Welcome to How I Do It, the series in which we give you a seven-day sneak peek into the sex life of a stranger.
This week we hear from 23-year-old Thea* who had been in a relationship with a man for five years before realising that she was lesbian.
‘I came out to him as bisexual,’ she says. ‘We came to an agreement that I could hook up with women to explore that part of my sexuality.
‘But after the first time I had sex with a woman, I knew I was a lesbian and broke up with him as soon as I got home the next morning.’
She met Ash*, her current partner, nearly four years ago. The pair ‘hit it off’ immediately, skipping the friend zone and falling in love.
‘I said “I love you” after three weeks of knowing each other,’ Thea explains.
‘She asked me to marry her two months ago while we were on vacation in San Diego. She’s the love of my life, and there was never a doubt in my mind that she would be my wife.’
There’s only one issue in the couple’s relationship: Thea feels they aren’t having enough sex.
‘When we first met, we had sex daily,’ she says. ‘Ash had only been out for six months. I was the second woman she had ever dated, so having sex with women was still novel to her.
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‘After a few months, our sex life slowed down to once a week, then every few weeks, and now we sometimes go months without having sex.’
Thea hasn’t shared her concerns with Ash, because she doesn’t want to make her fiancée feel bad for having a low sex drive. So, the issue remains unresolved.
Without further ado, here’s how Thea got on this week…
The following sex diary is, as you might imagine, not safe for work.
Monday
Today, I ask if we can have sex. I set a precedent that I’m in the mood hours before we actually do it. The spontaneity of our sex life has long been over.
She says yes, we can have sex later in the evening. But as soon as it’s evening, she says her vagina is itchy and has been for the last few days.
She hasn’t mentioned it to me, so I question whether this is an excuse. I go to bed horny and unsatisfied.
Tuesday
I wake up, still horny from the day before. My fiancée leaves for work early, and I don’t have to be up for a couple more hours. As soon as she’s out the door and I hear the lock click behind her, I reach over to my night stand and pull out my vibrator.
It’s my favourite – a small bullet. When we do have sex, she uses this one on me, and we have a bigger dildo that I use to penetrate her.
I lie back in bed and close my eyes, imagining that I’m doing this with my fiancée. One hand is using the bullet, and one hand is on my nipples, another way that gets me off.
When imagining my fiancée doesn’t work anymore – because I know she doesn’t want to have sex with me – I think about other women. I picture my favourite celebrities, imagining that they want to have sex with me, that their sex drive is high like mine.
I think about how I haven’t received oral sex in so long because, at this time in my life, I’m only having sex with myself.
I come intensely, then begin again. I allow myself a few orgasms before I get up for the day.
Wednesday
In the morning, we talk about having sex later that night. I’m excited because we’re planning ahead, and that usually works for us.
We go about our individual days – she goes to work, I stay home and work on my grad school homework. When she gets home, I have a glass of wine waiting for her.
I’ve already had two in preparation of this evening. We sit on our couch to eat dinner and watch a show, our usual nightly routine. Once we’re finished eating, I expect we’ll have sex.
I wait until the show we’re watching is over. I always get nervous to make the first move because it usually ends in us not having sex. She doesn’t usually make the first move either, so I know I have to be the one to do it.
I lean over and kiss her. She gives me a peck, but I kiss her again. We make out for a little while on the couch, and then I ask her if she wants to go to the bedroom.
She tells me that the wine gave her a headache, and she doesn’t feel like we should that night. We stay up and watch TV before getting ready for bed. I’m disappointed, but I would never want to have sex if she’s not feeling up for it.
We go to sleep cuddling, and I remind myself that this is still intimacy.
Thursday
When my fiancée gets home from work this evening, I decide this is the moment I’m going to propose back to her. It’s nothing as fancy as how she proposed to me, but proposing back I still important to me.
She comes home, and I get down on one knee and give her the ring. She starts crying, and then I start crying. For the rest of the evening, she is overjoyed. She can’t stop looking at her ring and showing it to me.
Her happiness makes me happy, and I think that having sex tonight would be a good way to celebrate. I ask her if she’s up for it, and this time she enthusiastically says yes.
We go straight to the bedroom for the first time in nearly two months. The last time we did was the day she proposed to me. We hungrily peel off each other’s clothes.
We don’t use any toys this time because she says she loves when I f**k her with my hands. She goes down on me, and I climax almost instantly.
She gets on top – her favourite position – and she tells me what she wants me to do. We go a few times, each having more than one orgasm. When we’re done, we lay naked in bed, breathing heavily.
We hold each other silently before putting our clothes back on and resuming our nightly activities. I always feel more connected after we’ve had sex, and it feels good to finally get back to that.
Friday
Tonight I’m anxious. I’ve been thinking all day about the amount of sex we’re having and that we should be having it more often.
When my fiancée gets home from work, we sit on the couch to have dinner like we usually do. Once we’re finished eating, I pause the show we’re watching to talk to her about my anxieties.
I tell her that I wish we had more sex. She cries because she thinks it makes her a bad partner because her libido isn’t as high as mine. I tell her that that’s not true.
She’s an amazing partner to me in every other way, and I would still spend the rest of my life with her, even if we never had sex again. She cries more and says that’s true love.
I make a mistake when I ask her about her ex-girlfriend, the one she dated right before me. I ask how often they had sex and what their sex life was like.
She tells me that they had sex everyday, at least once a day. I know they dated for about six months, and this makes me want to cry.
Should you be worried if you’re in a sexless relationship?
It’s important to note that there’s no right or wrong amount of sex in a relationship, and it’s different for everyone.
Dating expert Hayley Quinn previously told Metro: ‘Some people consider a relationship sexless if they haven’t been intimate with their partner for the past month, whereas for others it can be when one partner explicitly tells the other they no longer want to have sex with them.
‘Before judging any type of relationship, it’s important to remember that there are lots of reasons why one, or both partners, may no longer want sex within their relationship.’
Hayley explained that ‘ruts’ and ‘dry spells’ happen, over anything from work stress to a new baby.
Hayley added: ‘If one partner is very stressed, they may be physically withdrawing from the relationship, which can make the other feel insecure and crave affection more.
‘To get out of this cycle, you’ll need to reach a compromise. That might mean putting your needs on the back burner for a period of time, as you recognise that your partner has issues unrelated to you to work through.
‘Work together to find a middle ground – that might not (at least for now) be a passionate sex life, but it could be a regular good morning massage or a cuddle on the sofa.’
While it’s ‘inevitable’ over the course of a relationship to have periods reduced desire, if it feels more long-term, and is causing wider issues, it’s also worth considering couples counselling. For more information visit Relate.
Saturday
I wake up feeling anxious again. I can’t stop thinking about my fiancée and her ex. The fact that they had sex daily for six months fills me with jealousy.
What does her ex have that I don’t have? Was my fiancée more attracted to her ex than she is to me?
My fiancée doesn’t work today and stays home, so I pull up her ex’s Instagram account when I go to the bathroom or anytime my fiancée leaves the room. I scroll back to the time when they dated and stare at pictures of the two of them kissing.
I imagine them having sex that day, either before this photo was taken or later that night. Jealousy boils within me.
I try to tell myself that I’m prettier than her ex, that my fiancée broke up with her, that they dated years ago and none of this should even matter anymore. But I can’t help it. I pull up her ex’s Instagram over and over throughout the day.
I feel sick to my stomach every time I do, but I do it anyway. I don’t even bother asking if my fiancée wants to have sex today. I know the answer will be no anyway.
I make dinner and we watch TV, and all I can think about is her ex.
Sunday
I make my fiancée breakfast in bed. She usually sleeps in later than I do, so I sneak out of our bedroom to make pancakes, eggs, and toast. I pour champagne and orange juice into two glasses.
I put everything on a tray and bring it into our room. I place it at the foot of our bed and kiss my fiancée to wake her up. She groans but slowly opens her eyes.
‘I have a surprise for you,’ I say. I show her the tray, and she smiles.
We sit and bed, eat our breakfast, and drink our mimosas. I fill them up several times, and hope that the morning’s festivities will means she’s more open to having sex.
Stalking her ex on social media yesterday has made me think of this as a competition, and I am determined to win.
Once we finish eating, I make a comment about how we’re already in bed. I start kissing her, and she kisses me back.
I think that we’re going to have sex again within days of the last time we had sex, which would be the first time in almost a year that we would have sex twice in one week.
We make out for a bit, but when I go to put my hand under her shirt, she stops me. ‘What are you doing?’ she says.
‘I thought we could have sex,’ I reply.
She shakes her head and tells me she’s not really feeling it. She kisses me again, and then I get up to put away all of the breakfast supplies.
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