Background: I'm in a wonderful relationship where I mostly find myself incredibly happy with things. She is crazy smart, outgoing, an excellent communicator, and about as compatible as anybody could be with me. We never run out of things to talk about or things to try. We're having some recurring logistical + sexual issues, and I'm hoping some creativity here from you all could help me see things in a different light and/or come up with new solutions.
I'm a male, 26, she's a female, 30. We have been dating for two and a half years, live separately (we both want this and value our space), and are both poly. She ascribes more to the primary partnership model, I'm more the solo poly type, but we go with the primary partnership model and I'm content with that. We have made two cross-country moves together, weathered poly conflicts well even though we didn't practice poly much before each other, did long distance for 6 months at a time, and dealt with other major things that would break many relationships. It's why I have so much faith in our ability to solve difficult relationship problems. Neither of us want kids if that matters to your analysis.
A month ago, we moved to a new city together (we both wanted to move to it) and some of these issues, which we more or less had reached stasis on, are rearing their heads. I could write pages on the nuances of these issues, but I'll just present as short of a summary as I can, showing both our views on them as best I can.
Problem 1: No sexual interest
About a year into our relationship, I lost sexual interest in her. After some tough conversations, she said "ok, well I really love you, and appreciate the other aspects of our relationship, so I'll give you some space and not push for anything". She has done an amazing job at not pushing me on that. I thought this problem was basically done and buried for about 6 months. I have been in other relationships in girls where I lost sexual interest several years in and kept pushing myself to have sex with them even though I didn't want to, and it made me feel awful, and I think I still have some baggage from that, one relationship I lost for this pushing reason/lack of sex. Those weren't poly relationships. She can go have relationships (romantic and sexual) with other people and I'm a-ok with that, but it's understandably still a major source of frustration for her.
Every 4-6 months or so, she brings up this problem. From my view, we have thoroughly debated every point, know where each other stand, and no new information is coming in. She asks me to to just try some things, very low-pressure, and her intent is genuine. But I don't want to, I'm not attracted to her any more, and sincerely believe I shouldn't put myself in situations where I have sex with people I don't want to. I do my best, though I could always do better, to make the other parts of our relationship awesome and great, and to encourage her to have sex with other people if she wants/go on dates/go to parties with her to scope out potential guys/etc. She sees me trying in the sexual arena as trying to do things in a relationship that make you uncomfortable in other ways, doing things just because they please your partner. I see sex as vastly different than those other things.
Another several month lull, we're talking and she drops the bomb that it isn't working for her and that she wants us to see a couples therapist. The way it was phrased, I get the impression this is a "make it or break it" moment for our relationship. I don't know what to do. She seems to really value the non-sexual components of our relationship, so I don't know if this means "I'll break up with you if you don't" or "I'll just give up eventually on this goal but it will be a recurring problem we'll need to deal with".
Problem 2: Pet weirdness/weekend logistics
I have an exceptional fear of dogs. I was bitten by a few as a kid, so you can imagine. There are many dogs where I will merely accept their presence, some where I'll appreciate it, mainly depending on whether they bark or growl, that's what scares me. I go into fight or flight mode. I have made a number of efforts to stay at her house, each time was an awful experience for me, one time they barked all night because they weren't in bed with her and I had a breakdown in the morning like I had never before. I was crying, panting, I was such a broken person at that moment, I couldn't make complete sentences, and I could barely walk out of the house on my own volition. I haven't stayed at her house for more than 10 minutes since (that was about a year ago).
.
She has two dogs (+ three cats), her dogs are very sweet and loving, have never tried to harm me, nor any other person. They're small, I could crush them if I stepped on them. No logical reason to be scared of them. One Schnauzer and one habanese. They bark more than most other dogs I've interacted with. It's not constant, I've seen worse, but it is frequent, more than a couple times an hour at which point she'll have to calm them down in some way. Dogs my friends/family have rarely bark aside from seeing other dogs on walks/when somebody rings the doorbell.
Her dogs bark frequently at the following situations:
I don't give them attention they want
She goes to the bathroom and is in a different room
We are on the bed/couch together and they can't get up to be with us
We enter the house
Wrestling each other
Hearing dogs outside or hearing other things outside we don't hear.
We generally hang out Friday night to Sunday night, she stays at her place Sunday night, Fri + Sat at my place. She feels like she's neglecting her dogs when she leaves them overnight, and obviously in-between those times they need to be taken out to walk 3 times a day so they can relieve themselves. As a way to make-up for her always having to be at my house, I drive her home and back so we can walk the dogs. I don't love walking the dogs, it took a lot of convincing for me to do it, but I'm getting used to it.
She has done some training, it's many hours of work, to get them to bark less, and they do, but even a few sessions of barking an hour makes her house a terrifying place to me. I moved to a house a few blocks from her so it would be less of a burden to go back to walk them, she now has a yard, which she won't leave the dogs in unattended even during warm months because she is worried about hawks, somebody stealing them, and the dogs digging under the fence. I've proposed ways I can help her setup nets to ward off hawks and reinforce the fence, she is interested in none of them. The theft one seems impossible, you can't see her fence from the street, so unless dog theives have drones or are one of her two neighbors, her dogs won't get stolen, which is pretty rare in the first place. I had her help plan my room layouts in my new place, agreed to get some furniture she wanted that I didn't, etc so she would feel as comfortable at my place as she could. I've suggested putting the dogs in the yard, bark collars, bringing squirt bottles on walks, putting the dogs in a different room, etc. Basically, if there was a thing I could do to alleviate this difference in where we spend the weekend, and/or make barking rare, I have proposed ideas I thought could help. She did buy a bark collar, but in several weeks hasn't tried using it, she says it will make her feel awful to change her relationship with her dogs in that way for somebody else (she isn't a huge fan of negative reinforcement), because the barking doesn't bother her. I don't want to force her into that position.
She wants me to spend more time with her dogs as exposure therapy, so I can get more used to them. My fear of dogs is a low-level issue in my life. It doesn't come into play when I meet most dogs. Indeed, walking her dogs with her has made me less afraid of them, but there's dogs I'm never afraid of, because there's little to no barking. Nonetheless, being in a confined space with them, and having them bark often, is still an awful experience. I think with a few thousand more hours of anxiety and fear-inducing experiences, I could maybe get to a place where I wasn't comfortable but wasn't in fight-or flight. I have tried various doses of a number of legal and still-legal recreational drugs to little effect (alcohol, weed, etc) in terms of tampering my fears while at her place. We do these drugs anyway, it's not an effort on my part to be a better partner.
Question:
She sees our arrangement as incredibly unfair, and every few months, we have a conversation about it where she asks if I can just spend a few hours a weekend at her house. I won't. In terms of hours spent at each other's houses, I can't fix that, but I feel like I've taken all available measures I can to do so. From my perspective, compared to normal parity (half the nights spent at her place, half the night spent at any potential boyfriend's house), I feel like I'm doing a reasonable amount to make up for the difference. I don't know what to do to resolve this issue. She'll feel awful leaving the dogs alone, and would vastly prefer to spend equal time at her house where she is more comfortable. I'm also worried that capitulating to more of her demands to move further down this path of interacting with her dogs will motivate her further to fight for more progress till she feels/there is equality on this issue. I would love to be able to stay at her house, but there doesn't seem to be any way to so. Any ideas on how to resolve this?
In conclusion, ask questions if you have them. I want to either resolve these issues or find ways around them so they aren't stressors in our relationship. I really love this girl, just dealing with some places where we're both on polar opposite views and they are pretty un-moveable.
Thank all of you for reading all this and taking the time to offer some sage advice!
I'm a male, 26, she's a female, 30. We have been dating for two and a half years, live separately (we both want this and value our space), and are both poly. She ascribes more to the primary partnership model, I'm more the solo poly type, but we go with the primary partnership model and I'm content with that. We have made two cross-country moves together, weathered poly conflicts well even though we didn't practice poly much before each other, did long distance for 6 months at a time, and dealt with other major things that would break many relationships. It's why I have so much faith in our ability to solve difficult relationship problems. Neither of us want kids if that matters to your analysis.
A month ago, we moved to a new city together (we both wanted to move to it) and some of these issues, which we more or less had reached stasis on, are rearing their heads. I could write pages on the nuances of these issues, but I'll just present as short of a summary as I can, showing both our views on them as best I can.
Problem 1: No sexual interest
About a year into our relationship, I lost sexual interest in her. After some tough conversations, she said "ok, well I really love you, and appreciate the other aspects of our relationship, so I'll give you some space and not push for anything". She has done an amazing job at not pushing me on that. I thought this problem was basically done and buried for about 6 months. I have been in other relationships in girls where I lost sexual interest several years in and kept pushing myself to have sex with them even though I didn't want to, and it made me feel awful, and I think I still have some baggage from that, one relationship I lost for this pushing reason/lack of sex. Those weren't poly relationships. She can go have relationships (romantic and sexual) with other people and I'm a-ok with that, but it's understandably still a major source of frustration for her.
Every 4-6 months or so, she brings up this problem. From my view, we have thoroughly debated every point, know where each other stand, and no new information is coming in. She asks me to to just try some things, very low-pressure, and her intent is genuine. But I don't want to, I'm not attracted to her any more, and sincerely believe I shouldn't put myself in situations where I have sex with people I don't want to. I do my best, though I could always do better, to make the other parts of our relationship awesome and great, and to encourage her to have sex with other people if she wants/go on dates/go to parties with her to scope out potential guys/etc. She sees me trying in the sexual arena as trying to do things in a relationship that make you uncomfortable in other ways, doing things just because they please your partner. I see sex as vastly different than those other things.
Another several month lull, we're talking and she drops the bomb that it isn't working for her and that she wants us to see a couples therapist. The way it was phrased, I get the impression this is a "make it or break it" moment for our relationship. I don't know what to do. She seems to really value the non-sexual components of our relationship, so I don't know if this means "I'll break up with you if you don't" or "I'll just give up eventually on this goal but it will be a recurring problem we'll need to deal with".
Problem 2: Pet weirdness/weekend logistics
I have an exceptional fear of dogs. I was bitten by a few as a kid, so you can imagine. There are many dogs where I will merely accept their presence, some where I'll appreciate it, mainly depending on whether they bark or growl, that's what scares me. I go into fight or flight mode. I have made a number of efforts to stay at her house, each time was an awful experience for me, one time they barked all night because they weren't in bed with her and I had a breakdown in the morning like I had never before. I was crying, panting, I was such a broken person at that moment, I couldn't make complete sentences, and I could barely walk out of the house on my own volition. I haven't stayed at her house for more than 10 minutes since (that was about a year ago).
.
She has two dogs (+ three cats), her dogs are very sweet and loving, have never tried to harm me, nor any other person. They're small, I could crush them if I stepped on them. No logical reason to be scared of them. One Schnauzer and one habanese. They bark more than most other dogs I've interacted with. It's not constant, I've seen worse, but it is frequent, more than a couple times an hour at which point she'll have to calm them down in some way. Dogs my friends/family have rarely bark aside from seeing other dogs on walks/when somebody rings the doorbell.
Her dogs bark frequently at the following situations:
I don't give them attention they want
She goes to the bathroom and is in a different room
We are on the bed/couch together and they can't get up to be with us
We enter the house
Wrestling each other
Hearing dogs outside or hearing other things outside we don't hear.
We generally hang out Friday night to Sunday night, she stays at her place Sunday night, Fri + Sat at my place. She feels like she's neglecting her dogs when she leaves them overnight, and obviously in-between those times they need to be taken out to walk 3 times a day so they can relieve themselves. As a way to make-up for her always having to be at my house, I drive her home and back so we can walk the dogs. I don't love walking the dogs, it took a lot of convincing for me to do it, but I'm getting used to it.
She has done some training, it's many hours of work, to get them to bark less, and they do, but even a few sessions of barking an hour makes her house a terrifying place to me. I moved to a house a few blocks from her so it would be less of a burden to go back to walk them, she now has a yard, which she won't leave the dogs in unattended even during warm months because she is worried about hawks, somebody stealing them, and the dogs digging under the fence. I've proposed ways I can help her setup nets to ward off hawks and reinforce the fence, she is interested in none of them. The theft one seems impossible, you can't see her fence from the street, so unless dog theives have drones or are one of her two neighbors, her dogs won't get stolen, which is pretty rare in the first place. I had her help plan my room layouts in my new place, agreed to get some furniture she wanted that I didn't, etc so she would feel as comfortable at my place as she could. I've suggested putting the dogs in the yard, bark collars, bringing squirt bottles on walks, putting the dogs in a different room, etc. Basically, if there was a thing I could do to alleviate this difference in where we spend the weekend, and/or make barking rare, I have proposed ideas I thought could help. She did buy a bark collar, but in several weeks hasn't tried using it, she says it will make her feel awful to change her relationship with her dogs in that way for somebody else (she isn't a huge fan of negative reinforcement), because the barking doesn't bother her. I don't want to force her into that position.
She wants me to spend more time with her dogs as exposure therapy, so I can get more used to them. My fear of dogs is a low-level issue in my life. It doesn't come into play when I meet most dogs. Indeed, walking her dogs with her has made me less afraid of them, but there's dogs I'm never afraid of, because there's little to no barking. Nonetheless, being in a confined space with them, and having them bark often, is still an awful experience. I think with a few thousand more hours of anxiety and fear-inducing experiences, I could maybe get to a place where I wasn't comfortable but wasn't in fight-or flight. I have tried various doses of a number of legal and still-legal recreational drugs to little effect (alcohol, weed, etc) in terms of tampering my fears while at her place. We do these drugs anyway, it's not an effort on my part to be a better partner.
Question:
She sees our arrangement as incredibly unfair, and every few months, we have a conversation about it where she asks if I can just spend a few hours a weekend at her house. I won't. In terms of hours spent at each other's houses, I can't fix that, but I feel like I've taken all available measures I can to do so. From my perspective, compared to normal parity (half the nights spent at her place, half the night spent at any potential boyfriend's house), I feel like I'm doing a reasonable amount to make up for the difference. I don't know what to do to resolve this issue. She'll feel awful leaving the dogs alone, and would vastly prefer to spend equal time at her house where she is more comfortable. I'm also worried that capitulating to more of her demands to move further down this path of interacting with her dogs will motivate her further to fight for more progress till she feels/there is equality on this issue. I would love to be able to stay at her house, but there doesn't seem to be any way to so. Any ideas on how to resolve this?
In conclusion, ask questions if you have them. I want to either resolve these issues or find ways around them so they aren't stressors in our relationship. I really love this girl, just dealing with some places where we're both on polar opposite views and they are pretty un-moveable.
Thank all of you for reading all this and taking the time to offer some sage advice!
