I’m a bit (well, honestly A LOT) confused in my own head, thus I would deeply appreciate any outside views on my situation. I’m trying to be as honest as possible with myself.

I (30M) have only been in classical serial monogamous relationships before. All of my past (and existing) relationships, without exception, have the following cycle:

1. ~0-12 months - turbo charged libido, tons of sex, feeling happy, satisfied and fulfilled, eventually fades out.
2. ~12-18 months - NRE wears off, I start to feel resentment towards myself and my partner because I don’t want them as much as I used to. Slowly becoming depressed. Libido dies day by day.
3. ~18-24 months - I am completely depressed, my libido is dead, I hate everyone, my sexual desire inhibits completely, I start resenting women I find sexual because I want them; I resent my partner for not being able to fulfill my need just by herself (I’m not shifting responsibility here, I know it’s my prerogative to take care of my happiness and satisfaction); I resent myself for my own misery, I feel insecure about my body, my masculinity and my sexuality.

The thing is, at any given stage I still crave and desire contact with other women and its staring to feel a bit of a closed loop: the only difference is the way I feel in each of said stages, but the desire is always there. When saying “contact”, I refer to the energy exchange between man and a woman on all levels: sexual, emotional, physical, mental and so on. I am not just looking for sex itself.

The trick here is that because I am unable to fulfill this need, I become passive aggressive, depressed and insecure about myself, and as a result I stop having any desire towards my partner. I feel as if I would be able to fulfill my needs, I would simply become a happier person overall and stop resenting my partner for anything and everything, and most importantly stop feeling so shitty, but at the same time I don’t know if I’m fooling myself with this.

At the same time, I feel guilty because said “contact” does not mean I want to break up with my girlfriend or terminate the relationship, and this thought just boggles me and seems contradictive to everything I’ve said. I feel shame and guilt just because of the way I feel, I start questioning whether I love her or not, whether am I a bad person for feeling what I feel and so on and so forth. Thanks to therapy, I’ve started to process my feelings slowly but steadily, now I want to come to terms with myself. I want a solid resolution for myself, I don’t want to lie to anyone including myself, I don’t want to cheat on my partner, but the biggest issue is to accept myself for who I am in the first place.

To achieve this, I’ve done a lot for the past couple of years: I’ve been reading a lot of literature on polygamy, polyamory, biology, anatomy, history and other sciences. Years of therapy to reduce the sense of guilt and start slowly accepting my sexuality as a man. Open, honest and tough conversations with my partner. And still I don’t understand whether I have some deep mental trauma and there’s something wrong with me or I’m just not satisfied with this aspect of life and that’s simply the way I am.

I don’t know if I’m right or wrong, and honestly speaking I just want to speak to someone who may be able to give outside view on said topic, and this community seems like the only place where I wouldn’t be judged.

Thank you!!!

P.S. /RANT STARTS

(TEXT BELOW IS NOT NECCESSARY TO READ, just my thoughts aloud)

I’ll be speaking from men’s perspective and I realize women have it difficult in the society too, so please do not treat this as incel-venting, I’m not hating on anyone.

As a result of my learning, analysis and introspection so far, I am coming to some realizations which honestly scare me:

• I feel like I was fooled my whole life, where my parents, society, media and television and practically everyone & anyone was praising monogamous relationships and essentially brainwashed me into thinking I should want one woman for my whole life
• It’s now becoming more and more apparent to me that all the hate men receive in today’s society (e.g. “can’t control his desires”, “thinks with the wrong head”, “too immature to settle” and so on) is pure nonsense, as a matter of fact we are biologically wired to reproduce and inseminate as many females as we can, it doesn’t make any sense why shall we inhibit our desires if they don’t harm anyone, make you happy and are very natural?
• the way men are subtly (and openly) judged for their sexuality in today’s world is ridiculous and I never thought it could damage me the way it did.
• most importantly, because this affects both men and women: why in the living world shall any gender suppress his/her instincts and desires? Why are you „bad” because of this? Why does society laugh at anything which is not monogamy?

/RANT OVER