I Want to Be Supportive of My New Boyfriend’s Sex “Deficiency.” But Uh, I Don’t Know How Much More I Can Take.

How to Do It Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Irina Romanova/Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous! Dear How to Do It, I have been sexually active for 10 years, and I enjoy sex a lot. I also met someone very recently, and after a long gap of being single, I am in a relationship again! Yay me! But of course it isn’t rosy, or I wouldn’t be here. The guy, who has never had sex before, also happens to suffer from erectile dysfunction. I am finding it hard to be supportive because, while he is great and incredible, this relationship is new, and I find it hard to muster up the patience to see if this is either going to lead to good sex I can get behind or kill my love for sex. The real problem is, however, not that; it is how much resentment I harbor against someone who has been nothing but nice and incredible to me throughout this whole ordeal. Now I feel like I don’t know what to do or how to be. Everything online tells me I should be supportive and kind, which is hard to do when you feel deprived of the main thing you enjoy about relationships. What do I do? —Impatient and Sad Dear Impatient and Sad, Your new boyfriend is great and incredible, but is he a good fit for you? The relationship is new, the main thing you enjoy about relationships isn’t clicking between the two of you, and you’re feeling deprived and resentful. Whether the thing you’re missing at the beginning of a relationship has to do with sex, conversation, shared activities, or significant life goals, it’s OK (or even good) to realize that discrepancy, double-check that it can’t be resolved easily (which you seem to have done), and express that while you’re sad about this fact, the two of you aren’t a long-term match. New relationships are more serious than casual dating by virtue of having committed to a relationship, but they’re still part of the “feeling things out” stage and a far cry from an established and long-standing relationship. In the case of the latter, it’s usually worth it—through a combination of everything else fitting so well, the trust, support, and familiarity you’ve built over that time, and the potential to work past the issue and return to a place where everything is functioning well enough to be adequate—to push through. In a long-term commitment, you also have to weigh how much of an important part of each other’s lives you’ve become, and the meaning of vows, shared property and finances, and any family you’ve built. You’re not at that stage. You can bail. It is often kinder to bail before you’ve really become used to each other, or before the resentment you feel leads to hurtful behavior on your part. You were single for a long time, and you sound excited to be in a relationship again. Being single when you want to be in a relationship can be lonely. But being in a relationship that is missing a big component of what you need is often just as, if not more, awful. Consider whether you’d prefer to be single. Let yourself feel your resentment in ways that are separate from your relationship (on a long walk, talking with a friend who absolutely won’t spread things around town, or some other space your boyfriend won’t come across, like a support group for partners of men with ED). Then ask yourself: Am I able to separate my own feelings here from what my partner is going through and consistently show up with the patience, support, and kindness he needs for an unknown amount of time? Can I find other ways to satisfy my sexual desires that respect my partner and the boundaries of our relationship (such as masturbation), and can this be enough until my partner is in a place where we can find out how sex might be between the two of us? If the answers are all “yes,” masturbate and vent your feelings on your own time and hope that he flourishes into a sexual partner who you can take endless delight in. If any of the answers are no, have the hard talk now about needing to move on, and know that you’re sparing yourself and him an experience that isn’t actually supportive and kind to either of you. —Jessica More Advice From Slate I’m in a casual, but monogamous, dating relationship of 3-to-4 months. In a recent discussion about sex, I briefly disclosed that in my past (10+ years ago) I was in a brief sexually abusive relationship. I received help and have healed, and he seemed supportive and caring about my past and recovery, however the sex we’re having now is way more “cautious” than before. Mid-coitus he’ll ask if I’m OK repeatedly (and I’m not the silent type when things feel good) to the point of distraction… Advice Sex