[Schmeel]

My boyfriend and I have been together for almost a year and every aspect of our relationship, other than our sex life, is everything that I ever could have hoped for. He is a terrific man and I love him more than anything which is why this "issue" is putting such a stressful weight on me. Our first month of two of intercourse was wonderful, until one day I experienced and excruciating pain. This pain did get better, but never fully went away which caused us to have sex less and less often. I have been to over 20 doctors appointments, and until about 3 weeks ago, I had no answer as to what was causing the pain. It was found that I had a major laceration inside the vagina, obviously causing the extreme pain. We have abstained from intercourse for 3 weeks and my doctor has given us the go ahead with intercourse. When I told me bf the news, I thought he would be thrilled, but instead he showed no interest at all. This issue has made me feel like less and less of a woman and my confidence level is shot. My bf tells me that he has lost sexual attraction towards me and that he has "learned to bond with me in ways other than sex." I am thankful that he has done this, but I still feel terrible that I can't get any sexual response out of him. He tells me to be more direct and I feel that I am, but it's not good enough. He never initiates with me and now if and when we do have intercourse, I feel like he's doing it out of pity. When I try to talk to him, he makes me out to be the bad guy and nothing gets accomplished. I love him, but I don't know how to fix this.

[RomanSunburn]

Do you know how the laceration happened? I wonder if your boyfriend feels a little guilty, maybe feels like he is the one that caused it, and it afraid of it happening again. That's just my take on it, but I'm female, and females and males tend to view things completely different so I could be way off.

I do understand the issues that come with a differing sex drive (even though the causes are different). My fiance has a very low sex drive, and prefers cuddling and holding me far more than sex. I have trouble with this because I tend to associate sex with love and feelings of being wanted, needed, etc. (I think because I waited so long to have it, and he's my first and only). This is an on going thing that we've been working on for years (even before we actually did it!). I don't really have much advice other than to try having a calm conversation about what you're feeling, using "I" statements instead of "You" statements. I've also learned that sometimes I have to bite the bullet -- if I want it, I have to go and get it myself, simply being 100% straightforward. Generally, my fiance misses any subtle hints I give that seem obvious to me (there's that whole male v. female view of the world again).

Good luck. I just wanted to know I understand the feelings you're having and that you are not alone. I hope you feel better, mentally, emotionally, and physically!