Dear Coach:
I’m in my late 30’s and have been in a relationship with my partner now for nearly two years. He’s the first guy I can honestly say I’ve ever truly loved. A few months ago, my partner started losing interest in sex and I soon discovered that he was hooking up with other guys on the Internet. He says he loves me, but that it’s just on a different level than it was before. I feel like I’m more in love with him than he is me. Has he lost interest in me as a life partner? Is this worth saving?
Concerned
Introduction
“Not tonight, honey. I have a headache” is the well-known slogan attributed stereotypically to women who lack desire to have sex with their husbands. The slogan itself is intended to be a tongue-in-cheek joke at the expense of couples with discrepant sex drives, but the situation is actually no laughing matter. A large portion of intimate partners struggle on a daily basis with incompatible desires to have sex and it can create serious problems in relationships. And yes, there is a clinical term for this scenario…it’s called inhibited sexual desire. The urge to be sexually intimate with one’s partner waxes and wanes all the time throughout the course of a relationship; no two individuals in a couple can be expected to be in-sync sexually in every instance. It’s when sexual overtures are denied on a consistent basis and the relationship becomes devoid of any erotic or sexual fulfillment that trouble can start to brew. It tends to be more common that one partner desires the contact while the other distances and refuses participation in sexual activity. read more >>
Dear Coach:
I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of information on couples with sexual incompatibility issues. My partner and I have been together for 9 years and for the last 6 months or so have had some issues around sex. He seems to like more kink than I am comfortable with. Do you have any suggestions or resources that speak to this?
Too Kinky For Comfort
Dear Coach:
My partner and I have been together for 9 years. Over the course of the past several years, our sex life has really changed, as has our relationship. Historically, we’ve had a lot of fights and arguments and have broken up and gotten back together again multiple times. We’re in a good spot now in our relationship, but our sex life is still non-existent and we’ve only been intimate twice in the last four months. It seems like when we are sexual, he’s responsive and excited in the moment, but every time it gets down to my pleasuring him, particularly with oral sex, he freaks out and yells at me with a harsh critique on how I’m doing it. I’ve always considered myself rather talented when it comes down to blow- jobs and he never seemed to have issue before. In fact, we always had fantastic oral sex. He seems perfectly content pleasing me, but when I try to reciprocate, he gets all bent out of shape and seems to want nothing to do with it. How can I get my sexual relationship back to where it needs to be?
Sexually Unsatisfied
Introduction
When I first came out to myself as a gay man many years ago, I was completely clueless about the gay lifestyle. Like any culture, I quickly came to learn that the gay community has its own norms and practices that differed to lesser or greater degrees than what I’d experienced in the mainstream heterosexual world that we all grow up in and internalize.
Living in the suburbs of Chicago where few resources existed for learning about and meeting other gay folk, I established a friendship base in the Windy City itself, which houses a fairly large gay metropolis. It was here that my virginal journey into gay society began. So naïve I was in learning all the social nuances involved in this new land I was venturing into! I amusingly recall one day walking through the gay ghetto with one of my friends, just chatting away about this and that, when all of a sudden in mid-sentence, his neck spun around in a double-take (very similar to Linda Blair in “The Exorcist”) when a striking man in a tank-top walked past us. I found myself a little startled and taken aback by his behavior, which seemed so overt and untamed by my conventional standards with his eyes bugged out and tongue wagging. As I quickly came to learn, this commonplace ritual is called “cruising”, an important social skill that all single gay men quickly learn to develop to snag themselves a potential date or casual sex partner for the night.
Dear Coach:
My boyfriend and I have been in a relationship for two years now and are very much in love. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see each other much because he goes away to school at a college in a different state; he comes home during the holidays and summers. This year has felt a lot different to me in that he has stopped putting forth effort to try and talk to me every day like we’ve always done before. He says he’s always “busy”, and when we do talk, we only get five minutes before he has to go because of some interruption. He’s also doing other things while we talk on the phone, like playing with his myspace account on the computer, and he doesn’t pay attention to anything I’m saying. I’m getting worried because he never seems to have time for me anymore, but always drops everything for all his friends at his dorm when we’re on the phone together. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s cheating on me and he hasn’t been very sexual with me lately. It just kills me because I don’t feel like I’m in the same relationship anymore! I don’t know what to do. How do I get the point across to him that I need him to do his part in our relationship without getting him mad and what can we do to spice things up? We have cameras..would that help?
Lovelorn
Introduction
Gay relationships come in all varieties and combinations…that’s what makes our community so diverse and eclectic! One such couple pairing has been coined “magnetic relationships”, which is defined as an HIV-positive and an HIV-negative man in a committed partnership together. Perhaps it stems from fear, ignorance, or other sociopolitical factors, but surprisingly very little has been written on this subject. read more >>
Introduction
Nothing pains the heart more than being separated from your honey. You worked really hard to find Mr. Right and build a fulfilling life with him over the years. You’ve encountered and conquered so many challenges together and relish in the romance and richness of being a committed couple. You view the rewards of your partnership as great and can’t wait to share more experiences that will further enrich your relationship. That’s the vision that most happy couples report!
But what if you and your partner don’t live together and are physically separated, perhaps living on opposite sides of the globe? Maybe a job or a family crisis has forced you apart. Perhaps it’s just a temporary departure from each other; for some, the situation is permanent and must be adapted to. Whatever the circumstance, maintaining a long-distance relationship can be very difficult and taxing for couples. But while this scenario can be challenging and put a relationship to the test, it can be done and there are scores of people that are in this predicament and make it work successfully. This article will shed some light and offer some tips for coping with the “long-distance relationship blues” so that you can continue to nourish and strengthen the bond with your man and promote its longevity and satisfaction. Nothing compares to having your partner by your side but there are ways to overcome the obstacle of distance and still keep your relationship alive and well!
read more >>
Dear Coach:
I am quite confused. My partner and I have been together for more than a decade and we are actually best friends from childhood. We are both disabled. It is my fault that I bring to this relationship victimization from domestic violence, rape, and sexual and physical abuse from childhood. Still my lover overlooks all this and then some. We both also have anger issues and I have post-traumatic stress disorder. We are both in counseling separately so I can deal with these issues and he’s working on his issues of lying and yelling. He has recently started hinting a proposal of marriage lately and I’m 50/50 about it because of everything that’s gone on. What should I do?
On The Fence
Introduction
Have you ever skipped going to the health club one day because you just absolutely had no motivation to get all sweaty and tired? Or what about gorging on a half-gallon of ice cream to cope with your stress? Ever leave the mall wondering what the heck you were thinking maxing out your credit card? Do you work more hours at your job than need be? These are situations where a boundary violation of the self has occurred and we’ve all been there.
Boundaries are the limits we set around ourselves to keep safe, centered, and accountable. They are usually drawn from our values and they define who we are and what we will and won’t accept in our lives to keep our integrity and well-being intact. The more aligned our behavior is with our defined boundaries, the more balance and harmony we tend to experience in our lives. When we act outside the confines of our boundaries, our self-esteem can take a hit and we actually can create a whole host of other stressors that will disrupt us and leave us feeling badly and out-of-integrity. It is human nature to stumble outside our boundaries from time to time, but when it becomes a way of life, underlying issues may be at play that will require some attention and intervention to avoid ongoing conflicts in one’s life.
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