Reply to Support Group for middle aged husbands not having sex

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ok guys. Here’s our group. How are you handling this? What has worked; what hasn’t? How will we go on in this situation? Let’s discuss. [/quote]

Can anyone explain why a man created this support group for men, but it turned into 35 pages of responses written by women, attacking men? [/quote]

I (a woman) am discovering this thread for the first time, but I suspect it's because women wandered into this thread out of curiosity like me, and discovered many of the men in the thread misunderstanding why women have declining libido. It is frustrating for me to read some of these comments from men who seem to have misplaced anger because they view the loss of sex in their marriage as something their wives control and have taken away from them. But since loss of libido is often something a woman does not have control over, that anger is both unproductive (in fact counterproductive) and unfair.

I do think many of the comments from women in the thread are actually meant in good faith, to be helpful. Not to attack or criticize.[/quote]

I think hormones, aging, and familiarity are big drivers of a lack of sexual interest by wives for their husbands. I think men often don't understand this because women often aren't very direct in explaining that these are big drivers in lack of sexual interest. Maybe they don't know themselves. Maybe the idea that forces largely out of the couple's control are responsible for the situation is just too daunting or depressing, and it's reassuring to think that if only DH did x, y, and z that's within his control that maybe the sexual desire would return. [/quote]

PP here and I agree with you. I also think that sometimes there are separate issues in the marriage and they get intertwined when they are not actually related. The husband wants more sex while the woman experiences significant decline in libido. Also, the woman feels that the duties of childcare and housework disproportionately fall her on her. It is tempting for both parties to think, oh hey let's do a trade -- if he does more housework/childcare, she'll have more sex. But the truth is that if household duties are inequitably divided, that should be remedied regardless of the sex situation. And if sex has declined because one partner's interest in sex has declined, that is not something that can be fixed by a more equitable division of household duties. So linking those two issues will, in the long term, only result in more resentment because he's only stepping up to get more sex, and when he doesn't, he'll feel he was lied to tricked.

I do wish more people, men and women, understood that loss of libido is normal. If you are over 40 and especially if you also have kids, the expectation that sex drives will stay high is unrealistic for most people. Peri-menopause and menopause also do crazy things to your libido, mood, energy levels, etc. It's not something most women can take a pill and "fix" (for some women, taking a pill can help with some symptoms but menopause itself is inevitable and no one goes through it with no change at all).

I think part of the issue is that we conceive of a "healthy marriage" looking one specific way and we don't leave a lot of room for people to change, even to experience the normal an inevitable changes of age. A marriage between 52 year olds and marriage between 32 year olds will look different, to expect otherwise is simply ignorant.[/quote]

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