Dating Doyenne - Insight...?

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-24-2004
Dating Doyenne - Insight...?
Fri, 08-20-2004 - 7:36pm
Here's one for the Dating Doyenne...

My ex-boyfriend and I dated for ten months before he dumped me because "he had always imagined himself with someone taller and shaplier." Our relationship started off as sexual, then grew into shared interests and lots of fun times together; it was still sexual (usually after drinking), but not as great as the first couple of months.

After four months, we got back together as "friends" which meant we were seeing other people, but spent most of our time and all of our weekends together. There was "sex," but again, not like in the first few months. While we were "friends" for about six months, he would do the "come here/go away" commitment-phobia dance that he had done the previous time we were together. I got tired of the uncertainty so broke it off, saying we could not be friends because I had feelings for him and wanted more. A week later, he called crying, professing his love, sending me love letters, saying I was THE ONE, talking marriage, ad infinitum. I agreed to try again -- EVERYTHING about this relationship is exemplary, except that he seems to not be sexually attracted to me. He explained that he was so happy with all the other aspects of our relationship that he would try to make it work; the rest was too valuable to focus solely on the sex. He is 39, never married, with two six-year on-again-off-again relationships; I am 42, divorced two years after 11 years of marriage.

Fast forward two months and we're split again -- not enough "passion." He "still imagines himself with a supermodel.... blah, blah, blah." Now, I am not an ugly woman, but I aint no supermodel. Hell, who is? He says I'm smart, funny, everything he could ever want, he loves me, I'm the best thing that's ever happened to him, but he feels I deserve someone who is crazy passionate about me. (He's right....)

Soooo, the question: How did our relationship, which started primarily as sexual and evolved into something so much more valuable, lose the sexual component? If he wasn't attracted to me from day one, why did he get involved? (n.b. the way I look has changed only in that I've LOST 20 pounds from all the bicycle riding we do together!!) Is he just non-committal and since everything else was so perfect, lousy sex was the only way out? Just curious what an expert thinks....