So true!

Totally! Both partners deserve a sex life together that they both find satisfactory, and if that's not the case that totally needs to be worked out! Which obviously it was NOT getting worked out in your situation, and that's no bueno.

It's a reference to the book, which is in turn a reference to Rome.

Fin de siecle Roman empire joke.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at — the sexual expectations of both partners should still be met, and if they're not that needs to get talked out — but if you're still having satisfactory sex then I think it's superfluous to worry about whether one or both partners also masturbates.

Yeah, I can only imagine how frustrating that would be (second situation especially). The second situation again to me has overtones of possessiveness/control on your ex's part — you're expressing desire, he could "share" himself and even goes so far as to advertise sexual availability by talking about it, and yet…

What you're describing could definitely happen, but a lot of this has to do with expectiations also. If there's an expectation for sex once a week, once a day, whatever the dynamic is — and that's not being met — that's problematic. If it's just generalized anxiety over "he masturbates more than we have sex,"…

Well, cheers to you for trying to work through it with her. Leaving the door open to communication in a non-judgmental way is really all you can do and hopefully you didn't take too much "baggage" away from it yourself.

So here's what I'm curious about — do you consider partner sex and masturbation to be the same thing? To me it's like saying "you want pie? Have cake. It's the same thing. You're hungry, right?! It all goes in your stomach." The process is so different, especially the expectations / qualifications for "success"…

Wherever our feelings originate, they are ours, and the fact that you're clear and communicative with your partner about how his actions make you feel is the key to working together on this issue. Understanding *intention* is so important. You don't feel the way you feel because you *intend* to shame your partner,…

Complaining that you don't have enough sex when the other partner is making themselves available is a problem. However, I don't think it necessarily needs to be bundled up with the other partner's masturbatory habits. A lot of it has to do with honesty about what sexual monogamy means (is looking at porn…

I feel that the masturbation thing is just a red herring. As long as both partners are communicative and upfront about their needs (and limits) when it comes to shared sex, I think solo activity is pretty unrelated.

As I said to Fallout2man I agree that this is extremely problematic behavior, but I feel like the masturbation thing is sort of a red herring in the mix. If a partner were completely non-sexual and the other partner was not feeling sexually fulfilled, I think the situation would be substantially the same as a case in…

I totally agree this is problematic behavior but I feel like this is a communication issue. Had your ex been completely non-sexual, no masturbation at all, this would still be an issue about sexual expectations. But to throw masturbation in there seems like a red herring. It is another sexual activity, but it is…

Complaining that you don't have enough sex when the other partner is making themselves available is a problem. However, I don't think it necessarily needs to be bundled up with the other partner's masturbatory habits. I don't think that it's the same as saying "I have no room for your delicious looking cake because…

The anecdote in this article seems to imply some amount of sexual ownership in a relationship — why is the b/f being "selfish" about his libido when the g/f is looking for partner sex. I have to wonder if the issue of not getting enough partner sex would be an issue if the b/f wasn't masturbating (or the g/f didn't…

I totally totally agree. I have not found any good sub for the iTunes player on iOS (even though I *despise* the iTunes interface on the PC itself, it's a terrific player on the mobile), although Winamp is pretty decent. My biggest gripe is that any notification sound, even if it's silenced, will interrupt audio…

Glad that I wasn't the only person who instantly thought of Robert Z'Dar and ol' Joe E.

I wrote a more detailed response then the computer ate it but:

And possibly better-looking tattoos.