Any light

[Andpppy]

So I think it’s okay for men to post on here. Shoot me down if it’s not.

Im 56 and my wife is 51. We are middle class middle of the road old school - or what counts for that in 2025.

We met about 25 years ago and having had previous relationships, settled down, 2 children.

While I instigated it always, I hope I think our sex life was good and then declined a bit after we had the kids - inevitable as both tired and certainly as the kids have grown up they can appear at any time - my 17 year old daughter uses our en-suite exclusively as she “prefers our shower”. I had been pondering putting a lock on our bedroom door.

The declining sex life then fell off a cliff a couple of years ago along with any intimacy whatsoever and while the reasons why have not been really been discussed at any length I am aware on some level of the challenges pre menopause and menopause bring.

While I appreciate this is presenting myself as “poor me” this obviously has a bearing on self esteem, health and quality of life. I mentioned intimacy the other day and was advised I may have Tourette’s.

I’m in what I’d describe as a platonic relationship. The sort that at any other time of my life I’d run a mile from. I don’t want another partner - but is this it now? Are we done as an intimate active couple? I can’t see a way of bringing this back now. Has anyone successfully done so.

Sorry I’m not sure there is a men’s forum for this and I may get a better quality of answer from contributors on here in any event. Go high.

It's fine for men to post here.

Sorry to hear of the issues but the obvious question is- have you had a conversation with your wife about it? Are you aware of how far your wife is towards being post menopause- have her periods stopped, is she on the Pill, do you use contraception?

(The middle class bit isn't relevant but your daughter using your en suite at any time of day/night is a passion killer obviously.)

while the reasons why have not been really been discussed at any length I am aware on some level of the challenges pre menopause and menopause bring.

TBH menopause doesn't necessarily affect all women's sex lives. Some women become more sexual as their ovaries have one final 'Hoorah!' I know of friends who are still actively sexually in their 70s and older. So it's not a given that sex dies after 50 for women.

It's complicated- some women find that the general tiredness and lack of sleep (because of night sweats etc) mean they just feel too tired for sex. Others find the loss of estrogen causes painful sex.
Both of these are fixable with systemic and localised estrogen (the latter can be bought over the counter from age 50.)
Your wife might like to see her GP and talk about it so that would be the first step - but not with the proviso it's so you get sex- but that she feels better in herself.

I think the reason that men sometimes get a bit of stick on this forum is they come over as demanding sex. I don't see you doing that.
What you should do is talk to your wife and ask her how she feels.

Apart from the physical symptoms that can occur, some marriages do hit the buffers after 25 years. women can be less tolerant of all kinds of behaviour from their partners (like them not helping enough around the home) which in turn makes them feel less like intimacy.

You need to ask yourself if you're being a 'good husband' before you can be a 'good lover' to her.

I think you should try to talk to your wife about this, explain you miss the physical side and the feeling of closeness. Maybe just try to reset things by hand holding or a hug during the day making it clear you don’t expect sex and it’s just showing affection without expectation or pressure.

My DH and I are 58 and have sex twice a week. However between age 50-55 there was very little sex. We would go 2 or 3 months without sex. I had long heavy periods and felt dreadful. It had nothing to do with my DH I was just worn out and did not feel sexy at all. My DH did say at one point will we ever have sex again! He basically just stuck with me and we came out the other side. I feel much better now post menopause and he has said he is perfectly happy with our sex life and marriage generally as am I.

I’ve read that some older women just decide unilaterally they don’t want or need sex anymore. Personally I think sex is an important part of marriage. Do you know if your wife misses sex too but just has no libido at the moment?

These are all questions you should be asking your wife. Not sure what your class has to do with it.

It’s very difficult to talk about. I mentioned we are old school. Stoic. Stiff upper lip. To the extent my wife has talked about it I think she finds it a little distressing. To be fair before I understood it a little better I probably didn’t want to hear which hasn’t helped.

We haven’t used contraception, other than knowing each other, for 20 years. My wife was initially on the pill but we learnt to do without. We’ve been lucky that conceiving wasn’t a problem and not conceiving wasn’t a problem. My wife doesn’t take drugs beyond government promoted vaccines and the odd nurofen - but only one - whereas I’ll do nurofen and paracetamol and any other over the counter medicines to mend myself as a job lot. She won’t do HRT and I’d be uncomfortable in her doing so if it was for me.

The stupid thing is I get pleasure out of her getting pleasure or at least us both getting something out of it. We used to sit and talk after. Not about what had just gone on but just hold one another and talk.

The dog isn’t helping. We’d never had a dog so before the kids left home we got a pup which is now 12 months old. The pup gets a lot of love from my wife.

Your update is a bit odd.

You say you're 'old school'. You were born in the 1970s. Height of the sexual revolution - in fact beyond the swinging 60s.

I'm much older than you and 56 is not 'old school'. I'm almost old enough to be your Mum and yet HRT, sex etc is freely discussed with my generation. So the age thing is an excuse- it's really about your relationship with each other.

If you've not used contraception since your wife was 31, and you've not had an unplanned pregnancy that's unusual.

So you've had a conversation about HRT? Or you assume that?
HRT is not for women to get their sex life back- it's for symptoms like flushes, insomnia, etc etc. HRT is not 'medication' in one sense in so much as it's replacing our own natural hormones with exactly the same ones- it's not the old sort that was used 30 years ago.

I think you need to talk to your wife. It sounds as if she has a very closed mindset but maybe some of what you say is your assumptions.

If she won't budge, get medical help if she needs it, and starts talking to you freely (and you with her) you may have to decide if you can stay in a sexless marriage.

I have some sympathy for you, and understand where you are coming from. I consider myself old school too! Only had sex with DH and that was on our honeymoon, never used contraception and not on hrt. Have never talked about sex with anyone other than DH in real life. The menopause can be a strain on a marriage.

I was born in 68 and my wife in 74. Obviously sex wasn’t something either of us would have understood until the mid 80s to early 90s at which point the principal concern everyone had was aids.

Both my wife and I come from families in rural England where sex was never discussed.

There is nothing to be gained by separating. We don’t argue.

I’m just trying to understand what the future looks like. The kids will be away soon and I probably need to change the dynamic so we lead different lives. There is no need to divorce, there is no need not to get on. But I can see a strong case for my wife and I both expanding our social engagement beyond each other and leading lives a little more detached. If anything it’s probably more healthy as one of us is going to die first and the survivor wouldn’t want their life to shrivel up at that point anyway.

When a woman comes here with a problem like yours she's often advised to find a discreet FWB / lover. Would that be an option for you?

I don't see what the AIDs situation in the 1980s has to do with your sex life now.

Coming from rural England and not discussing sex way back then at home or whatever is not the point. It has no bearing on your life now as a man in your 50s unless it's left you very shy of talking about sex.

You have a communication problem, not a sex problem. You don't argue but you don't communicate either. It comes across as if you have a problem talking about sex but you can't 'blame' your life in the 1980s for that.

If you're happy to live without sex for the next 30 years, fine, but if you're not you need to being the topic up, tell her how unhappy it makes you and see what she says.