Dear Prudence,
My boyfriend and I have been together for over a year and a half, and it has been wonderful. We met playing a sport we love, have similar interests, get along with each other’s friends, and helped each other through some rough times. I came out to my parents for him. He’s gay, I’m bisexual, and we’re both in our early 30s. This is my first real relationship and his first in a long time, and we both can’t believe how well this has gone. Recently he told me he was ready to move in together, and I told him I wasn’t, mostly because I don’t want to live with his cat (I’m allergic), and his place is usually a mess when I visit (mostly due to his roommate). He respected my reservations and said it’s not urgent but that it is important to him, and that if I didn’t think I would ever be ready, he’d want to know because it would be a dealbreaker.
However, I left something huge out of that conversation. I’m not sexually satisfied with our relationship. For health reasons (I have IBS, for example) neither of us can reliably bottom, so we’re basically limited to oral and manual sex. But I don’t get off from oral, and rarely by his hand, and I miss penetrative sex. This isn’t an “on fire” problem for me right now. We have sex a few times a month, which I’m OK with. He says he enjoys our sex, but I’m sure he wants more frequency, especially if we live together. I’m worried that if we move in together that my sexual dissatisfaction will eventually become a huge problem, and that I’ll feel trapped. I’m afraid to talk about it because I worry it will lead to a breakup, and I don’t want to lose him. I just can’t see a good outcome. He’s opposed to non-monogamy and our health limitations aren’t going away. This is tearing me up, it’s not fair to him, and I know I need to tell him. Is there any way I can feel better about this? How long can I sit on it?
—Not Just the Cat