Sunday, August 25, 2013

Email from a gay guy with a relationship problem

A couple of weeks ago, the following email arrived in my inbox:

Dear GB,

Hope you don't mind me writing you email. I have been reading your blog with a lot of joy and interests.

As you might tell from my English I am oriental. I have read your story with Boyfriend T and I hope you are happy and I am sure you will get over it soon. Life sometimes is difficult - and the more joy you get the more hurt you are.

I have had a long term partner. We are like brothers. We care about each other a lot and have the same career drive. However physically we haven't had much since few years ago. He has got very low sex drive while I am high. Gradually, I become easily annoyed because I think I can't get what I want.

Few months ago I was chatting with this guy. He used to be straight and he was 8-9 years older than me. He was in a very bad position - started a new job, paid a lot for his ex-wife and children, about to come out to the fact that he was gay, and about to break up with his girlfriend. He lived very close to me so I decided to pay him a visit - didn't intend to have sex whatsoever.

When we first met he started telling me his issues, his stories and burst into tears. I was comforting him and tried to give him my advice. The day ended with me giving him a massage - something we joked on Grindr when we chatted. It went a little bit further than that. I actually gave him a bj.

Things went from there. We started seeing each other, we became emotionally connected and we had amazing sex all the time. The problem is I am struggling between bf and him. I feel secure with bf and I am used to my life with him, but this new "date" is giving me so much excitement and joy, in and out of bed. And this "date" has high drive but we can't meet every day. So I feel very insecure that he might try someone else.

What would you do if you were me?


If I was this reader, I'd definitely talk to my long term partner about the situation. To start with, I think that he should try and avoid mentioning the fact that he's been seeing this other guy, because that makes a difficult conversation even harder. The first conversation that I'd suggest would be along the lines of the fact that they're not having sex any more, but that the reader still loves him for everything else. The goal would be to agree some kind of open relationship, but exactly how that might work would be completely up for discussion.

The guy with the ex-wife has his life in complete turmoil at the moment, and hence it would be very unwise to think of starting any kind of relationship with him, apart from the casual sex that's already happening. So I don't think that the reader should worry about him at all. The goal is to reach a situation where all the reader's needs are satisfied. The comfortable companionship relationship that he has with his partner is much harder to find than sex, which is very much a commodity these days, especially in the world's big urban centres. So if that other guy finds someone else to give him bjs and doesn't want the reader any more, then the reader should be able to find other men to satisfy his carnal desires.

One of the guys that I met for activities recently was in exactly the same situation as the reader. When I suggested to this guy that I met that he should talk to his partner, he said that all his friends who'd done the same thing ended up separating from their partner, so he wasn't going to talk to his partner because he wanted to stay together with him. I don't at all think that separation is a necessary outcome, because an open relationship might work, but if separation were to happen it might be for the best. For guys with a high sex drive like the reader (and also like me!), sex is such a powerful part of our lives that not getting what we need is slowly but surely completely corrosive on our relationships. So even is separating from one's partner is undesirable, without the right sex it'll probably happen eventually anyway. If it's going to happen anyway, then it's better for it to happen in a controlled manner though discussion, and sooner rather than later.

Do any other readers have any thoughts on this situation?

1 comment:

Bruce said...

So, I'm what you call a low-down dirty cheatin' dog. My partner and I have talked about being in an open relationship in an off-hand non-specific way and it won't work. He has some insecurity issues and is jealous by nature, so I have decided to basically cheat. But I have no intention of leaving him and the relationships I have outside the relationship do get intimate, but never to the point of exclusivity. In other words, I encourage them to play around and even date... And usually them recounting a hookup acts as foreplay. The reason I say all this? I don't think that having a discussion about sex and open relationships have not be grave, sit-down-and-talk-in-low-tones affairs. It can be just general banter and discussions. Secondly, I find it odd that he's worried that the other guy will find someone else. If the sex and chemistry is good, he'll come back. And even better because he'll know more of what he likes and what he doesn't having had more experience. And even if he doesn't want a sexual relationship anymore, you still a good buddy to talk to about sex... And giggle and snicker in a corner gossiping like school girls. As for me, I wish I could say that it's just that my partner and I don't have sex. In fact, we still play at lot and the sex is really good. I just want more variety. One thing we did to kick our sex lives back up was to explore more together, recreating that sense of discovery as with new lovers. We ended up doing more role-playing and filming our adventures to kinda kick things up a notch and make it less routine.