My girlfriend and I have been together for a little over two years and have been going through a rather rough patch the last 6ish months. Our history is somewhat complicated, and we love each other deeply, but we have found ourselves stuck in a nearly endless compounding argument cycle. All of this is a massive issue in and of itself, but something rather enlightening happened last night (Valentine's Day).
It has been a little over a month since we've been intimate in anyway, and after having a really good few days together, while cuddling in bed I asked her if we could have sex that night. She froze, and said she wasn't ready (referring to the fact she doesn't feel a strong enough connection with me while stuck in this seemingly endless argument cycle). I was disappointed, but completely supportive. We said goodnight and she fell asleep as we held each other.
I wasn't aware of how severe my own sexual frustration was until that night. Sexual frustration is not a new problem, I first identified it a few months ago, but the severity of this night was extreme. I was so hung up on the idea of sex, and needed it so badly with her, I had difficultly falling asleep. The next morning she could tell I was off as I hadn't slept more than a couple hours, and she asked me what was wrong.
I was happy she asked, and I explained quite bluntly that I am sexually frustrated, to the point that it's apparently debilitating, that I don't blame her, I understand that we are fighting and need time to heal, but that this current state of the relationship is not working for me and I need to talk about it with her. I was calm and clear, but also made a poor choice of language and said "something needs to change because I'm going insane and I can't keep doing this". This conversation did not go well and immediately cycled into an argument. She began defending herself by saying things like "I'm trying what more do you want from me", and "all you want is sex", and became hellbent on proving she hadn't done anything wrong. I tried to calm the situation by agreeing with her, and reiterating that I don't think she's done anything wrong, I'm not mad at her, I'm not asking for more sex right now, but just to be able to talk about it, because this is a big enough problem that it's effecting my health and can't be ignored. Again tempers flared and it escalated into her saying toxic statements like "what I am supposed to do? You want to have sex with me just do it". All highly problematic statements, but I was dumbstruck when she concluded by stating "I don't know what you mean, we are having regular sex". Totally dumbstruck.
Shocked that the reality of the situation was now up for debate, I asked "how often do you think we are having sex right now?" She was irritated, and responded "multiple times per month". I was floored, and asked "when was the last time we had sex?" She became further irritated, pulled out a calendar and pointed to a weekend 3 weeks ago, and then said either the week before or after that as well but couldn't remember.
We did not have sex 3 weeks ago, nor the weekends before or after, nor did we have sex multiple times per month. We had sex once in the first week of January. I was astounded and I asked her how many times does she recall having sex over the last 6 months (since the arguments began to manifest). She did not give and answer, and instead defended herself by saying she's trying really hard and that we are having sex and then claimed that I was gaslighting her.
I cannot understand for the life of me how my partner and I could have different memories on the amount of sex we have had. It's like we are living in two different worlds, one where she thinks she is engaging in sex every few weeks, and another where my sexual desires are not met for months at a time. I know my memory is correct, and I can't help but suspect she is unknowingly lying to herself and and me about the frequency to protect herself. But I'm not attacking her, I'm asking to have a conversation about the issue, but I don't know how to proceed if we are operating on different facts.
Does anyone have advice on how to move the conversation forward, or ideas on what is going on in her head? Our relationship has been steadily heading into very toxic territory, I might even argue unintentionally abusive, and parting ways is a very real possibility. But if/before we do that, what's the best way to re-engage this conversation about our sex life, and is that even a good idea or am I missing a much larger issue at hand? Things seem so insanely off I feel like I'm missing out on some big key that would make her patently false statements make sense in some pseudo-reality, at which point I could accept that and work on it, or decide it's too much and part ways.
TLDR: I told my girlfriend I'm sexually frustrated from the infrequent sex (about 1 time or less per month), and my girlfriend responded by stating a much higher number (two to three times per month) and pointing to dates on a calendar in which we did not have sex. Am I staring at and ignoring a blatant red flag, or is this not as bad as I think it is? How do I re-engage the conversation so that we are both operating on the same set of facts?
Submitted February 15, 2021 at 03:05PM by notamitsubishi https://ift.tt/3qrwvrT
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