After 6 years of dating, over the last 6 months I (F25) have started to realize my bf (M29) might be my best friend more than my husband. I’m not sure if this means I should stay with him or if I should move on. When I say best friend, we are truly two peas in a pod. Same humor, same interests, same mindset. We get along perfectly. In 6 years we really have never argued and we genuinely hang out together every single day and actually HANG OUT when I say that. It’s no doubt in my mind I have found my best friend. With this, I am concerned about the relationship aspect. We do not have any intimacy. I mean we cuddle and kiss and compliment eachother but sex is almost nonexistent.
(Can skip next block to get to present issue)
To just jump right in for context, I was SA’d by my cousin after blacking out when I was 20. As anyone could assume, during that year of court battles I was unable to have sex mentally. We had sex all the time the year before that, so there is a definitive time point when this started.
He was the absolute best throughout this process and was so understanding and there for me every step of the way. He would try to initiate sex but I turned him down constantly and he was so patient, but I could tell me turning him down started to wear him and his confidence down. My trauma had caused him to come to grips with his own traumas as well, and he opened up to me about what happened to him as a teen and I explained it was SA. After that, we both kind of trauma bonded and let time heal wounds.
I’d say about 2 years post-SA (2022), I was fully ready to try being intimate again. Heavy on the try, but it’s like the longer you put it off the bigger it feels you know? I’d initiate, get turned down, try again, get turned down and etc until I’d get worn down and stop trying. Then it was his turn again and I’d turn him down and etc. This cycle has been going on since 2020 basically. With the trauma behind it, I knew us having as little sex as we did was explainable and I just figured that was how it was going to be. It wasn’t until my girlfriends and I were talking in my first year of school 2023, that I watched each one agree that they needed sex multiple times a week to feel like their relationship was healthy and then I had a kinda “oh shit” moment bc that year alone I knew we only had sex 5 times. Then my best friend (F26) broke up with her bf of 6 years at the same time because things were going south and they “only started having sex 2x a week”. Which I’m sitting there like damn, we don’t even have sex every month. I brought all this up to my bf and he agreed we needed to be trying more to get us back to normal when we did have sex all the time. We started having sex more but I’d say it was a monthly thing now, maybe 2x a month. After all that, within the last year, I’m still the only one really initiating.
(Present Issue)
I got fed up a month ago and reached a breaking point about it. We were getting ready for a Halloween party and I had a super cute outfit on and I come out and smile at him waiting for him to say something. Finally I say, “well how do I look?” Which he followed with, “Great. How do I look?”. Brother in Christ I got a sexy maid costume on and you’re gonna hit me with a “great”. (We went as a group costume for the board game Clue). Anyhoo, whatever, brushed it off and waited until after the party. Put on some lingerie got into bed and did that thing girls do where they poke their butt into their man to get their attention. Still hasn’t looked over. He is on his phone sports betting. I do it again. No response. I grab his hand and put it on me. He then looks, snaps the lingerie, and says “oh when did you put this on, I didn’t even notice?” and then went back to sports betting. Safe to say I went to bed feeling ugly af. Then I started spinning the whole next day. Remembering, when I tried to have sex with him 3 days in a row and he kept telling me he couldn’t bc he “already watched corn that day and didn’t know I was gonna try again the next day.” Yeah I got the memo and quit trying. Remembering him hitting on my mom the whole night of a party I threw so I got hurt and went to bed early and then he stayed downstairs anyways to party (even tho he is shy af and doesn’t like “hanging with my friends”)…then my mom got too drunk and started Winnie the Poohing it in the pool and he stayed in the pool with her hanging on him bush out. Bro be so fr. My bff had to tell me that one and then he apologized when I brought it up immediately which almost hurt more bc I was like “damn, no excuses? No nothing?” Just kinda ate that one in the face. Then I remembered how the only time in the last 5 years post-SA we had a lot of sex was when I agreed to a threesome and he was going on tinder w/o me and then was getting all worked up enough to have sex after talking to other girls. Then we had the threesome and I was the only one who didn’t get to come even though I told him I would only do it if he made sure I came. Lo and behold my new status as cuck bc I third wheeled that. Those were the bigger things sitting on top of constant rejection, so I finally came to terms with the fact I might need to end this relationship bc there is 0 intimacy b/n us.
For the first time in 6 years, I told him we needed to take some space to see if we missed each other in an intimate way because I felt like we were best friends and I could not picture him as my future husband anymore. One thing about me is I lay everything out how it is, I know he is not a mind reader so I don’t make him guess. I told him if he went to sex therapy I would let him see me again. It’s not like the sex therapy even needed to “fix everything”, I just wanted to see him do a hard thing (he is shy and detests social encounters) so that it was like a grand gesture to show me he is willing to put in the work to figure this out with me. I actually TOLD HIM ALL THAT. A week goes by. Texted all week and then had a phone call. No progress. Argued about it bc he didn’t understand what he was supposed to do. Told him what to do and how I was irritated I had to say it again bc “it’s like I am giving you a test, gave you a study guide with everything on the test highlighted and BOLDED and you refuse to look at the study guide”. Stupid analogy I know, haha. Turned out he played COD on my pc that whole weekend bc I left my pc at his place. Anyways, another week goes by. Texted all week, then a call. Now he’s pissed bc we “never” had a serious convo about it before now. I say, “We have, you just never took me seriously before.” Another week goes by. Now at this point, I didn’t think it would take him so long to make a therapy appointment. I probably would have caved in if he even told me he did research and picked out a therapist. But now we are 3 weeks deep not seeing eachother and we have a wedding to go to.
I let him come over the night before the wedding bc I felt like it was going to be awkward if I didn’t see him before that and I don’t want my drama at our friend’s wedding. I cry my eyes out explaining how I feel so ugly and hurt, fall asleep, wake up, we have sex which he initiated. He explained he had made a therapy appointment but he accidentally scheduled it during the wedding ceremony for tomorrow so he had to reschedule (not sure I believe that at all). After that we’ve been hanging out nonstop for the past 2 weeks and had sex another 3 times. (I’m on break from school with the day of the wedding being my first day of break). I was honestly waiting for some alone time and waiting for him to go back to work the Monday after the wedding, but he called out 2 days in a row because he wanted to “hang out” and then he quit his job. Last weekend I kinda got alone time bc I had another friend’s bachelorette I’m the MOH for, so I got to go to that. During that weekend I was gone he “had his therapy with BetterHelp” (#sponsor me), and he said he hated it and they said everything he looked up on Google. He thinks it’s a testosterone issue. He said he wasn’t going to go back bc it was expensive and not helpful, but he claims he only did the text version which defeated the whole grand gesture I explained of wanting him to TALK to someone face to face and go to an appointment. Anyways, I’m like 80% sure he didn’t have an appointment at all and lied about it. Now, cut to Thursday we threw him a birthday party. He hit on my friend the whole night. It was so embarrassing bc it was in front of everyone and so obvious. To the point my mom asked if I was ok and typed on her phone “I saw you with (friend’s name)” and showed him the message. Then he tried making it up to me all night bc I was obviously pissed. The next morning I told him I wanted him to go home and I needed space again, but my family all showed up wanting to play board games to party some more so to not make it awkward I let him stay another day. Now he’s here, and family is coming over today again to celebrate Thanksgiving early so he’s conned his way into staying another day.
Do I give him another chance to go to therapy face to face like I initially wanted or do I end it? He is seriously my best friend and those 3 weeks apart I missed him so much but in a way of missing hanging out with my best friend rather than missing my boyfriend. If we break up, I know he is gone forever and I’m really scared I’ll never find someone I click with as a best friend on the level that him and I are on. But no intimacy is a huge issue and entirely necessary for a successful relationship. I know people have intimacy issues and it’s common, but how many chances do I give until it’s fair to say to myself and him that I put in my 100% effort and gave him enough chances to do the same until I give myself the respect I deserve. I don’t want to regret ending it to early, but I don’t want it to drag on when I should have ended it long ago. I also feel so ugly and unlovable that I can’t really imagine anyone else even wanting to be with me. I worked so hard in therapy to love myself and I just feel so destroyed and empty now. Please help.