I (f39) have been dating him (m43) for two years. Foreplay was never much, but now it got close to zero - to the point that I don't get lubricated enough and I'm in pain the following day. Sex, when I'm turned on, is decent and he always makes sure I have time to finish. But foreplay isn't there so I have to use lube, or saliva.

I tried to ask for more, but he doesn't seem to understand. Quite literally. I am starting to think he just doesn't know what foreplay actually means. Or maybe, it's me not being great at expressing myself, as we are from different countries. He tried to touch me but he tends to do it aggressively, thus it's useless - he just causes irritation and gives me mild UTIs. I explained several times how to do it, and which spots he shouldn't touch (my clit yes, anything around my urethra is a big no) and still no improvement.

After many many failed attempts, he finally said he just won't "touch me anymore". Of course I said that he should instead learn how to do it. He also never did oral, mentioning "it's not his fave thing" - I never really discussed it deeply because I didn't want to sound pushy. I don't know if it's a hard no, or anything. If he did some, that would be great.

Before you dump Reddit's usual advice on me ("just dump him"): he is an otherwise good partner and I assume we all know it's not easy to find an emotionally stable, loyal partner as an adult.

In this respect it's worth mentioning that I indeed had other sex partners before and then again, no one was amazing at foreplay! Plus, emotionally they were a mess. So I don't consider going back to being single a fix really - it seems more like going from one problem to many.

Now that I have someone who is emotionally stable and I'm more than happy to put effort into making things work.

But...any effective advice on how to teach him / communicate to him how to give me some foreplay?