Tired? Bored? Navigating the Complexity of Gay Relationships
Are you in relationship that feels stuck or boring? Are you tired of the same old same old in regard to your love life and gay relationships? What is it about you or the relationship that is making you feel this way, and is it ok to have these feelings in the first place with a person you are still in love with? While there may not be exact answers to fit your questions, there are things you can do to combat tiredation and boredom in your gay relationship.
Believe it or not, you are not alone. Gay male relationships are tricky. We are designed to breed and hop from one sex romp to the next sex romp, anomalistically spreading our seed to as many sources as possible, like true animals longing to continue the survival of the species. Except for…gay men cannot get pregnant. While we cannot procreate, that doesn’t stop many of us from feeling that internal feeling of wanderlust and biological boredom as a result of staying with one partner for an extended period of time.
If you’re tired or bored in your relationship, it’s time to ask your self the million dollar questions: Is it over? Have you fallen out of love with your partner?
If this is the case, the sooner you reveal this revelation to him, the better. There is no need to prolong a relationship with someone just because you feel bad for falling out of love with them and wanting something else or more. At some time or another, we all get our hearts broken and will play the role of heat breaker. It’s an unfortunate reality of life. And there is nothing wrong with this admittance, as long as you are truthful with yourself and the person you are in a relationship with.
Being tired or bored in your relationship may indicate other issues you have in your life. Work may be stressing you out. Perhaps your friendships are no longer fulfilling. Or you are just generally looking for a dramatic change. Exhaustion and boredom are often secondary emotions we feel as a result of a primary triggering emotion or situation that has us feeling left wanting more. Don’t ignore these feelings, but ask yourself if there isn’t something about yourself you’d like to change or if your boredom hasn’t been brought on by extraneous situations in and around your life.
Maybe it is your relationship after all. There are ways to determine how your relationship is working or not. Do you fight a lot? Are you engaged when your partner is speaking? Do you still get flutters and feelings of lust with your partner? Are you still having sex on a regular basis? A reality is, we all need to feel loved, wanted, and needed. If you aren’t having these feelings from your partner or are not having the feelings for your partner, it might be time for a sit down to get to the root of the problem.
If you feel like the issues lie within you, consider talking to a therapist to work through your feelings and troubles. A secondary, unbiased perspective is always a great opinion to have, considering anything therapist know about you was informed to them directly by you. Not everyone wants to see a therapist. So, I recommend sitting alone with yourself and asking what it is that you really want with your life. Ask yourself why you feel bored and what you could do to relieve these dire feelings.
Let’s say it is your relationship. How do you push forward and keep going with life, especially if you still love the guy and want to stay with him? The first thing you need to do is talk with him honestly and frankly. Be open about your feelings of exhaustion and boredom. A clear line of communication, allowing one another to speak, and really listening to his opinions and his side of things is the way to begin a dialogue and figuring out how to best move forward.
If your partner is being receptive and hearing you out, you have multiple options to exercise to help you deal with these unfortunate feelings and desires for more. Couples therapy is a great route to explore. Again, having an outside opinion about the ongoings of your life and relationship can be very beneficial to an individual and pairs. A specialist in relationships can give you the essential tools to work on your relationship and attempt to get to the root of your feelings angsty about your coupling.
Another route gay couples take is opening up the relationship to other sexual partners. Not everyone can handle being in an open relationship, so tread lightly. Quadruple make sure that both of you are ok with involvement with other sex partners and you both need to draft a solid understanding of what your version of an open relationship entails. You don’t want to lost the love of your life because you were simply trying to get off and weren’t being 100% honest about your side activities.
Opening a relationship up can mean a world of difference to get men who don’t necessarily share all of the same common kinks, fetishes, and interests. A lot of guys are able to compartmentalize sex as only sex with no emotions attached. They can therefore get the wanted behavior from a sex partner enough to get off, then come home to their life partner and have satisfaction in every other aspect of your lives. A lot of gay relationships open up to include other partners or allow for extraneous hooking up outside the relationships. Many gay men find compatibility in some aspects of their partner, but other aspects in the company of other men.
Face it: the more sexual partners you have in your life time, odds are: the better at sex you will be. Opening the relationship can open up literal sexual doors and avenues you hadn’t explored yet or thought too. Maybe your version of opening the relationship means welcoming a third person into your bedroom, together. It might also look like hookups on the side not involving your partner. Either way, it’s hard to feel bored, stagnant, and tired in your gay relationship with extra sex partners added to the mix.
When therapy isn’t right for you and neither is adding an additional (or several) sex partners, consider a change of scenery. Maybe a job switch or move would help satisfy your desire for more. Adding sex toys, role playing, and fun new activities in the bedroom could possibly also give you the difference you’re looking for. Switching things up and trying something new is a great mentality and practice that can help you reduce the monotony. If you are always the top, try bottoming. And vice versa if you are more often than not the receptive partner. Combating monotony can be as simple as a few switches in the bedroom.
The last thing anyone wants to feel is tired, bored, and alone, especially when in a relationship. Talk to your partner and come clean with your feelings, and then go from there. That’s really the best you can do. It’s up to the two of you to decide upon the appropriate course to take, whether it be therapy, couples’ counseling, sex toys, uniforms, acting out kinks and fetishes, or opening up the relationship to include more than one way to get off.
If you are upfront and honest about everything, you’re guaranteed to at least begin to feel better about the situation with honestly, directness, and clarity. Your greatest ally is the truth and being upfront about your feelings, wants, and lack of inspiration in the relationship. Your partner mayn’t be as responsive as you’d like, or might blow you out of the water with his desire to “fix things” and set your relationship on a better course of fulfillment.
Most importantly: have patience. Don’t think things will change over night. Be patient with yourself and your desire to change. You might be feeling tired and bored as a direct combination of all of the conditions above. But it is up to you to not remain complacent and to deal with these issues as best as you can, so as not to just bottle them up, suppressing them, and waiting until you explode to let them all out. We all want the best for ourselves, and not wanting to be tired or bored of something is a natural human experience that can occur from time to time.
And remember: the only inevitability in life is change. Sometimes, it’ll do you wonders.
