My boyfriend is terrible in bed. Should I dump him? - Rachael

A common question - sex or love?

You say you love someone and at the same time recognise grounds to reject them. This flies in the face of love being unconditional, or love conquers all, and for some, in a more traditional sense:

to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part

You must know as most people do, that love is like a coin with two sides.

One side holds uncontrollable feelings associated with loving. Where Lewis et al, in their book A General Theory of Love say:

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you become attuned to your lover's inner state, as do they.

This attuned state is emotional attachment - one of the foundations of love.
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On the other side of the coin holds commitment, along with value and ownership.

As described in Voyage to the Heart: The Nature of Love, when you say I love you to your lover you mean more than I feel love for you, you mean:

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• I will be there for you wherever and whenever – you commit to taking care of them
• I value you immensely – so much so, you are irreplaceable
• You are my beloved wife, husband, GF, BF or lover – you take up a sense of zealous ownership of them in their role because you dread the thought of life without them

The heart of the question!

With this coin idea of feelings and commitment in mind, when in love you are continually appraising your relationship to work out:

How do I feel about life with my beloved and what is my ongoing commitment to them and our relationship?

Most of the time this is subconsciously happening in your mind, but sometimes it is consciously going on, like now when asking yourself about sex.

You conclude with feelings of frustration or gratification, being thwarted or weakened, or a sense of fulfillment or strength.

If over time, you are left with lingering feelings of the negative three more than the positive three regarding your needs (such as your sex life), your overall feelings about your relationship and its future will become negative.

This means you conclude your life with your lover will not be good. Such an outlook might not affect your feelings of love for your lover directly, but it will have you question your commitment to them and your relationship overall. That means, you feel the relationship is not good for you, even though you have strong feelings for your lover.

Love, like the coin, needs both sides to exist, so if you conclude your lover fails to meet your needs, and in doing so you consistently feel the negative effects, you will at some point decide to withdraw your commitment. As you do, the value you hold for your lover will wane, and your ownership of them as your lover will drop. You do these things even though it is painful to you because you still feel for them.

So the million dollar question: Should you dump someone who does not meet your needs in bed?

The answer is: what is your life like with your lover overall regarding your needs in bed AND across the board. Do you feel frustrated, thwarted or weakened more so than gratified, fulfilled or strengthened?

Do you sense your life has been, is now and will be in the future good with your lover?

Furthermore, what do your feelings about them tell you? How attached to them are you emotionally and how committed to the relationship are you?

Just as importantly, how do you think they feel about these things with you?
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When you take all these things into account, you will know what you must do.

But before you make any final decisions, consider this:

Love is ultimately about possessing the good.

That means living a good life with a good lover who seeks the same with you and of you.
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Love by its nature has its ups and downs, rough and smooth, good times and bad, but on aggregate, as Plato says in the Symposium:

LOVE IS GOOD - for both lovers.

If you find this not to be so for you, even on one need not met - one that to you means a great deal - you should follow your head, not your heart, and call it quits.

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