I’m struggling with a mismatch in sex drive between my partner and me, and I’m unsure what it means for our future. I love him and our relationship and I can’t imagine walking away over this, but I do worry about the long-term impact.
Outside of sex, our relationship is genuinely loving and healthy. We communicate well, are a great team, show each other lots of affection, and he consistently makes time for me, supports me and tries to meet my other needs. He’s a great dad too - they are not our shared children, they are from his previous relationship but I get on with them very well.
When we do have sex, it’s really good, intimate and fun.
The problem is that it’s very sporadic. I’ve noticed he’s much more likely to initiate after we’ve had a disagreement. I think he may use sex as part of repairing the emotional connection. When things are calm and settled (which is most of the time) sex seems much less important to him, whereas that’s exactly when I feel most relaxed and connected and want it. He’s always telling me he’s happy and relaxed around me so I know he’s not stressed. He also knows I like to have sex for emotional connection not just for pleasure reasons.
What makes this more complicated is that he’s told me his last relationship was mostly based on sex, stress and conflict and he wants to create a loving connection with me.
We’ve talked about it a lot, and he’s said he can feel pressure around sex, so I’ve tried hard not to create that. The difficulty is that I find him very attractive and his natural affection often increases my desire. He’ll frequently touch my thigh or bum, kiss me passionately, tell me I look good, or be physically affectionate, which is lovely but can also leave me feeling frustrated when it doesn’t lead anywhere. I like the connection the affection creates, but it can feel like I can’t seem to create the same feeling in him of desire even though I know he finds me attractive.
We’re currently on holiday, which has made the mismatch particularly noticeable. There are plenty of moments where we could potentially have time alone, but they don’t really happen, and by the evening we’ve usually had dinner, had a few drinks, eaten a lot, we’re both tired and the opportunity is gone. The kids also wake early, so mornings aren’t particularly practical either.
He doesn’t have any obvious physical difficulties with sex. I think we approach it very differently. He prefers things to be planned and being sober, not too full up, brushed teeth etc., and seems to prefer mornings/daytime.
I’m much more spontaneous and feel desire throughout the day. He just doesn’t seem to think much about creating opportunities for alone time and when I make suggestions he agrees, but then they don’t happen.
On holiday he does seem to drink a lot more than usual and we had a great fun evening, when we got back I wanted to go to bed, and he wanted to stay up so I went alone.
We have woken up today he’s very hungover as he stayed up drinking without me and I feel myself being irritated with him about it and I’m finding it hard to not show it.
He then also showed me he had text his ex photos of their kids (that I had taken!) while I was asleep, so my brain goes to other places with that, but there was nothing else untoward in the messages.
We can actually get childcare as we are away with other adults, and he’s suggested asking them a few times so we can go do something alone but it’s not actually happened.
He asked me this morning if I wanted to go on date night tonight, I said yes, but I don’t fancy drinking again, so then he said no point in going out and do it another night.
So if I want a date night alone with him, I will be drinking with him and there will be no sex. Then I said we could go out in the day for a few hours so walk about, and he said maybe. He’s hungover so not sure I can see this happening.
Now I’m in a situation where I feel like it’s unfair to be pissed off, no one owes another person sex, and I don’t want him to have sex when he doesn’t want to just for my sake and forcing his hand. I just feel disappointed and he gets really fed up when this happens. The last time we had sex was on Friday but after we had a disagreement the night before. As I’m irritated, I think this will mean he feels pressure to have sex with me to relieve the tension, rather than just a spontaneous opportunity and it’s just a vicious cycle we can’t seem to get out of sometimes.
I’m trying to work out how much this is something we can realistically compromise on, rather than expecting either of us to change who we are. Has anyone else managed a significant libido mismatch in an otherwise very happy relationship? How did you make it work long term?
I am going to take myself off today for a while to relax and get some space and be less available and around him. I’ve also been relieving myself which he doesn’t know about. I’ve brought a load of pretty dresses and underwear on holiday and sometimes feel like all this effort is a waste on him but perhaps I’m trying too hard and I should just be grateful I have a nice man who treats me well otherwise.