Do people really split up over sex?

[ElleDriver]

I keep seeing threads on here about women who are in relationships where sex drives are mismatched. It interests me because I'm in the same boat. There are often many posters who insist that the op will never be fulfilled in a relationship where sex is lacking and lots of encouragement to get rid and move on to someone more like minded in a sexual sense.

Do people really do this? I mean if your relationship was otherwise great and you were with a good person who you were happy with, could you really walk away from that just because sex wasn't as often as you'd like? I get that there are often a lot more factors - self confidence becomes damaged and resentment creeps in. I am feeling pretty low and frustrated about my situation (dp claims low libido but I'm pretty sure he has sexual kinks and vanilla sex with me just doesn't do it for him). It makes me feel rubbish tbh. But I can't imagine ending our whole relationship over it as we've built a lovely life together and my ds adores him.

Just wondered if there are people who have managed to see past mismatched sex drives and been able to find a good compromise and still be happy?

I think it depends how important you feel sex is. Too me it’s important, it makes me feel desirable, I love the closeness and I don’t think I could be with someone who didn’t feel the same. Of course in any relationship there are compromises but if I wasn’t getting sex at least once a week I don’t think I could remain in the relationship.

I guess it also depends on the stage of the relationship. Far easier to walk away if it's a newish relationship with few ties and commitments. A lot harder when there are families, finances, homes and so on involved.

For me its not a dealbreaker but it does play on my mind a bit.

The thing is when you start getting other questions creep into the picture. You say a good person who you're happy with. That's great. But what about when you start asking things like.. if DH is so great, why does he not care at all about something I consider to be important in a marriage? And... then the veneer behind someone being a good DH begins to break and the relationship can falter as you realise how selfish they are.

I worded that badly. What I mean is a lack of sex is not a deal-breaker.. but a DH/DW dismissing something you consider to be important certainly can be.

@busybarbara oh definitely, I agree. But sometimes it's nobody at fault, you are just different and there's not a lot either of you can do.

I guess the options are to either accept it or leave.

I think fostering that sort of live and let live stance to something you otherwise consider important is a sign of above average emotional intelligence. Which might explain why a lot of people can't quite get there themselves!

A happy sex life leads to comfort and contentment, it also combines passion and fun. It can also be like stress relief. If l miss out on 1:1 sex for more than a few days, even though ll masturbate regularly, l get grumpy.

If sex goes wrong other things are likely to follow, which can lead to people looking elsewhere for the missing passion.

Yes they do split up. People won't generally tell you...we split up due to lack of sex, but lack of sex causes upset and then causes other issues. Men can cope sometimes but I think women really feel with lack of intimacy and connection

When we got married, aeons ago, our libidos were pretty well matched. After four or five years my wife's had diminished while mine remained much the same. This caused a lot of problems, particularly a lot of frustration for me and distress for her, but it was never resolved.

We tried talking it through, but she couldn't make herself want sex more often, so we were stuck with it. After we'd had two children, with the oldest being 5, there was a stage where she wanted a divorce. This wasn't only because of our mismatched libidos, but it was a significant factor. We sort of put that on hold to see if things would improve, and mostly they did, but our libidos remained mismatched, until finally the once-a-month event stopped completely about 20 years ago.

It's still a frustration to me, but as we are well matched in other respects, I didn't want to give up on this relationship and her desire for a divorce faded away and we have stayed together.

People not talking about sex is a big issue. You mention him possibly having some kinks while you are Vanilla. Do you know what these are? Have you talked about them. I find it amazing that people can live together for years and yet shy away from discussions around sexuality. If people were more talkative and more willing to experiment then I am sure more couples would be happier. It still is such a taboo subject.

@Banquo54 Have you done anything about it like open up the relationship a little or have you just been stoic and tolerated it all these years?

I heard that sex and money were the two main relationships end. Both are important to me.

If the sex was dull or infrequent with DH, I’d end it

@busybarbara. I'm not sure what you mean by 'opening up the relationship.' We've discussed our sexual issues on a number of occasions in the past, but if someone (whether they're male, female or other) loses all interest in sex and has no desire to do anything about it, you're pretty much stuck. I always hoped that her libido would return, it's not unknown for that to happen, but it never did. Despite my frustrations I have accepted the situation because in other respects we have a good relationship. I stopped bringing up the subject as it only caused distress for my wife.

A couple of years ago I heard about hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD), apparently the most common form of sexual dysfunction among women of all ages and I began to understand what a common and complex issue this is. There are treatments that can be tried to bring back desire, but this discovery is all too late for us. Even if I'd known about this 20 years ago, my wife would have had to be willing to consider doing something about it, and I don't know that she would.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'opening up the relationship.'

It sounds like the answer is no in your case, but it's not uncommon for the high libido partner in a relationship to get a "hall pass" or a "don't ask don't tell" policy from the other partner in order to maintain the relationship.

I’ve been fortunate to always found a partner who has a similar sex drive to me. Sex for me is crucially important to a long lasting and healthy relationship. It makes me feel connected, loved and hell who doesn’t love an orgasm?

I think if I had a partner that didn’t want to have sex with me on a consistent basis I’d have to walk away for my self esteem alone. I’ve ever experienced sexual rejection and would probably find it internally deeply upsetting.

@busybarbara I don't know about anyone else, but a "hall pass" was never a consideration for me. I don't think our marriage would have survived if we'd taken that route, nor would I ever consider having an affair or using prostitutes. I'm pretty sure that, psychologically, any of those options would do ME a lot of harm in the long term, if not the short term.

A 'hall pass' may sound good in theory, but I doubt that it would be truly beneficial in practice as there would be a lot of non-sexual issues that would emerge over time. I made a commitment to my wife when we got married and for me the only get out clause would be divorce, and that's not a route I want to take, just because our sex life isn't what it was, but I can understand why some people say it's a deal breaker.

My ex and I split because of mis-matched libidos.

In our case, hers went into free-fall when she hit menopause, and mine stayed the same.. We went from fairly regular sex (say once a week) to maybe two or three times a year...

Eventually, I had had enough (or not enough iyswim! ), and we had some long, honest and open discussions about sex, and our relationship in general. Things like "hall passes" and open relationships where discussed, but I simply couldn't do that - I'm not "wired" that way.

Eventually the only way we saw was to divorce. Of course, now I'm nearer 60 than 50, being a single guy with a normal to high sex drive is about as much use as a chocolate fire guard...

I really think you need to have an open chat with your partner ElleDriver. He needs to be honest with you so that you can consider what you need to do.

My DP and I are mismatched libido wise. We’ve talked it to death, he is the one with low libido. I wouldn’t dream of looking elsewhere for sex, I couldn’t separate the two factors.

So every so often I make a move, and it’s great. But that is because we are connected as a couple. If we weren’t then it would make a huge difference and I wouldn’t remain in the relationship.

My parents always said sex pols the wheels of marriage.

One of the main reasons I left my ex, the day I left him we hadn't had sex for nearly three years. He refused to discuss it or get help, and I was sick of feeling rejected and lonely. Still haven't had any sex in the past year, but I'm hopeful I'll get some soon.
I think sex is very important (ex mocked me for saying that and called me a sex addict) and at first I missed feeling close to him until he started smoking aged 32 and put me right off him. (Every cloud and all that.)

Oh well I’m nearly 8 years in with no sex at all. I’m desperately hoping my libido dies a death. My DH is very sexually conservative and would never give me a “ hall pass” in a million years. I’ve been on another forum where I’ve spoken with men in the same predicament and they all have a myriad of different circumstances.However lack of sex and vanilla sex do feature very highly in causing them unhappiness. ( as it does myself) I would say though that a lot of kinks are pretty harmless and only seem unusual because you’re not really exposed to discussion about them as a matter of course. I’m not in a position to discuss anything with my DH but if you can you should. I’m not saying you should do anything you’re not comfortable with but I think you should consider what it is about a kink that you find unpalatable before dismissing.

“I'm pretty sure he has sexual kinks and vanilla sex with me just doesn't do it for him”

What makes you so sure?

This is one of those questions that everybody who’s thinking of leaving beats themselves up about:

Am I really going to leave over ‘sex’? Can’t I just take a cold shower and get over myself? Is it that important? Am I some kind of sex-mad perv? Perhaps my partner is right when they say ‘nobody else our age is doing it either’? Perhaps I should settle for no sex, rather than rock the boat and upset everyone else? Won’t I look really shallow if people hear why I left? Everything else in the relationship is ‘okay’, so can’t I just do without sex?

A sort of imposed victim-blaming.

The trouble is, sex and intimacy is something to be shared. It isn’t passive, or one-sided. It’s not something that one party can half-participate in as a compromise. For many, it is like food. It’s needed regularly and without it, the relationship will die. Afterall, what differentiates you as couple from any other two people who know each other? You trust each other and share fun. Well that could be a friend. You live together and have joint responsibilities for bills and chores. Well, that could be a flatmate. But intimacies and sex? Well, that’s lovers, partners, married couples.

That’s when the resentment and anger starts to surface. When you realise the senses of rejection, loneliness, belittling, minimising, ridicule, shame, depression, etc. are all being imposed on you by your partner. That they don’t actually care for you anywhere near as much as you’ve given them credit for. As others have said, how much does your partner really love you, if they don’t want any intimacy and sex with you?

Even if they graciously suggest you get sex elsewhere, that doesn’t work for many of us, as we can’t / don’t want to separate love and sex that easily. It also forces the rejected person into breaking their marriage vows / cheating and is a further emphasis of their feelings of ‘I don’t want you, so can’t you go bother somebody else?...’ In any case, that is an abdication of their responsibility to either engage willingly in intimacy, or if they don’t want it anymore (which is their right) to be honest and equitable about the end of the relationship.

So yes, a relationship can quite legitimately end over sex, but fault is often wrongly apportioned.

^A that is the definitive answer.
Next.

The relationship wouldn't be otherwise great though, if sex was an issue, assuming most people want a fulfilling sex life.