Vlad

Ok, I've been sort of lurking in this thread for a little bit now, content that everybody else was saying all the stuff that I was thinking anyway, but a lot of the stuff you're saying makes it seem like your situation is VERY similar to the situation I was in not too long ago, so I'm chiming in...

Keep in mind that obviously, I don't know anything more about the workings of your relationship beyond what you've posted here.

Let's say that your problem isn't about sex/physical contact. Let's say that, for example, she had the bad habit of never calling you if she was going to be unable to make it to a date. Pretty much everybody agrees that that's a bad thing to do, right?

Now, say you've been going out with this person for two years, and this was a constant problem. They're always late to dates or just outright stand you up, and never call, and when you mention that this is a problem to you, they say that you're just making a big deal over nothing.

I imagine that this would strike most people as a kind of lousy thing to say to someone they're in a relationship with. You've mentioned a real issue to someone who is supposed to love you and care about you, and they just outright dismiss the issue as you being too demanding.

While it's a different subject, her brushing off your perfectly justifiable request for physical intimacy like that shows the same lack of respect for your feelings.

Unless her son's adopted, she's had sex before, so there could be some issues involved. Here's the thing, though: issues or not, she's not just completely ignoring your feelings, but she's going as far as to call them unreasonable.

And judging from the tone of your posts, you believe her.

I know all too well how easy it is to automatically think that you're asking too much out of a relationship and go along with what the other person wants. The thing is, if you were demanding sex no less than five times a day, then yeah, that could be seen as a little excessive by some. But as-is, you're just looking for anything.

The fact that it's all forms of physical intimacy just compounds the problem further.

You should never feel like you have to demand, ask, beg, etc, for any sort of intimacy from a significant other. This was a huge issue in my last relationship, and the person I was with literally claimed that she never initiated any physical contact because I "never asked her to".

This is, quite simply, insane logic, and even when I did try to start anything (from cuddling, to kissing, to sex), I was almost always turned down, sometimes with a recoil added for an extra blow to the self-esteem.

Think about how you feel about her. You want to not only show affection, but have affection shown towards you. From what you've mentioned, it really sounds like even if you do manage to get her to show any affection towards you, she'll comply simply to get you to stop asking. The fact that you mentioned this issue and she dumped the entire thing on your head really makes me think that there's not a whole lot of hope for a solution.

Trust me on this, physical contact is important. While you might be tempted to ignore your desire for intimacy for "the sake of the relationship" or because you're "being too needy", the fact is that ignoring it won't make it go away, only make it fester. I did it for almost seven years, and I ended up depressed, frustrated, and resentful. Even now, I'm still always apprehensive about hugging a friend or initiating any sort of physical contact, platonic or otherwise. Being rejected 99% of the time for such a long period conditioned me to not even bother, which is a bad thing.

So, just to summarize:

You're not overreacting.

It is a big deal.

The desire for physical intimacy is completely normal.