I’ve been in a relationship with a woman for 5 years now. After moving in with her a few months ago, the amount of sex we are having has decreased substantially.

I know a lot of people here will say “never move in with a girl”. But I have thought about everything and I know is what I want from life - to marry someone and have kids. So instead of giving up I am trying to work on this relationship I am in.

I am currently reading the book “no more mr. nice guy”. I do notice that I have become somewhat of a “nice guy” in the relationship. This has happened very slowly over time. When we were first together, if she would challenge me, I would usually stand up for myself. If she had a tantrum about something, I would tell her I’m busy and to come back and talk to me like an adult after she’s calmed down. This sort of worked but there was a lot of conflict within our relationship because of it. But the sex was still frequent.

Now I notice I find myself doing whatever I can to avoid conflict. If she does get upset, I can no longer hang up the phone and ignore her until her behavior improves as I live with her now. I find it incredibly uncomfortable to co-exist with someone who is ignoring me. So I guess as a result I avoid doing any slight thing to make her upset. I rationalize that maybe she’s right, maybe I should see her side of it, and well I love this woman and I don’t want to be in a relationship like my parents, who are frequently snappy with each other. I’ve become one of those “yes babe” “whatever you want babe” kind of guys.. which I hate.

I want to make a change but I’m not sure how to do it. If I start pushing back like for example “you always pick what restaurant we eat at, let’s eat here (place I want to eat) for a change”... she’ll go, but she’ll be upset the whole time and it definitely isn’t going to do anything good for our sex life.

Basically, I want to push back and gain some dominance in the relationship without breaking the relationship (which is actually pretty great despite the decreased frequency of sex).

Does anyone have any constructive advice?