Talking about sex in your relationship

[EnoughofThatAuldchat]

I am going through a separation.
Dh's apparent general lack of sexual interest in me is one of the reasons. It has really chipped away at my self esteem. We have sex so rarely. Now we can blame exhaustion/co sleeping/kids but in honesty it's always bothered me.

When we do have sex it's been good - No physical issues, we can both come. I think he's gorgeous. I have no idea what he thinks of me really, he says he loves me, he is kind etc. But I've never seen lust there.

It's not just the infrequency that gets me. He just doesn't seem like a sexual being, we have no conversations about sex EVER like not even a mention that either of us fancies it for example, no mention of our private parts or each other's bodies generally.
I think I used to at the start but I got very little back and then he just seemed to become even more prudish and even conversations where I brought up the lack of sex, he looked at me like he was embarassed for me and tried to fob me off with the "I'm tired" excuse and generally made me feel like a nympho.

Looking back he maybe stretched to "I'm in the mood" in the early days. That then became just a silent physical approach, touching me. I was just happy to go along with whatever scraps of foreplay I got, don't think I ever turned him down once! I now think surely foreplay exists on some level out of the bedroom. A look, an admiring glance, an appreciative expression. I got a friendly hug.

We rarely have had sex more than once a week at any point of our relationship including ttc.
Since kids it has dwindled away to next to nothing......and this doesn't seem to bother him at all, he has never ever ever brought up the topic of sex.

How much do you talk about sex?

@BluishMoon

Sorry you're in a similar position.

If I'm honest though, I'd not be comfortable with a baby in the room.

@ConfusedDH

Thank you, it's interesting to hear your perspective, maybe I'm being a bit harsh but to me it feels like the latest in a long line of excuses. It's not a new problem since baby, but I will take on board the fact that others would find it off putting too.

Doesn't bother me because baby is asleep, and even if he woke up he couldn't see anything anyway. I mean I wouldn't go wild with him in the room but spooning etc would be fine

A previous partner of mine let her dog in the bedroom and it put me off terribly, especially when he'd just sit in the corner of the room watching, almost as if to keep score and offer some kind of critique.

@ BluishMoon

No help I know but I empathise and I also clueless as to resolution..watching posts with interest

My missus seems content with once a month and only when she wants it.

She knows it's not enough for me but I guess the urge just doesn't happen for her.

A week ago she promised me a blow job and that has not happened. Regular event to show me affection then ignore me for weeks.
I have given up to be honest and go to bed on my own most nights.

Thank god the weather is nice as I have more fun doing the gardening.

I am mid 40s and her mid 30s. Only another 30 odd years of this shit then.

@man1974 make a plan to make yourself more attractive. If she doesn't respond, I'm sure another woman will after you've separated. Life's too short to be miserable 👍🏻

Talking about sex- Mmm yes I would like to be happier with my communication in this area.

My ex talked about sex a fair bit and I remember feeling uncomfortable sometimes like my "ladylike" upbringing left me unsure how to respond. Our sex life was fantastic though, he was very randy generally but definitely made me feel desired.

My husband is the opposite, we have sex much less frequently. He is a prude and can't/ won't talk about any aspect of it including contraception. It's all unsaid/taboo. I don't feel desired or as you say, a sexual being. I don't feel he is a sexual being. I feel very sad about it and a bit unfulfilled but also unsure what is normal with regard to talking about it. He would never tell me in advance that he's feeling in the mood. We both had fairly religious conservative upbringings.

On balance I would much prefer to have someone with a dirty mind!

Sex with DH has always been unsatisfactory. With kids and contraception that dampened my Sex drive I probably wasn't that bothered. I never came, he never touched me except for my breasts. No foreplay. No attempt to make me cum
He did, always.
Some emotional things as well that have made me feel undesired, unwanted and completely unsexy.
And then, things got to the point where I began to stray. Thinking if just once I could feel alive, desired it would be enough. To feel sexy.
And some how I found someone whose experiences at home are exactly like what some of the earlier male posters have described, except worse.
But the issue is now I can't bear to sleep with my husband. All I feel is resentment, no attraction and frankly anger.
And i have met someone who makes me happy and feel like a woman again. And i think I will have to leave my marriage.
Sex isn't everything, but feeling loved and desired is.

Sounds like my ex husband. Sex dwindled fast in our relationship I thought he was just shy at first but he’s been with loads of women and was good at technique but no passion and then no interest.
He hated tongue kissing and aggressively but my tongue once to stop me putting it in his mouth again.
Of course he turned out to have a very varied and strong porn interest which I presume is why he couldn’t get off with me.

The breakdown of my marriage is mainly due to similar issues.
DH never really spoke about sex or desired me in any way. I had to do all of the chasing for sex. He never touched me physically and the odd kiss on the cheek just felt weird in the end.
I tried to talk to him about it many times over the years but things didn't change. I possibly put too much pressure on him. We were a good team but I just didn't do it for him sexually and I felt so lonely and sad. Feeling lonely in a relationship is pretty miserable. I guess I checked out of the relationship and used to go out as much as I could and I got my kicks from my hobbies but I knew when I was crying myself to sleep that I couldn't continue for the next 30 years feeling that way.
I met a man through a hobby who made it very clear he was interested in me. I was honest with DH about this and dh just shrugged and didn't seem bothered that anyone else was interested in his wife at all. He asked no questions and I felt like I was trying to make him jealous. That made me feel so worthless. I was not interested in him at all but I knew if I had been I would probably have done something about it so I felt wanted and desired and that was another indicator that things weren't salvageable to me.
After our separation, I did meet another man but it was too soon for both of us and I definitely felt desired and wanted so I guess there may be hope yet.
I'm hoping that dh meets some one that he falls head over heels in love with and is able to have Open and honest conversations with.

I'm the OP
Thanks, everyone, for your contributions and sorry to read some of you have experienced the same. It's a very soul-destroying experience and I wish I could see, out of interest, how much time I have wasted googling variations of "is my husband gay/asexual/causes of low libido/" and so on, over the last decade of my life. I'm still none the wiser. Is it porn, does he masturbate, does he just not fancy me.....I don't know anything because sex- related conversations were off limits.

Anyway, now we have separated so I will just have to file it away and just try to let it go, but it's hard. I have felt less alive, much less attractive, less of a woman, less of an adult, like there was a whole aspect of life in a couple that was just a sham for me. Access denied.

In one sense I hope at some stage of my life I will have the chance to have a sex life with someone else. But I just can't imagine having the chance due to having 100% of the responsibility for childcare (ex lives abroad which is a mixed blessing).

All those wasted lonely nights that we were mostly just like friends, the prime of my life!! I never wanted anyone else, he was so handsome and definitely floated my boat physically despite his lack of va va voom. But never once did he listen to me about it/ bring it up/ seek a solution/ agree to get medical advice.

Pickitup, I know what you mean but I honestly don't know what kind of woman (man?) would set my ex's heart racing and get him to open up, I just can't picture it at all but who knows.

As Honeybbooo said upthread, sex isn't everything but feeling loved and desired IS important.

From the POV of someone who was rendered completely asexual by medication and ensuing hormone issues, I couldn’t stand to talk about sex when my sex drive was gone. I couldn’t stand to watch sex scenes on TV, if DH brought up past sexual instances I felt massively uncomfortable.

Now my sex drive is back we’ve just had a two hour discussion about sex with no embarrassment or difficulty.

I believe that hormones play a much bigger role in these things than people realise

I missed this comment when I posted on this thread before and wanted to respond to it, for anyone in my or DH’s situation comes along and sees it later.

But! I’m not sure having no libido is a good enough excuse actually. Because to desire being physically intimate with the person you love isn’t the same as having a sex drive I don’t think

Yes, it is. When people talk about loss of libido, they’re thinking of having a low sex drive - as in, you’re not in the mood very often but still have a sexual side, sexual thoughts, desires etc and can get in the mood if you want to. That’s not what a loss of libido is. It’s when you have no sexual thoughts or desire, can’t stand to be touched or kissed, see sex scenes on TV and feel revulsion and panic.

If two people love and respect and care for each other then regardless of whether or not sex is the goal, both people should be able to enjoy kissing each other, touching each other, showering together, massage. All lovely stuff you wouldn’t do with other people

See above - you’re separating physical intimacy from sex and it doesn’t work that way if you lose your libido completely. Kissing your partner is sexual. Being touched by your partner is sexual. Any of that would trigger a fight or flight response in me.

If that is missing then I don’t think it is nearly as simple as “I don’t want sex” and I don’t think that is an acceptable answer tbh. It might be because she’s scared of where the intimacy might lead to, it might be her confidence is knocked. Whatever the reason, I don’t think telling your partner you just don’t want to me physically intimate with them is acceptable.

This is just, I’m afraid, completely ignorant of what it’s like to experience a total loss of libido. The fact that there are women discussed here who, despite completely losing their libido, have sex with their husbands anyway is absolutely disturbing to me because I know exactly what it’s like to be in that position, and forcing yourself to do it anyway is so damaging that I can’t even put it into words.

What do you think someone in this situation should do?

I knew that there was a physical cause for my loss of libido - it coincided with the use of medication that has this listed as a side effect, but never went away when I stopped the medication. I knew it was hormonal because in situations where my hormone levels changed significantly, it would sometimes come back like a switch being turned on (and usually then off again in the same way). It’s not like I had 60% of a sex drive one day and 10% the next day. It was 0% or 100%. Then I started noticing that it was coming and going alongside my cycle.

I’ve begged multiple doctors for help - they just said it’s normal to feel this way. Blood tests showed nothing useful, because female hormones are complex and you can have an imbalance that affects you while things are in normal range but not optimal with each other, if that makes sense.

I paid for more in depth tests, saw counsellors, took supplements, took it upon myself to do the opposite to aversion therapy with masturbation and it was absolutely horrific. I didn’t want anyone to touch me but I also didn’t want to touch myself. I didn’t want to have sex with my husband but I didn’t want to have sex with anyone.

It came back recently for three weeks or so, then disappeared again. Now it’s back. I love DH as much now as I did before it back and every day in between. I can’t control it because I don’t fully understand it or how to fix it.

The only compromise in this situation is having sex that you don’t want - not to be too graphic, that is utterly traumatic in this situation. You really don’t want to associate that feeling of violation with your spouse if you want to stay married. Reading stories here of women who’ve clearly lost their libido but are doing it anyway and are clearly dissociating from the experience to protect themselves is really upsetting, especially when their partners are then complaining that they aren’t enthusiastic enough. They wouldn’t be doing it if they didn’t feel they had to, and doing it is undoubtedly harming them.

So yes, saying that you can’t tolerate physical intimacy should be good enough, if that’s how you feel. What your partner does with that information is up to them, if DH had wanted to leave then I would have completely understood, and I hated the fact that this problem was causing him pain, but I couldn’t do any more than I was doing to try and fix it.

@ConfusedDH

Wow! My sentiments exactly. You have explained it so well. Today it's the one year anniversary of enforced celibacy with my wife.

The feelings of low self worth and self esteem is real.

We are in counselling but so far I just feel that she won't and refuses to see my point of view. To her, she's lost any desire to have sex and therefore she tells me that I've got a difficult choice to make!! Really?.

My exh was quite like this. Not really interested in sex. I even asked if he was gay! Since being single I've dated guys where the sex was intense and amazing. You're doing the right thing by moving on, it will get better.