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Hi,
Like many others on here, this issue has come to sort of critical mass. My question for Low Drive Spouses is why are you willing to refuse sexual intimacy with your partner? I understand the reasons behind Low Drive: no time, hormones, kids, too tired etc, so not looking for the actual causal reasons for Low Drive, but more of why you are willing to hurt your partner around this issue when you know it is an issue. We have an overall good relationship from what I can tell outside of this issue, but I am having a very hard time understanding how my wife can know how painful this issue is not only to me but to our relationship, and not take any action around it. I guess what the most hurtful part of this situation is not as much the lack of sex, but that my wife knows that is really painful to me and won't make any effort. I get that she probably feels hurt around the issue as well but I cannot understand how one partner can share a pain with the other and they do anything they can to try to limit it. There have been things in our relationship that my wife said really hurt or she needed from me, and I worked to change these things because I care about her. I am trying hard but not understanding why she won't do the same for me. She says she wants to, and I think I believe her, but she doesn't take any action. I have shared with my wife that it isn't about actual sex, but connection to our marriage. I would be ok if I only pleasured her or if she gave me a HJ or BJ, or even had a remotely passionate make out session. These are things that would take a few minutes and would not require her to be fully "in the mood" but would show that she cares about me and values how I feel, but she won't do this. I am looking for honest feedback from Low Drive Spouses of in the scenario above, why you would be unwilling to have intimacy with your partner? If I could understand it I may be able to cope with it better, for right now the only thing I feel is that she just doesn't care enough about me. I am just looking to see if there are other things than that which could be in play. |
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"for right now the only thing I feel is that she just doesn't care enough about me"
You are correct. |
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Was she always like this or is it new? Low drive can be looked at same way as depression, there's often a chemical cause in addition to the circumstances (kids tired etc). Do you guys have any intimacy? I would talk about that first since you really do need that in a marriage. Sounds like you have not just low drive issues but intimacy and being close issues (given you saying no making out etc).
At my peak of low drive due to pregnancy I wanted nothing to do with intercourse but I still wanted to touch and kiss and cuddle with my husband to be close to him. That got us through that patch. Do you kiss and hug her with a clear understanding that nothing further is required? |
OP here-Thanks, is this from a low drive spouse or someone in my situation? If from a Low Drive person this has significant weight, if from another spouse in my situation I know for us this is what it feels like to us, just looking for thoughts from the Low Drive Spouse. |
OP-Thanks. This is not entirely new, she was never as sexual as I was, and I understood that and was ok with that and the level we had. It has completely stopped, we have had sex one time in 2 years (one BJ and two Hj's in this time period as well). We did have a child 9 months ago, and I understand the hormones and challenges of that, but again, I am not looking for full sex, just some type of contact that shows she cares that this is painful to me. I do try to kiss and cuddle with her without the goal of sex, but I always end up breaking eventually. What I mean is that I go for like 3 or 4 weeks of this kind of interaction but she doesn't make any changes in her behavior, so I end up getting frustrated. I get frustrated that I work to meet her where she is but won't do anything to meet me where I am. |
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Can you ask her to go to counseling? I know I need it.
I'm low drive now. Didn't used to be. It's a combination of too much to do, never enough sleep, and an emotional issue I have with my husband. He was doing drugs and drinking too much for the first couple of years of our marriage, and I didn't know about the drug use at all. He was extremely mean and called me a whore (I'm the furthest thing from it. He just hated that I had a sexual past at all). And at the same time, he wanted to start trying new things sexually. So I've always associated the request for being more free and uninhibited in bed with him with his mean behavior. He gave up drinking and drugging about 5 years ago. But I can't get past that horrible experience with the man who's supposed to be my life partner. We have sex 1-2 times a week, but I'm still very inhibited. I know it could be better. I say all this in case there are some emotional issues, or trust issues, or something similar in your marriage. That could be a killer. |
| For me it is emotional. I can't get passed mean thing DH said in the past. |
| Can't get past |
#firstworldproblems |
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Relations are downright painful, due to a medical condition I have recently developed. The meds for keeping this condition from snowballing into major surgery territory also kill my drive. So, yeah. Not fun at all. |
| Well, I am the low-drive spouse in my relationship and two years sounds excessive. That's not cool. I'm a 1x week girl myself. I'm not always dying to have sex with my DH but he's a good guy and it makes him happy. |
| I'm with you OP. What I don't get is this: how can LD spouse expect monogamy. A month or so of decline is one thing, but years of it after you dangled something different earlier in the relationship is BS. If you don't care enough about sex to work with me to improve our physical intimacy, then you shouldn't care if I get that taken care of elsewhere. LD folks only care about sex when its coming to you from somewhere else. DOUBLE STANDARD. |
Low Drive spouse. |
| OP - Don't reproduce with this woman again! |
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I wouldn't be surprised if most women do "duty sex".
What is there to really know? You're expecting someone to value something as much as yourself, making a compromise to please you. Do you give up your free time to do things you don't want to for her? It's the same thing. You can't force her to like or enjoy something more then she truly does. No more than she could force you to enjoy knitting for example. The only answer is a compromise like most issues in marriage. Are you the same OP that continually asks these low libido questions, only rephrased differently each time. Either way, it's getting tiresome. |