My boyfriend has exhibited some behavior that I am a little confused about. My boyfriend was born and raised in Latino country. I am born and raised in a U.S. culture. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.
Before we lived together, my boyfriend seemed pretty attracted to me. I wouldn‘t say it overwhelmed the relationship, but I was happy. When we first met, we were dancing together and he got aroused and later jokingly referring to me as a "bad girl". When he moved out of town for a few months, we continued our relationship long-distance. I went to visit him and we were "intimate". The sex was good and satisfying, but more romantic than passionate. Another time I visited and stayed with friends of his. The sex during this time was a "naughty" with the element of danger involved (the friends sleeping in the next room, or due back at the apartment, etc.).
My boyfriend and I decided to move in together. Now that we are living together, my boyfriend doesn‘t seem to enjoy sex anymore. It seems very stressful and challenging for him. He keeps a calendar next to his bed to keep track of when I have my periods (we’ve been talking about having a child) and only attempts sex when he considers it to be “time”. We only have sex in the bedroom. He doesn’t really know how to initiate sex, and he criticizes me for talking too much and for laughing too much during sex. He tells me that I need to look him in the eyes during sex. He told me I need to wear underwear underneath my nightgown like his mother does and says I’m bad because I don’t. He doesn’t like the way I kiss, and he doesn’t like “French” kissing. He takes showers immediately after and spends a long time in prayer. He told me he feels guilty because we aren’t married. Instead of being romantic, sometimes he tries to scare me - one time pretending to suffocate me with the pillow, sometimes walking in with a scary look on his face, twice bringing a knife in to scare me with. When I got upset and scared he would roll his eyes at me and act like I was silly for being scared. We got into a big fight about it and he locked himself in the bathroom when I told him I didn’t like it.
I said I wanted to try anal sex and he looked at me in askance and said he couldn‘t do that to me because I was his girlfriend.
When I am unhappy, even crying, my boyfriend refuses to comfort me saying, “I’m not like that… I’m no good with emotions.” He declares that he doesn’t like hugging or kissing or being sentimental.
He knows a LOT about periods, women‘s bodies, women‘s undergarments, etc. and when I asked him he said he learned it all from his mother.
I should reluctantly add here that previous to me he was in an abusive relationship with another man (he was 17 when it started, but it lasted several years - he is 31 now). He has been involved with women back in his country but they were always “innocent” and “chaste.” He was also sexually abused as a child (don’t know anything more than that).
If our relationship was stable I wouldn‘t think much about it, but we are having a LOT of problems already and we‘ve only been living together a couple of months. I suspect he has a sex addiction/love addiction problem – he spends a lot of time online, lots of “secret” chats on his cell and on the Internet. He talks about sex a LOT on the chat, on his cell phone, and with his “secret” friends, but not so much with me.
He was fine for the first couple of months, but he seems very depressed now and frustrated. He’s under stress specifically about his mother. He is very close to her – bought her a house one time, a wardrobe worth of clothing another time. He has a lot of problems with his father – his father doesn’t work and takes no part or responsibility in family affairs. His mother constantly needs money for various things around the house back in his country of origin and it’s up to my boyfriend (he’s the oldest in his family) to support her and his brother who is in college.