My friend and her bad relationship

Zorgolio

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I have good friend that I've known for quite a few years now. Let's call her L. For as long as I've known her she's been together with a guy we can call E.

I've never had much to do with E, but from what little contact I've had with him, he seems to be an alright guy.

The thing is, the relationship between L and E has been dying for years. However, neither of them wants to jump ship. I'm guessing they're both too scared of being single. At the ripe old age of 25.

L and E have apparently broken up several times, and always gotten back together. Once, fairly recently, L even had a brief but passionate affair during one of these breakups. What I've thought, and what I've said to L, is that by always going back to him, L has shown E that he can do no wrong. No matter how much he pisses her off, and no matter how upset she gets, she'll always come back. He's bulletproof now. He doesn't need to care.

L and I talk and text often and she's talked to me about the problems in her relationship. She feels that she almost never gets any attention from her boyfriend, and he seems uninterested in sex. She has always had to initiate sex, or he'd, apparently, rather play videogames or watch sports.

Recently I discovered that, as far as L knows, she's never felt sexy. When she thought about it, the only time she could think of having felt sexy was when I had given her a compliment about her appearence one day. I hope she also felt sexy during her little affair as well. It boggles my mind that she has been in a relationship for years without having felt sexy. It makes me sad and frustrated that a friend of mine isn't getting the attention she needs.

Something that is probably related to this is that L has pretty bad self-esteem. School hasn't always been easy for her, and then the lack of acknowledgement and appreciation probably hasn't helped. For instance, she finds her own vagina, and vaginas in general, repulsive. I've never seen it, but I've tried to reassure her that I'm sure that it's fine. Maybe not the right thing to do, but I don't like hearing my friends speak ill of themselves in such a way, especially important (and unchangeable) things like that.

Also something that I've found a bit odd in a young woman in this day and age is that she is incredibly conservative when it comes to sex. Missionary seems to be the only thing she she is interested in. No oral either way, and she has no experience of foreplay. Again, my mind is boggled.

The issue then is, that I want to help her. I don't like standing on the sidelines and watching friends suffer. When another friend sank into a clinical depression and tried to commit suicide, I made sure to stick by him. That kind of stuff wasn't going to change our relationship. And I want to stick by L and help her too.

I want to show her that she has a huge capacity to be sexy, that she is a capable woman, and that sex can be more than just some reluctant humping. And yet, I feel that as her friend, but not her boyfriend, my hands are tied. The things I want to help with are things E should be handling. At times I've felt like some form of surrogate boyfriend, helping L through various crises. Each time I've just thought "Where was E?"

This is muddied further by the fact that I am a very single, and occasionally lonely, man. On occasion I lust for her. But I realize that I will do more good as an emotional support than just another penis. Plus, at the end of the day I don't want to be her boyfriend, and it would be thus unfair to her to start anything.

I'm not quite sure where I want to go with this, but it's been on my mind a lot lately. I'm a fixer. I want to fix problems. Seeing a friend stuck in a dying relationship is a problem, and I want to fix it.

What do you lovely ladies think? What can I do to help? What should I do? Should I do anything?
 

Mercurygirl

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You make no mention of her willingness to change, apart from a brief "passionate" affair, the passion part contradicting everything else you told us about her, thus it seems to me you're just some emotional tampon she uses from time to time because she unable to communicate properly with her boyfriend.

Why doesn't she take this "passion" she had with that one guy (or girl?) and bring it into her current relationship? I don't think you can put all the blame on this "E" guy as your friend sounds like a boring fuck in the bedroom. I don't know a single guy who doesn't like a good blowjob and the fact that she revealed to you intimate aspects of her relationship, which btw I think is serious mistake and breach of trust on her part, and admitted to having no oral sex, add the fact she hates her own vagina, is quite telling. Sounds to me as if she's at the very least half the problem.

As far you helping, staying the hell out of the intimate aspects of other people's relationships is the best policy. The next time she starts whining about her sex life tell her perhaps she should be talking to her boyfriend about that. If not him directly perhaps she and her bf should seek professional help.
 

Zorgolio

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Thanks for the advice! What you say makes a lot of sense and I'll make sure to keep it in mind in future conversations with L.

It may be that I have skewed perspective of the situation, seeing as I only get my information from my friend, and then also only what she tells me.
 

EllieP

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Many couples have what I called an inscrutable relationship - I can't make heads or tails out of it, but it seems to work for them. And I am very close to one or both of the individuals in some of these relationships. I'd prefer not to discuss their relationship with them, because I really don't want to know. If they ask me for advice I try to be as generic as I can. What works for me will probably not work for you, that's what I think.

Not my circus. Not my monkeys.
 
D

D_Kay_Sarah_Sera

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It's admirable that you want to help. But if there's one thing I know about relationships it's this (which I had to learn the hard way):

Stay out. Stay completely out of their business as far as their personal life goes. Nothing good ever comes from it. The only way to stay sane when the drama hurricanes hit is to just be there and listen. Don't judge either party and never offer advice, even when asked. Just say that your friend should listen to their instinct.

Trust me, you can take all that to the bank. It will save you a lot of grief and heartache because what it all boils down to is this. There is no good that will come as a result of your interference, whatever your intentions may be, between two people in a relationship. That's because when it comes to matters of the heart, reason and logic all disappear and people don't act rationally and they do stupid things. And if you seem judgmental or if you tell anyone that they should do X and they do, and things go well, ok great... but what if they get back together? Now your friend feels embarrassed to come to you with future issues. If they don't do X then they feel like you don't approve of their choices. It's just that people have to be left to make their own decisions in life, and we can't get anyone to change.

All you can do is be positive, encouraging and a good listener. Frequently that's all a person needs; a sounding board really helps many people discover what the right decision is when they hear themselves speaking. Best of luck. I'm a fixer too-I've always had a saviour complex but it's jammed up my life more times than I can count. I hate drama and this keeps a lot of it out of my life.
 

Zorgolio

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Thanks for the continued advice. Since you all are agreed on this, I'll make sure to defer to your judgement. I haven't heard of a saviour complex before, but it makes sense. I'll just step back from my instinct to get involved and make sure to sit this kind of stuff out, ready with the towel between rounds.

So to sum it up: listen, make the right noises and smile but otherwise stay out of it.