Why won’t my boyfriend perform oral? How can I push him in the right direction?
Without talking to your boyfriend, I can only guess about his reasons for not visiting your downtown. It’s possible that he simply had a bad experience with a previous female partner who felt too self-conscious to enjoy it. He also may not be entirely confident with his skills in that area or have misconceptions of the experience.
Regardless, the only way to really find out is to have a conversation with him. Instead of framing it as an accusation, try framing it as something you’d really enjoy. From there, you can identify what you can both do as a couple to make that desired activity happen more often. If he’s unsure of his skills, this may mean giving him lots of positive feedback and being patient while he figures out what you like. Most boyfriends are invested in their girlfriend’s pleasure, and research suggests that the higher rates of oral sex in relationships may be one of the reasons why. If you’d like to offer some incentive, you can always positively reinforce his choice by returning the favor whenever he makes the effort.
I’ve been in a mostly happy relationship for almost a year. The whole time we have been dating, I have had strong feelings for a close friend of my girlfriend. It is a really terrible dilemma, and I feel awful about it. What should I do?
To start, I’d step back and think about why you’re having these feelings for this other girl. You said that you’ve had these feelings ever since you started dating your girlfriend, but if they really were so strong, why didn’t you pursue the other girl in the first place?
I think a better question is to ask yourself if you’re really happy with your current girlfriend and this relationship. Research suggests that when people are really satisfied and committed, they often put down attractive alternatives in order to maintain the positive views of their partners. The fact that you’ve managed to develop feelings for the friend and continued to nurse them during your relationship gives me pause.
Truthfully, it sounds to me as if you feel comfortable in your current relationship and are enjoying some of the benefits, but not enough to be truly invested. If that is the case, you owe it to yourself to find someone who you really want to invest in and to let your current girlfriend find someone who can completely invest in her.
There are a couple of other things to keep in mind if you do decide to ask out the friend. First, if the friend is close with your girlfriend, she is likely to side with your girlfriend and view you as off-limits after the breakup. Off-limits can be a permanent or more temporary state depending on a number of factors, such as how long you and your girlfriend dated, how upset she was by the breakup, how important the relationship was to her, and more.
If you decide to pursue the friend, give it at least a few months for your own feelings about the breakup to settle and let some time pass, mainly out of respect for your girlfriend’s feelings. Should you and the friend decide you want to start seeing each other, it would be a mature and considerate gesture for both of you to let your ex-girlfriend know what is going on before she finds out from someone else. I won’t pretend that it’s an easy thing to do, but it will make your lives easier in the long run.
Also remember that it’s easy to maintain a fantasy about how perfect things would be with someone else when you aren’t actually dealing with the specificities of what it means to be dating him or her. In other words, you see only the great aspects of the friend without any of the downsides that come with being their partner. Conversely, you’re aware of both the good and the bad that exist with your current girlfriend, which makes the comparison a bit skewed.
Ultimately, you need to pursue people who you think you’ll be happy with. It’s just much more complicated when he or she is close friends with your recent ex.
Estrada is a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Clinical & Social Psychology.
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