wifes libido, what's happend to it?

[lightning02]

Well, where do I start? We?ve been married 15 years, have two beautiful primary school age kiddies and we always had what I would call a decent relationship and sex life.
Recently though things have taken a turn for the worse and have no idea of what to do to get things back on track.

We still have sex, even though it?s not as often as I would like, but it always seems hard work. I feel that she partakes to just get it out of the way.

Initiation is 99.9% from me. Kissing isn?t allowed (only if she?s drunk!!),no oral for me, infact she doesn?t like my face near hers, she doesn?t move much and when we?ve finished she seems really agitated! Morning sex is a thing of the past. ?She says it puts her in a mood for the rest of the day!!

I get turned down regulaly and told to accept it.

2 years ago, she did go through a really horny stage,(after both kids were born) whereby she wanted it at any given moment. I relished this and never ever said no. I?d love her to be like this again (even if it wasn?t as often). Just for the fact that I can feel wanted by her and not some dirty perv who always makes the first move!

The thing is is that I love her more than anything and I find her really attractive, but can?t help but feel that if this goes on for much longer, we?ll probably end up going our separate ways.

We have, as far as I am aware of, no underlying issues. We have sat down numerous times and discussed this, but it only ends in arguments, so I tend to just keep it to myself now and walk round a bit deflated. Our household chores are split evenly, infact I probably tend to do more.

I really don?t know what to do to get things back on track, that?s if they ever will. The talking method doesn?t seem to work. The silent method, does raise her attention that something isn?t right, but that obviously isn?t a good way to help this issue. We can?t go down that line for the rest of our lives!! It sounds awful, but the more I get pushed away and rejected the more distant I feel.

Should I just not focus on this, lay off the sex and hope eventually she regains her libido and want?s me again?

Any advice would be great!

[BertieBotts]

Hmm. I might have overreacted there. Did you mean the kind of sex where you're not really up for it/not really feeling it, but you're enjoying being close to your partner and making them happy etc, even if you're not getting anything much from it yourself? Because if so then I completely misread the sentiment.

If not though I stand by my post

[crystalglasses]

The op has gone into hiding. Who can blame him?

[confidence]

Bertie (and others) -

I'm certainly not going to deny the power of your experience as you relate it.

All I can say is that I've heard women say the opposite too - having quite frank and off-hand chats about "giving him" sex which was purely nothing more than that, and didn't appear to have any more horror to them than giving him sausage and mash for tea. I've also been in relationships where one of us has on occasion had sex despite not particularly wanting to, and it hasn't been a particularly traumatic event or caused any problem in the relationship.

You feel that sex to do with anything other than wanting sex feels wrong - fair enough. But you are one person and everyone's different, especially when it comes to sex. There are plenty of women who don't feel that way and can be much more matter of fact about it. So I'd take issue with any blanket statement that ANY act of sex that is not accompanied by desire on the part of both partners must be a problem, for everyone.

It's possible we're talking about different things. Where there is an underlying problem in the relationship, and one partner doesn't just "not feel like sex", they feel actively repulsed by the idea of being intimate with the other - then sex probably would be pretty awful, and definitely counterproductive to the relationship. But where that partner doesn't feel actively bitter towards the other person, and enjoys the relationship generally but just doesn't have the hormones circulating, then for some people it can be not a big deal at all.

I don't think we really concluded yet which of these applies to the OP's wife.

[confidence]

BB - crossed posts.

I think we understand each other.

[Whatmeworry]

hopefully he's gone to apologise to his wife.

SwallowedAFly I thought your original advice was very good, but I'm not sure the OP's wife is a saint in all this either.

[SpringchickenGoldBrass]

I do also agree that in long term relationships most people will sometimes have sex when they are not feeling all that horny, because they know that the other partner is feeling horny. However, once in a while, when you are otherwise happy with your partner, agreeing to have sex instead of reading your book/sorting out the washing for tomorrow/going on MN for a bit is not a bad thing, if your mood is 'Well, hadn't really been thinking about it but why not?' and you generally quite enjoy it.
But there is a big difference between that and feeling like 'Oh bloody hell, I've got to despunk him again or the atmosphere's going to be poisonous until I do.'

[confidence]

the idea that being penetrated unwillingly is just like agreeing to your wife's choice of wall colour is unbelievably.... ???? i couldn't even bring myself to go there when that came up.

nothing to do with psychoanalysis, everything to do with a grudging recognition than women are human beings not blow up dolls.

Firstly, "unwillingly" is a loaded term and not really what we were talking about. But at any rate, consider the following scenario:

Two people are married. Everything about the marriage except sex is fantastic. They get on really well, both love their kids and spend all their free time together as a family. Everyone pretty happy with how much work everyone else does. Lots of common interests. No particular gripes.

But one of those people has moved into a period of life when their libido has absolutely, positively, totally disappeared, and the other hasn't. They just... never... want... sex. They try counselling, but it doesn't help because there aren't any major problems anyway. They go to the GP and check out everything physical. Nothing.

According to you, there are presumeably only two possible ways of dealing with this situation:

1. The couple split up, putting themselves and their children through the trauma of divorce despite the fact that they are a happy, tight-knit family.
   

1. The partner who still has a libido accepts that they will never have sex again and live the rest of their life in frustration.
   

Right?

[Whatmeworry]

^...there are presumeably only two possible ways of dealing with this situation:

1. The couple split up, putting themselves and their children through the trauma of divorce despite the fact that they are a happy, tight-knit family.
   

1. The partner who still has a libido accepts that they will never have sex again and live the rest of their life in frustration.^
   

For the other options you have to go to the Relationships section it seems....

[confidence]

Maybe, OK.

I'm not completely sure we know yet how to interpret the things like not liking kissing during sex. You might be right, I dunno - we probably need the OP to come back with more information.

I was really just taking issue with the idea that sex without desire must be wrong by definition. It isn't always, and is sometimes a necessary part of compromise within a relationship.

[SpringchickenGoldBrass]

There is of course a third option, which is the couple have a proper discussion and agree that the partner with the functioning libido has permission to seek sex elsewhere under certain conditions (eg no mutual friends, never in the family home etc).

[mathanxiety]

I think you have misstated the options, Confidence, and also you are making assumptions about the 'fantastic marriage' aspect of things.

The OP hasn't answered any mentions of the wife having time to herself or any specifics about the amount of partnership there is wrt the children, the housework, the general schlepping, just said he mucks in on some things.

OTOH, there has been reference to silent treatment and heated discussions.

No idea whether any form of contraception is being used, but she is not on the pill. Maybe she worries about getting pg again? Maybe she is the kind of woman who finds kissing during sex very distracting? Maybe the OP isn't that great in bed? -- No reference to whether the wife ever found sex satisfying. I wonder too why the OP says his wife is a 'sensitive soul'?

[confidence]

For the other options you have to go to the Relationships section it seems....

The other options don't relate to my scenario because they are all based on the assumptions that (a) there is an underlying problem elsewhere in the relationship, and (b) if that problem is resolved, libido will return.

These are the assumptions underlying all the advice on this thread. Don't get me wrong: they MAY be right in this case, and certainly should be investigated. But the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about is the fact that sometimes there is no libido because there simply isn't. My scenario was explicitly about what happens if this is the case. I wouldn't agree in that case with insisting there must never be any sex because one party has lost their desire, I'd advocate a compromise somewhere between the two levels of desire.

[confidence]

There is of course a third option, which is the couple have a proper discussion and agree that the partner with the functioning libido has permission to seek sex elsewhere under certain conditions (eg no mutual friends, never in the family home etc).

Yeah, that's true.

Something tells me that option wouldn't be particularly popular here either though. :)

[SpringchickenGoldBrass]

Confidence: but if someone has totally lost all libido, isn't it a bit unfair to expect that person to submit to being had sex on?
I am aware that some people have very little interest in sex, but it is usually the case that such people have always felt this way; sadly if they have been in a long term relationship by the time they realise that they genuinely have no libido, the relationship will have become pretty poisoned. However, if someone previously had an active libido and now has none or next to none, there's always a reason, whether physical or psychological, and it's important to work out what that reason is.

[confidence]

SGB -

I'm not sure that's true. I'm not a doctor, or even a woman, but it seems to me that women do sometimes have active libidos when young which completely or almost completely disappear later - most often after having kids.

As for "fairness" - you're right, it doesn't seem fair to expect someone to have sex when they don't want it. But by the same token, it also doesn't seem fair to expect someone to endure a completely sexless relationship when they DO want it. So what's fair?

In most areas of life, people naturally equate fairness with compromise. I want to live in the middle of nowhere; she wants to live in the middle of the city; so we live in a semi-rural area with reasonable solitude but good city links. That kind of thing.

So isn't the "fair" compromise between someone who wants sex every night and someone who doesn't want it at all, to do it once a week or once a month or whatever? Why should this specific area entail accepting the way of one partner completely, and completely disregarding the needs of the other, as if that's "fair"?

[SpringchickenGoldBrass]

Confidence: If you're neither a doctor nor a woman then you're probably Not Right about how women's libido magically disappears for no reason. Women with very young children may suffer a temporary loss of libido due to exhaustion and the physical consequences of childbirth. Other reasons include physical ones (such as a different brand of pill or other hormonal changes) and psychological ones (being angry with the partner about something - usually the partner's lazy selfish behaviour round the house; sometimes it can be something really nasty like a triggering of traumatic memories or indeed an assault that the woman doesn't want to tell anyone about).

ANd sometimes compromise is possible, but what often happens is the sex becomes more and more grudging on the woman's part because it becomes about despunking the man as quickly as possible, so not much fun for her, and you get into this self-perpetuating cycle of crappy sex that just has to be endured. What I think does happen a lot in this sort of situation is the man is actually rubbish at sex, and the woman previously put up with it due to being madly in love in the early days of the relationship, but it's worn a bit thin.

[Eurostar]

and Confidence, if your wife is not physically turned on at all by sex it will hurt, would you want to be hurting your wife on a regular basis?

[Orbinator]

Have to say the no kissing thing for me is definitely a sign that she isn't keen on the intimacy. Last time I slept with my ex he tried to kiss me half way through and I suddenly felt quite intimidated (and I was on top!). I realised reading this thread that I stopped kissing exP before that when the relationship soured as well and he used to complain about it a lot.

Something is going on in her head and you need to get to the bottom of it and see what you can salvage. 15 years is no mean stretch feat and you must have many happy memories together that are worth fighting for. Hopefully it isn't too late to turn around whatever is putting her off :)

[mathanxiety]

...isn't the "fair" compromise between someone who wants sex every night and someone who doesn't want it at all, to do it once a week or once a month or whatever? Why should this specific area entail accepting the way of one partner completely, and completely disregarding the needs of the other, as if that's "fair"?...

No there is no such thing as a fair compromise because it involves doing something with/to the body of the other party that that party does not want to have done to them. And no because the other person should be more than just an orifice to the H in this case. As SBG says, performing the duty in a case like that actually runs the risk of killing the relationship. And no matter how much you want to pooh pooh the idea that relationship factors may be involved in the demise of the libido, this problem is happening in the context of a relationship. But the OP's focus through all of the posts is sex, with little attention paid to questions about the wife's quality of life, the quality of the relationship, or even any speculation about what might have happened.

[Whatmeworry]

I don't think that a compromise that has the OP having no sex for an undefined ( and possibly long) time is sustainable, regardless of where one thinks the wrongs and rights are or what is fair.

I think the advice to give his DW some time and space for a while is good advice, but if that doesn't work and she won't go to counselling/talk about it/ try to help get it sorted, then I think life is too short to stay celibate.

[bradbourne]

I have found this thread very interesting especially as I am in a similar position, it would seem, to the OP's wife.

Although I have no libido at the moment, I remember what it was like to have a "normal" sex drive. I can also say emphatically that there is a world of difference between having sex when not quite "in the mood" but when the underlying sex drive is "normal", and having duty sex when there is no desire whatsoever. For example, with the "not in the mood" sex, quite often, once it actually got started, I would get into the mood. At the moment, I am never "in the mood" or aroused and sex has become another weekly chore to be got through. Worse than that, it is one of my most dreaded weekly chores. The only positive I get out of it is the sense of relief that I'll be left alone for a few nights once it's over.

[larrygrylls]

Or, she is fucking someone else, and feels so guilty about it she is unable to even kiss her husband.

Why so little sympathy with a guy who wants to preserve his relationship and is happy to try what takes, including no sex, counselling etc and so much for a woman who has no interest in any intimacy with her husband and is not even willing to discuss the relationship?