So if I never ever feel the slightest inclination to have sex, and he has I guess a normal libido, how often should I make myself ...

[lossoflibido]

... do it?

It's been a couple of years now in which I have absolutely no sexual urges at all, I would be quite happy to live a brother/sister relationship with just hugs/cuddles. Dh very understanding but I feel guilty, god I sooo wish there was a pill I could take. Should I force myself? How often? What way out is there?

Morris, you are reight that ultimately it is nothing to do with anyone else how often you have sex or how much you enjoy it. But the Op has posted and asked for advice so she presumably is happy to listen to other people's opinions about it. It is not for anyone else to make you feel inferior about your libido (or lack of it), but, it is sad that some of the posters are so clear that not only do they not want sex ( as is their right) but that therefore their partners must also go without regardless of their wishes. I am happy that you and your partner appear to be well matched in this respec, as am I and my DH, but it really is sad for both partners in a mismatched relationship especially when the one with the higher sex drive is doing most of the sacrificing of their wants in order to accommodate the lower /absent desires of their partner.
I don't think it's sad that any body, man or woman, can't be arsed about sex, as long as that is not making their partner unhappy. If their partner is unhappy though, then , like it or not, it isa sad situation.

'It would devalue sex and me as a person.'

Why is it that it is ok for you not to do it because you don't want to, yet not for the partner to want to do it? It is not about anybody's needs being of lesser value than their partners, it is about their needs being of equal value. That means either, a) accepting it and doing it, without making partner feel bad about wanting it or b)allowing partner to find sexual satisfacton elsewhere. I am not saying you should do it all the time, but I do believe that there should be a compromise so that both partners get something of what they want rather than nothing! otherwise you really have to look at whether the relationship is sustainable because I really do think that at some point there is going to be a lot of resentment which will ultimately undermine the relationship and could potentially lead to its breakdown. And that would be very sad.

What about the woman going elsewhere for sex? In a situation where the relationship has become like brother and sister and the sexual interest has dwindled, perhaps it is not just the man that should look elsewhere? In some cases, the woman has gone off sex because the husband has a low libido/is insensitive to the woman's needs. What then? The desire to keep the family together may prevent the woman from seeking a separation or divorce but still, that does not necessarily mean that either partner's sexual needs are going to be met satisfactorily in the marriage. Asking purely theoretically of course.

sayithowitis - has anyone actually said that it's not OK for the partner with the higher libido to want sex? And if you were that person, would you want your partner to lie back and think of England? It would be bloody awful having sex with someone who is doing it because they feel they should rather than because they want to.

Thank you molesworth, I feel sex is too important to be reduced to a duty or a sacrifice and I would be horrified to find that any sexual partner of mine would think that would be satisfactory to me. I can take care of my own sexual needs without that if needs be.

I think people are failing to realise that for some people sex is not really that important .

My libido is much lower than dh's, it has always been low in long-term relationships regardless of how much I 'fancy' my partner. I do make the effort even if I don't feel like it as I know how important it is for dh and generally most of the time I enjoy it, have an orgasm or two etc.

Like a lot of couples our sex life consists of a mix of wilder sessions. the occasional use of toys, some more intimate gentle sessions and some ' hey that OK but nothing special' sessions.

I pretty much always enjoy the sex (sometimes a great deal) but tbh after the inital first thrill of meeting someone I personally don't find sex a particularly good way to feel close to someone on a regular basis.

Some sessions do result in me feeling closer to dh and more loved but many are just either very good fun (even wild) or Ok (depending on the mood) but do not result in me feeling particularly closer to dh.

This means that it can be difficult to summon the enthusiasm for sex when for me the pay off isn't always enough to warrant the effort.

I do appreciate that for dh though he does feel closer to me after sex so I often agree even if I'm not feeling like it because I love him and because I know it I usually enjoy it once we start.

It is just the wanting and to do it in the first place that is the issue for me.

I don't feel repulsed by dh, I just feel repulsed by the actions related to sex (but not by affectionate touching/cuddling/kissing without tongues)

It's just silly to say "oh you should have talked aobut your sexual compatibility before moving in together" - before we had children we were compatible, if anything I sometimes wanted it more often than dh!

And it's not to do with fancying either, when I think of male slebs who I think are very attractive and imagine them actually physically touching me I find that off-putting as well.

i have a loss of libido too, still, two years after the birth of our son. me and dp had amazing sex beforehand and i was always a 'once a day at least' type. i felt pity and bemusement for people in relationships where they didn't have great sex.we were/are very experimental and have always had an open relationship too.
but since living together and having a child its all changed. it took us a year after childbirth anyway cos of physical and/or psychological damage. and even now, i rarely desire it. i am painfully aware of how long its been since we last had sex each time. i do feel that less than once a week would just be the deathblow to our relationship so i do put out once a week. ocassionally i really enjoy it, especially if its particularly dirty sex, or we are watching porn at the same time.
we are both seeing other people too. i feel much more sexual when im with that other person although the sex isn't necessarily 'better', and certainly doesn't match the woman i used to be!. but this is about once a month, when im away without my child and all my responsibilities, in london, and i can get as drunk as i want!. im sure his sex with his girlfriend is much better too.
i feel racked with guilt and indecision about whether i will never fancy him again and whether we should split up. he is still in love with me and full of desire. but i don't feel the same. he is quite depressed cos he has gone bald and put on a lot of weight since we moved in together. he feels that our attractiveness is very different now: of course i never say it, but yes, that probably is a factor in my being less attracted to him, and how bad do i feel about that?
also, our relationship feels quite unequal: i'm very much in charge about everything, do any family organising, im the breadwinner, we share childcare but i make more decisions/arrangements about our son etc., and he feels controlled by me, and i feel a longing to have someone else take charge! some kind of mills and boon chiselled chin fantasy...
our other problem is we argue,not a lot, but very badly in that we never resolve anything and get bitter and petty.
sorry for hijacking yr thread, just sometimes sharing woes can be useful.

If him being overweight is a factor why not tell him? At least his weight he can change. Not much you can do about the baldness, so I wouldn't mention that.
Sexual attraction has a large visual component. My bloke and I both know that whilst we may still like each other as people if we each put on 4 stone, we wouldn't fancy each other as much as we're not into fatties.
We're both fairly sporty so keep the weight down.

Mumofteens: a woman whose partner has no interest in sex is equally entitled to look elsewhere. Mismatched libido is definitely not just 'men want sex and women don't' as many previous threads on the subject have shown.

I realise a lot has already been said on this topic but I just wanted to put my story down & ask for some advice.

I have been with my dh for nearly 13 years and we had a very active sex life (& I loved it) for the first few years. Things started to quiet down after the birth of my first child and now, 10 years & 2 further children on, our sex-life is non-existent. I can't remember exactly the last time we did it but I think it was last March.

I am on anti-deps and life is quite tiring as we moved to France a couple of years ago & my dh is currently converting a barn into a family home for us all. I spend a lot of my day getting to grips with French bureaucracy, lessons and running a household. We are both usually pretty tired by the end of the day and go to bed about 11pm, read for a while & then lights out about 12am. Neither of us seems to have the energy or inclination to have sex and we haven't discussed the lack of it. It's almost like it's gone on for so long we are too scared to raise it. An 'elephant in the room' situation. The funny thing is that when we were last having regular sex (year ago) it was a scheduled activity (!), in that we made a decision to take the afternoon off once a week and spend it in bed. The kids would be at school so we could have a couple of hours together having fun. We both really enjoyed it and I definitely felt closer to dh during this time. However, events got in the way of our afternoons and they became lost. Since then I have had no libido whatsoever and neither, it seems, has my dh unless he is not saying anything either. And that is the problem. I want to talk about it with him but don't know how to broach the subject, especially as I don't know if I want to have sex again yet. I have reduced the dose of my ad by half and I am just starting to have feelings that I would like to have sex but don't know if I could actually go through with it right now. How can I bring the subject up without it leading to sex itself? I do really want to enjoy sex again as I know that when we do, things are really great. I love my dh to bits and do not want this to become an 'issue'.

Loss, I have read all your posts and I wanted to post to say that I hear what you're saying.

I honestly think it can take many months for your hormones to settled after stopping breastfeeding. It is mother nature's way of naturally 'spacing' out your pregnancies by lowering your libido when you are nursing. So give yourself a bit of a break about that. I didn't breastfeed for terribly long, only about three months, then it took about six weeks for my cycle to come back and it wasn't until dd was nine months did I start feeling like myself again. I wouldn't have masterbated probably even once during that time, I was just 'switched off' to it. But I did still enjoy sex with DH during this time although I never initiated it once. For me, the pill had the same effect, I think that by not ovulating, my desire just went away. So perhaps you could look at making a change to your contraception if that could be part of the problem. The tone of your posts is quite sad/low - do you think you might be depressed? That will also lower your desire. I'm not trying to patronise you by suggesting the above, and that some small change in your life will 'switch it back on' but you did say that before the kids came along you were into sex and enjoyed it. How can you get back to the way you were?

Do you and your DH get a chance to have time together on your own away from the kids?? This is just so important for a couple IMO and I never realised it until DH pressured me into going out for a 'date' once or twice a month. I was just happy staying in at home with a takeaway and DVD, I hadn't realised how 'boring' I had become. Now we go out once a month to do something like dinner/movie or bowling and it is a lot of fun. Costs a bomb though as neither of us have family in the UK so it means paying for a babysitter, but I see it as investing in our marriage.

Have you been to any kind of couples counselling?