I love my boyfriend a lot, and I know he loves me too. We are each other's first partners and have been together for more than three years. I have told him we should take our relationship to the next stage and have sex, but he is old-school; he says we should wait till our wedding because he wants that old, sweet feeling of taking a new bride to bed. We have just gone so far as second base — he always stops us before it intensifies. Does it sound weird to you? Sometimes I wonder if he is just not attracted to me or if he is insecure about the relationship. Or am I reading too much into this and should be grateful?
You've found an unusual guy, but I think you're drawing a stark contrast here when it's unnecessary. His desire to wait to have sex until marriage is not necessarily so horrible that you should be worried or so wonderful that you should be grateful.
I don't see why he'd want to marry you if he wasn't attracted to you, so you can probably scratch that fear off your list. If it's about some insecurity, it's probably more about his own issues than some concern about you or the relationship. When we talk about sex, we tend to think about our insecurities first, but maybe this is all about him: Maybe he's got an issue that he's having trouble discussing with you. Maybe he has a small penis or he's worried you'll be disappointed. Or maybe he's even in the closet. You shouldn't assume any of these are true — I'm just trying to underline how this could be more about him than you or even your relationship. It's unclear to me if he's deeply religious or if he just wants "that old, sweet feeling." I feel like I'm missing something here, and maybe you are too. You should try talking to him about his history with physical intimacy and his general opinions about what a healthy sex life might look like to get a sense of where he's coming from and why this is so important that he wants your relationship to be so different from most other people's.
I'm also not quite sure why you think that perhaps you should feel grateful, since you say that you would prefer to have sex with him. (Personally, I can't imagine marrying someone without having sex first.) It's OK to desire sex — healthy, even. You shouldn't feel grateful just because your more-traditional boyfriend disagrees with you and won't give you what you want. In fact, if sex with him is what you want, it seems like you have good reason to be unsatisfied. If you do think premarital sex is important, you should be just as aggressive about articulating your desire to your boyfriend as he is about explaining the opposite.
The bottom line: Your desires are just as important as his.
I've been with my boyfriend for almost two years and his 10-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter are just now (within the last two months) getting back in his life. I love that he spends time with them because he deserves to see his kids and they deserve their father in their lives, but I'm having a hard time coping with the fact that they are his No. 1 priority (and always will be) when I'm used to his top priority being me. I don't wanna say that I'm jealous, but I am. How can I get over this?
I think it's really mature that you're being honest about your feelings. Sometimes when we're feeling jealous, we don't like to admit it. So you're right to dig up these feelings and put them on the table. It's healthy to be honest with yourself — and I hope you're also sharing these feelings with your boyfriend.
You're going to have to adjust your expectations, and the two of you will need to have some thoughtful conversations about how you can adapt your relationship to make room for these two kids. Tell him you're feeling jealous, but don't frame this as a zero-sum problem because it's not one. He needs to know that you're having a hard time and you need to know that he cares. And there's a way to do that while also telling him that you respect his love for his kids.
If you are ready to be in a relationship that involves two young children, you can make this work. Obviously, you'll have to carve out some private time and make sure you get the attention you need, but remember that's the same for any relationship with kids, whether they're yours or not. Finding that balance is tricky for any parent. But people figure it out all the time.
As a parent myself, I bristle when people rank their loves or priorities: I honestly think it's a little unhealthy to think of his kids as his No. 1 priority and yourself as less important. It's not necessarily true. Certainly, you're more independent and his kids are a greater responsibility, and his love for his children will always be different from his love for you. They require a different sort of attention. But that doesn't mean that he loves you less now that they're back in his life.
I think we love people in different ways — and in ways that can't necessarily be measured or ranked. Comparing the love you have for your children and the love you have for your partner is a classic Beyoncé-vs.-Rihanna fallacy. Loving one doesn't mean you can't love the other just as much. Parental love is different from romantic love. People do both, simultaneously and with full hearts, all the time.
Balancing those different sorts of love takes work. You have to decide if you want to do that work, and, perhaps, learn to love his children too.
My friends all say the reason I never get asked out is that I'm unapproachable and scare off guys. This always seemed like a BS thing to say, but I worry they are right. I work in fashion, model part-time, and I'm a full-time business student, so I don't have a ton of time to meet guys, but the ones I do meet are typically shocked by all my jobs/commitments. How can I make guys see that I'm just a normal girl who wants what any other girl would want?
I've got some pretty intimidatingly attractive, professional female friends, and they often have the same complaint. They find that even their male equals — smart, attractive, ambitious professional guys — keep hitting on less-together women who are happier to take a back seat to their interests, be more impressed, and, well, less equal. (I imagine that you, like them, have found that people aren't terribly sympathetic to your complaint, but it's a real one.) A lot of this comes down to outdated, bullshit traditional gender roles, though I do think everyone's backed down from a crush or shied away from a flirtation at some point, thinking someone's out of their league.
It's absurd that guys sometimes avoid women who are so desirable, but I do think your friends are probably right that, ridiculous or not, it's just a fact of life for you. So what do you do? My successful friends who have found great guys tend to treat dating like the rest of their lives: They're proactive. It doesn't sound like you wait for good opportunities to come your way in your professional life, so don't wait for some guy to ask you out. Ask him out.
You've leaned into your career. Lean into your love life too.
