Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Men don't realize that no woman (unless something happened, cheating etc) just wakes up one day and is like "you know what, I don't feel like sex with my DH"
What happens is little by little more and more and more are added to the plate, to the relationship, to her life and she is expected and demanded to still be the sexual, active wife she was when she was 24, no kids, fewer job responsibilities, few bills, no piano lessons, or late night nursing. No carpool and conferences, no aging parents or siblings getting married. No long hours at work or a family that needed to be fed. No piles of laundry or a leak in the roof. No dog that needed to be walked or homework to be helped with. No birthday parties to plan or field trips to chaperone or papers to sign. With date nights and nights home alone to binge watch Bravo. With nights to do her nails, hair, wax. With money to spend on take out. With trips with friends and travels abroad. With a younger body and lighter spirit. With concert tickets and spa weekends.

Then you WONDER. Are just shocked that after you take away the time to herself, the date nights, the spa days, the less stressful work environment and add kids, aging parents, pets, household stuff, school stuff, work stuff that she is just NOT into sex multiple times a week. Hell, she likely isnt' into anything she was into at the same intensity she was when you first met or got married.

Have YOU changed? Do you still take her on dates or on romantic trips or do you use kids as the excuse? Do you still surprise her with flowers or candy or do you use work as an excuse?
Do you still rub her shoulders after a long day or do you know expect any touch you provide her should lead to sex for you?
Do you still smile at her across from the table during a meal or do you blame lack of time?
Do you kiss her passionately when you get home because you are happy to see her or do you say you need to decompress first?

Think about what role YOU play in all of this and realize that it took time to get to where you are in your relationship. No one fix will change anything overnight but it will overtime.

The fact that dudes experience a whole lot of this also and still want to have sex makes me think that hormones are the bigger part of the equation. That doesn't really help too many people because how many women want to inject a bunch of testosterone?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd trust this advice a lot more if we had more couples chiming in, saying, "Yup, our sex life was on life support, he took some stuff off my plate, and it perked right up."

Wife here who started out marriage/life with high libido. Slowly died down to 1x per week due to outside stressors, all already been said.
Therapy and a DH who stepped it up worked for us. I began to see him as a partner (and sexual partner) and not just another task or person demanding something from me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine is the most common of problems. I want to have better and more frequent sex and intimacy, she wants to be left alone. We used to schedule once a week, or so (worked out to 2-3x a month) but most of the time she clearly would have preferred to be left alone.

So after years of this dynamic, I have backed off. Going on 4 months, no sex. At first, it really, really sucked but now I really don't miss sex with her. Definitely less resentment, ironically. She has mentioned about scheduling it again, but I am skeptical this is anything but her feeling guilty about not doing something I used to push for.

Question - do women regain libido if they are left alone for a while? Meaning, can desire rebuild over time? Anyone successfully used a long sex break as a positive step?

I could have written this 20 years ago. “DW” suggested if I backed off a little maybe she’d be more inclined to have sex with me. So, I backed off. Our sex life went from infrequent to nonexistent. Like you, I found I didn’t muss sex with her, but that was only because I came to resent her, and us, intensely.
I ultimately left after almost 10 years of this and my youngest graduating from high school.
Looking back, perhaps if I handled things differently we could have saved our marriage. Who knows.

Anonymous wrote:PP who wrote about feeling like a priority. For me, it was things like him asking about my day instead of staying morosely glued to his iPhone the second he got home from work. Reaching for my hand while driving to a soccer match. Tagging along to the grocery store. Surprising me with a bouquet on our kid’s birthday because I had done a lot of hard work many years ago in delivering said child. Not rocket science but this is what worked for me.

Another poster wrote about a cycle of resentment. I should add that my DH and I never had a convo about resentment, desire, and stepping up more. What happened is that I stumbled into this forum and was terrified to see my marriage reflected in many of these posts. Because I love my DH and want to grow old with him I decided to let go of old resentments because they were getting in the way of my happiness. I decided to be the one to ‘give in’ for lack of a better phrase. (Yes that was somewhat of a hard pill to swallow but I value my marriage more than my pride). I never stopped wanting sex with my husband (no boredom issues here) so picking things back up in the bedroom was not hard once I broke that cycle of resentment. Shortly thereafter my husband did a complete 180 and is treating me essentially the way he did when we were dating. He is voluntarily doing more around the house and things are so mich better in every aspect.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd trust this advice a lot more if we had more couples chiming in, saying, "Yup, our sex life was on life support, he took some stuff off my plate, and it perked right up."

Wife here who started out marriage/life with high libido. Slowly died down to 1x per week due to outside stressors, all already been said.
Therapy and a DH who stepped it up worked for us. I began to see him as a partner (and sexual partner) and not just another task or person demanding something from me.

+1

Once my DH started helping out more and treating me as a priority our sex life picked up - we are back to 3/4 times a week. I don’t think men get how built up resentment kills desire (at least my DH didn’t). FWIW I work outside of the home and have two kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd trust this advice a lot more if we had more couples chiming in, saying, "Yup, our sex life was on life support, he took some stuff off my plate, and it perked right up."

Wife here who started out marriage/life with high libido. Slowly died down to 1x per week due to outside stressors, all already been said.
Therapy and a DH who stepped it up worked for us. I began to see him as a partner (and sexual partner) and not just another task or person demanding something from me.

+1

Once my DH started helping out more and treating me as a priority our sex life picked up - we are back to 3/4 times a week. I don’t think men get how built up resentment kills desire (at least my DH didn’t). FWIW I work outside of the home and have two kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd trust this advice a lot more if we had more couples chiming in, saying, "Yup, our sex life was on life support, he took some stuff off my plate, and it perked right up."

Wife here who started out marriage/life with high libido. Slowly died down to 1x per week due to outside stressors, all already been said.
Therapy and a DH who stepped it up worked for us. I began to see him as a partner (and sexual partner) and not just another task or person demanding something from me.

Anonymous wrote:I'd trust this advice a lot more if we had more couples chiming in, saying, "Yup, our sex life was on life support, he took some stuff off my plate, and it perked right up."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Men don't realize that no woman (unless something happened, cheating etc) just wakes up one day and is like "you know what, I don't feel like sex with my DH"
What happens is little by little more and more and more are added to the plate, to the relationship, to her life and she is expected and demanded to still be the sexual, active wife she was when she was 24, no kids, fewer job responsibilities, few bills, no piano lessons, or late night nursing. No carpool and conferences, no aging parents or siblings getting married. No long hours at work or a family that needed to be fed. No piles of laundry or a leak in the roof. No dog that needed to be walked or homework to be helped with. No birthday parties to plan or field trips to chaperone or papers to sign. With date nights and nights home alone to binge watch Bravo. With nights to do her nails, hair, wax. With money to spend on take out. With trips with friends and travels abroad. With a younger body and lighter spirit. With concert tickets and spa weekends.

Then you WONDER. Are just shocked that after you take away the time to herself, the date nights, the spa days, the less stressful work environment and add kids, aging parents, pets, household stuff, school stuff, work stuff that she is just NOT into sex multiple times a week. Hell, she likely isnt' into anything she was into at the same intensity she was when you first met or got married.

Have YOU changed? Do you still take her on dates or on romantic trips or do you use kids as the excuse? Do you still surprise her with flowers or candy or do you use work as an excuse?
Do you still rub her shoulders after a long day or do you know expect any touch you provide her should lead to sex for you?
Do you still smile at her across from the table during a meal or do you blame lack of time?
Do you kiss her passionately when you get home because you are happy to see her or do you say you need to decompress first?

Think about what role YOU play in all of this and realize that it took time to get to where you are in your relationship. No one fix will change anything overnight but it will overtime.

The fact that dudes experience a whole lot of this also and still want to have sex makes me think that hormones are the bigger part of the equation. That doesn't really help too many people because how many women want to inject a bunch of testosterone?

Anonymous wrote:Men don't realize that no woman (unless something happened, cheating etc) just wakes up one day and is like "you know what, I don't feel like sex with my DH"
What happens is little by little more and more and more are added to the plate, to the relationship, to her life and she is expected and demanded to still be the sexual, active wife she was when she was 24, no kids, fewer job responsibilities, few bills, no piano lessons, or late night nursing. No carpool and conferences, no aging parents or siblings getting married. No long hours at work or a family that needed to be fed. No piles of laundry or a leak in the roof. No dog that needed to be walked or homework to be helped with. No birthday parties to plan or field trips to chaperone or papers to sign. With date nights and nights home alone to binge watch Bravo. With nights to do her nails, hair, wax. With money to spend on take out. With trips with friends and travels abroad. With a younger body and lighter spirit. With concert tickets and spa weekends.

Then you WONDER. Are just shocked that after you take away the time to herself, the date nights, the spa days, the less stressful work environment and add kids, aging parents, pets, household stuff, school stuff, work stuff that she is just NOT into sex multiple times a week. Hell, she likely isnt' into anything she was into at the same intensity she was when you first met or got married.

Have YOU changed? Do you still take her on dates or on romantic trips or do you use kids as the excuse? Do you still surprise her with flowers or candy or do you use work as an excuse?
Do you still rub her shoulders after a long day or do you know expect any touch you provide her should lead to sex for you?
Do you still smile at her across from the table during a meal or do you blame lack of time?
Do you kiss her passionately when you get home because you are happy to see her or do you say you need to decompress first?

Think about what role YOU play in all of this and realize that it took time to get to where you are in your relationship. No one fix will change anything overnight but it will overtime.