u/Ballbm90

My boyfriend wants us to take another travel assignment together within the next 6–8 months but I’m feeling really conflicted. Part of it is having a medically needy parent nearby (that I had to quit traveling for kinda recently) but a huge factor is that I recently inherited 3 dogs and the thought of leaving my house/yard setup to go back to travel life sounds really stressful. I’ve traveled before but never with pets. For those of you who travel nurse with dogs, especially multiple dogs, how do you realistically make it work and do you feel the added stress/logistics are worth it? Looking for feedback!

I’m (35F) in a relationship with my boyfriend (41M)&we’re stuck in a loop around sex and initiation. We've been dating for 1.5 years.

We currently have sex about once a week. I’ve also noticed we pretty much only have sex on weekend mornings-he’s very routine oriented so it rarely happens outside of that window.

I’ve expressed that I’d like it to be more like 2x/week & he initially said he’d try to initiate more. A few days later he said he needs ME to initiate more too and that he “can’t be the one to always initiate” (which I’m not asking for).

The issue is: I’ve tried initiating a few times in the past and been turned down & I don’t handle rejection well so now I hesitate. He says he has a high sex drive but needs “flirting” to lead to sex but he can’t really explain what flirting looks like and says he doesn’t flirt with me because I don’t flirt with him. When I ask for examples or ask him to show me, he won’t. It hurts hearing he has a high sex drive because his lack of initiation makes me feel undesired.

It’s starting to feel like a dead end where:

-I don’t initiate because I feel rejected

-He doesn’t initiate because he says there’s no flirting

...Nothing changes

I’ve even asked if he could just initiate the next time to help reset things but he won’t agree to that either.

*Questions for people in relationships:

-How does initiation typically happen in your relationship?

-What does “flirting” actually look like to you in a longterm relationship?

-If you say you have a high sex drive what would stop you from initiating more?

-Any advice on how to break this cycle?