How slow is too slow?

[amm408]

Hey everyone, new member (1st post), wondering about an issue with my relationship.

Just a quick note - I am 28, soon to be 29, and this is my first legitimate relationship, so I feel like a lot of things I'm going through in this relationship are simply because I've never experienced any of this before, and am not sure how to deal with it. It's also a rather new relationship, only a month in.

Basically, the issue at hand is wondering whether or not my relationship is moving abnormally slowly in the physical department, or if the pace of our relationship is not really that uncommon, and just something that I need to give time and patience to.

We've been officially a couple now for over a month, and only really went out for a couple weeks before I asked her to be my girlfriend. The progress of labeling our relationship moved rather fast, as we knew pretty quickly that we were interested in each other romantically. As I said before, this is my first legitimate relationship (I have had flings in the past, as well as some very minimal sexual experience, though none of it including intercourse and I am still a virgin), and she is rather inexperienced as well, only having had one boyfriend before me, and still being a virgin. Early in our relationship, she told me that she wants us to move slowly, which I agreed with, however I feel like things are moving too slowly.

To get to the point, if we are at her place alone together, we don't cuddle together. I may be sitting on the couch while a movie is on, and when she sits down, she often times sits on the other end of the couch from me, or in a different chair altogether. Only once has she actually sat with me to cuddle - if there is any cuddling going on, I typically have to move towards her, or physically pull her towards me while saying something like "come here".

The other area that has me frustrated is kissing. Her and I have not progressed beyond just pecks on the lips goodnight. In the moments that I do hold her (usually in the moments before I leave as she goes to bed), I do kiss her in different areas, such as her shoulder, the top of her head, or even her neck, which she never denies me, although she is extremely ticklish and squirms most of the time. But our kissing has never progressed to making out, or any kind of passionate kissing, always just a peck on the lips.

She typically does not deny me physically - She allows me to touch her pretty much anywhere (although she has made it clear she does not like me groping / feeling up / coping a feel - a choice that I respect, although even in that regards, the few times I have made a move in that area, she's said that's not a line she wants to cross right now, but she'd feel more insulted if I didn't try something), and if we're sitting together, or driving in the car, I will even slightly lift up her dress and put my hand on her leg, which she has never resisted - but despite that, it's the progressing of things like cuddling and kissing that has me frustrated.

She has told me that she does not like PDA's (and as such, I respect that by not being overly affectionate in public), she has told me she wants to wait until marriage for sex (a decision that I don't necessarily agree with, but sex is not my main objective with her, so that's not what I'm after right now. I hope that in time, she may drop the "waiting until marriage" bit, but I am totally on board with her when it comes to waiting for sex until we're both ready, and right now, I know she's not), and like I said, she told me early on that she wants to move slowly.

She just turned 21, so she is rather younger than I am, so a part of me thinks that this is a lot of youth, inexperience, and probably pretty bluntly, the fact that she hasn't developed a full trust and comfort in me yet (though she has made sure to tell me she does trust me, but I feel that comfort level is still developing). Some advice I've received has gone in the direction of breaking up with her (something I don't want to do, while I don't feel particularly satisfied in the physical department, in every other area I feel like she is exactly the type of girl that I want to be with), and some advice has been to just wait it out, that she will come around. In fact, she has told me that she knows she's moving slowly, but this stuff will happen eventually, but I do have to say, I feel rather frustrated when she will snuggle with her dog before she'll snuggle with me, and I do get kind of jealous or frustrated when I watch other couples be physically intimate and affectionate with each other, and it's a struggle for me to be affectionate and intimate with my girlfriend.

So I'm wondering, with her and I only being a month in, is this a normal spot to be in our relationship? I've heard that I need to talk to her now to get things clear between us, and I've also heard that I should hold off on talking to her about it until a bit more time has passed. I feel like cuddling and making out isn't too much to want at this stage of the relationship, but maybe it's normal sometimes to not be at that stage yet?

It's a frustrating situation for me - I'm definitely willing to be patient with her if it's just a matter of comfort and needing to develop more comfort with me, but my worst case scenario worry is that the physical intimacy and affection that I'm looking for is just something that she doesn't do, and something that I may never get from her. Is a month into the relationship too soon to be worried about that kind of thing?

[smackie9]

She has told you what she expects, and what pace she wants to take things, what you don't realize is that YOU are not ok with it. Relationships are about expectations. If your expectations are not being fulfilled then you are wasting your time. Your are frustrated, and I doubt you will ever be happy with this arrangement. Everyone is different about how quickly physical intimacy should take place in a relationship. Some start on the first date, some wait a week, etc....it depends in the individual.

You say you are willing to be patient, but if that were true you wouldn't be on here complaining about this. You are only fooling yourself.
You are struggling so that means you are not with the right person.

[amm408]

Well the thing is, I see that could be a possibility that I'm with the wrong person, but I also feel like this could just be an early snag in our relationship that can be worked through with some communication, which is obviously something I intend to do. We haven't had the proper communication on this subject that we should have.

While there are certain things she's made a hardline on (sex, for instance), there are other things that while we haven't progressed there, she's said things that indicate that we can work on it. She's said she understands things are moving slowly, but that they will happen - but given our lack of communication on the subject to this point (we've talked about it, but never really a full on conversation) I don't really know just how much she's willing to let happen. She's told me that she feels bad about the lack of time that we spend together, even going as far to go on a slight emo trip and call herself the world's worst girlfriend - on a less emo note she did apologize to me for how little we've seen each other lately, and how she wishes she was more available for me.

Even if her and I aren't particularly where I think we need to be at the moment, I do believe in this relationship, I don't believe I'm with the "wrong" person, I feel that her and I need to have some communication on this particular issue, and unfortunately (due a lot to how unavailable we've been for each other lately) we haven't had that communication yet. The last time this subject came up, I was actually satisfied with what was said, unfortunately since then, we haven't had any quality one on one time together to further build off of that talk, and the last time I saw her was with her sister and a group of their friends and instead of cuddling with me, she was holding and snuggling with her dog which built up a sense of frustration on the matter.

[smackie9]

Well best of luck with that. I don't see her compromising. From what you have posted, I see she is pretty set on how things are going to be, no matter what you say to her. In fact she may look at it as you pressuring her, but that will depend on how honest you are going to be with her.