My wife created a whole diet and exercise plan to fix my libido

[joshhk]

Okay, I'm writing this openly, not as an attack on my wife of course haha. I just can't really talk about this with anyone in real life, so I figured I'd ask here.

My wife and I are both 44. We've been together since high school, so we've got a very long history together. We have three kids, both have good jobs, and thankfully neither of us has much work-related stress. We genuinely love each other, still find each other attractive, and our relationship is good.

We're both fairly slim and in decent shape for our age. Neither of us is a model or anything, but we're healthy. My wife does yoga and jogs, and she runs/exercises around three times a week. I used to be reasonably active too, although I wasn't nearly as consistent as she is.

Our sex life used to be pretty normal for us usually once or twice a week. But for roughly the last year and a half, my libido has dropped quite a bit. There have been weeks where I just haven't felt interested at all, followed by periods where things go back to normal.

My wife has a much higher libido than I do. For her, sex is pleasure, relaxation, stress relief, intimacy basically an important part of our relationship. I know it's important to her.

About two weeks ago, she got pretty disappointed and honestly a little angry with me. Her point was basically that it's partly my responsibility as her husband to take care of my health and make sure we're not neglecting our sex life.

I didn't really have an answer to that. I understand where she's coming from, but I also can't exactly switch my libido on like a light.

Then last Saturday she arrived with a PLAN.

She had apparently decided that we're changing my diet, and she had basically planned out what I'm eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She's also added a proper exercise/running routine for me every weekend because I haven't been consistent.

She even spoke to a doctor about it and got the okay before adding some vitamins and other things.

And now, on top of all that, she keeps sending me Instagram reels from women talking about improving men's sex lives/libido.

She's become extremely strict about the whole thing.

I know she's coming from a good place. She's not trying to shame me, and I know she wants us to have a good sex life. She's also probably right that I should take better care of my health and be more consistent with exercise.

But at the same time, I'm sitting here thinking this diet and new routine are going to kill me before they fix anything.

I love my wife, I'm attracted to her, and I absolutely want our sex life to be good. This isn't a relationship problem.

I'm just wondering if anyone else around their 40s has experienced something similar one partner having a much higher libido while the other's suddenly drops, and whether lifestyle changes actually helped.

And has anyone else's spouse ever basically taken over their health routine because they decided your sex life needed fixing

This is incredibly controlling of her and whilst you are probably right that it's coming from a good place, her approach is totally unacceptable.

What do you want? Do you want to work on your libido? Do you wish you wanted sex more? How is your health generally and how do you feel?

Sounds like your wife loves you, loves having sex with you and wants the best for you and her sex life. Yes, she's maybe being a bit pushy, but would you rather she moped about, pawed at you every time you walked by, every cuddle or kiss became awkwardly sexual? She could be moody and refuse to do housework if you didn't perform you husband duties? She's being proactive and has obviously been looking into best results for you, not just expecting you to perform whether you want to or not, whilst in in same situation health wise.
Unless she's bullying you into doing only what she wants, What's stopping you from coming up with a diet/exercise/sex plan to get you both back on track? You can decline her options as you have your own.
If your not interested in keeping your sex life on the up and up, that's also completely your choice, but you do need to communicate that with her and then as a couple decide how that looks in your relationship.
I could be wrong but most ED issues can be helped especially at the start, before expectations, and upsets start to ruin confidence which turns into a spiraling problem.

I don’t think her approach is reasonable and can you imagine the uproar if it were reversed and the man doing this to his wife!?

You know you don’t have to do anything she’s telling you right? You are the one who gets to decide what food you consume and what exercise you do, not her.

Having said that, if your libido has decreased, it might be worth checking your testosterone levels.

I think she is being unreasonable and you are within your rights to tell her that you’d prefer to continue to manage your own health.

If you do want your libido to increase, then perhaps a trip to the GP might help. I believe some men can be prescribed extra testosterone if their own levels are found to have dropped.

I wonder what changed a year and a half ago?

He's about the same age as me, and mines definitely taken a bit of a drop over the last few years. Men change as we age just like women do.

Annoyingly, peri-menopause has sent DPs through the roof, so we've had a bit of a role reversal over the last few years!

My partner is exactly same age and he’s libido has always been good but has increased slightly so we average 3-4 times a week. And this is through stressful family times ect.

She's in her 40s. If she started having reduced libido, would you be commanding her to exercise, on the schedule you set out for her, and commanding her on what she's allowed to eat and how often?

If the answer's no, ask yourself why you wouldn't do that.

Well, it sounds nightmarish, but what have you been doing about your libido problems?

Perhaps she has lost patience with your lack of interest in making things better.

Time to talk, but more importantly to act.

Keep the plan in your back pocket until she hits menopause then shove it under her nose and tell her she needs to up her game!

Honestly, no grown adult needs their partner dictating their diet and exercise for any reason. Of course if it’s an issue for you by all means look into things that might help, and if she wants to work with you on that, good on her. But this comes across as controlling and quite frankly weird of her.

She sounds very controlling. Does she normally try to micromanage your life like this?

If my dh did this I’d never want to have sex with him again.

I am in the opposite position, although I am older at mid fifties. The Menopause has basically removed my libido altogether. If my partner and I do it once every three months or so he's lucky. I love him, I enjoy sex when we do have it, I'm just not interested much anymore. If my partner came up with a plan like this, let alone all the lectures on how I should take more responsibility to "fix" things, I would ask him to leave. And you would all be telling me to do that as well. This is quite the double standard some of you have on here. To the OP, if your marriage survives this it will be because you are a very patient man, and I hope your wife remembers that she did this to you and regrets it when she loses her mojo as well.

Is she pulling her weight around the house, helping with the mental load and making sure you both have equal relaxation/down time???😂

Sex is an important part of a relationship, exercise and diet are excellent tools to address the situation and generally prolonging life expectancy. However, I wouldn't want is happening to you to happen to me and I do regularly exercise. It's your body and you should be able to consent to or refuse such a regimen. It's very controlling behaviour and belittling. Take matters into your own hands if you want to. Be prepared to have conversations about libido- there's a mismatch but as a PP pointed out, the shoe will likely be on the other foot come peri-menopause. Have a blood test to start with.

Did she take a full set of blood samples to the DR (AI) then? And did she also discuss andropause with said Dr? If anything this would have me running for the hills TBH. How unattractive!!!

My DP would be eating his own teeth if he pulled this bizarre shit on me.

You libido sounds very average to me tbh. Few times a week, bit of a drought for a few weeks - life shit etc. Not unusual at all.

What shes doing is NOT ok op. Really not.

This sounds very difficult. I'm a bit of a problem solver myself but nothing on this scale - more like I'd suggest things then see if you did them (like see the GP by yourself).

I don't want to medicalise your libido, and you don't need to answer this here obv but are there medications you're taking that might be having an impact?

I think she has overstepped quite a lot.

She had apparently decided that we're changing my diet, and she had basically planned out what I'm eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She's also added a proper exercise/running routine for me every weekend because I haven't been consistent.

Ask her to post the PLAN on here - I want that plan!!!

I’d be furious if Dh did this to me, it’s reasonable to be concerned about a spouses wellbeing but this is too far.

I also want to see the plan.

That’s a big turn off.

I would tell her to fuck right off. How dare she.

I feel like she could sell that plan... I want a copy!

What have you done over the last year and a half to address this issue then?

she can’t dictate to you your food and exercise. It doesn’t even sound that likely to make a big difference if you’re already fairly healthy. I’d cherry pick any parts you’re happy to do and suggest you to to the doc to have testosterone levels checked to see if there’s an issue there. Basically you can push back on the strict plan while still taking her concerns on board.