Sorry if this is long, I just need to vent.

My boyfriend (27M) and I (23F) have been together for about 4 months. At the beginning, we were inseparable and had so much fun together. I stayed with his family a week after meeting him. We spent every day together and both fell in love very quickly.

The sex was incredible, and we were both very satisfied. I told him early on that sex was important to me, and I need to be sexually compatible with the person I’m in a relationship with. He understood that, and I believed he felt the same way. I’m not saying we need to have crazy monkey sex all day, but I have a pretty high libido so I usually want to have sex whenever we see each other.

He recently moved about 2 hours away. This happened about a month ago. Since the move, communication has become a big issue. He wouldn’t reply to my “good morning” message until 2pm, sometimes 6pm. When we would speak on the phone it was on his 5 min drive home from work. I had an honest conversation with him about how I would appreciate better communication. He started a new job, and was catching up with old friends in his new city, so I tried to chalk it up to that. Following this conversation nothing changed, he would still barely talk to me. So when he came to my place a few days later, I spoke to him again reiterating that this was actually a big issue for me, and we need to have better communication as I didn’t feel like a priority in his life anymore.

Following this, he was a lot more present and we spoke a lot more during the day, and I let him know how much I appreciated it. I wasn’t asking him to drop every responsibility and talk to me all day, but simple goodmorning and goodnight texts, a call or just updates about things in his life and mine would do wonders.

This lasted for about 4 days, and then he went right back into essentially ignoring me. During this time, he was working, playing sports, going to the pub with his friends and playing golf with friends. All the free time he had outside of work was spent having fun with friends, and no time was set aside to just FaceTime me or organise a trip to see eachother. Honestly, this really hurt me and I was seriously considering breaking up as I feel like he just didn’t have time in his life for a relationship now. At least not a meaningful one.

I spoke extensively with my friends and mum about all of my thoughts and worries, and I decided to just give it some time and hope that things get better. I struggled pretending I was fine though, and ended up breaking down about it to him over the phone. We spoke for an hour about everything I have mentioned here, and it went well. He really listened, apologised, and explained some issues with his life that may be contributing to the lack of communication. It made me feel a lot better, and I started getting excited to see him again, plan dates and organise fun activities so we could get back to where we were at the start of our relationship. A lot of these small issues feel so amplified when you’re apart, so I recognised I was more sensitive about our relationship at this point.

This happened 2 weeks ago. We have both visited eachother since then, and been able to spend time together. I decided to drop all my expectations about communication, and just let things be and see how it goes. That helped me mentally as if I didn’t expect anything, I couldn’t be disappointed. It’s a bit sad when you type that out, but it did help. Anyway, since we have been physically together, I obviously was excited to be intimate and basically wanted to rip his clothes off. However, for him that was not the case. I know people have different sex drives and I don’t expect my partner to be at the exact level as me, but feeling wanted is nice.

We have spent maybe 6 nights and days together recently, and had sex twice. Both times were quickies and then we’d go to sleep. We used to have extremely wild passionate, long sex, so honestly these weren’t very passionate or intimate encounters. He has turned me down multiple times saying he’s tired, or not feeling 100%, or that we could just do it later. It gets to the point where once you’re rejected, you just aren’t horny anymore and want to leave it alone. I would never want to force someone into sex, so obviously I respect his boundaries and leave it alone. But of course, it does hurt. That’s just something I’m trying to deal with as it’s a new experience for me in a relationship.

So a few days ago, after he fell asleep without even a kiss goodnight, I woke up at 4am over thinking. I felt he maybe wasn’t attracted to me anymore, and that was contributing to this. I had a past issue with a minor eating disorder, so I went into overdrive planning on eating less and working out more in the hope he would be attracted to me again. Those thoughts terrified me, as I never want to be in that headspace again just praying I was hot enough for someone to love me, so I started crying. I was bawling my eyes out by the time it woke him up, and he just hugged me while I cried. I couldn’t really get my words out, and I don’t really remember what I said, but as soon as he heard me crying he asked if it was about sex- so he knew.

We haven’t really spoken about it since, but I’m seeing him again in 2 days. I really don’t know what to do here. Everything just feels so much harder than it should be. The lack of communication + lack of physical intimacy just seems like too many issues to try and ignore or overcome. I can’t tell if this is temporary and will be resolved in a month, or whether we should end the relationship here. I just don’t think im happy anymore. The relationship is so new, so I don’t want to give up so easily as I still do love him. I just don’t think I want be in a relationship where I feel unwanted, even if im not.

I need some outside opinions, or any advice on ways to help. I’d be so grateful for any tips, I’m new to long distance and wonder whether this is normal.