How to navigate different sex drives in a relationship? Advice wanted.
Using a throwaway account because I don’t want to make my partner self conscious in case of him seeing this.
TLDR; I have an extremely high sex drive and my partner doesn’t have much of one. How should we compromise?
So I’m 20FTM (female parts, present as male) and my boyfriend is 24M (cisgender male)
For some background, I have never considered myself a sex addict until recently. I’ve had 2ish serious relationships prior to my current one, and in the past I was repulsed by sex. Often felt like I would just have sex just to please my partners, I never really enjoyed it. (Yes I know I’m young but my relationships have been very serious)
However, when I met my current partner, everything changed. I’ve become seemingly addicted to having sex with him.
I am not chasing pleasure though. The thought of having sex with anyone else disgusts me. I’m craving the intimacy, vulnerability, and closeness that comes with sex. Pleasure is just the cherry on top.
Him and I have had conversations about this already, but he seems to shut down halfway through the conversation. I can tell he doesn’t like to talk about it. We are aware of our differences in sex drive. He’s expressed feeling “bad” about being “unable to provide for my needs”. And I’ve insisted that I don’t want him to feel bad. Usually when we talk about sex, I’m expressing that I’m very horny and would like to have sex with him and he’ll say he’s not up to it. I never try to make him feel bad and I make sure that no means no and he’s allowed to say no for whatever reason he wants.
We’ve never really seriously talked about any compromises though, because like I said, he usually seems to shut down a little bit during the conversation so usually ill just express how I’m feeling and move on.
Our sexual habits aren’t terrible. It’s not like we never have sex. I actually use an app to track every time I have sex in case of any pregnancy scare. On average we have sex 3 times a month… but I find myself unsatisfied with that.
I’m used to my exs being the hypersexual of the relationship. I’m not used to the roles being reversed. So I especially make sure that my boyfriend NEVER feels pressured into sex, because I know how that feels. We are in a very healthy and happy relationship, breaking up over differences in sex drives is not an option to me.
There’s a lot of factors that play into this, there are valid reasons why he doesn’t feel like having sex.
1.) we live at his parents house. We do have the house alone a lot, but we’re still under their roof. So I understand that being a deterrent.
2.) he’s not in the healthiest shape. He doesn’t have the best eating habits, he doesn’t work out, and he doesn’t go out very much. I think his physical health could play a factor into this.
3.) he works a weird schedule. He wakes up VERY early for work and he works at a help desk, dealing with the worst customers all day.
4.) I’m afraid I put pressure on him because he’s aware of how high my sex drive is, even though I try my hardest to make sure he’s comfortable and it’s clear that he’s allowed to say no.
So I COMPLETELY understand why he may not “match my freak” for lack of better words. I also make it clear that it’s okay.
However that doesn’t stop me from becoming an absolute horny mess when I’m around him when we’re home alone in his room. I struggle to pull myself out of that mindset. Masturbating doesn’t help me, it doesn’t satisfy my need for that physical connection. I tend to find myself annoyed when we’ve gone a few weeks without having sex. I get easily irritated. I don’t want to be like this. I hate being like this.
What can I do? What can we do?