Cat Rules

I’ve been with my girlfriend for ten years. We moved in with each other three years ago. It’s not working for me. I love my girlfriend. She’s one of the kindest people I have ever met, slow to anger, and always listens first. We never fight, and I don’t want to break up with her. I just want our relationship to look a little different. Three years ago, she suffered a health scare while we were on vacation. We have not gotten a good diagnosis, so she is doing her best to mitigate her symptoms. Since the scare, she has lost confidence in driving and leaving the house. This has left me doing most of the errands, as even going to the grocery store is daunting for her. Her symptoms — dizziness, lethargy, fear of fainting — coupled with her strict cat rules make it difficult to go anywhere. Cat rules: the cat can’t be left alone for longer than six hours. This makes it hard to even go on a day trip. I can easily find cat care if we could go somewhere for a weekend, but she says not being in her bed triggers all her symptoms and it ruins her for her following work week.

When we first met, she was very spontaneous — this was before the cat — and we used to go on long day trips, bar hop, eat whatever. But since her medical issues started, that has all gone away. We no longer go on day trips, we can’t do anything spontaneously, and all of my favorite foods are out because they trigger her symptoms. At home, I come to bed later than her or get up before her because it ruins her sleep and having her sleep disturbed can trigger her symptoms for days.

I am not a serious person when I don’t have to be. I get excited and hyper throughout the day. This part of my personality is important to me since my father constantly yelled at me to not be excited because it made me look gay. So, I spent my childhood suppressing feelings of joy. Now it’s my girlfriend telling me to “tone it down” because she can’t handle my “energy.” I go for days now without speaking unless spoken to. On top of everything else, our sex life has taken a serious nosedive. We used to have sex three times a week at least. Now I’m lucky if I get it once a month and it’s strictly missionary, as all other positions trigger her symptoms.

We are poly. When we moved in together three years ago, I decided to stop dating other women for a while so I could focus on learning to live together, but after her health scare I could no longer date because I always have to be home for her.

My issue here is I don’t want to live with her anymore. I want us to go back to where she had her own place and life, and I had my own place and life. I’m ready to start dating other people again. I want more autonomy. I want to be spontaneous and drive to the coast for a night, I want to wake up early and bake (baking is my hobby and starting early helps with the proofing time needed), I want to stay up late and watch movies she can’t stomach. I’m also ready to start dating again. Meeting someone and bringing them home isn’t an option, and I can’t afford a hotel if the other person happens to be in the same situation.

Asking to move out seems daunting because I know she will take it hard and hurting her is the last thing I want to do.

Am I Being Selfish?

Dude.

I was willing to give your girlfriend the benefit of the doubt — I was willing to accept that she suffers from a mysterious medical condition that makes travel, errands, hikes, staggered bedtimes, your favorite foods, your favorite movies, sex in anything other than the missionary position, your hobbies, your feelings, your personality, etc., etc., etc., impossible and intolerable — and then you mentioned “cat rules.”

Backing up: a decade is a long-ass time. We age, our abilities change, and things we loved doing when we were 32 or 42 may not be enjoyable or even possible for us when we’re 42 or 52. It goes without saying that a loving and loyal partner doesn’t abandon us after we’ve developed a chronic medical condition. But love and loyalty are two-way streets, AIBS, and it also needs to be said — your girlfriend in particular needs to hear it — that a loving and loyal partner with a chronic medical condition doesn’t expect their loving and loyal partner to give up everything else they love.

So, if your girlfriend truly loved you, she would be encouraging you to go on hikes and day trips without her, AIBS, and working with you on simple fixes that would allow you to enjoy your hobbies without triggering her symptoms. (For example, if you had a daybed in your living room, AIBS, you could crash there on nights when you wanted to stay up late and watch your movies or get up early and bake your cakes.)

To be perfectly frank, AIBS, the cat rules make me doubt everything that has come out of your girlfriend’s mouth over the last three years. Now, maybe she had a fainting spell — perhaps her initial health crisis was real — but pulling these “cat rules” out of her ass has me thinking your girlfriend is either nuts (the charitable read) or controlling and borderline abusive (the uncharitable read)… But instead of controlling you with anger and playing on your fear, your girlfriend is controlling you with her fragility and playing on your sympathies.

To be franker still, AIBS, I think you should break up with your girlfriend. If you don’t wanna do that — if you can’t bring yourself to do that (so loving, so loyal) — you should definitely get a place of your own. A place where you’re free to be your excitable old self, a place where you can set your own bedtime, and a place where “cat rules” don’t apply because there is no fucking cat. If you two live in an apartment, you could wait until another unit opens up in the building before moving out; being in the same building would make it easy to share meals and spend evenings together, AIBS, and you could drop some scones off on mornings when you wake and bake.

Moving out was your idea, AIBS, which means this is permission, not advice. But I would advise you not to ask your girlfriend for her permission to move out — it’s permission you won’t get from her — but to instead inform her that you’ve already made the decision to move out. Your girlfriend is likely to be upset when you tell her — she’ll undoubtedly take it hard — but ask yourself what’s worse: addressing her hurt feelings and offering what reassurances you can or having to obey cat rules (and only speaking when spoken to!) for the next thirty or forty years.

Dude.

P.S. I’ll bet you anything — dollars to donuts — that the moment you tell your girlfriend you wanna start seeing/dating/fucking other people again, AIBTS, your girlfriend is gonna discover that fucking other people triggers her symptoms.

P.P.S. Maybe you tell your girlfriend you wanna start seeing/dating/fucking other people before you tell her you wanna move out. If she reacts with constructive suggestions about how to make it work, AIBTS, that’s a good sign. (It would also be a sign that your girlfriend isn’t the villain I take her for.) But if she tells you that the thought of you seeing/dating/fucking someone else triggers her symptoms and/or violates Cat Rule #4612, take my advice and get your own place.

I’m a 37-year-old gay man, a bottom, living in Virginia. I used to be morbidly obese. But I’ve lost almost 200 pounds in the past fifteen years. I’ve only been with a man once during this time — and it was exactly fifteen years ago, when I was at my absolute heaviest. Since then, I’ve struggled to find men to hook up with, even (especially) within the gay bear community. I’m either too small for chasers or I’m too big (both weight-wise and height-wise) for everybody else. I don’t meet the local preferences for Muscle Bears or Twinks. I’m also sometimes mistaken for being FTM, especially by guys who are DL or closeted. I’ve tried all of the apps and the bars. And I’ve even traveled to major cities with no luck. I realize my weight has something to do with it, and I am working out and dieting. But my looks are average. It’s reached a point where the lack of intimacy has me struggling mentally even with the aid of a therapist and antidepressants. How can I break this streak?

Not Enjoying Endless Dry Spell

Dude!

Hire someone. Find a sex worker you like that you can afford to see semi-regularly, NEEDS, and not only will you be breaking your sexless streak, you’ll also be demonstrating to yourself that you can establish a connection (sexual and emotional) with another human being. My friends who’ve done sex work often wind up playing the role of dating/life/sex coach in the lives of their regular clients. So, a semi-regular session with a patient sex worker who’s willing to talk — not just fuck — could help set you up for future sexual and romantic success.

The quickest way to demonstrate to a sex worker that you see him a person and want to connect on more than just a physical level, NEEDS, is to offer to take him to dinner during your first booking — no sex, just dinner, still a paid date. His willingness to accept a dinner invitation would be a sign that he sees you as a person (and not just a hole), NEEDS, and how he behaves during dinner (is he curious? is he kind? does he order the most expensive shit on the menu?) would give you some sense of his character.

Additionally, NEEDS, breaking that long sexless streak of yours — even if you only pay for it once — will have the added benefit of making you feel less desperate and anxious. As desperation and anxiety are feelings people intuitively pick up on and neither are qualities anyone wants in a partner (for the evening, for a lifetime), feeling less of both could help you attract a guy who wants to fuck you for free.

P.S. People looking for sex workers online generally recommend Tryst. I haven’t used the site myself — ahem — so this is not a personal endorsement.

I’m almost 50-years-old, many years into a happy monogamous marriage. Having grown up having the shit scared out of me about sexually transmitted infections, I recently said to my spouse that we should probably get HPV vaccines and maybe think about PrEP and having doxy on hand. She asked why we’d bother — because we’re monogamous — and while I agree that we aren’t going to have sex with other people, science has produced almost literal miracles in the last couple of decades. Why shouldn’t we avail ourselves of them, even if it’s just in case? She didn’t buy it. I admit that all this MAGA vax insanity has maybe negatively polarized me INTO vaccines more than I used to be, but it still seems like a no-brainer to me. What say you, Dan?

Vaccines Are Xtraordinary

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