When I was reading your post, I was struck by how much your girl reminds me of myself. I am not very affectionate in public, I've been with my guy for about 4 months with no 'I Love Yous' (sometimes I get close to blurting it out and then decide it might freak him out!), I am also not very affectionate in public and my libido is not very high. None of this is because I have any personal problem with my other half - I definitely find him attractive, I love spending time with him. It's because I am inexperienced, uncomfortable outside of my comfort zone, and have not got great self-esteem. Maybe your girl feels similarly about herself as I do.

You sound like a thoughtful, sensitive guy who's pretty self-aware. One thing struck me as being destructive in your relationship and that is your feelings of being neglected because she won't have sex with you before your surgery. Now, I would want to know how my boyfriend feels about our sex life but it might upset me if he said he felt neglected. It's important that sex does not become something you 'owe' each other. It's cool that you explained that you would like to do something before your surgery but maybe go a bit further, if you haven't, and talk to her how you feel about yourself, and that you can perhaps misinterpret her behavior in ways that aren't constructive for you... that came out kind of dry, I'm just trying to think of what I would want my partner to say! It's fair and natural that you want to have sex -- and your desire for her probably makes her feel really good! -- but I doubt she is purposefully neglecting you and there are other reasons she does not intitiate it.

I guess I would suggest talking quite openly about sex with her. Even though you can't have sexual intimacy after your surgery she could be really helpful for you to help you take your mind off things whilst school's out.

And as for objects I guess the same... it is pretty normal to keep some things if they are useful, but like you said the things might not even be from her past relationships. Possibly even when you got to the root of those things and found that nothing she owns is from past relationships, you would find another thing to stress about so you need to talk about why gifts from her exes worry you. For me this is the other way around - I chucked all my ex's stuff out but my partner spent a long time getting over his ex, maybe a year, and sometimes I do suspect he still misses her. But that is natural, and it would also be natural of him to miss her considering how much time they spent together.

Say what you said to us! That you feel lucky to have her but that your T says... etc.

I hope that kind of makes sense and sorry that I probably missed out/misinterpreted a bunch of stuff.

All the best