OP, I'm a wife with a husband that has a high sex drive. Well at least compared to what I can keep up with. We have sex about 3-4 times a week, but he thinks it's not enough if it's not every night.

We have two young kids and especially after our second was born, he was really in a bad place with the lack of sex (we never got down to less than once a week, but his standards are his standards regardless). Especially while I was breast feeding, but for the first two years or so after the second child was born, I was just utterly exhausted. So so tired. Not feeling like myself, touched out, feeling fat and out of shape (never have been more than a size six, but your body changes so much), etc. Typical story. And his anger with me about not meeting his needs was such a turn off. It felt like I was giving giving giving and all anyone in my life was doing was demanding more from me and it was never enough.

He would tell me I should just take more time for myself, but then if I did, he would complain about being with the kids or make sure I knew what a bad night he'd had when I got home or just be really short with them. I did everything for the kids and the house and our lives even though I worked full time too. He would act like there was something wrong with me for not being interested, when in reality he was just so needy about it and totally not understanding of my needs and my feelings, and it was so not sexy. It became just one more thing to check off my list of a bazillion things to do. He didn't seem to get that having children was going to mean that his needs were going to need to take a step down for at least a little while. My needs were basically completely disregarded by him, but he whined about his own needs constantly.

Anyway, about a year into the second child's life, he was in a really bad place with the perceived lack of sex and he did have an affair with someone at work. It was utterly devastating. I have never been so surprised and hurt in my entire life. It is something I will never get over and on will always remember the pain of that first week after he told me like it was yesterday. Utterly crippling for a year, and then lingering pain for two years following.

It's been four years now, and we did stay together, but I will never forgive him or respect him in the way I would if he had owned that a lot of our unhappiness was something that was his fault too and really worked to meet me part way to resolve our issue rather than just being selfish and taking matters outside of the agreement we had in our marriage.

Now all that said, I'm not sure what it would have taken for me to realy get how unhappy he was. I'd like to think that if he had really stepped up and truly acted like he cared about me rather than just demanding that I be an outlet for his sexual needs, that that would have helped. If he had said "this is so serious to me that I am contemplating divorce and here is the name and date of the counselor I have found and scheduled for us to talk this through," it would have made a the difference. As it was, we chatted about counseling a couple times and it always fell on me to get it scheduled. For someone feeling way overwhelmed anyway, adding something to my list of things to take responsibility for was just another nail in the coffin. Need something done? It's much sexier to take action on your own to make it happen than to whine and expect your wife to come up with solutions to your problem.

So from someone who's been there - don't cheat on your wife. Be totally honest with her about how bad it's gotten for you, book a counselor (seriously) to show her how important she is to you, and do some serious soul searching about how you contribute to her lack of sex drive. Do some reading about what turns women on and think about your wife and what has turned her on in the past. Have some conversations about. Ask her. That would be a good date night over wine conversation - loosen her up and show sincere interest in what is sexy to her.

And for Christ sake, get her off the pill. If anything kills libido, that's it. Don't cheat on a woman and complain that she is asexual without taking that incredibly obvious step.

Anonymous wrote:So I read all 10 pages and was mentally preparing some advice (based on real world experience).
But then on this last page, I read your latest post OP.
I can see now exactly what the problem is: you don't have the balls to actually initiate sex.
She told you she's a willing partner.
You just need to initiate.
Do you know how to do that? Initiate sex?

Or maybe the problem is you lack the skills to initiate sex.
Are you too whiny (can we pleeeease have sex honey darling it's been 3 weeks and I can't go much longer)
or too subtle (I brushed lightly against her leg but she didn't immediately strip naked and hump me).
Do you actually know how to initiate sex in a masculine way?

Wow I almost unloaded a real post about dealing with sexless marriage.
But all we have hear is a guy who is either too afraid, or too clueless,
to initiate sex with his receptive (though very distracted, and sexually selfish) wife.

How could you have possibly come to this conclusion ?

So I read all 10 pages and was mentally preparing some advice (based on real world experience).
But then on this last page, I read your latest post OP.
I can see now exactly what the problem is: you don't have the balls to actually initiate sex.
She told you she's a willing partner.
You just need to initiate.
Do you know how to do that? Initiate sex?

Or maybe the problem is you lack the skills to initiate sex.
Are you too whiny (can we pleeeease have sex honey darling it's been 3 weeks and I can't go much longer)
or too subtle (I brushed lightly against her leg but she didn't immediately strip naked and hump me).
Do you actually know how to initiate sex in a masculine way?

Wow I almost unloaded a real post about dealing with sexless marriage.
But all we have hear is a guy who is either too afraid, or too clueless,
to initiate sex with his receptive (though very distracted, and sexually selfish) wife.

Anonymous wrote:If I have to tell my wife I'm going to divorce her before she'll make the effort to have sex with me, I don't want to have sex with her. That's just rapey.

To the OP - probably you've thought of this, but take a close look at birth control if she's on any. Hormones can really screw with a woman without her realizing that's what is snuffing her sex drive.

+1000. Please look closely at this. I was on the pill for all of my 30s and my sex drive tanked. I complained to my health care provider about my low libido and she never suggested that the pill might be a problem. Went off the pill for other reasons and I'm having fabulous sex at 45. If your wife is on any kind of daily b/c, try stopping for awhile and see what happens.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, per comment above, we had the talk last night instead of during date night. Date night tonight. We will see if things improve. Very interesting perspective from DW. Thanks for suggestions.

What did you say and how did she react?

Said that I loved her, loved having sex with her. Lack of sex really taking a toll on our marriage. Has been this way for a while, thought it was going to improve as kids got older but hasn't and has gotten less frequent. Said I would like to solve this before our marriage unravels.

DW was very surprised although I surprised she could possibly be surprised (what grown woman doesn't understand how important sex is to men?). Said she rates our marriage a 10 out of 10. Knows this has been an issue, it's not me, it's the situation, i.e. can't think about sex after day with kids, etc. Said she hopes with kids going back to school there will be time to get to gym, feel sexy, more "her" time. She is a SAHM.

Talked about solutions. She said I just need to tell her when I need sex, she will do whatever I need even if she is not in the mood. I said it's really difficult to initiate when it is clear it would be "bothering" her. She said she would much rather be bothered than to lose her marriage.

Talked about open marriage (she brought it up, asked if that was what I was looking for). She is really against it. We had friends that did it, ended up divorced a year later (they have kids). Surprisingly, she said that if I cheated, she really doesn't want to know, but she doesn't want me to have an affair. Said that the difference is if something happened on the road while on business that she better not find out, but if I was having an affair in town, she would want to know since that is more emotional and premeditated.

Had sex Friday and Saturday. Amazing how just having sex can soothe differences. I am going to more assertive in pushing for sex, take her up on her suggestion to use her if I need it because she would rather that than an affair or divorce. I want to get snipped, get her of BC, but for reasons she can't really say, she said she doesn't want me to get fixed yet even though we are both late 30s and to old for more kids.

Thanks for feedback. I think there is a lot to be said for bouncing ideas of anonymous forums.

It is amazing how many issues in marriage fade away when people start having sex again. If couples could find away to just fuck away the disagreements the divorce rate would plummet.

We have sex about 4x a week. The other days i give him oral. He thinks there is something wrong with me because I don't have an orgasm. There is something wrong- foreplay would be nice.

Anonymous wrote:I am DW . My husband went for the emotional affair after our discussion . I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU! Good luck!

After your discussion in which you rebuffed his advance?