How to cope with an almost sexless marriage? Can counselling really help?

[LosingIt2022]

Hoping this is the most appropriate subforum.
I'm looking for some advice because the lack of sex life is putting a huge strain on our relationship.
I want to propose some form of couples therapy / counselling because this is the only way I can think of to make her understand how important this is to me; I do not expect miracles but I do not want to leave any stones unturned.
If nothing changes, I would at least like to understand if there are some coping strategies to help me not lose my sanity - I am banging my head against the wall while dying inside and she doesn't seem to take notice.

What are your experiences?
Is there really a solution for couples whose sex drives change so much over time?

The story:

I'm male, my wife and I are both mid 30s, we have 2 kids.

I have always had a higher sex drive but, while mine has remained constant, hers has been constantly plummeting.

It used to be about once a week, I imagined it would have become less frequent, but I never imagined once every 2-3 months.

When it happens, she gets really lost in the moment, which is amazing, but it has simply moved at the very bottom of her priority list: it will only happen if she's not too tired, if she has already finished her favourite TV series, if that night her best friend doesn't call her to rant about her new life as a divorcee, etc etc.

Any attempt at experimenting has been shot down mercilessly: new lingerie makes her feel under pressure, toys are not her thing.

I have tried to plan and set some time for ourselves in advance, but she says this makes her feel too much pressure.

Any attempt at communicating is very hard because she just does not want to talk about these things; she was brought up in a very conservative, not religious but Jane-Austen-like environment.

I asked if she would ever be willing to, well, tease me; there are times when she wants to cuddle and nothing more, is that really that different? Apparently for her yes, she was horrified at the idea.

I got really, really cross because a couple of weeks ago she told me in the morning that she would have actually wanted me but I was in the loft, working. Why didn't you call me? So I should just wait in bed for you to finish your TV series, on the off chance that once in a blue moon you might actually want me, but there can be no communication or planning?

I have lost count of the number of times I told her how I feel rejected and unimportant, and how I feel less important than a stupid TV series. It just doesn't register, it's as if I were speaking a different language.

There are lots of other things in the relationship which work really well, and they are a huge reason why I fancy her so much, but this remains a big problem.
I often wonder: had I known it would have ended up like this, would I have married this person and had 2 kids?

Why are you still here then if we’re all so fucking nasty? I’m getting sick of this, I put a lot of effort into writing a fair and reasonable post, as have a lot of women here, and Mr Victim’s response was to tell me I’m having a hissy fit, won’t clarify why he thinks that though of course, but he’s the poor little victim is he? No problem at all with the way he’s treated women on this thread?

Because you are not all like that and there has been some useful feedback. Which doesn'tmean stuff I like to hear, it includes reminding me of unpleasant but very real possibilities. I seem to remember I thanked you for some advice very explicitly.

I am sorry for the word 'hissy fit' - I should have talked about 'reaction' or another more neutral term.

I have received some very nasty abuse here, including people accusing me of stuff which I had never written, and only 1 or 2 apologised / backtracked, so I trust you will understand how I can feel.

He is under no obligation to validate your opinion or effort.

I doubt she wants validation, just not to be told she’s having a hissy fit once she’d put in the effort of giving some really great advice. And it was great advice. Arguably the most constructive and least critical advice on the thread. It just didn’t align with the OP’s victim narrative so was quickly dismissed.

And most of that stuff OP thinks he was accused of, he actually wasn’t. Like one poster asked IF his personal hygiene was being looked after. He then took that as her accusing him of being unhygienic. The ‘waiting in bed while wife finishes chores’ was a turn of phrase, the poster never explicitly said nor implied OP was doing that, yet he read it as her saying that’s what he was doing. Ironically a post or two after angrily telling posters who’d taken the time and effort to respond to his post to read what he’s written properly.

He will likely respond to this with a snarky response too like pretty much every single other reply on here. Instead of noticing that 95% of the replies on here are noticing his frustration and anger and sexist remarks, he honestly believes that he’s only got those replies because we’re women who hate men.

I don’t. I fucking LOVE men. I love sex too. The other guy who came on saying women want the emotion and men want the show, fucking wrong. Women want respect though and not to have sex with angry little men with misogynist views.

I reread the entire thread and every single person who came on and commented did so with sympathetic viewpoints and tried ruling out possibilities. Instead of simply answering the questions the OP got defensive and snarky. Every single time he’s been called out for being so rude he’s played the mental health card. If your mental health is so low OP then I am genuinely sorry but you didn’t give any regard to the mental health of the people you were also rude to on this thread, who definitely did not deserve it. Maybe delete the thread and I wish you well. I genuinely do. Please don’t bother responding to this as I’m gonnnnnne. Good luck :)

We got a cleaner. We put away the phones. We went to bed earlier. We had nicer wine. We discussed our relationship- what was next, after kids, holidays, organised to see more friends, go to films. Just more time.

Start here, OP. Get a cleaner if you don’t have one already. Spend time watching TV with your DW not upstairs working waiting for her to ‘be available’. Get babysitters more regularly. Talk and listen more.

Do all this before you discuss sex. Don’t expect sex while you’re doing all this. Be the change. Take time, then see what you need.

To answer your question, I'd suggest you speak with an individual counsellor as soon as you can to start the process of self-examination. As I said before ... you are going to need to be humble, non-defensive, and really open to listening to your wife and creating a sense of safety for the discussion to happen.

Listen to what onceuponawhileago said about his wife finding the idea of the discussion more stressful than the lack of sex itself. These conversations can be really awful for someone when emotions are running high, and in this thread you've come across as defensive, resentful, prickly, etc. I'm not saying that to bash you, but to try to get across to you that these qualities is not conducive to creating a safe, supportive environment in which your wife can finally open up to you.

YOU need individual counselling to help with this. Your wife needs individual counselling so she has a neutral safe space where she can talk through her own feelings and also open up if she is actually feeling intimidated and bullied by your demands (n.b. I'm not saying that's what you're DOING, I'm saying it's possible that she might feel that way, and she's going to need to deal with those feelings for this to move forward).

And then of course you need couples counselling to work through things together.

Of course this potentially takes a lot of time which I know is in very short supply with young children about.

slams door

@CousinKrispy how about the timing of the counselling? Individual first, then couple? Both at the same time?
I will obviously ask this when I contact therapists, but I am also interested in other people's experience (fully aware there's no one size fits all answer)

I think you're in a catch 22 here the more frustrated you get the more she's sensing it and its putting her off. That said if you're genuinely miserable you're entirely justified.
I've been in your wife's position and what works for me -
Genuine tender and loving moments - I've been turned on when dp kissed me lovingly in a supermarket for example but not when he tries to put his hand up my top in bed, that makes me cringe.
Respect and love, creating that environment first is important.
My cycle is also HUGELY Important, I discovered I'm only ever up for sex when I'm ovulating which biologically makes sense.

@catfunk thank you, that's very useful advice.
I have been thinking a lot about this and similar points raised. I guess one thing I should try to do more of is show appreciation / intimacy in moments where the gesture cannot be misinterpreted as an immediate desire for sex. I hope this should take some of the pressure off and reduce the distance between us. Eg a compliment and a kiss on the neck when we are at the supermarket on our way to her sister's, stuff like that.

But the need for communication and counselling remain. No one should be constantly second guessing themselves in a relationship. I risk trying a b c d and e, only to then learn that actually what she would have wanted was f, but only when the moon isn't full otherwise it's g...

TBH I'm not sure about what timing is best, but I was thinking that with potential wait times, just go ahead and get the ball rolling as soon as you can, and take what you can get? You could start looking for your individual counselling right away, for example. It might help you a bit, even if there's a delay for the couples counselling. You could go ahead and talk to your wife about the need for couples counselling when you're ready. At the same time you could suggest to her that she might want an individual counsellor too, so that she has a safe space all her own to talk about it, and that you're willing to do whatever it takes to help her find time for that if she wants it ... but obviously it has to be her choice.

Good luck, I do hope the two of you can work your way through this.

I don't know how common my experience is, but in every long term relationship i have had, after about 2 years i have stopped wanting sex with the man i was with. Though not stopped wanting sex. I would have sex because I felt i should, but didn't enjoy it. All the counselling in the world wouldn't have overcome this.

I mean the thing that jumps out at me on this thread that no-one seems to have mentioned much surprisingly is simply that you are bending over backwards....

She NEEDS to make some effort..whether that be counselling, more/better comunication, digging deep and finding the love/desire for a quickie once a fortnight...

Eg a compliment and a kiss on the neck when we are at the supermarket on our way to her sister's, stuff like that.

You kiss her on the neck in a Supermarket? I don't think kissing is appropriate or needed in a Supermarket. Are you sure your wife likes PDA's? I would prefer a sincere smile with my compliment in public and leave kissing in private.

@NawtyShawna only because she did say multiple times how much she liked it.
Or maybe I should say used to like it.
To be honest I have no idea what she wants doesn't want likes doesn't like NOW, and mind reading ain't my forte, that's the whole bloody problem.

No idea what PDAs are. Makes me think of the Palm Pilot

Public Displays of Attention.
Neck kissing is too sensual in public IMO (In my opinion)

Affection*😂

Public displays of affection.

If she likes/liked that kind of thing, then it's a good place to start. Or perhaps with more low key things like hand-holding, touching her knee in the car, noticing the things you love/loved about her and saying about them (not her tits or whatever sexual characteristics 😂) eg. her smile/her laugh, the way she interacts with the kids - positive things you like about her.

Try a bit of wooing without the pressure to actually follow through with sex as if you were starting out with a new person. (Obviously not if it started off as a one-night stand 😂)

@NoSquirrels , that is good simple advice. A very good point about engaging with what she is watching on TV and not 'waiting for her to be available' - You are definitely on to something there.

We love doing it, messing about.
It doesn't lead to sex but why not be connected and flirt?

"No, I did not compare feminists to Nazis. I was criticising the double standards and the hypocrisy of those who say "leave him you deserve better" when a woman isn't happy about her sex life, but who then gaslight men complaining about their sex lives, dismissing them as sex pests who don't understand that sex isn't everything. The word was used in that context, not to mean that all feminists are nazis, but to criticise the hypocrisy and double standards of the extremists who behave this way."

I know so far you have dismissed every single woman who has asked you not to use this term, but clearly you need it explaining again It is misogynistic, sexist, offensive and it's also anti semitic (I wonder if you will take that part on board). Conflating feminists/feminism with a Nazi regime responsible for the genocide of over 6 million Jews (and many many others) is fucking offensive. Would you use the term "grammar nazis" (which seems to be in more popular usage these days) or do you recognise the inherent anti semitism in it? If you wouldn't use it because you recognise that it's offensive in that context, why is using it against women (for their belief in womens rights) acceptable? If you would use the term grammar nazi, you need to educate yourself. Start with the Holocaust Education Trust.

Women have tried to explain why it's offensive to them as women, you have repeatedly dismissed or even insulted them. Perhaps they didn't want to speak for the Jews or Jewish women who find it offensive, if they are not Jews themselves (which I understand).

The casual use of the term "nazi" in any context other than the original definition is not acceptable, especially when is used as an insult. I believe in free speech and that people should have the freedom to say what they want, but I believe they should always always be challenged on it. You have been challenged by many women (who have shown a lot of patience and given their time to explain it) for using this term and dismissed us as hysterical women having hissy fits. Would you dismiss a Jew who challenges this offensive usage? It's just Jews being hysterical and having hissy fits, after all.

Please don't excuse or hide behind your usage as my wife says it or even my wife who is Jewish said it or even you should have explained this to me before as it's craven minimising behaviour, and we are fucking sick of having to explain to you. I wont be engaging with you again. You can take this advice on board or you can ignore it or you can even flounce so you don't have to address it, it's up to you.

OP - you’re male. You’ll never win on these kind of posts on here. I’m a woman and I roll my eyes when a man posts because some posters on here despise men

whilst I disagree with some parts of your posts I can understand where you’re coming from. For whatever reason it seems like your wife has gone off sex, and whilst in an ideal world you’d be having sex every night, the most frustrating part is the fact she isn’t even willing to talk about why she’s gone off sex let alone do anything about it. We are all entitled to time out and time to ourselves, for some that is going out with friends and it seems like for your wife it’s watching tv and calling her friends, and that’s fine, but when that gets in the way of your marriage it’s an issue. If you were going out with your friends every evening instead of supporting her then that would be unfair too.

so you have 3 options really - 1) you leave 2) you stay and accept this is your life 3) you give an ultimatum of going into couples therapy and working towards finding a balance where you’re both happy and repairing your marriage or you leave

from what you’ve said on here I think she has it quite chilled! Plenty evenings to herself, a nanny etc, you sound like you pull your weight around the house and are a hands on dad. If she’s tired then perhaps she should have a few early nights.

As I said I won't be engaging with you any more, but I am very interested to see if you address and answer this specific question.

You have been challenged by many women (who have shown a lot of patience and given their time to explain it) for using this term and dismissed us as hysterical women having hissy fits. Would you dismiss a Jew who challenges this offensive usage? It's just Jews being "hysterical" and having "hissy fits", after all.

I realise this may be a distraction from the burning question of how to get your wife to have more sex with you, but if you say offensive shit whilst soliciting our advice on that, be prepared to own it.