How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. I have a question? Send it to Stoya and Rich here. It’s anonymous!
dear way,
I (27th floor) caught my boyfriend in a lie and it took a huge fight over several weeks to confirm it.
It wasn’t an affair or anything to do with our sex life. And eventually we decided to get over it and stay together. But the problem still persists and now several weeks have passed and I have no desire to have sex with him again. I thought I would be starting to feel normal again by now, but that desire just…wasn’t there. There’s still a lot of love, but feelings like feeling betrayed seem to be really affecting my sex drive. How do people overcome situations like this?
-I feel empty.
Dear everyone who is feeling the loss,
The fact that the problem still exists seems to be quite significant. Has your boyfriend taken any action to change what caused this lie? Has he taken any conceivable action to repair the situation? Is there really any solution? Was it? Or are they both tired of fighting and time has passed without them moving forward?
How much betrayal can you endure? And how much trust and time base did the two of you have before this happened? Whatever the level of your betrayal and the basis of your relationship at the time, it may be impossible to overcome this. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether it’s worth continuing to try.
It may help to remember what you find attractive about your boyfriend. Think about what you admire about him. Focus on the parts of the relationship that motivate you to stay and try to resolve the issues. You might even make a list. A few weeks isn’t that long in the grand scheme of things, so give yourself more time if you want to get this done well.
—Stoya
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