This may be more of just a rant that some of you may relate to.

But it gets so frustrating sometimes seeing the difference of how my primary partner spends time with his secondaries/satellites versus him and I. I understand that excitement in relationships ebb and flow especially when you start to live together. But it’s almost like him and I are stuck in this platonic roommate situation while I see him have fun with everyone else.

He doesn’t work as much as me, and many times when I’m at work he sleeps in, or goes to do activities with friends, or hangs out with partners, etc. But I’ll come home after a 9-12 hour day, and somehow he thinks that me getting home is the perfect time for him to start helping to clean the house. It’s gotten to the point that I’m sacrificing sleep to do dishes that he otherwise won’t do for a week (yes this has happened many times) OR i just let dishes stack up for the week and I end up caring enough to do them.

My disclaimer is that he’s been having low energy issues that make him less motivated to do much of anything. And he’s been doing a bit better at actually helping clean more through the day. But it’s still the expectation that my time off is our cleaning time together. I prefer cleaning with help too, but it gets frustrating when it’s a boring activity he saves almost exclusively for during my free time during the work week. And then during the day he’s sleeping in or having sex with other partners who have an easier schedule…. It’s like as long as it’s something someone else asks him to do with them, he says yes. Which leaves him and I even less energy together when he comes back.

And then during the days we both have the full day off, he still schedules things with other people and I’m just left expected to walk the dogs and pick up the house chores he hasn’t done.

Anyone else frustrated at how easy it is to feel like a roommate in a NP/primary relationship? I haven’t done this yet but any of you putting “sex” or date nights on the calendar because of this?

Edit: Holy moly this got a lot of attention! I’ll try to respond to comments since I’m on lunch break but I’d like to expound a bit since I feel like an asshole for making my partner out to seem like an asshole.

1. He finally found a doctor who is going to get him set on some medication literally tomorrow. He met with them a couple weeks ago and apparently qualifies to start something that will hopefully drastically increase his energy and libido and everything else. He sought that out all on his own, after going to many people to try and figure out the problem.

2. About six months ago he had started a separate medication that helped with anxiety but unfortunately that became an issue of figuring out the right dosage because it immediately was apparent his dropped energy.

3. Just a little after that, like less than a month later, his work schedule changed drastically. He used to work in an office where he’d be getting in decent steps and be standing at his desk all day. He had/has less hours, works from home, and now has the most lax schedule he’s had since like before college.

So really the issues of feeling resentment that he doesn’t help out more is only since about six months ago. And for quite a while, like the first couple of months, I was just happy he had more time and less stress. We used to (before the job schedule change) split chores much more evenly. After that, he started picking up more chores initially since he had nothing else to do.

But he’s been a lot more sluggish recently without a rigid structured schedule which is part why he made it a point to go to yet another doctor and ask for help.

As far as sex, since he started taking that anxiety medication, the sex drive dropped a lot for him and we started having sex one-on-one like once a month. And actually a couple of times it was like every two months, and the only reason those even happened was because we were having a threesome. With those, I generally am not the center of attention just because he and I are being more “hosting” for the other party and trying to build an experience catered for them. So it’s much less him and I being intimate together and more him and I doing team work to enact the sex/kink scene. I kind of prefer it that way because it just seems to flow better, but it’s just not a replacement for intimacy between him and I (to the one commenter, yes, I am a woman).

Why this even came to the point of me making this post:

Last month he told me that he was going to go have sex with a satellite partner. We haven’t had sex in a couple of months so I was a little envious of it but said sounds good, thanks for letting me know. We’ve been busy with other things. But then last week, I unfortunately found out that he and a partner we both play with (separate partner) had sex together at our house, while I was at work. On a Monday. I’m very aware that they’ve done that before and it’s fair game for him to play with her or any mutual partner when she’s over whether I’m around or not. But I was literally sobbing at work thinking about it because recently we’ve had days off together where we haven’t done it. She was over the whole weekend and I restrained from usurping our together time by requesting solo sex with him. I think had he and I been more active it wouldn’t have bothered me much at all. And… he initially claimed she was just playing with herself, not that he was involved at all.

So I diplomatically started a conversation with him about planning for sex. I think he could tell I was upset but he took it really well and said that we would as soon as our partner went home on Wednesday. And he’d save himself for me.

Two days later, Wednesday, I’m at work and I find that they are having yet another sex scene together. She apparently knew that he was going to save his orgasm for me but still begged him to play with her. To me sex is sex, forcing an orgasm is forcing an orgasm no matter what appendage or toy you’re using. And that is a scene he and I have not done in like a year. Nor that he’s offered. Again, it was initially denied (by the partner) that he even touched her.

Ugh, sorry this is really long.

But yeah. That started a whole thing. He then got upset that I told him I wasn’t in the mood for sex anymore because he had been saving up for me. Somewhere in the argument I find out that he’s had sex four times in the past month, three times with this mutual partner, not including the time he just used toys on her. It’s not a thing where he needs to tell me about how often he’s having sex, but the shock of knowing the number and that somehow everyone else got some was really was a blow.

So now his stance is that because of his low energy I should just start demanding sex from him like all of his other partners do. When this has never been our MO in the past. I’m very submissive and he’s even explicitly told me how much he hates it when people are overly pushy with him about having sex. He’s has SA issues in the past with this same thing. I’m being more quiet about this whole thing now just because further discussion doesn’t seem to get us anywhere. And he’s about to start new meds so let’s see how that goes.

The Chore Issue

After initially posting, I did bring up dishes and specifically paper plates. He’s open to the idea and we’ll try it to see if it helps any. I’m also realizing more how much I’m contributing to certain messes and I’ll be starting to take care more of my personal stuff consistently and see what’s left to clean.

He does basically all the laundry which is honestly a life saver sometimes. And he’s been working on my car a lot and generally takes a good amount of the mental load in communicating with our partners and checking in with them and etc. But the dogs never get walked and he never has energy to do that… and I never wake up early enough to either. That right now is probably my other building resentment but I know that should be on me to do as well.

Again I’ll try to respond to everyone. Thank you again for the myriad of advice!

Further edit: Also - my work schedule really leaves other life stuff on the back burner sometimes. I’m on call often and making specific date plans is really hard because it’s 50/50 whether I’ll actually be there or not. It wasn’t fair of me to not mention that. He’s vocalized many times how frustrating that is because planning for dates or sex or whatever else is really important to him. He can be spontaneous for sure, but his interest is much lower. Compared to when he has reliable friends asking him to go out and eat two days before or go on a bike ride and he actually plan on that.