I am a 37 year old lesbain and have only sexually been with my girlfriend of 15 years. She is 8 years older than I am. Lately the more sex I want the less she seems interested. We have been fighting about this and it has made me think of finding a new lover. I don't want to be with anyone else because Mary is my best friend. I love her but I have found my self not liking her. She has become very bitter towards people and seems to be drinking quite alot. I know she isn't cheating on me because we are together 24/7 work, sleep and eat. We have had our problems just like everybody else but it has really gotten bad over the last few years. Our friend Lynn died of cancer and I was devistated. Her and I work side by side everyday. This was the perfect woman for me. We never fought and always got along great. I was totally in love with her and she loved me also but as a friend. Mary loved Lynn also but hated how well the two of us got along. There was never any chance of a relationship because Lynn was straight. Lynn knew how I felt about her I never hid my feelings and she was okay with that. I would have given anything to be with her and Mary has never really gotten past this. I shut down emotionally after Lynn's death. I know Mary feels that I am not showing her enough attention but when I do try she doesn't want anything to do with me. I don't know what to do any more. I have told her if she isn't happy being with me then she should leave. I love her and if she left it would be like someone cutting off my hand she is a part of me BUT I know I'm not in love with her. How do you end a 15 year relationship and start over without making it so the other doesn't hate you? I don't have alot of lesbian friends because Mary was always worried about them coming on to me. Which by the way none of them did they all went after her instead. There is so much more to say but not enough time to type any advice you could give me would be appreciated. If you know any good Psychotherapst in MICHIGAN that does couples therapy I would be willing to try that also.
Without knowing much more about your relationship, I can't really know what's going on for the two of you, but I can say, from what you said, that it sounds like several complex issues may be involved. One is that when people experience a big loss, like you and Mary did when Lynn died, sometimes they don't feel free to express the sadness and anger that allows emotional healing from the loss. When that happens, the feelings turn into all kinds of symptoms, and that may be what Mary is experiencing, and perhaps you too. In addition, you and she most likely are living with unresolved hurt, sadness, anger and perhaps guilt connected to your feelings about Lynn. This stuff can be resolved sometimes in couples counseling, and/or individual counseling, but it's unlikely just to go away. It sounds to me like you want to seek out romantic love elsewhere, but are afraid to leave Mary. Only you can really know how important sex and the "in love" feeling are to you, and whether they are important enough to risk losing what you have. On the other hand, if you and Mary could work out other emotional issues, the sex and "in love" feelings might come back.
So I highly recommend good couples counseling for the two of you to get to what is not working and why. I say "good," because there is a great deal of bad couples counseling going on. To find a therapist, you can ask people you know, look for referrals on websites of therapists' professional organizations (for clinical social workers, psychologists, and marriage and family therapists), or look through online referral sites like Psychology Today. Some sites give you a fair amount of information about the therapists. Pick a few and interview them, either on the phone, or in person (some may not be willing to talk on the phone in any depth).
You are looking for extensive specialized training in couples counseling. Don't assume if they say they see couples are are even licensed as a marriage and family counselor, that they have this kind of training (I'm speaking as a "marriage and family counselor" who only works with individual adults and who got virtually no training in marriage or family counseling before being licensed. Since then I have gotten quite a bit of training in couples counseling, but I still don't consider myself qualified to practice that specialty). Many therapists think if they are skilled at individual therapy, they can do couples counseling too. I strongly disagree. I believe it is a specialty that requires years of specialized training in addition to any other therapy training and licensing they have.
Some of the methods of training I believe in are John Gottman's work (he's also written several books, mostly for the lay reader), Imago (Harville Hendrix's work--he wrote Getting the Love You Want), and Emotionally Focused marital therapy. I know the least about the last one, but it seems very good to me. Gottman is pretty gay-friendly, Hendrix is totally not, but many lesbian and gay therapists have learned his way of working and adapted it (obviously you have to pick a gay-friendly therapist, which usually means one who either is a lesbian, has close lesbian friends, or has worked with many lesbians and lesbian couples). So ask the therapists what their experience with lesbian couples is, who they've studied to learn couples counseling, and how much study and practice was involved in learning. One weekend workshop, or reading a few books is NOT enough.
In the best of worlds, you both would be in individual therapy as well as couples, but people often can't manage all of that, and if you get a really skilled couples counselor, you can get clear about the issues inside of you as well as those between you and Mary.
As for what's going on for the two of you sexually, I clearly don't know enough about you, but I can tell you what I know in general, and you can see if any of it seems to apply. First of all, In my experience, couples who are together 24/7 often lose their interest in a sexual relationship, and describe their feelings about their partner as being like a sister (or brother).
In addition, Lesbians have other threats to their sexual relationship, including: 1) Body self-hate that is pervasive among women in our culture causes shame to enter into the experience of having sex. 2) Sex is normally experienced as a merging of boundaries between people, so that two feel almost like one. This feels wonderful as long as it's balanced by periods (out of bed, usually) of clear boundaries, clear differences and separatedness. Lesbians (that is women, and lesbians are two women, so twice as subject to phenomena carried by women) are notoriously uncomfortable with the separations and differences, and that makes the merging that happens in sex threatening to a sense of separate self that we all need. 3) Women have to struggle against cultural pressure to initiate sex, so two women struggling with this often both find it more comfortable to wait for the other to initiate.
None of this may be your issue, especially since you are still interested in sex, while she's not. However, loss of sex in a lesbian relationship is usually experienced as one wanting (the "yes" one) and one not wanting (the "no" one). As clear as it may seem to both women at the time that one is a yes and one is a no, often these roles are reversed at other times in the relationship or in another relationship. If you have any ambivalence about having sex with your partner, her not wanting sex lets you be safe believing you want it with no doubts, because you know it's not going to happen.
Also, again, in general, sex often stops due to resentments that have built up in the relationship, which erodes the feelings of attraction and trust needed for sex. Also, sex generally operates as a microcosm of, or focal point for all issues in the relationship. All of this will be a focus for couples counseling. I'm sorry I don't know any therapists in Michigan, but if you find them, please let me know, so that others in your area can find them more easily.
I hope I've addressed your questions, but let me know if I missed something.
