Common Denominator

Dear Dr. Darcy:

I’m in a 12 year relationship that I have the feeling is not going anywhere. I do everything for this person and I never get anything in return. She is 7 years older than me, she doesn’t want to be intimate with me anymore, there is no romance, no tender moments. I’m in PR [Puerto Rico] taking care of her mother, when we got here she told me that it was going to be different and everything was going to be OK. Nothing has changed. Every time I want to be intimate she says… I hate sex and I can’t do anything about it. Frankly I think that I’m being taken advantage of and it’s getting old. What do you recommend? I would like to hear from a professional and don’t assume my own conclusions. Please help me with this problem because I’m going crazy already.

ANSWER

You’ve invested 12 years into this relationship. Do you really want to jump ship? That’s the easy way out and if you’ve been following my blog for any amount of time, you know that I would never encourage you to take that path – if for no other reason than because a failed relationship is a failure on both partners’ parts.

You have a choice: You can either learn what you did wrong in this relationship with your current girlfriend or you can learn what you did wrong in the next relationship. One thing is certain: You will have to face your role. Do you want to do it with this partner or with the next?

You’re not going to escape your own responsibility. And if you don’t fix what caused this relationship to go south, you’re going to repeat those mistakes in the next relationship. I can promise you this is a Universal truth. Not only have I seen this hundreds of times with my clients – I’ve lived it. I switched genders, for Christ’s sake, and the same issues popped up when I was dating my wife that I had throughout my relationship with my ex-husband – because I was the common denominator. I needed to fix Me. So let’s fix you.

Go into Imago Counseling. It’s a specialized type of couple’s counseling that focuses on the individual issues of each partner – but you do it together and you bond through the process. You owe it to yourself. Email me for names, or feel free to peruse the website here.

Writer’s Stats: Female, Lesbian.