lovely, lovely DH. Just not attracted physically. Argh.

[lackofplaisirdamour]

NC'd. We love each other a lot. He is absolutely great, thoughtful, kind, hardworking, very bright, very insightful. I love him, he loves me. We've been together for 9 years, discussed lots of stuff in the past few years, got married nearly a year ago. We have plans for the future, including kids. We talk every day.

It's fairly obvious that the elephant in the room is that neither of us actually enjoys sex with the other, at all, and never really has. And we each feel very guilty about that, and can't really discuss it functionally.

Before DH, I had 2 boyfriends who were emotionally unavailable immature arses. But my god I found them attractive, and the sex was very good, even if emotionally it was all awful. From the first time with DH, it hasn't been any good.

With DH, I thought that he was so lovely that we could work on things and it'd all get better. I don't know if that's what he thought about me. He also had 2 previous relationships that may possibly have been more based on sex than emotional connection.

We made an effort for the first few months. We quickly got into a pattern of sex at most every few weeks. I went on antidepressants, libido disappeared entirely for a few years. Sex never really recovered. Recently I've been away, posted overseas for 18 months and we've only been together for a few weeks, three times in the time I've been away. We managed to consummate our marriage successfully, but that's it for the last 2 years.

I'm off back home to DH at the end of this week.

Any suggestions on how to fix this?

I'm sorry but I just can't imagine a situation whereby a husband and wife don't like having sex with each other, so use artificial insemination as a means to get pregnant, and are still not able to talk about the main issue. If you can't address the fact you don't like having sex then how are you going to approach AI?

If you want to be in a sexless marriage and as others have said you are both crystal clear and HAPPY about that then that's one thing, but both skirting round the issue, not talking about it, is, in my opinion, a recipe for disaster.

Do you think he masturbates? I can't quite understand how happy he is with this situation?

I was wondering the same as lumpyspaceprincess.

How about:

some email dialogue between you about this if you can't face properly discussing it face to face

could you spuce each other up a bit - why don't you fancy each other?

would a trip to the GP help either of you?

if either of you had sex with someone else, would that make that person more attractive?

Excellent point by Chriss, how would you feel if he had sex with someone else?

Sounds like you feel guilty for not wanting sex because surely that's not "normal"? If neither of you want it, then that is your normal. Why feel you have to be at it like rabbits, or that XY & Z are what they do next door therefore why the hell aren't you? The problem you both have is that you are questioning how you feel, therefore maybe you are not as emotionally close as you want to be. Also why would you be worried about either straying if it wasn't for sex when you say you both love each other very much?

Could it be that you are sexually turned on by emotionally unavailable men? This is quite a common problem as the thrill of the chase never ends. Your husband seems to be emotionally available and hence not so interesting sexually. If so, then the answers to your problem will probably be in your earlier years and may require counselling. As to the problems of your husband?

Heavens - thankyou all for the replies. Sorry, I was at work, not thinking about this. OK - replying to everyone with a few general points.

(1) We are both potentially happy with the idea of a sexless marriage. So none of this might matter. Points taken about quality not quantity, etc - but if both partners are essentially asexual, actually, lack of sex may really not be a problem. Having thought about this during the time this post has been up on MN I'm leaning towards thinking actually this isn't really a problem. So Cogito - sounds like sex maybe isn't as important for us as it is for you. People are different.

(2) We still need to discuss this and get what we each think out in the open. This is essential. We find it very difficult to discuss usefully, and anything we've ever discussed hasn't been put into practice. There's this huge barrier where neither of us wants to talk during the act - I just want the sense of intrusion to be over, and DH seems to be acting in order to get through it. We both seem to hate the extreme level of biological intimacy. This is a huge contrast to talking and wanting to know the inner recesses of each other's minds.

(3) We both work a lot and exercise a lot, and would be asleep in seconds when we lie down. We each wake up to an alarm (desperately wanting more sleep), then run round all day. So there's kind of no time in our days at the moment when we're not busy, knackered or asleep. Obviously, one has to make the time...

(4) I don't completely know how DH feels about this. I think he can masturbate, but doesn't often. See point above about being busy, knackered or asleep. However, he has always had a very low sex drive, and in some sense, has always found it "odd" and "weird". He said this when we first knew each other, and we have discussed it so rarely that I have never really understood what "odd" or "weird" means. Further discussion may reveal asexuality, or that he's gay. i don't know.

(5) I was on antidepressants 2007-2009, not since. It was venlafaxine, which is known for destroying libido, in some cases long-term. It seems to have almost destroyed mine to a point that sexual feelings are almost totally not there. I don't remotely miss sex, and indeed given all the emotional baggage that surrounded the good sex I previously had with two fairly horrible people, some of not missing it may be me trying to distance myself from who I was then (someone who could only find self-worth in throwing myself at two selfish philandering twats in succession, and in performing whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted - and otherwise acutally being pretty invisible to them).

(6) Emotional unavailability was a feature of my two previous boyfriends, but I have changed a lot, and looking back at them I now recognise them as both belonging to a particular "type" that I now look at and think extremely shallow and self-centred. So I don't think the available/unavailable axis is necessarily one to pursue. I've already had extensive counselling and know all about the family dynamics that led me to chase unavailable men to find my self-worth... (unavailable father; needy mother whose self-worth was all tied up in praise from her father for being a "good girl" who was pretty and never expressed any opinions and had lots of young men wanting to take her out...)

(7) DeadCert - i realise from what I said above, and another person's post, that it could look like i'm considering AI in order to have kids. I'm not at all. Adoption, or getting pregnant through drastically changing our sex life, was what i was thinking.

If you both have low sex drives then this could be the perfect marriage for you both, but I do think you need to get over your reticence and talk about it.

You sound content with the relationship as it is. If you both agree, then you're in strong ground for the rest of your lives. If he is secretly longing for a more sexual relationship, (doesn't sound like it from what you say) then the likelihood is it will crack at some point.

I know I probably suggest this too much, and I have been holding back from saying ut, but I di suggest you think about gwtting your thyroid functuon checked, and iron levels. It's the very low libido coupled with never having enough sleep...do either or both of you experience difficulty losing weight or feeling cold? If you both do, it is easy to think it is normal and just put up with it. A simple blood test and you could discover there is a physical cause for this which can be rectified.

Are you both comfortable with your sexuality?

Is there any physical affection in the relationship? Do you cuddle in bed or kiss at all?

It definitely needs to be a discussion before children. You don't want to end up with kids and divorcing because actually you have both ended up resenting the other for not discussing it/trying harder at it.

if you really are on the same page and happy for this to be it then that's great for the pair of you. But I would ask what if you woke up yesterday with your old sex drive back?

*tomorrow not yesterday obviously

I could have written your post.

I was with DH for six years. He's a lovely, lovely bloke. We had a great marriage in all sorts of non-sexual ways. But ultimately, he never seemed to be that into the sex and I found it hard to be attracted to him over time, partly because of that, partly because of depression (depression itself kills your libido, I find).

I asked him for a divorce a few months ago. It was awful - he was gutted and, although we had managed to talk about it, he really hadn't realized I meant it when I said I couldn't carry on with it, and I didn't want to go through the rest of my life not having proper sex. But, I really think it was the right thing, and oddly enough after a few weeks he admitted it may have been too. It's not like he didn't know.

I am not in the least doing a 'LTB' post as it's clear your DH (like mine) isn't any sort of 'bastard'. But I just wanted you to know what happened with us, as I do think what you describe is the same sort of thing, and (personally) I found all the well-meaning suggestions for how to help just sent me further into despair that it wasn't working. You can't re-start a sex life that never got going properly.

MadeMan - that's how my second DC came to be. We don't want more than 2 so board games are strictly off limits I'm pretty sure he let me win Trivial Pursuit deliberately, he's got all the moves

OP talk to each other, try sexual therapy. Sex is very important and it sounds like you have a good relationship except for this, it's worth giving it a try.

OP, if he is on top of you and has an erection then he must be turned on by you at that time. You implied that he dislikes this level of biological intimacy as much as you but if he is in an aroused state as above, he can't hate it that much. Maybe he dislikes sex because he picks up on your lack of interest in him and he doesn't want to feel like he is abusing you ?

Your thread title of 'not attracted physically... aargh' surely means that sex is important to you? Otherwise why the post? Why the 'aargh'? If you were genuinely happy with a sexless marriage... and some are... then it simply wouldn't be an issue.

Unless I missed something OP, you didn't mention your DH's sexual past. Has he had passionate relationships? For a man in his 30s to go without sex for very long periods the way you describe seems very unusual.

I would say it was more than an elephant in the room - I'm surprised you can even get through the front door of the house tbh. I also think you need to be honest with yourselves before you can be honest with each other.

Sparky - I don't really know about sex in his two previous relationships. I know the one before me failed due to various issues that weren't ever discussed properly, such as his sleep patterns (very little sleep, very late - so they basically never ended up spending any time in bed together), and the one before that was just a general mismatch of personality and insight on stuff. I had speculated somewhere upthread that both might have been based on sex rather than any other connection, but on balance, I doubt it. It's relevant. We've always avoided discussing previous relationships beyond very brief summaries of who the person is, what went wrong.

LaQueen - all good points. We need to discuss it all.

Cogito - sorry, perhaps unreasonably on my part, your and tone came across to me as dismissive and negative, and I overreacted. Your view is quite reasonable, particularly based on the fact I posted in the first place; but I think that we may be in less disastrous territory if we both decide we're happy with things. We need to get to that point thouhg.

Millli - i think DH's comments that sex works for him physically may be relevant - if he's like me, this means that he can do it without necessarily actually feeling anything much or enjoying the feeling of too much intimacy. We hug a lot in the rest of life, and are mentally very intimate, but neither of us seems to enjoy kissing or going any further. Maybe we're both gay, but i think we're closer to both being asexual.