Sex advice with Suzi Godson: My girlfriend says I’m boring in bed
Lots of couples go through occasional dry spells where life, work, kids, illness or arguments get in the way of their sexual connection. Not everyone makes the link, but significant changes or big events in people’s lives can push a couple apart in unexpected ways, and can have a real impact on their sex lives. Everything from job loss to illness, trauma or bereavement is likely to have an impact. There might have been a row that you have got over, but your partner has not.
Have a think about what’s been happening over the past six months or so and the lack of sex might be easier to make sense of. Locating the problem won’t necessarily make it any easier to fix, though. You say you’d like to “change things”, but that is not entirely your call.
While one person can choose to end a relationship, the decision to try to improve it has to be mutual. After four years together, I hope that in general you have a pretty open and honest dialogue. If you don’t, this is the first thing you need to change. Sit down together and have a proper discussion about what is happening. She needs to tell you what “boring” means to her.
It is important she is explicit because if, for example, she wants to be more experimental and you categorically don’t, you may never be able to reach a mutually acceptable situation.
Three months without sex rings alarm bells, but it is what she said that bothers me most. For a woman to tell her boyfriend of four years that he bores her sexually is not just insensitive, it is highly provocative.
She could have phrased her dissatisfaction in a way that made you both accountable for what was happening, but instead she chose to humiliate you.
There is real scorn and disrespect in the words she has used and although sex is the medium through which she has chosen to belittle you, this is about much more than your failure to deliver sufficient sexual novelty.
When you care about someone, you actively avoid trying to hurt their feelings. If something difficult needs to be discussed, you present it in a way that avoids causing hurt or offence, and you focus on solutions rather than criticisms.
One of the first signs that a relationship is beginning to deteriorate is when people become less vigilant about protecting each other’s feelings during the inevitable conflicts that arise during day-to-day interactions. It seems to me that the only reason your girlfriend felt able to say something so pointed and mean to you is that she has already given up on the possibility of repair.
It’s never easy to walk away from a four-year investment, but for some women in their late 20s or early 30s, the ticking of the biological clock creates added momentum. I really think she owes you a more honest explanation, but there is often little point in persevering with a fatally wounded relationship. The best thing might be to end it and let the hurt heal.
And remember, even if she believes you are the most boring lover in the world, her opinion is just that. An opinion. I can assure you there are thousands, if not millions of nicer, kinder women out there, who would be delighted to have a partner who was more interested in making love to them than watching them swing from the chandeliers.
Your girlfriend doesn’t realise it yet, but loving sex is the most exhilarating and novel sensation any of us experience. In contrast, humiliating your partner to justify your decision to leave a relationship is utterly predictable, self-serving and unimaginative.
