Email from a gay guy with relationship issues

Just over a week ago I received the following email:

Dear GB,

Was researching for Gay London information and came across your blog, and am totally fascinated by it! You have given me a lot of insight in terms of the modern gay life in a metropolitan environment, especially in respect of relationships.

I have been with my bf for 7 years and we moved in together around 5 years ago. I must say that our relationship has fallen downhill since then, and now it has come to a point that we almost don't have sex anymore. We don't have any common interest. I am virtually not allowed to go out and see those friends that he doesn't like. He gained at least 40 pounds from the first day I knew him. When we talk about my career, he sounds more like my father than my partner, and he's 37 and I'm 34, so there's not such a big age gap.

But the rest is good: he is mentally strong, career successful, good-looking (not model good looking but he has style), socially capable, can speak 4 languages, and, most of all, he loves me (or at least that's what it seems).

My love to him is definitely not as intense as 7 years ago, but every time I questioned his love to me, he said that he loves me more and more, and he could not live without me. His explanation for not having sex is his loss of sexual desire, but of course I know he has been fooling around.

Of course there is a strong emotional attachment between us, after all we have been together for more than 7 years. Of course we are not the only sexless couple on this earth, no matter gay or straight. But sometimes I feel like I'm stuck, and I am not sure if he is the one I wanna spend the rest of my life with. I am not sure if I'm not ready to give up on fairy tale / hollywood style of love yet, or if I'm just an ungrateful son of a bitch.

I hope this email is not too long to bore you, but what I need is someone like you who has definitely been there and done that to spare a few minutes and give me some advice.

This guy then went on to suggest in the final paragraph of his email that perhaps he could meet me for a coffee sometime, because he's going to be visiting london soon. But of course, as long term readers of this blog will know, I don't meet guys who know that I'm GB except in a very small number of cases where the other guy is an established blogger. Still, he did tell me the name of his gaydar profile, and he is certainly a very attractive guy :-).

His situation reminds me a lot of the 'Dear GB' email that I posted in mid June. Perhaps he saw that, and then thought about his own situation and decided to write to me. Everything I said there applies here, so I don't think there's anything wrong having a relationship either mostly or wholly based on companionship. In any big city where lots of gay guys live, sex is a commodity, but love and companionship are much harder to find. However, if he does stays with his current boyfriend, I do think it's better to formally adopt some kind of open relationship, rather than fooling around behind each other's back and pretending that it's not happening.

What concerns me about the this guy's situation though is that he says there's no common interest, and that he's virtually not allowed to see friends that his boyfriend doesn't like. It sounds as though his boyfriend gets a lot out of the relationship, but if the guy himself isn't getting either the sex or the companionship he wants, then he should probably try and find a new boyfriend to share his life with. If he stays with his boyfriend just because the boyfriend says he can't live without him, he's wasting his life if those feelings aren't sufficiently reciprocated.

Perhaps he should try imagining how would he feel if his boyfriend was involved in some terrible fatal accident? If there's more sense of excitement from the freedom rather than a huge sense of loss, his connection to his boyfriend probably isn't strong enough to justify continuing the relationship at this point.

I can't help wondering what originally brought this couple together? Was it just the sex, or was there originally some common interest too? If so, perhaps that common interest can be found again?

So I reckon the guy needs to negotiate both an open relationship and some change in the companionship aspects of the relationship. Seven years in a gay relationship is an achievement, so it's worth seeing if the relationship can be saved rather than throwing it all away. But without sex or any common interest, there's bound to be a better match for him somewhere out there.

Does anyone else have any other thoughts on this guy's situation?