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" My boyfriend and I have been dating for more than a year, 15 months to be exact. We lost our virginities to each other so you can imagine how much I love him. Problem is, I&amp;#039;m not sure he loves me the same anymore. I caught him checking out my friend&amp;#039;s ass once, but I let it slip. He also abused me vocally the other day, and we had a fight but later made up. Also, some days he&amp;#039;s all over me and he&amp;#039;ll treat me like a princess. But the next day he&amp;#039;s not interested at all! I&amp;#039;ve tried so hard to talk things out with him, but he avoids it. I don&amp;#039;t know what I should do! He watches porn and masturbates, but that&amp;#039;s not something I mind. What I do mind is the way he looks at other girls. He swears that I&amp;#039;m the one he&amp;#039;s going to marry, but I can&amp;#039;t help but question it. COSMO HELP :( Nobody&amp;#039;s perfect. You can demand monogamy, but you can&amp;#039;t demand that your boyfriend never notice a girl&amp;#039;s ass. It&amp;#039;s just gonna happen. You can, however, give him a quick elbow to the ribs and give him a hard time \u2014 but don&amp;#039;t worry yourself too much. You two sound young; he probably doesn&amp;#039;t even realize what he&amp;#039;s doing. Tell him it&amp;#039;s disrespectful, but don&amp;#039;t take his wandering eye too seriously unless there&amp;#039;s something else going on.  In general, it sounds like you&amp;#039;re feeling scared that your boyfriend might be thinking of moving on. If he&amp;#039;s not giving you the attention and respect you need, tell him. I&amp;#039;d recommend a light touch \u2014 I&amp;#039;m not suggesting a blowout fight \u2014 but you should let him know that you respect yourself enough to demand more from him. But it&amp;#039;s not clear to me that looking at other girls \u2014 especially if he&amp;#039;s never slept with anyone else \u2014 is all that unusual. And every relationship has good days and bad days; nobody&amp;#039;s the dream boyfriend every day. Remember that there are limits to what you can ask of any one person. Insecure relationships are like scabs; the more you pick at them, the nastier and more infected they get. But please be careful. I&amp;#039;m concerned because you say he &amp;quot;abused me vocally.&amp;quot; I don&amp;#039;t have enough detail to judge how severe these arguments get, but that phrase sets off warning bells. I&amp;#039;m not a fan of one-size-fits-all advice, but I don&amp;#039;t joke around about abuse: If you feel that you are being abused, you should leave. Now. The guy I&amp;#039;m seeing wants me to go out and have sex or mess around with other guys and then come back and tell him about it. Although he says I don&amp;#039;t have to, I&amp;#039;m uncomfortable doing it, but I feel like if I don&amp;#039;t he&amp;#039;ll lose interest. Should this be a deal breaker for me? Your guy&amp;#039;s fantasy \u2014 cuckoldry \u2014 is not uncommon. Remember those Tiger Woods texts? In one, he told a lover that he fantasized about her having sex with both Derek Jeter and David Boreanaz. If you&amp;#039;d like to read up, Susie Bright wrote this sharp post and Dan Savage has chronicled a whole canon of cuckoldry in his columns. The terrific writer Ada Calhoun \u2014 a pal of mine \u2014 even wrote about blurring the line of her marriage. This kink can come from a lot of different places, but the desire is typically masochistic: A guy feels like he&amp;#039;s not enough for a woman, so he enlists help to fulfill her. A guy worries that his woman will cheat on him, so he asks her to cheat, and when she comes back, he takes her return as proof of fidelity. A guy who&amp;#039;s experienced the pain of being cheated on might get some kick out of feeling a controlled version of that pain, again. A guy might feel like he doesn&amp;#039;t deserve a woman, and the affair would confirm that. A guy might be turned on by the thought of sex with another man and use his partner as a proxy. Or a guy might use cuckoldry as a proof of power: to humiliate and control a woman who threatens him.  As a fantasy, I suppose cuckoldry can serve its purpose \u2014 just like any other fantasy. But in practice, cuckoldry isn&amp;#039;t a kink that can easily be folded into a healthy relationship. At its root, there&amp;#039;s something self-destructive about it. Cuckoldry often pops up in fantasies, porn, and romance novels, but I&amp;#039;d argue that it&amp;#039;s extremely rare as a part of a functioning relationship. In general, you&amp;#039;ve got to be wary of any kink that is almost always proposed by men \u2014 and nearly never suggested by women. In your case, it just doesn&amp;#039;t seem like this guy is thinking of your best interest. He might say you don&amp;#039;t have to do it, but that&amp;#039;s clearly not how you feel: You feel threatened and pressured to do this or lose him. So tell him no \u2014 that it needs to remain a fantasy. Be firm. Don&amp;#039;t say, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d feel uncomfortable\u2026&amp;quot; Just deny him.  If he continues to pressure you? Yes, it&amp;#039;s a deal breaker. Dump him. And don&amp;#039;t sleep with someone else first and give him that pleasure. Just go. We&amp;#039;ve been together almost two years, and I can count with my fingers how many times I have heard him apologize. We fight probably more than most, and when we fight, he only cares about himself. I know he loves me or else he wouldn&amp;#039;t keep me around \u2014 he&amp;#039;d simply boot me out the door instead of fighting with me. But why is it easier for him to suck up in ways like letting me win a game or being lovey than simply saying &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m sorry and I love you&amp;quot;? Sometimes, when people don&amp;#039;t apologize, it&amp;#039;s because they&amp;#039;re always right\u2014like if they&amp;#039;re Yoda or Gandalf. For everyone else, it&amp;#039;s usually rooted in stubborn, fearful insecurity. As Yoda says, &amp;quot;Fear is the path to the dark side\u2026&amp;quot; For some people, admitting even a small mistake would spur some scary self-reflection that they just can&amp;#039;t handle. And not saying sorry is often a power-trip play. It&amp;#039;s an effective way to dominate in a relationship, if the other person always caves: hold your ground and she loses hers. It&amp;#039;s also a great way to ruin a relationship. I&amp;#039;m sorry that I don&amp;#039;t have an easy answer for you. (See what I did there?) I would recommend that, on a good day when you&amp;#039;re not in the middle of a fight, you talk to your boyfriend about why he won&amp;#039;t apologize. As Yoda says, &amp;quot;Wars not make one great,&amp;quot; so don&amp;#039;t pick a fight. Without framing the conversation as an accusation, ask him how he feels about the way you argue. Without blaming him, ask him if he thinks there&amp;#039;s a reason your fights get so ugly. Without threatening him, tell him how frustrated you get and explain why an occasional apology would matter so much to you. Tell him you&amp;#039;re not looking for him to apologize for not apologizing: You just want to understand where he&amp;#039;s coming from. If you try to understand him, it might be easier to get him to understand you. Communication is obviously a problem here, but it might not be entirely his fault. Ask him if there&amp;#039;s anything that you&amp;#039;re doing when you argue that encourages him to shut down. If you find that trigger, you might be able to avoid it. For instance, if you&amp;#039;re yelling, &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re such an asshole!&amp;quot; \u2014 then he&amp;#039;s not going to say, &amp;quot;Yep, I&amp;#039;m sorry I&amp;#039;m such an asshole,&amp;quot; unless he&amp;#039;s seriously sarcastic. But if you&amp;#039;re more specific, maybe he could apologize for something more specific. I&amp;#039;m also a bit worried about the way you&amp;#039;re defining love. &amp;quot;I know he loves me,&amp;quot; you write, &amp;quot;or else he wouldn&amp;#039;t keep me around \u2014 he&amp;#039;d simply boot me out.&amp;quot; There are a lot of kinds of love, but I&amp;#039;m sure you deserve more proof of love than just that. If he&amp;#039;s just tolerating you, or if he just finds the relationship convenient, that shouldn&amp;#039;t be enough for you. Half of this relationship is you \u2014 and you don&amp;#039;t want to get stuck in a relationship that&amp;#039;s built around his needs instead of your own, just because you&amp;#039;re afraid he&amp;#039;ll break up with you. &amp;quot;The fear of loss,&amp;quot; says Yoda, &amp;quot;is a path to the Dark Side.&amp;quot; Related:  &amp;quot;How Important Are Perky Boobs?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;My Boyfriend&amp;#039;s Porn Makes Me Feel Inadequate&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Can I Keep Dating My One-Night Stand?&amp;quot; Need a guy&amp;#039;s perspective on a problem? Submit your question for Logan here. Follow Logan on Twitter. Photo Credit: Getty Images "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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