My partner and I have been together for 5 years. We’re both in our 20s, we have one child and I’m currently pregnant with our second.
Our relationship is generally good, but our sex life has been an ongoing problem. My sex drive is much higher than his. He can easily go weeks without sex and seems completely fine with it. Usually nothing happens until I eventually get upset or complain about it. Then he’ll initiate, tell me he’ll make more effort, things improve briefly, and eventually we end up back in exactly the same situation.
This did happen before we had children, although it wasn’t as bad as it is now.
Over the years there always seems to be a reason: he’s stressed with work, he’s tired, we don’t have enough time because of our child.
Something that has also bothered me is that he used to masturbate quite frequently (sometimes every other day), although he says he doesn’t anymore. I struggled to understand how he could have the desire to do that regularly but could go weeks without wanting sex with me.
I’ve realised recently that I don’t think he actually wants our sex life to change very much. He has a naturally low sex drive and seems comfortable with how things are. It feels more like he wants me to stop being unhappy about it rather than genuinely wanting more intimacy himself.
I don’t want him to have sex with me because I’ve complained or because he feels obligated. I want to feel desired by my partner.
This probably comes to a head for me about once a month. The rest of the time we’re getting on with our lives and raising our family, which makes me feel ridiculous for even considering whether this could eventually end our relationship. But when it gets to me, it really gets to me.
I’ve even had the uncomfortable realisation that if I wasn’t pregnant, I think I would have been seriously tempted to cheat. I haven’t cheated and I don’t want to, but the fact I’ve reached the point of thinking that way scares me.
I also think he may propose soon. I love him and don’t want to break up our family over sex, but I’m frightened of getting married knowing that this is probably what our sex life will always be like—or that it could become even less frequent once we have two children.
I don’t expect him to change his natural libido, but I also don’t know whether I can spend the rest of my life suppressing mine.
Has anyone been in a long-term relationship or marriage with a major libido mismatch? Is there actually a realistic compromise where both people are happy, or does one person inevitably end up feeling pressured while the other feels constantly rejected?
I especially want to hear from people who stayed together and made it work, as well as people who eventually separated because of it.