Long-distance boyfriend [24M] isn't sexually interested in me [21F], and it affects my trust in him.

It's a long story, but there will be TL;DR on the bottom. My boyfriend of two years lives in London, and I'm in Chicago, so that's a 6-hour time difference. We met on an anonymous erotic roleplaying website (F-List, if anyone is familiar), which affected my trust in him from the very beginning, but since then we've built trust and visited each other twice now (first at CHI, then at LON), met each other's friends and families and are now planning for me to move permanently over to London as soon as possible. Everyone we've told has been very supportive so far.

He and I have had our ups and downs, and we've dealt with them as best we could, and whenever things have gotten super tough, we would always decide we don't want to give up and that we want to make things work. Recently he's finished university and started working a 9-to-5 job while I've got one on lock as soon as I finish my classes this October. Our schedules clash now more than ever, and will even more once I start working full-time for my company. Right now he gets home at around 12 at my time, and I get off of work at 3:30, giving us only two and a half hours of time together before he goes to bed at 5 my time. We like to keep a Discord call up overnight because we like having each other around and the (background noise along with his snoring is nice for me personally).

That being said, even though there's distance between us, we have always tried our best to make each other feel closer than we really are. It's just been really difficult lately because of the drastic change of our lifestyles. He used to live a very social, outgoing life as a student at university and just two weeks after moving back home he got lucky enough to land a full-time job. So I understand that he's been having a hard time trying to adjust. Me, I'm an introvert, so I'm home pretty much every day, and I've just taken classes online or at a campus that's only a 10-minute drive from my family's house.

I'm the kind of girlfriend that needs a lot of reassurance. I admit I'm very insecure, and I've had terrible relationship experiences with boyfriends cheating in the past. The fact that I met him on an ERP site doesn't make things any easier either--to be honest I never intended to use that site for ERP in the first place; I was using it because an ex used it behind my back and I was being spiteful, then I met my current boyfriend there! I always end up getting super paranoid that he still uses that website. He says that he doesn't but I've always been suspicious and my gut's always told me that he's been using it as other characters that I've interacted with on there. I've even gone as far as IP-logging the characters I've suspected are him and have been lead to post codes that lined up perfectly with his university address. Whenever I tried to bring up that issue with him he'd dismiss my feelings and say I've nothing to be upset over in the first place because he's not on there anymore. I just wish he'd give me solid proof of it, the distance doesn't make it any easier.

But that's an entirely different story.

Anyways, with these new changes in our lives, after him dealing with my lack of trust in him, I've been trying to get over and let go of these issues. He's being as supportive as much as he can with my mental health, but at the same time I feel like a burden to him on top of all the other things he's got to get used to. We have gotten off over the phone a couple times recently, but it's not anywhere near as often as we used to. We used to get frisky at least twice to three times a week, and now it's only about once or twice a month and I'm the one who tries to initiate it often times. It's gotten to a point where he doesn't want to flirt with me anymore and when I try to flirt he just changes the subject to "What do you wanna play on Xbox today?" It makes me feel like I just don't do it for him anymore, and it makes my trust in him worse. It feels like he pushes me away.

I tell him about everything that bothers me, like my paranoia or my libido, but he always says he can't do anything about it or he can't do anything to reassure me. He tells me that he doesn't want me sexually anymore since I've stopped trusting him, but his lack of sexual intimacy makes my lack of trust in him worse and causes me to think he's going behind my back more than ever. Our relationship is very complex, and there's much, much more to this story than the paragraphs I've written already. Apart from our relationship, even though he has many changes going on in his life, he's content with it, and so am I with almost finishing school, preparing for a full-time position, and taking care of finances and savings to move to London. We both have friends we hang out with and speak to separately, (him more than me, but I'm very particular with who I decide to hang out with), and the only thing that seems to be dragging us down is our new relationship dynamic

TL;DR:

My long-distance boyfriend and I are in a very complex relationship, but we love each other very much and don't want to break up. We're both working hard to be together permanently, but with our clashing schedules it's harder to maintain communication and trust. I've developed trust issues with him but have wanted it to improve through him showing me he loves me through intimacy and emotional communication, but he says he doesn't want to engage in any of it with me because of my lack of trust in him. I've tried to be the first to say sorry and try to change, but after say two to three days, I just can't handle being tough anymore and the problems all come back, worse and worse. We've been trying to make things between us work for months, and breaking up is not an option that either of us want to take.

I feel like I've been making all the sacrifices, but he feels the same way. He says that I push him away while I say he's been pushing me away. I tell him that I feel like I'm the only one trying while he says that he's the only one trying. I feel like I'm not enough for him while he says I treat him as if he's not enough for me. All I want to do and all I try to do is be there for him with how hectic his life has gotten now, but I'm having a hard time toughing through my own issues that I've had with our relationship. He says he's always there for me, but I can't help but feel unwanted when we spend time together. Maybe he's just exhausted with his new work schedule and hasn't adjusted to it properly yet. I really just don't know what to do to make things better for either of us, and the distance just makes it all so much worse.

Submitted August 15, 2019 at 12:08AM

It's a long story, but there will be TL;DR on the bottom. My boyfriend of two years lives in London, and I'm in Chicago, so that's a 6-hour time difference. We met on an anonymous erotic roleplaying website (F-List, if anyone is familiar), which affected my trust in him from the very beginning, but since then we've built trust and visited each other twice now (first at CHI, then at LON), met each other's friends and families and are now planning for me to move permanently over to London as soon as possible. Everyone we've told has been very supportive so far.He and I have had our ups and downs, and we've dealt with them as best we could, and whenever things have gotten super tough, we would always decide we don't want to give up and that we want to make things work. Recently he's finished university and started working a 9-to-5 job while I've got one on lock as soon as I finish my classes this October. Our schedules clash now more than ever, and will even more once I start working full-time for my company. Right now he gets home at around 12 at my time, and I get off of work at 3:30, giving us only two and a half hours of time together before he goes to bed at 5 my time. We like to keep a Discord call up overnight because we like having each other around and the (background noise along with his snoring is nice for me personally).That being said, even though there's distance between us, we have always tried our best to make each other feel closer than we really are. It's just been really difficult lately because of the drastic change of our lifestyles. He used to live a very social, outgoing life as a student at university and just two weeks after moving back home he got lucky enough to land a full-time job. So I understand that he's been having a hard time trying to adjust. Me, I'm an introvert, so I'm home pretty much every day, and I've just taken classes online or at a campus that's only a 10-minute drive from my family's house.I'm the kind of girlfriend that needs a lot of reassurance. I admit I'm very insecure, and I've had terrible relationship experiences with boyfriends cheating in the past. The fact that I met him on an ERP site doesn't make things any easier either--to be honest I never intended to use that site for ERP in the first place; I was using it because an ex used it behind my back and I was being spiteful, then I met my current boyfriend there! I always end up getting super paranoid that he still uses that website. He says that he doesn't but I've always been suspicious and my gut's always told me that he's been using it as other characters that I've interacted with on there. I've even gone as far as IP-logging the characters I've suspected are him and have been lead to post codes that lined up perfectly with his university address. Whenever I tried to bring up that issue with him he'd dismiss my feelings and say I've nothing to be upset over in the first place because he's not on there anymore. I just wish he'd give me solid proof of it, the distance doesn't make it any easier.But that's an entirely different story.Anyways, with these new changes in our lives, after him dealing with my lack of trust in him, I've been trying to get over and let go of these issues. He's being as supportive as much as he can with my mental health, but at the same time I feel like a burden to him on top of all the other things he's got to get used to. We have gotten off over the phone a couple times recently, but it's not anywhere near as often as we used to. We used to get frisky at least twice to three times a week, and now it's only about once or twice a month and I'm the one who tries to initiate it often times. It's gotten to a point where he doesn't want to flirt with me anymore and when I try to flirt he just changes the subject to "What do you wanna play on Xbox today?" It makes me feel like I just don't do it for him anymore, and it makes my trust in him worse. It feels like he pushes me away.I tell him about everything that bothers me, like my paranoia or my libido, but he always says he can't do anything about it or he can't do anything to reassure me. He tells me that he doesn't want me sexually anymore since I've stopped trusting him, but his lack of sexual intimacy makes my lack of trust in him worse and causes me to think he's going behind my back more than ever. Our relationship is very complex, and there's much, much more to this story than the paragraphs I've written already. Apart from our relationship, even though he has many changes going on in his life, he's content with it, and so am I with almost finishing school, preparing for a full-time position, and taking care of finances and savings to move to London. We both have friends we hang out with and speak to separately, (him more than me, but I'm very particular with who I decide to hang out with), and the only thing that seems to be dragging us down is our new relationship dynamicTL;DR:My long-distance boyfriend and I are in a very complex relationship, but we love each other very much and don't want to break up. We're both working hard to be together permanently, but with our clashing schedules it's harder to maintain communication and trust. I've developed trust issues with him but have wanted it to improve through him showing me he loves me through intimacy and emotional communication, but he says he doesn't want to engage in any of it with me because of my lack of trust in him. I've tried to be the first to say sorry and try to change, but after say two to three days, I just can't handle being tough anymore and the problems all come back, worse and worse. We've been trying to make things between us work for months, and breaking up is not an option that either of us want to take.I feel like I've been making all the sacrifices, but he feels the same way. He says that I push him away while I say he's been pushing me away. I tell him that I feel like I'm the only one trying while he says that he's the only one trying. I feel like I'm not enough for him while he says I treat him as if he's not enough for me. All I want to do and all I try to do is be there for him with how hectic his life has gotten now, but I'm having a hard time toughing through my own issues that I've had with our relationship. He says he's always there for me, but I can't help but feel unwanted when we spend time together. Maybe he's just exhausted with his new work schedule and hasn't adjusted to it properly yet. I really just don't know what to do to make things better for either of us, and the distance just makes it all so much worse.