me, but I still feel hopeless in this situation. I don't understand what is going on, whether he is confused which he claims he is, or whether it's the medication, or if he really never has been into me sexually but just did it anyways? If the latter is true, then all these years when he's called me pretty and handsome have been a lie... I know he lied to me about a lot of things he wanted to hide but I never would have expected this. We both love each other a lot, we have a great time 90% of the time (when he wasn't drinking that is). We don't really fight ever (again except for when I was on him about the drinking) and we share a lot of hobbies, interests and opinions.
I know right off the bat a lot of folks are going to say I should end it. That option is on the table but right now it's more painful than what is currently going on. Im very much in love with him still and want to make things work if they can. Has anyone else experienced anything similar and come back from it? Any ideas what might be at play here? We've talked about an open type relationship but I don't think either of us wants to be having sex with other people exclusively. I normally don't go online for help but this one is so personal, I've only shared it with my mom and now strangers because I am embarrassed and ashamed.
Well that's it I think. There are, of course, a lot of other details but this is long enough already. I guess I just want to hear what anyone has to think. Thanks for listening!
To begin, I've been in a relationship with a guy for almost 5 years now. We met when was 23 and just out of school and he was 18 and just going into it. He was my first real boyfriend I was his second. I was in great shape and going places with my life, he was in great shape and trying to go places too. We had a first date that lasted 6 hours and would have gone longer if his crazy sister hadn't intervened. We saw each other pretty much every day from there on out and had a great time. We thought of ourselves as the epitome of relationships. A few months after we met we were going to go on a cruise together when my gall bladder decided to die on me. I had emergency surgery and we almost missed our cruise but went anyways. My bf and I had a very active sex life up until then and when on the cruise he pushed me for sex even though I wasn't in any position to do so. Basically, he wanted sex all the time.
After my surgery I was unable to do hard physical activity for almost 3 months and so was largely out of work (I'd owned a maintenance company for aquariums / ponds) and I couldn't work out either. I gained quite a bit of weight that I struggled to get off afterwards. Despite that, my bf wanted sex with me just as much as before. About 2 years into our relationship he started to become inexplicably depressed. He changed overnight and got worse with time. I spent months taking him to doctors for this and trying to get him the treatment he needed. At the same time he developed a wart in his urethra that had to be removed surgically. Before it was removed he would sometimes bleed during sex. This made him even more depressed and he blamed me for the wart because I had been very sexually active before we met and he had only had one partner. We had bareback sex after being together 3 months and being tested together. I've never had any STD in my life including warts. I took him to surgery secretly because he didn't want his family to know and saw him through recovery. He sunk deeper into his mood and eventually I got him to see a doctor who prescribed him an SSRI which rather than help made him more depressed and changed him in ways I couldn't understand. He dropped out of school and 2.5 years after getting together, he ended things with me abruptly. We hadn't fought or really had any signs of a failing relationship other than a reduced sex life which was my own doing as I'd developed a narcissistic need to be with other people. The prospect of life-long monogamy scared me and I wasn't as into it with him as I would have liked because he was very vanilla after 2 years and I was already a caramel and chocolate lover before I met him. The sex just didn't excite me like it used to but we still had it and I still loved him dearly.
I was blindsided by the breakup and basically wouldn't talk to him even though he said he wanted to remain friends because I was too hurt. The last communications we had he sounded insane and like a totally different person. He was going to be an actor or a politician or run the world it wasn't clear. He realized how I'd been the cause of all his problems and he was pretty nasty to me in general. Pretty sure he called me fat at some point too. I told people my boyfriend had died because the person in his body was not the one I knew. A month after the split we got back in touch due to mutual desire. He still seemed different, preaching messages of love and still on about becoming famous but we hooked up a few times and talked about getting back together maybe. He told me hed been having rampant sex with people in the gay village here (protected) but I didn't think much of it. After a few weeks though he met some guy at a bar one night and they hooked up and I realized we weren't getting back together and backed off. He and the guy proceeded to drink themselves into a stupor for the next few months while he experimented with hard drugs as well. I dated a guy for a bit but it didn't go anywhere.
5 months later he and that guy were on the rocks. He started getting back in touch and told me he was coming out of a manic episode. He'd realized he had manic depression and regretted his actions of the past few months. 6 months in and he helped me move into my condo near the village and the next day dumped the other guy. He started hanging out more and more and it got awkward, especially when it was time for him to leave. He seemed more like himself again and I enjoyed his company. When he got back from a family wedding in Vegas, I was the first person he called. I decided this was a bit much for me to handle because it made it difficult to think of dating others with him around so much. We spoke and decided either to get back together or stop seeing each other as much. We chose to get together. At first he wouldn't let me even touch him when we got together, saying he wasn't ready yet. Over time we got much more comfortable, but a regular sex life never emerged.
When we got back together I suggested therapy and perhaps medication for his condition. He refused to do it at the time saying he believed the mania might have just been a result of the SSRI. He wasn't convinced he was bi-polar anymore. I pushed for a while but he didn't budge and things seemed to be going well so I let it go. He moved in 6 months later and we've been living together since. We had a pretty good run, things were pretty pleasant for a long time. We worked together at 2 bars and he started up school again part time, things were good I thought. We had sex once in a while but it was pretty dry for a long time. I didn't notice it as much when we were both working 6 - 7 days a week but it became more pronounced later on. We had a pretty bad experience with the last bar we were at together and ended up both quitting. I had a substantial savings by then and decided to go back to school to get a new degree that might actually get me a job in another industry and he went to full time with his schooling. Things seemed to be going well until December of 2012. Somehow he'd managed to spend through all his bar earnings as well as the government loan he received for school halfway through the year. He needed a job and became obsessed with getting one at a bar we'd worked at p/t through the summer in the village. He thought drinking with the group would get him "in" with them and lead to a job. In the end he did get the job but I don't think it was because he was drinking with them, a job just came up.
I recognized in January that he was not himself. He was manic. Too happy, too up and not in touch with reality. I noticed school slipping and got worried. He was coming home drunk a lot and puking or destroying things when he fell through them. I could barely deal with it. I'm not accustomed to substance abuse and while I've been drunk many many times in my life and smoke pot it was never a lifestyle or something I did every day. I started to think he wasn't at school when he said he was, and caught him working a shift at the bar when he was supposed to be in class one day. I started confronting him more and more about it trying to get him to stop, not fully realizing what bipolar disorder was or what it meant, I thought he was just an alcoholic. After 2.5 months of sleepless nights trying to help him, missing my own classes because I was too tired from the night before or too upset about something that had happened recently. It was all I could do to keep myself together and finish school. We still weren't having much sex, and when we did he was often drunk. He assured me it wasn't that he didn't feel attracted to me, he just didn't have a sex drive. He never jerked off as far as I knew and it seemed to be true. I circled my wagons and called every close friend and family member I had for support so that they'd be there in the event I decided to end things. I was very close to doing so because I didn't seem to be able to help him and his lifestyle was becoming destructive for me as well. I looked into bipolar disorder some more and realized this was the problem and not just simple alcoholism as he fit a lot of the symptoms perfectly.
We saw silver linings playbook together on a "date night" I'd requested to have weekly so I could be with him while he was sober and spend some quality time and also keep him away from the bar he worked at which was also where he did a lot of the drinking. He recognized himself in the bipolar characters there and started to come around for the first time in months. He leveled out a bit and apologized for his behavior and agreed to see a therapist. We had a few pretty good weeks before he saw therapist but very little sex. The therapist worked wonders and he got my bf to take Lithium which has done amazing things to stabilize his mood and racing thoughts. He came clean about a lot of things, dropping out of school when hed claimed to be going, doing cocaine with a friend, being in thousands of dollars of debt etc. Just before he began the lithium and for a few days afterwards, we had sex every day. It was a miracle. I thought maybe the dry spell was over. After a few days on the Lithium thought it stopped. I read that Lithium could sap a person's sex drive so since lack of sex had become a bit of an issue for us already we spoke about it and he told me he didn't have a sex drive again.
We spoke a bit more about it for a few days, but reached no real conclusion. A few nights ago he seemed upset and was lying in bed depressed. This was something I hadn't really seen since he started on Lithium so I asked him what was wrong. He didn't want to say but I was concerned because his mood stabilizing was important for both of us. He said he didn't want to say it because it was too awful a thing to say to me and of course that made me want to know more. He eventually just came out with, "I'm not attracted to you anymore." He went on to tell me his sex drive had come back with he Lithium but not for me, for others. We had a long talk, cried and discussed breaking up but neither of us wanted to do that. We both love each other a lot, and are each other's best friends. I have not gotten back into the shape I was in when we met, though I am in fairly decent shape now I'm not gym fit anymore though Im working on it slowly. We got all emotional and he wanted to cuddle with me after to calm things down. While doing so he got incredibly hard, leaking even and told me afterwards he'd wanted to have sex. I was in no mood so it didn't happen.
The next day, he didn't want to have sex again and we had another sad talk. He had just reached the full dosage of his meds that day. The next day he said he was feeling more positive about the situation. The therapy we'd agreed to have he no longer felt was necessary. We had sex that night. He said he felt a new era of sexual exploration opening up for us and that our sex life should not be a problem in the future. The next two nights sex wasn't really possible due to our schedules but he said his drive was back and he made many references about us getting it on. Then tonight happened. We were getting changed to go to the local store and grab some stuff for my sore throat and while I was getting changed he started to feel me up. He eventually got us both excited and told me to forget the store for now and proceeded to start having sex with me. Everything was fine till we got to anal. He got going but after a very short time I could feel him losing his erection. We changed positions but it didn't help. We tried restarting but it didn't help. Eventually he gave up. Afterwards we were both kinda off... Neither one wanted to say anything but we were both thinking it.
It eventually came up as it had to and he said that when he looked down he didn't like what he saw and that was why this happened. We cried some more and he implored me to wait and see if things got better but he also said he didn't think he'd ever been attracted to me really. He said he was young and his mental health issues made him just want to have sex and he didn't care with who. He said falling in love with me had been incidental and now he was in a position where the worst thing he could imagine was us splitting up but at the same time he didn't know how to fix this. I couldn't see how it could be fixed if he was never attracted to me at all? He wants to go to the couples therapy again now, and he keeps saying we can be happy and have a good relationship one way or another but I'm more and more skeptical.
I feel like I've poured so much time and energy into him I don't want to throw things away just yet, but the revelation that he doesn't find me attractive has left me feeling dirty, ugly and abused. I know it shouldn't but I can't help it eroding my confidence and eating my hope. He apologized constantly, told me I was a good person, that I saved his life, that everyone around me knows how good I am and that he and I would be fine. It wasn't much consolation. I cried like I haven't cried in a very long time, he tried to comfort me, but I still feel hopeless in this situation. I don't understand what is going on, whether he is confused which he claims he is, or whether it's the medication, or if he really never has been into me sexually but just did it anyways? If the latter is true, then all these years when he's called me pretty and handsome have been a lie... I know he lied to me about a lot of things he wanted to hide but I never would have expected this. We both love each other a lot, we have a great time 90% of the time (when he wasn't drinking that is). We don't really fight ever (again except for when I was on him about the drinking) and we share a lot of hobbies, interests and opinions.
I know right off the bat a lot of folks are going to say I should end it. That option is on the table but right now it's more painful than what is currently going on. Im very much in love with him still and want to make things work if they can. Has anyone else experienced anything similar and come back from it? Any ideas what might be at play here? We've talked about an open type relationship but I don't think either of us wants to be having sex with other people exclusively. I normally don't go online for help but this one is so personal, I've only shared it with my mom and now strangers because I am embarrassed and ashamed.
Well that's it I think. There are, of course, a lot of other details but this is long enough already. I guess I just want to hear what anyone has to think. Thanks for listening!
