Women on this forum lalk about sex a lot

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average man seriously underestimate how much it takes to give a woman a satisfying sexual experience. Most of the time they are just lying to you or being nice on order not to hurt your feeling when they told you that they came or the sex was amazing. Just thrusting back and forth won't cut it. You need foreplay l, resonance, oral, PIV in the right spot etc.

I would love to hear a group of women talking about their sexual experiences. Lol I think a lot of us would be very humble when we here what they really think of our sexual prowess.

I have asked my wife many times what would really make her “happy” and she never gives an answer other than a non answer. She doesn’t like oral and mostly doesn’t like being touched down there. Massage and rubbing are effective and thankfully so is PIV. I don’t complain because we have sex at least weekly which after 36 years is pretty good and she often initiates. She is very quiet so I rarely know if she has had an O.

TBH this sounds very…assault-y.

If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.

Fascinating how consent has now shifted from affirmative to now it has to be “hell yes” otherwise it’s rape.

Honestly you people are bizarre and you’ve hijacked an entire segment of public dialogue with your drivel.

DP. Your response is weird - do you have kids, particularly teens? You should advise them that both parties should be a totally enthusiastic “yes.”

DP. This is not a weird response. He said his wife doesn't outwardly appear to enjoy sex that much, he has repeated asked her what would make it better, no response. Weirdo poster's take: this feels assault-y.

What would make it not assault-y? She is still consenting to have sex with him. It's sad, but it's not assault-y.

A lot of women have sex when they don’t want to because they feel obligated or because their H pressured them or asks nonstop until they say yes. I was married to a man like that - I absolutely despised having sex with him, but if I didn’t “consent” he would nag me nonstop. It was easier to just go along with it but the entire time I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

Remarried now to a man I love having sex with, and we have a very healthy sex life. If he was just laying there, obviously not enjoying it, there’s no way I could bring myself to have sex with him. Like I can’t imagine at all how someone’s head gets so twisted that they will gladly have sex with a person who so very obviously does not want to have sex with them.

At that point it’s better to have a conversation about opening the marriage. I brought up an open marriage to my xH multiple times so he could get his needs met but he refused. I just can’t understand why people insist on having sex with people who don’t want to have sex with them.

I am very curious about your ex — did he try to communicate with you? Was he open to doing things that would give you more sexual pleasure? Did you explore why you were not able to have sexual pleasure with him? You did marry him after all?

Sex is an important part of marriage and while it is trendy today to say “just open your marriage” that’s not what the vast, vast majority of people want, and it’s not what most men want either. It’s not a solution to the problem and I would be absolutely opposed to it.

I also imagine that your ex probably didn’t consider the sexual interactions to be great either. Maybe he wanted to crawl out of his skin too at how little his wife was into him sexually?

We talked about it constantly. We had MANY issues beyond sex and he refused to address them. He approach it the same way you are - wanting to only talk about sex life problems - when it was like, no, Steve, I need to you stop constantly controlling every move I make and criticizing the way I load the dishwasher and help me out with the kids more and maybe take me on a date once in awhile.

Sex is important within the larger context. You can’t ignore every other aspect of a marriage and then force your partner to have sex because “it’s important for marriage”. That actually destroys marriages even more.

I am the person who asked the question — and fair enough points. It sounds like you did what you could do. I am really not blaming or attacking you — I was more intellectually curious.

There are plenty of women in your situation and my heart really does go out to you because as you said I would not want to be having sex in this situation.

But there are lots of men out there who DO share the load, do household chores, help take care of the kids, plan date nights, etc., and their wives still shut down over sex. If you haven’t guessed already, I have fallen into that camp. And, yes, sometimes when the wife is saying “yes” to sex but it doesn’t feel like she is truly present and so they do not have true intimacy during sex which makes the entire act feel empty — barely a step above masturbation.

Most of the psychology books and what not have said “try to communicate better” — “try to communicate more” — “talk it through” and that only seemed to make things worse because even when I tried in good-faith to talk about this issue, she would blow up.

That all being said — a recent shrink got us to the point where I am no longer talking about sex or even initiating at all. This leads to some short-term denial of my own pleasure but I am willing to do that if it makes it better over the long run. And I have found that she’s been initiating more. The sex itself is still kind of so-so, but we will see where this goes.

I am just posting this because sexual issues can be a two-way street in a marriage. There is an assumption from many people who read these boards that oh, the fault all lies with the guy, if he just did more of his share and asked her out on date nights, etc — that’s the issue. For some people, surely it is. But not everyone. And suggesting “opening up the marriage” is not really an option for the vast majority of people.

There’s also a lot of gross misogyny here and that’s not the solution either.

I posit that women don’t really want a man who is doing the chores.

I personally DGAF as long as DH does the bare minimum. But what I do care about is if he is making me feel desirable, if he takes me on dates, if he takes care of himself and remains fit and sexy, if he shows enthusiasm about me, and yes basically if he acts dominant sexually. That is what does it for me.

When a man becomes passive in his sexual relationship, it is a huge turnoff for me. And yes, I return that enthusiasm tenfold but sorry he’s got to set the tone. Basically I need him to be masculine.

You obviously don’t work much nor have kids to raise. That or you’re 24 or a divorced 55 and kids are off.

I am similar to above poster. I work in very high stress role and we have a kid. I have to be on all day making a million decisions with pretty serious ramifications. Coming home and doing laundry, cooking etc, the mundane, is very relaxing and then being able to completely submit to an attractive, fit dominant husband knowing he is going to take care of every "need" I may have is incredibly freeing.

sure joan

Don't understand your comment. Something bother you? Not asking anyone to agree with me, but there are people that feel this way, me being one of them. None of my friends know our dynamic and frankly most would be appalled or at the very least shocked. I don't judge their relationship or yours. People are allowed to have different views and desires.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average man seriously underestimate how much it takes to give a woman a satisfying sexual experience. Most of the time they are just lying to you or being nice on order not to hurt your feeling when they told you that they came or the sex was amazing. Just thrusting back and forth won't cut it. You need foreplay l, resonance, oral, PIV in the right spot etc.

I would love to hear a group of women talking about their sexual experiences. Lol I think a lot of us would be very humble when we here what they really think of our sexual prowess.

I have asked my wife many times what would really make her “happy” and she never gives an answer other than a non answer. She doesn’t like oral and mostly doesn’t like being touched down there. Massage and rubbing are effective and thankfully so is PIV. I don’t complain because we have sex at least weekly which after 36 years is pretty good and she often initiates. She is very quiet so I rarely know if she has had an O.

TBH this sounds very…assault-y.

If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.

Fascinating how consent has now shifted from affirmative to now it has to be “hell yes” otherwise it’s rape.

Honestly you people are bizarre and you’ve hijacked an entire segment of public dialogue with your drivel.

DP. Your response is weird - do you have kids, particularly teens? You should advise them that both parties should be a totally enthusiastic “yes.”

DP. This is not a weird response. He said his wife doesn't outwardly appear to enjoy sex that much, he has repeated asked her what would make it better, no response. Weirdo poster's take: this feels assault-y.

What would make it not assault-y? She is still consenting to have sex with him. It's sad, but it's not assault-y.

A lot of women have sex when they don’t want to because they feel obligated or because their H pressured them or asks nonstop until they say yes. I was married to a man like that - I absolutely despised having sex with him, but if I didn’t “consent” he would nag me nonstop. It was easier to just go along with it but the entire time I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

Remarried now to a man I love having sex with, and we have a very healthy sex life. If he was just laying there, obviously not enjoying it, there’s no way I could bring myself to have sex with him. Like I can’t imagine at all how someone’s head gets so twisted that they will gladly have sex with a person who so very obviously does not want to have sex with them.

At that point it’s better to have a conversation about opening the marriage. I brought up an open marriage to my xH multiple times so he could get his needs met but he refused. I just can’t understand why people insist on having sex with people who don’t want to have sex with them.

I am very curious about your ex — did he try to communicate with you? Was he open to doing things that would give you more sexual pleasure? Did you explore why you were not able to have sexual pleasure with him? You did marry him after all?

Sex is an important part of marriage and while it is trendy today to say “just open your marriage” that’s not what the vast, vast majority of people want, and it’s not what most men want either. It’s not a solution to the problem and I would be absolutely opposed to it.

I also imagine that your ex probably didn’t consider the sexual interactions to be great either. Maybe he wanted to crawl out of his skin too at how little his wife was into him sexually?

We talked about it constantly. We had MANY issues beyond sex and he refused to address them. He approach it the same way you are - wanting to only talk about sex life problems - when it was like, no, Steve, I need to you stop constantly controlling every move I make and criticizing the way I load the dishwasher and help me out with the kids more and maybe take me on a date once in awhile.

Sex is important within the larger context. You can’t ignore every other aspect of a marriage and then force your partner to have sex because “it’s important for marriage”. That actually destroys marriages even more.

I am the person who asked the question — and fair enough points. It sounds like you did what you could do. I am really not blaming or attacking you — I was more intellectually curious.

There are plenty of women in your situation and my heart really does go out to you because as you said I would not want to be having sex in this situation.

But there are lots of men out there who DO share the load, do household chores, help take care of the kids, plan date nights, etc., and their wives still shut down over sex. If you haven’t guessed already, I have fallen into that camp. And, yes, sometimes when the wife is saying “yes” to sex but it doesn’t feel like she is truly present and so they do not have true intimacy during sex which makes the entire act feel empty — barely a step above masturbation.

Most of the psychology books and what not have said “try to communicate better” — “try to communicate more” — “talk it through” and that only seemed to make things worse because even when I tried in good-faith to talk about this issue, she would blow up.

That all being said — a recent shrink got us to the point where I am no longer talking about sex or even initiating at all. This leads to some short-term denial of my own pleasure but I am willing to do that if it makes it better over the long run. And I have found that she’s been initiating more. The sex itself is still kind of so-so, but we will see where this goes.

I am just posting this because sexual issues can be a two-way street in a marriage. There is an assumption from many people who read these boards that oh, the fault all lies with the guy, if he just did more of his share and asked her out on date nights, etc — that’s the issue. For some people, surely it is. But not everyone. And suggesting “opening up the marriage” is not really an option for the vast majority of people.

There’s also a lot of gross misogyny here and that’s not the solution either.

PP. What has your wife said? Does she know why she doesn’t want sex?

Unfortunately it’s not as simple as “do some chores and plan a date night”. My sex drive can tank for any number of reasons:

- even if H is helping with chores, I’m still carrying the mental load and feel exhausted
- work is stressful
- I haven’t worked out in a long time and feel fat and gross
- none of my nice clothes fit anymore so I don’t even want to go on dates
- I want a few hours of alone time to go out and do the things I did before kids that make me feel like ME
- men don’t flirt with me anymore so I don’t feel desirable
- I have anxiety about money

Etc etc etc.

I’m actually a very high drive woman. But when any of these start to go out of balance, my drive tanks. And I don’t always know WHY. Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out.

The big one is not feeling like I did in my 20s. I don’t know if men can relate to this, but there’s something about losing your identity and becoming nothing but a wife and mom that just kills not only your sex drive, but your desire for anything sensual and joyful. The days become dreary and gray. Often what I need to feel good again is a few weeks with extra time to go to the gym, new clothes that make me feel sexy, and some time away from the husband and kids to feel like a human being again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average man seriously underestimate how much it takes to give a woman a satisfying sexual experience. Most of the time they are just lying to you or being nice on order not to hurt your feeling when they told you that they came or the sex was amazing. Just thrusting back and forth won't cut it. You need foreplay l, resonance, oral, PIV in the right spot etc.

I would love to hear a group of women talking about their sexual experiences. Lol I think a lot of us would be very humble when we here what they really think of our sexual prowess.

I have asked my wife many times what would really make her “happy” and she never gives an answer other than a non answer. She doesn’t like oral and mostly doesn’t like being touched down there. Massage and rubbing are effective and thankfully so is PIV. I don’t complain because we have sex at least weekly which after 36 years is pretty good and she often initiates. She is very quiet so I rarely know if she has had an O.

TBH this sounds very…assault-y.

If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.

Fascinating how consent has now shifted from affirmative to now it has to be “hell yes” otherwise it’s rape.

Honestly you people are bizarre and you’ve hijacked an entire segment of public dialogue with your drivel.

DP. Your response is weird - do you have kids, particularly teens? You should advise them that both parties should be a totally enthusiastic “yes.”

DP. This is not a weird response. He said his wife doesn't outwardly appear to enjoy sex that much, he has repeated asked her what would make it better, no response. Weirdo poster's take: this feels assault-y.

What would make it not assault-y? She is still consenting to have sex with him. It's sad, but it's not assault-y.

A lot of women have sex when they don’t want to because they feel obligated or because their H pressured them or asks nonstop until they say yes. I was married to a man like that - I absolutely despised having sex with him, but if I didn’t “consent” he would nag me nonstop. It was easier to just go along with it but the entire time I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

Remarried now to a man I love having sex with, and we have a very healthy sex life. If he was just laying there, obviously not enjoying it, there’s no way I could bring myself to have sex with him. Like I can’t imagine at all how someone’s head gets so twisted that they will gladly have sex with a person who so very obviously does not want to have sex with them.

At that point it’s better to have a conversation about opening the marriage. I brought up an open marriage to my xH multiple times so he could get his needs met but he refused. I just can’t understand why people insist on having sex with people who don’t want to have sex with them.

I am very curious about your ex — did he try to communicate with you? Was he open to doing things that would give you more sexual pleasure? Did you explore why you were not able to have sexual pleasure with him? You did marry him after all?

Sex is an important part of marriage and while it is trendy today to say “just open your marriage” that’s not what the vast, vast majority of people want, and it’s not what most men want either. It’s not a solution to the problem and I would be absolutely opposed to it.

I also imagine that your ex probably didn’t consider the sexual interactions to be great either. Maybe he wanted to crawl out of his skin too at how little his wife was into him sexually?

We talked about it constantly. We had MANY issues beyond sex and he refused to address them. He approach it the same way you are - wanting to only talk about sex life problems - when it was like, no, Steve, I need to you stop constantly controlling every move I make and criticizing the way I load the dishwasher and help me out with the kids more and maybe take me on a date once in awhile.

Sex is important within the larger context. You can’t ignore every other aspect of a marriage and then force your partner to have sex because “it’s important for marriage”. That actually destroys marriages even more.

I am the person who asked the question — and fair enough points. It sounds like you did what you could do. I am really not blaming or attacking you — I was more intellectually curious.

There are plenty of women in your situation and my heart really does go out to you because as you said I would not want to be having sex in this situation.

But there are lots of men out there who DO share the load, do household chores, help take care of the kids, plan date nights, etc., and their wives still shut down over sex. If you haven’t guessed already, I have fallen into that camp. And, yes, sometimes when the wife is saying “yes” to sex but it doesn’t feel like she is truly present and so they do not have true intimacy during sex which makes the entire act feel empty — barely a step above masturbation.

Most of the psychology books and what not have said “try to communicate better” — “try to communicate more” — “talk it through” and that only seemed to make things worse because even when I tried in good-faith to talk about this issue, she would blow up.

That all being said — a recent shrink got us to the point where I am no longer talking about sex or even initiating at all. This leads to some short-term denial of my own pleasure but I am willing to do that if it makes it better over the long run. And I have found that she’s been initiating more. The sex itself is still kind of so-so, but we will see where this goes.

I am just posting this because sexual issues can be a two-way street in a marriage. There is an assumption from many people who read these boards that oh, the fault all lies with the guy, if he just did more of his share and asked her out on date nights, etc — that’s the issue. For some people, surely it is. But not everyone. And suggesting “opening up the marriage” is not really an option for the vast majority of people.

There’s also a lot of gross misogyny here and that’s not the solution either.

PP. What has your wife said? Does she know why she doesn’t want sex?

Unfortunately it’s not as simple as “do some chores and plan a date night”. My sex drive can tank for any number of reasons:

- even if H is helping with chores, I’m still carrying the mental load and feel exhausted
- work is stressful
- I haven’t worked out in a long time and feel fat and gross
- none of my nice clothes fit anymore so I don’t even want to go on dates
- I want a few hours of alone time to go out and do the things I did before kids that make me feel like ME
- men don’t flirt with me anymore so I don’t feel desirable
- I have anxiety about money

Etc etc etc.

I’m actually a very high drive woman. But when any of these start to go out of balance, my drive tanks. And I don’t always know WHY. Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out.

The big one is not feeling like I did in my 20s. I don’t know if men can relate to this, but there’s something about losing your identity and becoming nothing but a wife and mom that just kills not only your sex drive, but your desire for anything sensual and joyful. The days become dreary and gray. Often what I need to feel good again is a few weeks with extra time to go to the gym, new clothes that make me feel sexy, and some time away from the husband and kids to feel like a human being again.

I am the person who posted the original response — your list all rings true but let me add three more that are also present in my specific situation —

Perimenopausal hormonal changes that have negatively impacted her libido at least in the short term

A difficult and hard to treat chronic health condition that led us to an in-patient medical program (she has made tremendous progress in this area but still faces challenges)

COVID-related changes that are hard to pinpoint but seem related to both of the above issues — we were the typical “good soldiers” in the DC area that basically locked ourselves away for two years and it was during that time frame that these issues really started to develop (especially the second one — the first one is more hormonal and probably happens regardless of COVID but seemed to accelerate early). In hindsight, I don’t really know if cutting ourselves off from society for two years was healthy or even necessary. We certainly bought into it at the time though and looked down on people who didn’t. Maybe we were the fools? I think about this a lot.

But she also complains that she feels fat and her clothes don’t fit anymore and she is stressed out at work.

It is difficult as the male to figure out what to really say in these situations. I actually find my wife to be very physically attractive (no lie at all) and I tell her that frequently. I try to show her non-sexual physical affection through hugging, kissing, cuddling, etc. But I can’t really help it if you feel “fat” and don’t exercise and don’t want to change that. And saying that you feel “fat” is not really sexy anyway, so why are you saying this to me? I have also tried to go out of my way to give her a lot of time for personal hobbies and interests that don’t involve me. I also have my own interests too that don’t involve her and give her space. I can only do so much to help her deal with her work related stress — I am not her boss and I have my own work related stress too.

To your question about what she says and does she know why she feels this way — as I said in a previous response, for a long time this was a thermonuclear topic for her and if I made any attempt to try to communicate about it, the whole situation blew up. But of course the common advice that you get from marriage and sex books is to simply communicate more. Talk about it. Tell her what you want. Ask her what she wants. Try to do whatever that is, within reasonable bounds. The reality is much more complicated and nuanced and I think your response here shows that as well.

As to what we are doing now — as I alluded to in a previous post — we are working with an expensive and experienced therapist and after some painful sessions, we agreed that she would be the one who initiates, period. She openly said that she knows she has all the cards here and that isn’t “fair” to me, but that’s what she wants. So we are giving her that and I will just make some short-term sacrifices and adjustments. We will see what happens and if this improves her libido.

The point in me writing anything here about this is just to show that these are complicated issues for both men and women, even when the spouses love each other very much (as we both do). There are just a lot of assumptions baked into these posts and I don’t think they always jive with our more complicated realities as human beings. That being said, sex is an important part of marriage and trying to figure this out takes a lot of hard work sometimes, and is not necessarily anyone’s fault. It’s also not something you can predict when you are dating. We really did not have these issues prior to COVID and I had a past sexless relationship and we promised this wouldn’t happen to us — but here we are.

Yet seeing it happen again also made me realize that just giving up on this relationship wasn’t the answer and that there was no guarantee another relationship wouldn’t have the same issue. I love my wife very much and don’t want to lose her over this — even if I am frustrated at times with the current situation. As the first post kicking off this thread shows, there is a lot of discussion on these boards about this issue and I think people are too quick to pull the trigger sometimes and think that they will easily find sexual fulfillment with someone else. You might just have the same problem with someone else in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average man seriously underestimate how much it takes to give a woman a satisfying sexual experience. Most of the time they are just lying to you or being nice on order not to hurt your feeling when they told you that they came or the sex was amazing. Just thrusting back and forth won't cut it. You need foreplay l, resonance, oral, PIV in the right spot etc.

I would love to hear a group of women talking about their sexual experiences. Lol I think a lot of us would be very humble when we here what they really think of our sexual prowess.

I have asked my wife many times what would really make her “happy” and she never gives an answer other than a non answer. She doesn’t like oral and mostly doesn’t like being touched down there. Massage and rubbing are effective and thankfully so is PIV. I don’t complain because we have sex at least weekly which after 36 years is pretty good and she often initiates. She is very quiet so I rarely know if she has had an O.

TBH this sounds very…assault-y.

If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.

Fascinating how consent has now shifted from affirmative to now it has to be “hell yes” otherwise it’s rape.

Honestly you people are bizarre and you’ve hijacked an entire segment of public dialogue with your drivel.

DP. Your response is weird - do you have kids, particularly teens? You should advise them that both parties should be a totally enthusiastic “yes.”

DP. This is not a weird response. He said his wife doesn't outwardly appear to enjoy sex that much, he has repeated asked her what would make it better, no response. Weirdo poster's take: this feels assault-y.

What would make it not assault-y? She is still consenting to have sex with him. It's sad, but it's not assault-y.

A lot of women have sex when they don’t want to because they feel obligated or because their H pressured them or asks nonstop until they say yes. I was married to a man like that - I absolutely despised having sex with him, but if I didn’t “consent” he would nag me nonstop. It was easier to just go along with it but the entire time I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

Remarried now to a man I love having sex with, and we have a very healthy sex life. If he was just laying there, obviously not enjoying it, there’s no way I could bring myself to have sex with him. Like I can’t imagine at all how someone’s head gets so twisted that they will gladly have sex with a person who so very obviously does not want to have sex with them.

At that point it’s better to have a conversation about opening the marriage. I brought up an open marriage to my xH multiple times so he could get his needs met but he refused. I just can’t understand why people insist on having sex with people who don’t want to have sex with them.

I am very curious about your ex — did he try to communicate with you? Was he open to doing things that would give you more sexual pleasure? Did you explore why you were not able to have sexual pleasure with him? You did marry him after all?

Sex is an important part of marriage and while it is trendy today to say “just open your marriage” that’s not what the vast, vast majority of people want, and it’s not what most men want either. It’s not a solution to the problem and I would be absolutely opposed to it.

I also imagine that your ex probably didn’t consider the sexual interactions to be great either. Maybe he wanted to crawl out of his skin too at how little his wife was into him sexually?

We talked about it constantly. We had MANY issues beyond sex and he refused to address them. He approach it the same way you are - wanting to only talk about sex life problems - when it was like, no, Steve, I need to you stop constantly controlling every move I make and criticizing the way I load the dishwasher and help me out with the kids more and maybe take me on a date once in awhile.

Sex is important within the larger context. You can’t ignore every other aspect of a marriage and then force your partner to have sex because “it’s important for marriage”. That actually destroys marriages even more.

I am the person who asked the question — and fair enough points. It sounds like you did what you could do. I am really not blaming or attacking you — I was more intellectually curious.

There are plenty of women in your situation and my heart really does go out to you because as you said I would not want to be having sex in this situation.

But there are lots of men out there who DO share the load, do household chores, help take care of the kids, plan date nights, etc., and their wives still shut down over sex. If you haven’t guessed already, I have fallen into that camp. And, yes, sometimes when the wife is saying “yes” to sex but it doesn’t feel like she is truly present and so they do not have true intimacy during sex which makes the entire act feel empty — barely a step above masturbation.

Most of the psychology books and what not have said “try to communicate better” — “try to communicate more” — “talk it through” and that only seemed to make things worse because even when I tried in good-faith to talk about this issue, she would blow up.

That all being said — a recent shrink got us to the point where I am no longer talking about sex or even initiating at all. This leads to some short-term denial of my own pleasure but I am willing to do that if it makes it better over the long run. And I have found that she’s been initiating more. The sex itself is still kind of so-so, but we will see where this goes.

I am just posting this because sexual issues can be a two-way street in a marriage. There is an assumption from many people who read these boards that oh, the fault all lies with the guy, if he just did more of his share and asked her out on date nights, etc — that’s the issue. For some people, surely it is. But not everyone. And suggesting “opening up the marriage” is not really an option for the vast majority of people.

There’s also a lot of gross misogyny here and that’s not the solution either.

PP. What has your wife said? Does she know why she doesn’t want sex?

Unfortunately it’s not as simple as “do some chores and plan a date night”. My sex drive can tank for any number of reasons:

- even if H is helping with chores, I’m still carrying the mental load and feel exhausted
- work is stressful
- I haven’t worked out in a long time and feel fat and gross
- none of my nice clothes fit anymore so I don’t even want to go on dates
- I want a few hours of alone time to go out and do the things I did before kids that make me feel like ME
- men don’t flirt with me anymore so I don’t feel desirable
- I have anxiety about money

Etc etc etc.

I’m actually a very high drive woman. But when any of these start to go out of balance, my drive tanks. And I don’t always know WHY. Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out.

The big one is not feeling like I did in my 20s. I don’t know if men can relate to this, but there’s something about losing your identity and becoming nothing but a wife and mom that just kills not only your sex drive, but your desire for anything sensual and joyful. The days become dreary and gray. Often what I need to feel good again is a few weeks with extra time to go to the gym, new clothes that make me feel sexy, and some time away from the husband and kids to feel like a human being again.

I am the person who posted the original response — your list all rings true but let me add three more that are also present in my specific situation —

…

Yet seeing it happen again also made me realize that just giving up on this relationship wasn’t the answer and that there was no guarantee another relationship wouldn’t have the same issue. I love my wife very much and don’t want to lose her over this — even if I am frustrated at times with the current situation. As the first post kicking off this thread shows, there is a lot of discussion on these boards about this issue and I think people are too quick to pull the trigger sometimes and think that they will easily find sexual fulfillment with someone else. You might just have the same problem with someone else in the future.

I feel your pain. We went through a very similar-sounding situation except that we remained and remain communicative so didn’t need a therapist. Eventually after discussing over a year or two we reached a point when DW said she just wasn’t interested in sex anymore, with anyone, and wouldn’t be able to make herself do it enough or fake it enough for me to be happy. She said she’d be ok with my taking another partner instead. But as you say, this isn’t what I want. I’ve been trying to be open to the idea yet despite what I see on this board all the time, it just isn’t that easy. Maybe I’m self-sabotaging since I don’t really want to be with a woman other than my wife, or maybe it’s that I don’t know how to go about finding an AP (as opposed to dating), even though I’ve tried, but now I’m frustrated at home and frustrated with myself. I hope you fare better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average man seriously underestimate how much it takes to give a woman a satisfying sexual experience. Most of the time they are just lying to you or being nice on order not to hurt your feeling when they told you that they came or the sex was amazing. Just thrusting back and forth won't cut it. You need foreplay l, resonance, oral, PIV in the right spot etc.

I would love to hear a group of women talking about their sexual experiences. Lol I think a lot of us would be very humble when we here what they really think of our sexual prowess.

I have asked my wife many times what would really make her “happy” and she never gives an answer other than a non answer. She doesn’t like oral and mostly doesn’t like being touched down there. Massage and rubbing are effective and thankfully so is PIV. I don’t complain because we have sex at least weekly which after 36 years is pretty good and she often initiates. She is very quiet so I rarely know if she has had an O.

TBH this sounds very…assault-y.

If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.

Fascinating how consent has now shifted from affirmative to now it has to be “hell yes” otherwise it’s rape.

Honestly you people are bizarre and you’ve hijacked an entire segment of public dialogue with your drivel.

DP. Your response is weird - do you have kids, particularly teens? You should advise them that both parties should be a totally enthusiastic “yes.”

DP. This is not a weird response. He said his wife doesn't outwardly appear to enjoy sex that much, he has repeated asked her what would make it better, no response. Weirdo poster's take: this feels assault-y.

What would make it not assault-y? She is still consenting to have sex with him. It's sad, but it's not assault-y.

A lot of women have sex when they don’t want to because they feel obligated or because their H pressured them or asks nonstop until they say yes. I was married to a man like that - I absolutely despised having sex with him, but if I didn’t “consent” he would nag me nonstop. It was easier to just go along with it but the entire time I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

Remarried now to a man I love having sex with, and we have a very healthy sex life. If he was just laying there, obviously not enjoying it, there’s no way I could bring myself to have sex with him. Like I can’t imagine at all how someone’s head gets so twisted that they will gladly have sex with a person who so very obviously does not want to have sex with them.

At that point it’s better to have a conversation about opening the marriage. I brought up an open marriage to my xH multiple times so he could get his needs met but he refused. I just can’t understand why people insist on having sex with people who don’t want to have sex with them.

I am very curious about your ex — did he try to communicate with you? Was he open to doing things that would give you more sexual pleasure? Did you explore why you were not able to have sexual pleasure with him? You did marry him after all?

Sex is an important part of marriage and while it is trendy today to say “just open your marriage” that’s not what the vast, vast majority of people want, and it’s not what most men want either. It’s not a solution to the problem and I would be absolutely opposed to it.

I also imagine that your ex probably didn’t consider the sexual interactions to be great either. Maybe he wanted to crawl out of his skin too at how little his wife was into him sexually?

We talked about it constantly. We had MANY issues beyond sex and he refused to address them. He approach it the same way you are - wanting to only talk about sex life problems - when it was like, no, Steve, I need to you stop constantly controlling every move I make and criticizing the way I load the dishwasher and help me out with the kids more and maybe take me on a date once in awhile.

Sex is important within the larger context. You can’t ignore every other aspect of a marriage and then force your partner to have sex because “it’s important for marriage”. That actually destroys marriages even more.

I am the person who asked the question — and fair enough points. It sounds like you did what you could do. I am really not blaming or attacking you — I was more intellectually curious.

There are plenty of women in your situation and my heart really does go out to you because as you said I would not want to be having sex in this situation.

But there are lots of men out there who DO share the load, do household chores, help take care of the kids, plan date nights, etc., and their wives still shut down over sex. If you haven’t guessed already, I have fallen into that camp. And, yes, sometimes when the wife is saying “yes” to sex but it doesn’t feel like she is truly present and so they do not have true intimacy during sex which makes the entire act feel empty — barely a step above masturbation.

Most of the psychology books and what not have said “try to communicate better” — “try to communicate more” — “talk it through” and that only seemed to make things worse because even when I tried in good-faith to talk about this issue, she would blow up.

That all being said — a recent shrink got us to the point where I am no longer talking about sex or even initiating at all. This leads to some short-term denial of my own pleasure but I am willing to do that if it makes it better over the long run. And I have found that she’s been initiating more. The sex itself is still kind of so-so, but we will see where this goes.

I am just posting this because sexual issues can be a two-way street in a marriage. There is an assumption from many people who read these boards that oh, the fault all lies with the guy, if he just did more of his share and asked her out on date nights, etc — that’s the issue. For some people, surely it is. But not everyone. And suggesting “opening up the marriage” is not really an option for the vast majority of people.

There’s also a lot of gross misogyny here and that’s not the solution either.

PP. What has your wife said? Does she know why she doesn’t want sex?

Unfortunately it’s not as simple as “do some chores and plan a date night”. My sex drive can tank for any number of reasons:

- even if H is helping with chores, I’m still carrying the mental load and feel exhausted
- work is stressful
- I haven’t worked out in a long time and feel fat and gross
- none of my nice clothes fit anymore so I don’t even want to go on dates
- I want a few hours of alone time to go out and do the things I did before kids that make me feel like ME
- men don’t flirt with me anymore so I don’t feel desirable
- I have anxiety about money

Etc etc etc.

I’m actually a very high drive woman. But when any of these start to go out of balance, my drive tanks. And I don’t always know WHY. Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out.

The big one is not feeling like I did in my 20s. I don’t know if men can relate to this, but there’s something about losing your identity and becoming nothing but a wife and mom that just kills not only your sex drive, but your desire for anything sensual and joyful. The days become dreary and gray. Often what I need to feel good again is a few weeks with extra time to go to the gym, new clothes that make me feel sexy, and some time away from the husband and kids to feel like a human being again.

Wow. I feel sorry for you, but much sorrier for your DH, since your sex drive cuts out for reasons that have nothing to do with him and which he can do nothing about. Poor guy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average man seriously underestimate how much it takes to give a woman a satisfying sexual experience. Most of the time they are just lying to you or being nice on order not to hurt your feeling when they told you that they came or the sex was amazing. Just thrusting back and forth won't cut it. You need foreplay l, resonance, oral, PIV in the right spot etc.

I would love to hear a group of women talking about their sexual experiences. Lol I think a lot of us would be very humble when we here what they really think of our sexual prowess.

I have asked my wife many times what would really make her “happy” and she never gives an answer other than a non answer. She doesn’t like oral and mostly doesn’t like being touched down there. Massage and rubbing are effective and thankfully so is PIV. I don’t complain because we have sex at least weekly which after 36 years is pretty good and she often initiates. She is very quiet so I rarely know if she has had an O.

TBH this sounds very…assault-y.

If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.

Fascinating how consent has now shifted from affirmative to now it has to be “hell yes” otherwise it’s rape.

Honestly you people are bizarre and you’ve hijacked an entire segment of public dialogue with your drivel.

DP. Your response is weird - do you have kids, particularly teens? You should advise them that both parties should be a totally enthusiastic “yes.”

DP. This is not a weird response. He said his wife doesn't outwardly appear to enjoy sex that much, he has repeated asked her what would make it better, no response. Weirdo poster's take: this feels assault-y.

What would make it not assault-y? She is still consenting to have sex with him. It's sad, but it's not assault-y.

A lot of women have sex when they don’t want to because they feel obligated or because their H pressured them or asks nonstop until they say yes. I was married to a man like that - I absolutely despised having sex with him, but if I didn’t “consent” he would nag me nonstop. It was easier to just go along with it but the entire time I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

Remarried now to a man I love having sex with, and we have a very healthy sex life. If he was just laying there, obviously not enjoying it, there’s no way I could bring myself to have sex with him. Like I can’t imagine at all how someone’s head gets so twisted that they will gladly have sex with a person who so very obviously does not want to have sex with them.

At that point it’s better to have a conversation about opening the marriage. I brought up an open marriage to my xH multiple times so he could get his needs met but he refused. I just can’t understand why people insist on having sex with people who don’t want to have sex with them.

I am very curious about your ex — did he try to communicate with you? Was he open to doing things that would give you more sexual pleasure? Did you explore why you were not able to have sexual pleasure with him? You did marry him after all?

Sex is an important part of marriage and while it is trendy today to say “just open your marriage” that’s not what the vast, vast majority of people want, and it’s not what most men want either. It’s not a solution to the problem and I would be absolutely opposed to it.

I also imagine that your ex probably didn’t consider the sexual interactions to be great either. Maybe he wanted to crawl out of his skin too at how little his wife was into him sexually?

We talked about it constantly. We had MANY issues beyond sex and he refused to address them. He approach it the same way you are - wanting to only talk about sex life problems - when it was like, no, Steve, I need to you stop constantly controlling every move I make and criticizing the way I load the dishwasher and help me out with the kids more and maybe take me on a date once in awhile.

Sex is important within the larger context. You can’t ignore every other aspect of a marriage and then force your partner to have sex because “it’s important for marriage”. That actually destroys marriages even more.

I am the person who asked the question — and fair enough points. It sounds like you did what you could do. I am really not blaming or attacking you — I was more intellectually curious.

There are plenty of women in your situation and my heart really does go out to you because as you said I would not want to be having sex in this situation.

But there are lots of men out there who DO share the load, do household chores, help take care of the kids, plan date nights, etc., and their wives still shut down over sex. If you haven’t guessed already, I have fallen into that camp. And, yes, sometimes when the wife is saying “yes” to sex but it doesn’t feel like she is truly present and so they do not have true intimacy during sex which makes the entire act feel empty — barely a step above masturbation.

Most of the psychology books and what not have said “try to communicate better” — “try to communicate more” — “talk it through” and that only seemed to make things worse because even when I tried in good-faith to talk about this issue, she would blow up.

That all being said — a recent shrink got us to the point where I am no longer talking about sex or even initiating at all. This leads to some short-term denial of my own pleasure but I am willing to do that if it makes it better over the long run. And I have found that she’s been initiating more. The sex itself is still kind of so-so, but we will see where this goes.

I am just posting this because sexual issues can be a two-way street in a marriage. There is an assumption from many people who read these boards that oh, the fault all lies with the guy, if he just did more of his share and asked her out on date nights, etc — that’s the issue. For some people, surely it is. But not everyone. And suggesting “opening up the marriage” is not really an option for the vast majority of people.

There’s also a lot of gross misogyny here and that’s not the solution either.

I posit that women don’t really want a man who is doing the chores.

I personally DGAF as long as DH does the bare minimum. But what I do care about is if he is making me feel desirable, if he takes me on dates, if he takes care of himself and remains fit and sexy, if he shows enthusiasm about me, and yes basically if he acts dominant sexually. That is what does it for me.

When a man becomes passive in his sexual relationship, it is a huge turnoff for me. And yes, I return that enthusiasm tenfold but sorry he’s got to set the tone. Basically I need him to be masculine.

You obviously don’t work much nor have kids to raise. That or you’re 24 or a divorced 55 and kids are off.

I am similar to above poster. I work in very high stress role and we have a kid. I have to be on all day making a million decisions with pretty serious ramifications. Coming home and doing laundry, cooking etc, the mundane, is very relaxing and then being able to completely submit to an attractive, fit dominant husband knowing he is going to take care of every "need" I may have is incredibly freeing.

sure joan

Don't understand your comment. Something bother you? Not asking anyone to agree with me, but there are people that feel this way, me being one of them. None of my friends know our dynamic and frankly most would be appalled or at the very least shocked. I don't judge their relationship or yours. People are allowed to have different views and desires.

you expect us to believe you work your high powered job, then enjoy coming home to do ALL the cooking, cleaning and childcare because your DH is good in bed? if so, you’re a troll.

if all you’re saying is that you enjoy your DH being dominant in bed, that’s garden variety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Genuinely curious why is the topic of sex mentioned so often partially by women on this forum?

Talk is cheap

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average man seriously underestimate how much it takes to give a woman a satisfying sexual experience. Most of the time they are just lying to you or being nice on order not to hurt your feeling when they told you that they came or the sex was amazing. Just thrusting back and forth won't cut it. You need foreplay l, resonance, oral, PIV in the right spot etc.

I would love to hear a group of women talking about their sexual experiences. Lol I think a lot of us would be very humble when we here what they really think of our sexual prowess.

I have asked my wife many times what would really make her “happy” and she never gives an answer other than a non answer. She doesn’t like oral and mostly doesn’t like being touched down there. Massage and rubbing are effective and thankfully so is PIV. I don’t complain because we have sex at least weekly which after 36 years is pretty good and she often initiates. She is very quiet so I rarely know if she has had an O.

TBH this sounds very…assault-y.

If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.

Fascinating how consent has now shifted from affirmative to now it has to be “hell yes” otherwise it’s rape.

Honestly you people are bizarre and you’ve hijacked an entire segment of public dialogue with your drivel.

DP. Your response is weird - do you have kids, particularly teens? You should advise them that both parties should be a totally enthusiastic “yes.”

DP. This is not a weird response. He said his wife doesn't outwardly appear to enjoy sex that much, he has repeated asked her what would make it better, no response. Weirdo poster's take: this feels assault-y.

What would make it not assault-y? She is still consenting to have sex with him. It's sad, but it's not assault-y.

A lot of women have sex when they don’t want to because they feel obligated or because their H pressured them or asks nonstop until they say yes. I was married to a man like that - I absolutely despised having sex with him, but if I didn’t “consent” he would nag me nonstop. It was easier to just go along with it but the entire time I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

Remarried now to a man I love having sex with, and we have a very healthy sex life. If he was just laying there, obviously not enjoying it, there’s no way I could bring myself to have sex with him. Like I can’t imagine at all how someone’s head gets so twisted that they will gladly have sex with a person who so very obviously does not want to have sex with them.

At that point it’s better to have a conversation about opening the marriage. I brought up an open marriage to my xH multiple times so he could get his needs met but he refused. I just can’t understand why people insist on having sex with people who don’t want to have sex with them.

I am very curious about your ex — did he try to communicate with you? Was he open to doing things that would give you more sexual pleasure? Did you explore why you were not able to have sexual pleasure with him? You did marry him after all?

Sex is an important part of marriage and while it is trendy today to say “just open your marriage” that’s not what the vast, vast majority of people want, and it’s not what most men want either. It’s not a solution to the problem and I would be absolutely opposed to it.

I also imagine that your ex probably didn’t consider the sexual interactions to be great either. Maybe he wanted to crawl out of his skin too at how little his wife was into him sexually?

We talked about it constantly. We had MANY issues beyond sex and he refused to address them. He approach it the same way you are - wanting to only talk about sex life problems - when it was like, no, Steve, I need to you stop constantly controlling every move I make and criticizing the way I load the dishwasher and help me out with the kids more and maybe take me on a date once in awhile.

Sex is important within the larger context. You can’t ignore every other aspect of a marriage and then force your partner to have sex because “it’s important for marriage”. That actually destroys marriages even more.

I am the person who asked the question — and fair enough points. It sounds like you did what you could do. I am really not blaming or attacking you — I was more intellectually curious.

There are plenty of women in your situation and my heart really does go out to you because as you said I would not want to be having sex in this situation.

But there are lots of men out there who DO share the load, do household chores, help take care of the kids, plan date nights, etc., and their wives still shut down over sex. If you haven’t guessed already, I have fallen into that camp. And, yes, sometimes when the wife is saying “yes” to sex but it doesn’t feel like she is truly present and so they do not have true intimacy during sex which makes the entire act feel empty — barely a step above masturbation.

Most of the psychology books and what not have said “try to communicate better” — “try to communicate more” — “talk it through” and that only seemed to make things worse because even when I tried in good-faith to talk about this issue, she would blow up.

That all being said — a recent shrink got us to the point where I am no longer talking about sex or even initiating at all. This leads to some short-term denial of my own pleasure but I am willing to do that if it makes it better over the long run. And I have found that she’s been initiating more. The sex itself is still kind of so-so, but we will see where this goes.

I am just posting this because sexual issues can be a two-way street in a marriage. There is an assumption from many people who read these boards that oh, the fault all lies with the guy, if he just did more of his share and asked her out on date nights, etc — that’s the issue. For some people, surely it is. But not everyone. And suggesting “opening up the marriage” is not really an option for the vast majority of people.

There’s also a lot of gross misogyny here and that’s not the solution either.

PP. What has your wife said? Does she know why she doesn’t want sex?

Unfortunately it’s not as simple as “do some chores and plan a date night”. My sex drive can tank for any number of reasons:

- even if H is helping with chores, I’m still carrying the mental load and feel exhausted
- work is stressful
- I haven’t worked out in a long time and feel fat and gross
- none of my nice clothes fit anymore so I don’t even want to go on dates
- I want a few hours of alone time to go out and do the things I did before kids that make me feel like ME
- men don’t flirt with me anymore so I don’t feel desirable
- I have anxiety about money

Etc etc etc.

I’m actually a very high drive woman. But when any of these start to go out of balance, my drive tanks. And I don’t always know WHY. Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out.

The big one is not feeling like I did in my 20s. I don’t know if men can relate to this, but there’s something about losing your identity and becoming nothing but a wife and mom that just kills not only your sex drive, but your desire for anything sensual and joyful. The days become dreary and gray. Often what I need to feel good again is a few weeks with extra time to go to the gym, new clothes that make me feel sexy, and some time away from the husband and kids to feel like a human being again.

I am the person who posted the original response — your list all rings true but let me add three more that are also present in my specific situation —

…

Yet seeing it happen again also made me realize that just giving up on this relationship wasn’t the answer and that there was no guarantee another relationship wouldn’t have the same issue. I love my wife very much and don’t want to lose her over this — even if I am frustrated at times with the current situation. As the first post kicking off this thread shows, there is a lot of discussion on these boards about this issue and I think people are too quick to pull the trigger sometimes and think that they will easily find sexual fulfillment with someone else. You might just have the same problem with someone else in the future.

I feel your pain. We went through a very similar-sounding situation except that we remained and remain communicative so didn’t need a therapist. Eventually after discussing over a year or two we reached a point when DW said she just wasn’t interested in sex anymore, with anyone, and wouldn’t be able to make herself do it enough or fake it enough for me to be happy. She said she’d be ok with my taking another partner instead. But as you say, this isn’t what I want. I’ve been trying to be open to the idea yet despite what I see on this board all the time, it just isn’t that easy. Maybe I’m self-sabotaging since I don’t really want to be with a woman other than my wife, or maybe it’s that I don’t know how to go about finding an AP (as opposed to dating), even though I’ve tried, but now I’m frustrated at home and frustrated with myself. I hope you fare better.

DP. I think it depends on whether she wants zero sex, or just less sex than you would hope.

My xDH would whine about us having sex once a week when our baby was little. It was essentially scheduled sex, because naptime on the weekend was the time I finally felt relaxed enough for it. And I really enjoyed myself! For me, letting my drive build up until I wanted it was really helpful. But he whined, complained that I wanted to shower first, pull the blinds down (it was a crowded neighborhood in the middle of the day …)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average man seriously underestimate how much it takes to give a woman a satisfying sexual experience. Most of the time they are just lying to you or being nice on order not to hurt your feeling when they told you that they came or the sex was amazing. Just thrusting back and forth won't cut it. You need foreplay l, resonance, oral, PIV in the right spot etc.

I would love to hear a group of women talking about their sexual experiences. Lol I think a lot of us would be very humble when we here what they really think of our sexual prowess.

I have asked my wife many times what would really make her “happy” and she never gives an answer other than a non answer. She doesn’t like oral and mostly doesn’t like being touched down there. Massage and rubbing are effective and thankfully so is PIV. I don’t complain because we have sex at least weekly which after 36 years is pretty good and she often initiates. She is very quiet so I rarely know if she has had an O.

TBH this sounds very…assault-y.

If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.

Fascinating how consent has now shifted from affirmative to now it has to be “hell yes” otherwise it’s rape.

Honestly you people are bizarre and you’ve hijacked an entire segment of public dialogue with your drivel.

DP. Your response is weird - do you have kids, particularly teens? You should advise them that both parties should be a totally enthusiastic “yes.”

DP. This is not a weird response. He said his wife doesn't outwardly appear to enjoy sex that much, he has repeated asked her what would make it better, no response. Weirdo poster's take: this feels assault-y.

What would make it not assault-y? She is still consenting to have sex with him. It's sad, but it's not assault-y.

A lot of women have sex when they don’t want to because they feel obligated or because their H pressured them or asks nonstop until they say yes. I was married to a man like that - I absolutely despised having sex with him, but if I didn’t “consent” he would nag me nonstop. It was easier to just go along with it but the entire time I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

Remarried now to a man I love having sex with, and we have a very healthy sex life. If he was just laying there, obviously not enjoying it, there’s no way I could bring myself to have sex with him. Like I can’t imagine at all how someone’s head gets so twisted that they will gladly have sex with a person who so very obviously does not want to have sex with them.

At that point it’s better to have a conversation about opening the marriage. I brought up an open marriage to my xH multiple times so he could get his needs met but he refused. I just can’t understand why people insist on having sex with people who don’t want to have sex with them.

I am very curious about your ex — did he try to communicate with you? Was he open to doing things that would give you more sexual pleasure? Did you explore why you were not able to have sexual pleasure with him? You did marry him after all?

Sex is an important part of marriage and while it is trendy today to say “just open your marriage” that’s not what the vast, vast majority of people want, and it’s not what most men want either. It’s not a solution to the problem and I would be absolutely opposed to it.

I also imagine that your ex probably didn’t consider the sexual interactions to be great either. Maybe he wanted to crawl out of his skin too at how little his wife was into him sexually?

We talked about it constantly. We had MANY issues beyond sex and he refused to address them. He approach it the same way you are - wanting to only talk about sex life problems - when it was like, no, Steve, I need to you stop constantly controlling every move I make and criticizing the way I load the dishwasher and help me out with the kids more and maybe take me on a date once in awhile.

Sex is important within the larger context. You can’t ignore every other aspect of a marriage and then force your partner to have sex because “it’s important for marriage”. That actually destroys marriages even more.

I am the person who asked the question — and fair enough points. It sounds like you did what you could do. I am really not blaming or attacking you — I was more intellectually curious.

There are plenty of women in your situation and my heart really does go out to you because as you said I would not want to be having sex in this situation.

But there are lots of men out there who DO share the load, do household chores, help take care of the kids, plan date nights, etc., and their wives still shut down over sex. If you haven’t guessed already, I have fallen into that camp. And, yes, sometimes when the wife is saying “yes” to sex but it doesn’t feel like she is truly present and so they do not have true intimacy during sex which makes the entire act feel empty — barely a step above masturbation.

Most of the psychology books and what not have said “try to communicate better” — “try to communicate more” — “talk it through” and that only seemed to make things worse because even when I tried in good-faith to talk about this issue, she would blow up.

That all being said — a recent shrink got us to the point where I am no longer talking about sex or even initiating at all. This leads to some short-term denial of my own pleasure but I am willing to do that if it makes it better over the long run. And I have found that she’s been initiating more. The sex itself is still kind of so-so, but we will see where this goes.

I am just posting this because sexual issues can be a two-way street in a marriage. There is an assumption from many people who read these boards that oh, the fault all lies with the guy, if he just did more of his share and asked her out on date nights, etc — that’s the issue. For some people, surely it is. But not everyone. And suggesting “opening up the marriage” is not really an option for the vast majority of people.

There’s also a lot of gross misogyny here and that’s not the solution either.

I posit that women don’t really want a man who is doing the chores.

I personally DGAF as long as DH does the bare minimum. But what I do care about is if he is making me feel desirable, if he takes me on dates, if he takes care of himself and remains fit and sexy, if he shows enthusiasm about me, and yes basically if he acts dominant sexually. That is what does it for me.

When a man becomes passive in his sexual relationship, it is a huge turnoff for me. And yes, I return that enthusiasm tenfold but sorry he’s got to set the tone. Basically I need him to be masculine.

You obviously don’t work much nor have kids to raise. That or you’re 24 or a divorced 55 and kids are off.

I am similar to above poster. I work in very high stress role and we have a kid. I have to be on all day making a million decisions with pretty serious ramifications. Coming home and doing laundry, cooking etc, the mundane, is very relaxing and then being able to completely submit to an attractive, fit dominant husband knowing he is going to take care of every "need" I may have is incredibly freeing.

sure joan

Don't understand your comment. Something bother you? Not asking anyone to agree with me, but there are people that feel this way, me being one of them. None of my friends know our dynamic and frankly most would be appalled or at the very least shocked. I don't judge their relationship or yours. People are allowed to have different views and desires.

you expect us to believe you work your high powered job, then enjoy coming home to do ALL the cooking, cleaning and childcare because your DH is good in bed? if so, you’re a troll.

if all you’re saying is that you enjoy your DH being dominant in bed, that’s garden variety.

Dp, I have been struggling to figure out why her friends would be shocked and appalled. All I could come up with is that they husband is visibly a jerk or a sloth about sharing household tasks and she likes having sex with him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average man seriously underestimate how much it takes to give a woman a satisfying sexual experience. Most of the time they are just lying to you or being nice on order not to hurt your feeling when they told you that they came or the sex was amazing. Just thrusting back and forth won't cut it. You need foreplay l, resonance, oral, PIV in the right spot etc.

I would love to hear a group of women talking about their sexual experiences. Lol I think a lot of us would be very humble when we here what they really think of our sexual prowess.

I have asked my wife many times what would really make her “happy” and she never gives an answer other than a non answer. She doesn’t like oral and mostly doesn’t like being touched down there. Massage and rubbing are effective and thankfully so is PIV. I don’t complain because we have sex at least weekly which after 36 years is pretty good and she often initiates. She is very quiet so I rarely know if she has had an O.

TBH this sounds very…assault-y.

If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.

Fascinating how consent has now shifted from affirmative to now it has to be “hell yes” otherwise it’s rape.

Honestly you people are bizarre and you’ve hijacked an entire segment of public dialogue with your drivel.

DP. Your response is weird - do you have kids, particularly teens? You should advise them that both parties should be a totally enthusiastic “yes.”

DP. This is not a weird response. He said his wife doesn't outwardly appear to enjoy sex that much, he has repeated asked her what would make it better, no response. Weirdo poster's take: this feels assault-y.

What would make it not assault-y? She is still consenting to have sex with him. It's sad, but it's not assault-y.

A lot of women have sex when they don’t want to because they feel obligated or because their H pressured them or asks nonstop until they say yes. I was married to a man like that - I absolutely despised having sex with him, but if I didn’t “consent” he would nag me nonstop. It was easier to just go along with it but the entire time I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

Remarried now to a man I love having sex with, and we have a very healthy sex life. If he was just laying there, obviously not enjoying it, there’s no way I could bring myself to have sex with him. Like I can’t imagine at all how someone’s head gets so twisted that they will gladly have sex with a person who so very obviously does not want to have sex with them.

At that point it’s better to have a conversation about opening the marriage. I brought up an open marriage to my xH multiple times so he could get his needs met but he refused. I just can’t understand why people insist on having sex with people who don’t want to have sex with them.

I am very curious about your ex — did he try to communicate with you? Was he open to doing things that would give you more sexual pleasure? Did you explore why you were not able to have sexual pleasure with him? You did marry him after all?

Sex is an important part of marriage and while it is trendy today to say “just open your marriage” that’s not what the vast, vast majority of people want, and it’s not what most men want either. It’s not a solution to the problem and I would be absolutely opposed to it.

I also imagine that your ex probably didn’t consider the sexual interactions to be great either. Maybe he wanted to crawl out of his skin too at how little his wife was into him sexually?

We talked about it constantly. We had MANY issues beyond sex and he refused to address them. He approach it the same way you are - wanting to only talk about sex life problems - when it was like, no, Steve, I need to you stop constantly controlling every move I make and criticizing the way I load the dishwasher and help me out with the kids more and maybe take me on a date once in awhile.

Sex is important within the larger context. You can’t ignore every other aspect of a marriage and then force your partner to have sex because “it’s important for marriage”. That actually destroys marriages even more.

I am the person who asked the question — and fair enough points. It sounds like you did what you could do. I am really not blaming or attacking you — I was more intellectually curious.

There are plenty of women in your situation and my heart really does go out to you because as you said I would not want to be having sex in this situation.

But there are lots of men out there who DO share the load, do household chores, help take care of the kids, plan date nights, etc., and their wives still shut down over sex. If you haven’t guessed already, I have fallen into that camp. And, yes, sometimes when the wife is saying “yes” to sex but it doesn’t feel like she is truly present and so they do not have true intimacy during sex which makes the entire act feel empty — barely a step above masturbation.

Most of the psychology books and what not have said “try to communicate better” — “try to communicate more” — “talk it through” and that only seemed to make things worse because even when I tried in good-faith to talk about this issue, she would blow up.

That all being said — a recent shrink got us to the point where I am no longer talking about sex or even initiating at all. This leads to some short-term denial of my own pleasure but I am willing to do that if it makes it better over the long run. And I have found that she’s been initiating more. The sex itself is still kind of so-so, but we will see where this goes.

I am just posting this because sexual issues can be a two-way street in a marriage. There is an assumption from many people who read these boards that oh, the fault all lies with the guy, if he just did more of his share and asked her out on date nights, etc — that’s the issue. For some people, surely it is. But not everyone. And suggesting “opening up the marriage” is not really an option for the vast majority of people.

There’s also a lot of gross misogyny here and that’s not the solution either.

PP. What has your wife said? Does she know why she doesn’t want sex?

Unfortunately it’s not as simple as “do some chores and plan a date night”. My sex drive can tank for any number of reasons:

- even if H is helping with chores, I’m still carrying the mental load and feel exhausted
- work is stressful
- I haven’t worked out in a long time and feel fat and gross
- none of my nice clothes fit anymore so I don’t even want to go on dates
- I want a few hours of alone time to go out and do the things I did before kids that make me feel like ME
- men don’t flirt with me anymore so I don’t feel desirable
- I have anxiety about money

Etc etc etc.

I’m actually a very high drive woman. But when any of these start to go out of balance, my drive tanks. And I don’t always know WHY. Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out.

The big one is not feeling like I did in my 20s. I don’t know if men can relate to this, but there’s something about losing your identity and becoming nothing but a wife and mom that just kills not only your sex drive, but your desire for anything sensual and joyful. The days become dreary and gray. Often what I need to feel good again is a few weeks with extra time to go to the gym, new clothes that make me feel sexy, and some time away from the husband and kids to feel like a human being again.

I am the person who posted the original response — your list all rings true but let me add three more that are also present in my specific situation —

Perimenopausal hormonal changes that have negatively impacted her libido at least in the short term

A difficult and hard to treat chronic health condition that led us to an in-patient medical program (she has made tremendous progress in this area but still faces challenges)

COVID-related changes that are hard to pinpoint but seem related to both of the above issues — we were the typical “good soldiers” in the DC area that basically locked ourselves away for two years and it was during that time frame that these issues really started to develop (especially the second one — the first one is more hormonal and probably happens regardless of COVID but seemed to accelerate early). In hindsight, I don’t really know if cutting ourselves off from society for two years was healthy or even necessary. We certainly bought into it at the time though and looked down on people who didn’t. Maybe we were the fools? I think about this a lot.

But she also complains that she feels fat and her clothes don’t fit anymore and she is stressed out at work.

It is difficult as the male to figure out what to really say in these situations. I actually find my wife to be very physically attractive (no lie at all) and I tell her that frequently. I try to show her non-sexual physical affection through hugging, kissing, cuddling, etc. But I can’t really help it if you feel “fat” and don’t exercise and don’t want to change that. And saying that you feel “fat” is not really sexy anyway, so why are you saying this to me? I have also tried to go out of my way to give her a lot of time for personal hobbies and interests that don’t involve me. I also have my own interests too that don’t involve her and give her space. I can only do so much to help her deal with her work related stress — I am not her boss and I have my own work related stress too.

To your question about what she says and does she know why she feels this way — as I said in a previous response, for a long time this was a thermonuclear topic for her and if I made any attempt to try to communicate about it, the whole situation blew up. But of course the common advice that you get from marriage and sex books is to simply communicate more. Talk about it. Tell her what you want. Ask her what she wants. Try to do whatever that is, within reasonable bounds. The reality is much more complicated and nuanced and I think your response here shows that as well.

As to what we are doing now — as I alluded to in a previous post — we are working with an expensive and experienced therapist and after some painful sessions, we agreed that she would be the one who initiates, period. She openly said that she knows she has all the cards here and that isn’t “fair” to me, but that’s what she wants. So we are giving her that and I will just make some short-term sacrifices and adjustments. We will see what happens and if this improves her libido.

The point in me writing anything here about this is just to show that these are complicated issues for both men and women, even when the spouses love each other very much (as we both do). There are just a lot of assumptions baked into these posts and I don’t think they always jive with our more complicated realities as human beings. That being said, sex is an important part of marriage and trying to figure this out takes a lot of hard work sometimes, and is not necessarily anyone’s fault. It’s also not something you can predict when you are dating. We really did not have these issues prior to COVID and I had a past sexless relationship and we promised this wouldn’t happen to us — but here we are.

Yet seeing it happen again also made me realize that just giving up on this relationship wasn’t the answer and that there was no guarantee another relationship wouldn’t have the same issue. I love my wife very much and don’t want to lose her over this — even if I am frustrated at times with the current situation. As the first post kicking off this thread shows, there is a lot of discussion on these boards about this issue and I think people are too quick to pull the trigger sometimes and think that they will easily find sexual fulfillment with someone else. You might just have the same problem with someone else in the future.

It’s a hard situation, which I dealt with in the past too. What was really difficult was the flat out refusal to discuss the matter, both with my DW alone and in our couples counseling. Unlike every issue my DW had with me, which of course could be and were discussed extensively, sex was something I was just supposed to shut up about (which often seems to be the consensus view on DCUM as well). There were many times when I was like “what’s the point if literally no one cares about this issue but me?” My DW was unwilling to discuss the matter, and our counselor changed the subject as fast as possible whenever I brought it up. It’s infuriating and you have my sympathies. Ultimately the issue passed for us, I hope it does for you as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average man seriously underestimate how much it takes to give a woman a satisfying sexual experience. Most of the time they are just lying to you or being nice on order not to hurt your feeling when they told you that they came or the sex was amazing. Just thrusting back and forth won't cut it. You need foreplay l, resonance, oral, PIV in the right spot etc.

I would love to hear a group of women talking about their sexual experiences. Lol I think a lot of us would be very humble when we here what they really think of our sexual prowess.

I have asked my wife many times what would really make her “happy” and she never gives an answer other than a non answer. She doesn’t like oral and mostly doesn’t like being touched down there. Massage and rubbing are effective and thankfully so is PIV. I don’t complain because we have sex at least weekly which after 36 years is pretty good and she often initiates. She is very quiet so I rarely know if she has had an O.

TBH this sounds very…assault-y.

If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.

Fascinating how consent has now shifted from affirmative to now it has to be “hell yes” otherwise it’s rape.

Honestly you people are bizarre and you’ve hijacked an entire segment of public dialogue with your drivel.

DP. Your response is weird - do you have kids, particularly teens? You should advise them that both parties should be a totally enthusiastic “yes.”

DP. This is not a weird response. He said his wife doesn't outwardly appear to enjoy sex that much, he has repeated asked her what would make it better, no response. Weirdo poster's take: this feels assault-y.

What would make it not assault-y? She is still consenting to have sex with him. It's sad, but it's not assault-y.

A lot of women have sex when they don’t want to because they feel obligated or because their H pressured them or asks nonstop until they say yes. I was married to a man like that - I absolutely despised having sex with him, but if I didn’t “consent” he would nag me nonstop. It was easier to just go along with it but the entire time I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

Remarried now to a man I love having sex with, and we have a very healthy sex life. If he was just laying there, obviously not enjoying it, there’s no way I could bring myself to have sex with him. Like I can’t imagine at all how someone’s head gets so twisted that they will gladly have sex with a person who so very obviously does not want to have sex with them.

At that point it’s better to have a conversation about opening the marriage. I brought up an open marriage to my xH multiple times so he could get his needs met but he refused. I just can’t understand why people insist on having sex with people who don’t want to have sex with them.

I am very curious about your ex — did he try to communicate with you? Was he open to doing things that would give you more sexual pleasure? Did you explore why you were not able to have sexual pleasure with him? You did marry him after all?

Sex is an important part of marriage and while it is trendy today to say “just open your marriage” that’s not what the vast, vast majority of people want, and it’s not what most men want either. It’s not a solution to the problem and I would be absolutely opposed to it.

I also imagine that your ex probably didn’t consider the sexual interactions to be great either. Maybe he wanted to crawl out of his skin too at how little his wife was into him sexually?

We talked about it constantly. We had MANY issues beyond sex and he refused to address them. He approach it the same way you are - wanting to only talk about sex life problems - when it was like, no, Steve, I need to you stop constantly controlling every move I make and criticizing the way I load the dishwasher and help me out with the kids more and maybe take me on a date once in awhile.

Sex is important within the larger context. You can’t ignore every other aspect of a marriage and then force your partner to have sex because “it’s important for marriage”. That actually destroys marriages even more.

I am the person who asked the question — and fair enough points. It sounds like you did what you could do. I am really not blaming or attacking you — I was more intellectually curious.

There are plenty of women in your situation and my heart really does go out to you because as you said I would not want to be having sex in this situation.

But there are lots of men out there who DO share the load, do household chores, help take care of the kids, plan date nights, etc., and their wives still shut down over sex. If you haven’t guessed already, I have fallen into that camp. And, yes, sometimes when the wife is saying “yes” to sex but it doesn’t feel like she is truly present and so they do not have true intimacy during sex which makes the entire act feel empty — barely a step above masturbation.

Most of the psychology books and what not have said “try to communicate better” — “try to communicate more” — “talk it through” and that only seemed to make things worse because even when I tried in good-faith to talk about this issue, she would blow up.

That all being said — a recent shrink got us to the point where I am no longer talking about sex or even initiating at all. This leads to some short-term denial of my own pleasure but I am willing to do that if it makes it better over the long run. And I have found that she’s been initiating more. The sex itself is still kind of so-so, but we will see where this goes.

I am just posting this because sexual issues can be a two-way street in a marriage. There is an assumption from many people who read these boards that oh, the fault all lies with the guy, if he just did more of his share and asked her out on date nights, etc — that’s the issue. For some people, surely it is. But not everyone. And suggesting “opening up the marriage” is not really an option for the vast majority of people.

There’s also a lot of gross misogyny here and that’s not the solution either.

PP. What has your wife said? Does she know why she doesn’t want sex?

Unfortunately it’s not as simple as “do some chores and plan a date night”. My sex drive can tank for any number of reasons:

- even if H is helping with chores, I’m still carrying the mental load and feel exhausted
- work is stressful
- I haven’t worked out in a long time and feel fat and gross
- none of my nice clothes fit anymore so I don’t even want to go on dates
- I want a few hours of alone time to go out and do the things I did before kids that make me feel like ME
- men don’t flirt with me anymore so I don’t feel desirable
- I have anxiety about money

Etc etc etc.

I’m actually a very high drive woman. But when any of these start to go out of balance, my drive tanks. And I don’t always know WHY. Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out.

The big one is not feeling like I did in my 20s. I don’t know if men can relate to this, but there’s something about losing your identity and becoming nothing but a wife and mom that just kills not only your sex drive, but your desire for anything sensual and joyful. The days become dreary and gray. Often what I need to feel good again is a few weeks with extra time to go to the gym, new clothes that make me feel sexy, and some time away from the husband and kids to feel like a human being again.

Wow. I feel sorry for you, but much sorrier for your DH, since your sex drive cuts out for reasons that have nothing to do with him and which he can do nothing about. Poor guy.

LOL, don’t feel bad for him, we have a great sex life both in quantity and quality. I was literally ready to go the day after having a c section (and could only make it 4 weeks postpartum, not the full 6). Having a reactive sex drive means you can also turn it way way up. We have a minimum of twice a week, even with little kids, and often will have sex daily.

Most of those things he can do a lot about. If he needs to take on more at home, he does. If I need more time to myself, he helps make it happen. If work is stressful, I can vent to him. If I’m stressed about money, we go over finances.

The one thing he’s never done is pressure me to have sex when I don’t want to. If I’m not 100% into it, he’ll say no, even if I say it’s okay. As a result I have full trust in him and feel completely safe.

Contrast that with my xH, who decided my problems were mine alone to deal with. If I felt stressed, I had to deal with it. If I felt unattractive, too bad, he didn’t want to hear it. If I didn’t want to sleep with him, I had to get over it. It completely killed my sex drive. Nobody wants to sleep with someone selfish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average man seriously underestimate how much it takes to give a woman a satisfying sexual experience. Most of the time they are just lying to you or being nice on order not to hurt your feeling when they told you that they came or the sex was amazing. Just thrusting back and forth won't cut it. You need foreplay l, resonance, oral, PIV in the right spot etc.

I would love to hear a group of women talking about their sexual experiences. Lol I think a lot of us would be very humble when we here what they really think of our sexual prowess.

I have asked my wife many times what would really make her “happy” and she never gives an answer other than a non answer. She doesn’t like oral and mostly doesn’t like being touched down there. Massage and rubbing are effective and thankfully so is PIV. I don’t complain because we have sex at least weekly which after 36 years is pretty good and she often initiates. She is very quiet so I rarely know if she has had an O.

TBH this sounds very…assault-y.

If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.

Fascinating how consent has now shifted from affirmative to now it has to be “hell yes” otherwise it’s rape.

Honestly you people are bizarre and you’ve hijacked an entire segment of public dialogue with your drivel.

DP. Your response is weird - do you have kids, particularly teens? You should advise them that both parties should be a totally enthusiastic “yes.”

DP. This is not a weird response. He said his wife doesn't outwardly appear to enjoy sex that much, he has repeated asked her what would make it better, no response. Weirdo poster's take: this feels assault-y.

What would make it not assault-y? She is still consenting to have sex with him. It's sad, but it's not assault-y.

A lot of women have sex when they don’t want to because they feel obligated or because their H pressured them or asks nonstop until they say yes. I was married to a man like that - I absolutely despised having sex with him, but if I didn’t “consent” he would nag me nonstop. It was easier to just go along with it but the entire time I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

Remarried now to a man I love having sex with, and we have a very healthy sex life. If he was just laying there, obviously not enjoying it, there’s no way I could bring myself to have sex with him. Like I can’t imagine at all how someone’s head gets so twisted that they will gladly have sex with a person who so very obviously does not want to have sex with them.

At that point it’s better to have a conversation about opening the marriage. I brought up an open marriage to my xH multiple times so he could get his needs met but he refused. I just can’t understand why people insist on having sex with people who don’t want to have sex with them.

I am very curious about your ex — did he try to communicate with you? Was he open to doing things that would give you more sexual pleasure? Did you explore why you were not able to have sexual pleasure with him? You did marry him after all?

Sex is an important part of marriage and while it is trendy today to say “just open your marriage” that’s not what the vast, vast majority of people want, and it’s not what most men want either. It’s not a solution to the problem and I would be absolutely opposed to it.

I also imagine that your ex probably didn’t consider the sexual interactions to be great either. Maybe he wanted to crawl out of his skin too at how little his wife was into him sexually?

We talked about it constantly. We had MANY issues beyond sex and he refused to address them. He approach it the same way you are - wanting to only talk about sex life problems - when it was like, no, Steve, I need to you stop constantly controlling every move I make and criticizing the way I load the dishwasher and help me out with the kids more and maybe take me on a date once in awhile.

Sex is important within the larger context. You can’t ignore every other aspect of a marriage and then force your partner to have sex because “it’s important for marriage”. That actually destroys marriages even more.

I am the person who asked the question — and fair enough points. It sounds like you did what you could do. I am really not blaming or attacking you — I was more intellectually curious.

There are plenty of women in your situation and my heart really does go out to you because as you said I would not want to be having sex in this situation.

But there are lots of men out there who DO share the load, do household chores, help take care of the kids, plan date nights, etc., and their wives still shut down over sex. If you haven’t guessed already, I have fallen into that camp. And, yes, sometimes when the wife is saying “yes” to sex but it doesn’t feel like she is truly present and so they do not have true intimacy during sex which makes the entire act feel empty — barely a step above masturbation.

Most of the psychology books and what not have said “try to communicate better” — “try to communicate more” — “talk it through” and that only seemed to make things worse because even when I tried in good-faith to talk about this issue, she would blow up.

That all being said — a recent shrink got us to the point where I am no longer talking about sex or even initiating at all. This leads to some short-term denial of my own pleasure but I am willing to do that if it makes it better over the long run. And I have found that she’s been initiating more. The sex itself is still kind of so-so, but we will see where this goes.

I am just posting this because sexual issues can be a two-way street in a marriage. There is an assumption from many people who read these boards that oh, the fault all lies with the guy, if he just did more of his share and asked her out on date nights, etc — that’s the issue. For some people, surely it is. But not everyone. And suggesting “opening up the marriage” is not really an option for the vast majority of people.

There’s also a lot of gross misogyny here and that’s not the solution either.

PP. What has your wife said? Does she know why she doesn’t want sex?

Unfortunately it’s not as simple as “do some chores and plan a date night”. My sex drive can tank for any number of reasons:

- even if H is helping with chores, I’m still carrying the mental load and feel exhausted
- work is stressful
- I haven’t worked out in a long time and feel fat and gross
- none of my nice clothes fit anymore so I don’t even want to go on dates
- I want a few hours of alone time to go out and do the things I did before kids that make me feel like ME
- men don’t flirt with me anymore so I don’t feel desirable
- I have anxiety about money

Etc etc etc.

I’m actually a very high drive woman. But when any of these start to go out of balance, my drive tanks. And I don’t always know WHY. Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out.

The big one is not feeling like I did in my 20s. I don’t know if men can relate to this, but there’s something about losing your identity and becoming nothing but a wife and mom that just kills not only your sex drive, but your desire for anything sensual and joyful. The days become dreary and gray. Often what I need to feel good again is a few weeks with extra time to go to the gym, new clothes that make me feel sexy, and some time away from the husband and kids to feel like a human being again.

I am the person who posted the original response — your list all rings true but let me add three more that are also present in my specific situation —

Perimenopausal hormonal changes that have negatively impacted her libido at least in the short term

A difficult and hard to treat chronic health condition that led us to an in-patient medical program (she has made tremendous progress in this area but still faces challenges)

COVID-related changes that are hard to pinpoint but seem related to both of the above issues — we were the typical “good soldiers” in the DC area that basically locked ourselves away for two years and it was during that time frame that these issues really started to develop (especially the second one — the first one is more hormonal and probably happens regardless of COVID but seemed to accelerate early). In hindsight, I don’t really know if cutting ourselves off from society for two years was healthy or even necessary. We certainly bought into it at the time though and looked down on people who didn’t. Maybe we were the fools? I think about this a lot.

But she also complains that she feels fat and her clothes don’t fit anymore and she is stressed out at work.

It is difficult as the male to figure out what to really say in these situations. I actually find my wife to be very physically attractive (no lie at all) and I tell her that frequently. I try to show her non-sexual physical affection through hugging, kissing, cuddling, etc. But I can’t really help it if you feel “fat” and don’t exercise and don’t want to change that. And saying that you feel “fat” is not really sexy anyway, so why are you saying this to me? I have also tried to go out of my way to give her a lot of time for personal hobbies and interests that don’t involve me. I also have my own interests too that don’t involve her and give her space. I can only do so much to help her deal with her work related stress — I am not her boss and I have my own work related stress too.

To your question about what she says and does she know why she feels this way — as I said in a previous response, for a long time this was a thermonuclear topic for her and if I made any attempt to try to communicate about it, the whole situation blew up. But of course the common advice that you get from marriage and sex books is to simply communicate more. Talk about it. Tell her what you want. Ask her what she wants. Try to do whatever that is, within reasonable bounds. The reality is much more complicated and nuanced and I think your response here shows that as well.

As to what we are doing now — as I alluded to in a previous post — we are working with an expensive and experienced therapist and after some painful sessions, we agreed that she would be the one who initiates, period. She openly said that she knows she has all the cards here and that isn’t “fair” to me, but that’s what she wants. So we are giving her that and I will just make some short-term sacrifices and adjustments. We will see what happens and if this improves her libido.

The point in me writing anything here about this is just to show that these are complicated issues for both men and women, even when the spouses love each other very much (as we both do). There are just a lot of assumptions baked into these posts and I don’t think they always jive with our more complicated realities as human beings. That being said, sex is an important part of marriage and trying to figure this out takes a lot of hard work sometimes, and is not necessarily anyone’s fault. It’s also not something you can predict when you are dating. We really did not have these issues prior to COVID and I had a past sexless relationship and we promised this wouldn’t happen to us — but here we are.

Yet seeing it happen again also made me realize that just giving up on this relationship wasn’t the answer and that there was no guarantee another relationship wouldn’t have the same issue. I love my wife very much and don’t want to lose her over this — even if I am frustrated at times with the current situation. As the first post kicking off this thread shows, there is a lot of discussion on these boards about this issue and I think people are too quick to pull the trigger sometimes and think that they will easily find sexual fulfillment with someone else. You might just have the same problem with someone else in the future.

These are extremely easy issues to deal with.

She feels fat - you take some initiative and buy healthy groceries and cook healthy dinners. Make it a fun bonding activity, you’re both getting healthier.

Watch the kids 3-4 times a week so she can workout. While she’s gone, clean the house. Most women stop working out because even if H watches the kids, mom comes home to a mess, the kids haven’t been fed, they’re running around like maniacs, etc.

Same with a social life. You take the initiative and schedule time with your friends. Invite them over or go out. Hire a sitter. If you’re hosting, plan and cook the menu. If DW goes out with her friends, same as above - don’t let her come home to kids that haven’t been fed and a trashed house.

If she complains about work, listen and reply “yea f*** that a**hole”. When I complain about work, what I don’t want is for H to zone out, give advice, or make it an attack on my character (“you always do that, last time I told you that you need to…”). We just want to know you’re on our team.

If she feels unattractive and opens up to you, for gods sake, stop making it about YOU and what YOU find sexy. She’s feeling real pain. Reality is in our society, a woman’s value is on her youth a beauty, and we all become painfully aware of that after we pass 30 and our bodies are wrecked from having kids. She doesn’t need her husband also telling her that her only real value is how sexy she is and how much she puts out.

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Anonymous wrote:The average man seriously underestimate how much it takes to give a woman a satisfying sexual experience. Most of the time they are just lying to you or being nice on order not to hurt your feeling when they told you that they came or the sex was amazing. Just thrusting back and forth won't cut it. You need foreplay l, resonance, oral, PIV in the right spot etc.

I would love to hear a group of women talking about their sexual experiences. Lol I think a lot of us would be very humble when we here what they really think of our sexual prowess.

I have asked my wife many times what would really make her “happy” and she never gives an answer other than a non answer. She doesn’t like oral and mostly doesn’t like being touched down there. Massage and rubbing are effective and thankfully so is PIV. I don’t complain because we have sex at least weekly which after 36 years is pretty good and she often initiates. She is very quiet so I rarely know if she has had an O.

TBH this sounds very…assault-y.

If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.

Fascinating how consent has now shifted from affirmative to now it has to be “hell yes” otherwise it’s rape.

Honestly you people are bizarre and you’ve hijacked an entire segment of public dialogue with your drivel.

DP. Your response is weird - do you have kids, particularly teens? You should advise them that both parties should be a totally enthusiastic “yes.”

DP. This is not a weird response. He said his wife doesn't outwardly appear to enjoy sex that much, he has repeated asked her what would make it better, no response. Weirdo poster's take: this feels assault-y.

What would make it not assault-y? She is still consenting to have sex with him. It's sad, but it's not assault-y.

A lot of women have sex when they don’t want to because they feel obligated or because their H pressured them or asks nonstop until they say yes. I was married to a man like that - I absolutely despised having sex with him, but if I didn’t “consent” he would nag me nonstop. It was easier to just go along with it but the entire time I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

Remarried now to a man I love having sex with, and we have a very healthy sex life. If he was just laying there, obviously not enjoying it, there’s no way I could bring myself to have sex with him. Like I can’t imagine at all how someone’s head gets so twisted that they will gladly have sex with a person who so very obviously does not want to have sex with them.

At that point it’s better to have a conversation about opening the marriage. I brought up an open marriage to my xH multiple times so he could get his needs met but he refused. I just can’t understand why people insist on having sex with people who don’t want to have sex with them.

I am very curious about your ex — did he try to communicate with you? Was he open to doing things that would give you more sexual pleasure? Did you explore why you were not able to have sexual pleasure with him? You did marry him after all?

Sex is an important part of marriage and while it is trendy today to say “just open your marriage” that’s not what the vast, vast majority of people want, and it’s not what most men want either. It’s not a solution to the problem and I would be absolutely opposed to it.

I also imagine that your ex probably didn’t consider the sexual interactions to be great either. Maybe he wanted to crawl out of his skin too at how little his wife was into him sexually?

We talked about it constantly. We had MANY issues beyond sex and he refused to address them. He approach it the same way you are - wanting to only talk about sex life problems - when it was like, no, Steve, I need to you stop constantly controlling every move I make and criticizing the way I load the dishwasher and help me out with the kids more and maybe take me on a date once in awhile.

Sex is important within the larger context. You can’t ignore every other aspect of a marriage and then force your partner to have sex because “it’s important for marriage”. That actually destroys marriages even more.

I am the person who asked the question — and fair enough points. It sounds like you did what you could do. I am really not blaming or attacking you — I was more intellectually curious.

There are plenty of women in your situation and my heart really does go out to you because as you said I would not want to be having sex in this situation.

But there are lots of men out there who DO share the load, do household chores, help take care of the kids, plan date nights, etc., and their wives still shut down over sex. If you haven’t guessed already, I have fallen into that camp. And, yes, sometimes when the wife is saying “yes” to sex but it doesn’t feel like she is truly present and so they do not have true intimacy during sex which makes the entire act feel empty — barely a step above masturbation.

Most of the psychology books and what not have said “try to communicate better” — “try to communicate more” — “talk it through” and that only seemed to make things worse because even when I tried in good-faith to talk about this issue, she would blow up.

That all being said — a recent shrink got us to the point where I am no longer talking about sex or even initiating at all. This leads to some short-term denial of my own pleasure but I am willing to do that if it makes it better over the long run. And I have found that she’s been initiating more. The sex itself is still kind of so-so, but we will see where this goes.

I am just posting this because sexual issues can be a two-way street in a marriage. There is an assumption from many people who read these boards that oh, the fault all lies with the guy, if he just did more of his share and asked her out on date nights, etc — that’s the issue. For some people, surely it is. But not everyone. And suggesting “opening up the marriage” is not really an option for the vast majority of people.

There’s also a lot of gross misogyny here and that’s not the solution either.

I posit that women don’t really want a man who is doing the chores.

I personally DGAF as long as DH does the bare minimum. But what I do care about is if he is making me feel desirable, if he takes me on dates, if he takes care of himself and remains fit and sexy, if he shows enthusiasm about me, and yes basically if he acts dominant sexually. That is what does it for me.

When a man becomes passive in his sexual relationship, it is a huge turnoff for me. And yes, I return that enthusiasm tenfold but sorry he’s got to set the tone. Basically I need him to be masculine.

You obviously don’t work much nor have kids to raise. That or you’re 24 or a divorced 55 and kids are off.

I am similar to above poster. I work in very high stress role and we have a kid. I have to be on all day making a million decisions with pretty serious ramifications. Coming home and doing laundry, cooking etc, the mundane, is very relaxing and then being able to completely submit to an attractive, fit dominant husband knowing he is going to take care of every "need" I may have is incredibly freeing.

sure joan

Don't understand your comment. Something bother you? Not asking anyone to agree with me, but there are people that feel this way, me being one of them. None of my friends know our dynamic and frankly most would be appalled or at the very least shocked. I don't judge their relationship or yours. People are allowed to have different views and desires.

you expect us to believe you work your high powered job, then enjoy coming home to do ALL the cooking, cleaning and childcare because your DH is good in bed? if so, you’re a troll.

if all you’re saying is that you enjoy your DH being dominant in bed, that’s garden variety.

Yes, because her DH is good in bed. It’s worth it. She’s having multiple orgasms for sure.
Given how many of you are complaining about being unsatisfied by your husbands in bed, you would do the same if you had a husband like that. If not, then keep complaining and crying. You only have yourself to blame.

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Dumbest thread ever. Same one person larking on her sex.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes we talk about it a lot because we barely get any from our DHs and when we do it's often poor quality.

Why have most women on DCUM married asexual men? Can anyone explain?

I think I can. When you decide to marry someone to be your partner for life and child rearing, its not just about sex. The decision is loaded with compromise. Its a balance of so many things - intellect, drive, attraction, love, sense of humor, will they make a good parent, etc.

When you’re dating less seriously it can just be about attraction, chemistry and sex if you want it to be. And let’s face it, some people just have natural talents and gifts. Much like athletes, musicians, linguists, MENSA level intelligent people - some people just realy understand sex. After you’ve dated a few of them who are just naturally dominant (or whatever you like), confident, know how to turn you on, are hugely endowed and what to do to you, its kinda like making your fat middle aged husband race Usain Bolt. Eventually, especially after the stress of kids, you just get bored with it.

In other words, women want their cake and eat it too. They intentionally marry men with money and high intellect but who are weak in bed. Then they complain about not getting good sex. If sex was that important to DCUM women, they should have married the high libido plumber or fitness trainer.