Do you believe that a couple, who’s main principle in a relationship is continued growth together and unconditional love, can stay together if one partner is struggling with accepting a fundamental mindset difference?

My partner is a very open-minded man. He has a belief that physical sensations/sex are separate from an emotional connection. I have this belief, but I don’t necessarily feel like it needs to apply to my relationship. He wants to have experiences together and we have already agreed that marriage and children will come later in life when we have achieved more of what we need to (sexually and from a career perspective). This is not forced on me, we speak lovingly and have very, very good communication. We always say that to get married we need the certainty that our partner will embody open mindedness because we can’t predict what the future will bring, and this is an example of major shifting in beliefs and working through a large hardship.

I am afraid that these sexual explorations will make me resent him (and myself). I am afraid we will never get to live the beautiful life together that we already embody, for essentially the rest of our lives because of my negative emotions of feeling like I am not enough or that my partnership is less than because it doesn’t reflect a traditional relationship. When I bring this to him and we work through the model, I feel at peace, loved and certain in my relationship but once I am left alone to my thoughts, I resort back to thoughts of needing to run away instead of working on it.