Low-sex marriages - why does this happen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband said I don't give him what he needs emotionally. It takes a lot to get him into bed. He baffles me.

Let me explain. This is what gay men say to women. I'm sorry.

To answer OP, people just have different appetites. I was always pretty high libido, wanting sex daily, even through two pregnancies. The third pregnancy, it was like hormones drastically and suddenly changed something in me, and my libido lowered and never really went back up to its original state. It was really odd. I miss my old self. But I work at keeping sexual. It's very easy to become nonsexual--between the demands of kids, work, household, and never making time for yourself or to think of yourself as a sexual being. Without a powerful drive, it takes more conscious effort to do things (like scheduled naked cuddling) that put you back in touch with that side of yourself.

He isn't gay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife is the low libido one. She'll often not feel like it when I try to initiate. She has ruled out morning sex pretty much permanently. She falls asleep on the couch at 9:30 many evenings. So, we routinely go 2-3 weeks without sex.

But, to make it worse, I have this passive aggressive side of me that - when we've gone a long time without sex - makes me want to extend the time we've gone without sex to, I don't know what - "show her," I guess. I don't want to have sex because I'm resentful about not having sex.

Then we'll have sex again, and it will be all good during that first week - when I'll try and usually fail to have sex again. The resentment resumes at weeks 2 and 3. Fucked up, I know.

This was me exactly for a while. My head goes all sorts of fucked up places if I haven't gotten laid in a week.

Can you speak up? Tell her what you want and need? I did recently and things have been much better for a few months now.

Where we are now is the result of me having spoken up awhile back. We were at once every one to two months for a few years there. I kept quiet because she was pregnant - and you give a pregnant woman some slack. It's a difficult time. I kept quiet because we were caring for an infant. Caring for an infant is a difficult time. I kept quiet during the second pregnancy and the second infancy because of the reasons stated above. Then, having two toddlers were also tough. I raised the issue lightly about this time. She suggested I do more chores to give her more "me" time. So, I did more for the family and hoped when the kids reached school age, things would get better. They didn't. She just replaced caring for the kids with helping out friends and whatnot. She didn't get any less busy. Sex just wasn't a priority. I let it go too long and raised the issue, but in an angrier fashion than was really helpful. To her, it was coming out of nowhere. To me, it was a daily, central preoccupation for the past 6 or 7 years.

Anyway, talking about it -- even in a calm fashion - makes her feel like an inadequate wife. She wants to want sex. She says she intends to have sex more frequently - she thinks once a week would be a good frequency (and I tend to agree, more or less). When we talk about it, we always go through an awkward period where she feels pressured and can't enjoy sex as much. One thing that actually did help was me getting a vasectomy and her getting off of hormonal birth control. When we do have sex, she seems much more into it. (Which helps make the 2-3 week frequency much more tolerable than the old 1-2 month. Nothing more soul crushing than having your once a month sex with a woman who isn't into it.)

Anyway, work in progress, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife is the low libido one. She'll often not feel like it when I try to initiate. She has ruled out morning sex pretty much permanently. She falls asleep on the couch at 9:30 many evenings. So, we routinely go 2-3 weeks without sex.

But, to make it worse, I have this passive aggressive side of me that - when we've gone a long time without sex - makes me want to extend the time we've gone without sex to, I don't know what - "show her," I guess. I don't want to have sex because I'm resentful about not having sex.

Then we'll have sex again, and it will be all good during that first week - when I'll try and usually fail to have sex again. The resentment resumes at weeks 2 and 3. Fucked up, I know.

This was me exactly for a while. My head goes all sorts of fucked up places if I haven't gotten laid in a week.

Can you speak up? Tell her what you want and need? I did recently and things have been much better for a few months now.

Where we are now is the result of me having spoken up awhile back. We were at once every one to two months for a few years there. I kept quiet because she was pregnant - and you give a pregnant woman some slack. It's a difficult time. I kept quiet because we were caring for an infant. Caring for an infant is a difficult time. I kept quiet during the second pregnancy and the second infancy because of the reasons stated above. Then, having two toddlers were also tough. I raised the issue lightly about this time. She suggested I do more chores to give her more "me" time. So, I did more for the family and hoped when the kids reached school age, things would get better. They didn't. She just replaced caring for the kids with helping out friends and whatnot. She didn't get any less busy. Sex just wasn't a priority. I let it go too long and raised the issue, but in an angrier fashion than was really helpful. To her, it was coming out of nowhere. To me, it was a daily, central preoccupation for the past 6 or 7 years.

Anyway, talking about it -- even in a calm fashion - makes her feel like an inadequate wife. She wants to want sex. She says she intends to have sex more frequently - she thinks once a week would be a good frequency (and I tend to agree, more or less). When we talk about it, we always go through an awkward period where she feels pressured and can't enjoy sex as much. One thing that actually did help was me getting a vasectomy and her getting off of hormonal birth control. When we do have sex, she seems much more into it. (Which helps make the 2-3 week frequency much more tolerable than the old 1-2 month. Nothing more soul crushing than having your once a month sex with a woman who isn't into it.)

Anyway, work in progress, I guess.

I could also write a few paragraphs on my sex life and frustrations. But sometimes I wonder if I'm over complicating things? Perhaps your wife just isn't that into sex? My husband makes a lot of excuses and tells me things I do wrong but deep down I think he simply isn't that sexual. He doesn't understand my need and never will. I feel lonely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I could also write a few paragraphs on my sex life and frustrations. But sometimes I wonder if I'm over complicating things? Perhaps your wife just isn't that into sex? My husband makes a lot of excuses and tells me things I do wrong but deep down I think he simply isn't that sexual. He doesn't understand my need and never will. I feel lonely.

Possibly. But I tend to think my wife has desire - it's just more responsive in nature. I need to figure out how make her respond.

Even with responsive desire, it's entirely likely that her appetite for sex is lower than mine, and you run into the question of what sorts of compromise are ideal/possible in these situations. Do you set the frequency at whatever the lower desire spouse happens to want? Seems unfair, but it's pretty tough to tell someone they should have sex when they don't want to. Sounds awfully rapey.

Like I said, work in progress. My wife is a wonderful person, and in most other respects our relationship is pretty great. So I'm not ending the marriage or cheating over this issue. That leaves me with a lot of time to work on improving our sex life as much as it can be improved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I could also write a few paragraphs on my sex life and frustrations. But sometimes I wonder if I'm over complicating things? Perhaps your wife just isn't that into sex? My husband makes a lot of excuses and tells me things I do wrong but deep down I think he simply isn't that sexual. He doesn't understand my need and never will. I feel lonely.

Possibly. But I tend to think my wife has desire - it's just more responsive in nature. I need to figure out how make her respond.

Even with responsive desire, it's entirely likely that her appetite for sex is lower than mine, and you run into the question of what sorts of compromise are ideal/possible in these situations. Do you set the frequency at whatever the lower desire spouse happens to want? Seems unfair, but it's pretty tough to tell someone they should have sex when they don't want to. Sounds awfully rapey.

Like I said, work in progress. My wife is a wonderful person, and in most other respects our relationship is pretty great. So I'm not ending the marriage or cheating over this issue. That leaves me with a lot of time to work on improving our sex life as much as it can be improved.

As a woman it is frustrating because my husband dictates when we have sex. I've learned I cannot come onto him or talk to him about wanting to have sex. That only leads to a major fight. My plan is to ignore our sex life going forward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife is the low libido one. She'll often not feel like it when I try to initiate. She has ruled out morning sex pretty much permanently. She falls asleep on the couch at 9:30 many evenings. So, we routinely go 2-3 weeks without sex.

But, to make it worse, I have this passive aggressive side of me that - when we've gone a long time without sex - makes me want to extend the time we've gone without sex to, I don't know what - "show her," I guess. I don't want to have sex because I'm resentful about not having sex.

Then we'll have sex again, and it will be all good during that first week - when I'll try and usually fail to have sex again. The resentment resumes at weeks 2 and 3. Fucked up, I know.

This was me exactly for a while. My head goes all sorts of fucked up places if I haven't gotten laid in a week.

Can you speak up? Tell her what you want and need? I did recently and things have been much better for a few months now.

Where we are now is the result of me having spoken up awhile back. We were at once every one to two months for a few years there. I kept quiet because she was pregnant - and you give a pregnant woman some slack. It's a difficult time. I kept quiet because we were caring for an infant. Caring for an infant is a difficult time. I kept quiet during the second pregnancy and the second infancy because of the reasons stated above. Then, having two toddlers were also tough. I raised the issue lightly about this time. She suggested I do more chores to give her more "me" time. So, I did more for the family and hoped when the kids reached school age, things would get better. They didn't. She just replaced caring for the kids with helping out friends and whatnot. She didn't get any less busy. Sex just wasn't a priority. I let it go too long and raised the issue, but in an angrier fashion than was really helpful. To her, it was coming out of nowhere. To me, it was a daily, central preoccupation for the past 6 or 7 years.

Anyway, talking about it -- even in a calm fashion - makes her feel like an inadequate wife. She wants to want sex. She says she intends to have sex more frequently - she thinks once a week would be a good frequency (and I tend to agree, more or less). When we talk about it, we always go through an awkward period where she feels pressured and can't enjoy sex as much. One thing that actually did help was me getting a vasectomy and her getting off of hormonal birth control. When we do have sex, she seems much more into it. (Which helps make the 2-3 week frequency much more tolerable than the old 1-2 month. Nothing more soul crushing than having your once a month sex with a woman who isn't into it.)

Anyway, work in progress, I guess.

PP again. We're married to very similar women it seems.

I plan to get snipped in a couple months and I'm very excited about it! Hormonal birth control is the devil. She wants to go back on it to make her periods easier, but she gets that the resulting low libido is not good for us. So we'll see.

Yes, a work in progress. I often wish it didn't have to be this way. I think monogamy is unnatural. Why do we have to talk ourselves into wanting someone? That period, years ago, when we were so hot for each other all the time, was awesome. It'd be nice to experience that again. At the same time, those occasional times when everything lines up just right and we're both really turned on and are actually able to have sex is more awesome.

[Anonymous]

Married four years and we have sex at most once a month. He has always had low drive/ED. I had to push him to get viagra. that made a difference. My sex drive was average for the most part but since having a baby its dropped. And the truth is that he isn't good in bed. We have never had a passionate dymanic. I have had a LOT more experience than DH so I know what I want etc. I have tried to talk to him about what I need etc. But he lacks confidence and experience. I think if I had someone on the side it would help with the marriage. I am not going to get a divorce over this because of kids.

[Anonymous]

I've always had a fairly low sex drive but can get in the mood when DH wants to. But he takes medications that lower his drive and has also put on a lot if weight over the years that I'm sure area problem for him. Add that he doesn't like to have sex at night (he's tired) and with two kids it's hard to find any other time! But we now both work at home on Wednesdays so we've agreed to a regular Wed a.m. sex break between conference calls. Getting back to once a week would be great.

[Anonymous]

I am too angry at my DH to want sex with him. I'd have to make myself vulnerable to do that, and experience has shown me that only results in heartache.

[Anonymous]

The newness of relationships makes desire spontaneous. But sex doesn't become less important when desire stops being spontaneous. And couples sometimes lack the knowledge that they should work at creating desire for themselves and lack the skill set to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Married four years and we have sex at most once a month. He has always had low drive/ED. I had to push him to get viagra. that made a difference. My sex drive was average for the most part but since having a baby its dropped. And the truth is that he isn't good in bed. We have never had a passionate dymanic. I have had a LOT more experience than DH so I know what I want etc. I have tried to talk to him about what I need etc. But he lacks confidence and experience. I think if I had someone on the side it would help with the marriage. I am not going to get a divorce over this because of kids.

Truthfully, this is a sad story. You may have to give him an ultimatum before he changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Married four years and we have sex at most once a month. He has always had low drive/ED. I had to push him to get viagra. that made a difference. My sex drive was average for the most part but since having a baby its dropped. And the truth is that he isn't good in bed. We have never had a passionate dymanic. I have had a LOT more experience than DH so I know what I want etc. I have tried to talk to him about what I need etc. But he lacks confidence and experience. I think if I had someone on the side it would help with the marriage. I am not going to get a divorce over this because of kids.

Truthfully, this is a sad story. You may have to give him an ultimatum before he changes.

Ultimatums don't work. The spouse may change for a bit but at the end of the day they have a low sex drive and will revert back to their old ways sooner rather than later. You can't change someone. Either cheat OE get used to living without a lot of sex.

[Anonymous]

As an unmarried man, this thread is depressing. I'm sorry but this marriage thing is bullsh!t

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an unmarried man, this thread is depressing. I'm sorry but this marriage thing is bullsh!t

You think reading about it is depressing? Try livin it. As a dw, the lack of sex is depressing. Agreed. Monogamy is kind of bs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:anti-depressants. We're both on them, and neither of us is really interested in sex that much. We're way happier, though.

Are you really sure that you are both happy?

Yes. We've both struggled with depression and anxiety since being teenagers. It's not a new condition. We've just come around from being anti-meds.