I (24 M) have been with my girlfriend (22F) for almost 3 years. She currently lives at school during her last year of undergrad, and I am still living at home (about 45 min away) while finishing my Master’s and savings for a house. We have a healthy relationship in terms of communication, boundaries, setting aside time for each other as well as our friends, etc. and see each other a few times a week during the semester. Sadly, in the last year or so, our sex life has essentially vanished. It was great for the first couple years of our relationship; we’d mutually initiate at least a few times a week. As of recently, I’m lucky to get anything once a month (it’s been almost two months as of this post). I’ve tried to talk about to her about it, and she confided in me with revealing that she had a traumatic experience at a young age, so she doesn’t see intimacy the same way as I or most other people do. I absolutely respect this position and am grateful that she was vulnerable with me, but I also explained to her that physical touch is a love language for me so repeated I tend to take repeated rejection personally, even when I know it isn’t because of me. We recently agreed that we both have things to work on to better ourselves and the relationship, mine being some mental health issues which I have begun seeing a therapist and psychiatrist for, and hers being her issues with intimacy. It has been 6 months and I feel as I have made decent progress, having regular checkups and finally being on the right medication to cope with newly diagnosed disorders. However, she has made no progress and still rejects my advances every time; I even took her on a week long romantic getaway to the Caribbean and we were not intimate once. I completely understand that she has heavy trauma and it can’t be easy to get over, but at the same time I don’t feel like she is making any progress; the conversation gets shut down anytime I bring it up, in addition to me being told “that’s all I care about”, so I haven’t in the last few months. I am always hit with the same excuses of “I’m tired”, “I have a headache”, etc., all the generic excuses I always see from other posts. She also doesn’t agree with me just pleasuring myself because it makes her insecure (I bought myself a toy and she got very upset, saying I was “replacing her”), so I am just at a complete loss.
As of recently, I’ve started to take notice of the fact that I might be getting taken advantage of, as well as the fact that she might be sleeping with her boss. She works full-time while going to school full-time, so I understand the stress it can have on her. But it always seems like I’m expected to pay for everything, do all of our shopping/errands, and even chores like laundry, dishes, etc. even though we work full-time. While I understand that I make nearly double what she makes and would expect myself to pay for most things (trips, dates, etc.) she NEVER offers; at the same time I never ask her to because that’s just the kind of guy I am. She also recently got a new boss at work, let’s call him Mike, that she talks about ALL the time. From what I’ve gathered he’s in his early 30s and in a failing marriage. She’s lately been playing video games with him, sometimes until 2-3 in the morning, and is always asking other coworkers “where’s Mike?” And “is Mike getting on the Discord?” And then getting excited when he’s expected. I’m very tempted to go through her phone, but I don’t want it to get to that point of breaking trust because I know that’s when things go bad. I am just looking for any advice as to what I should do about both of these situations, and if anyone else has been in a similar situation, because I’m just not sure how much more I can take.
What should my next steps be? Is there any chance of fixing this? I love her and don’t want to walk away but I know it’s time to put myself first for once. Any advice is appreciated.
Tl;dr – I think my girlfriend is taking advantage of my high salary to support her while emotionally and/or physically being unfaithful with her boss due to the unprecedented decline of our sex life.