Q. Dear Goddess: My boyfriend of three months and I have fallen into a pattern. I ask him for sex and he says his back hurts, or he’s tired or, well, something. Our sex is good, so it surprises me that he backs away from it. And when I ask why he doesn’t want it, he says, “You’re being selfish. Is that all you think about?” What’s up? –Hungry
A. Dear Hungry: Well what’s up is clearly not your fella. I don’t know the answer to why he is so reticent, but my first question would be, did something change for you over these last three months of being together. Did you move in together? Did you make a commitment to one another in the last few weeks that you hadn’t before? I ask this because sometimes a man (or woman) who loved sex when they were dating start to feel, well, too confined once they’re sexually exclusive. If you can trace his reluctance to a change in your dynamic, then that’s the place to begin. Ask him if he feels too constrained; too….married. And if he does, then you have to go back to the arrangement you had if you want freely given sex. But if that turns out to be the case, please, dear Earth Girl, remember it. Do not force more closeness. In fact, take the time to think carefully about this relationship. If he feels stifled now, and you’ve only just begun, imagine how he’ll feel three YEARS from now. Or six. Or ten. You do not want to be the Woman Who Gets Pushed Away, I promise you. There is nothing worse.
And as for his calling you “selfish” for wanting sex, I would politely remind him that sex is a mutual activity, and that pleasure is, too; your wanting more of him, or of his loving, is only “selfish” if he’s perceiving himself as somehow excised from the equation. And if that’s the case, I’d be very, very careful. Again, what happens in five years when you want some love? Will you be strong enough then to tell him you are indeed selfish….so selfish that you want out?