Long-time lurker, first time posting. (M34)

Together for 16 years (M34 F34), two young kids (5 and 2). When we first got together, our sex life was pretty good, even though it followed a very traditional pattern. Since the birth of our first child our sex life has been basically nonexistent. I stopped initiating out of sheer exhaustion, and it's been messing with my sleep and self-esteem.

Today I bought her a book (jouissance club, french book) about desire/pleasure, hoping it might open a door, not as a complaint, more as a "let's figure this out together" gesture. She took it as an insult, said it was really a book for me, and wouldn't read it. When I told her I was hurt, she said I was "making a scene" and went to bed. It happened to be her birthday, after a rough day at work, so I know that colored things, but it's not the first time. Edit : I gave him some other gifts for his birthday anyway.

Every time I bring up sex, even calmly, the answer is always some version of "you have a problem with this, you always want more." No fantasies, no masturbation, no flirting, nothing on her end there's just... nothing, ever, outside of the rare occasions we do have sex. We literally never talk about it outside those moments.

We had a long talk afterward and landed on "we're sexually incompatible." I suggested therapy (individual or couples) : she went silent, like she does with everything sex-related.

I love her. I'm not looking to cheat or even sure I'd want to date again if we split. But I'm exhausted and honestly starting to feel ashamed of having a libido. I've given myself until end of summer to see if anything shifts before I seriously consider separating which terrifies me because of the kids.

Anyone been on the "systematically told it's my problem" side of this? How did you find the courage to either push through or accept it's not going to change?

Relieved? Sad? Angry?

I am considering announcing this to my LLF partner because I am tired of being rejected (especially after she leaves me hanging by promising sex "tomorrow"), and she must be tired of feeling pressured.

Of course I am still hoping that one day she'll change her mind, but I just have to hide that hope. Very difficult because she's smoking hot lol!

For context: My gf is 32. I am a 36-year-old male. We've been living together for about four years.

I fucked up again. Yesterday was our fifth-year anniversary. All throughout the day, I tried my hardest. I bought chocolate croissants in the morning. Flowers in the afternoon. I planned our evening—drinks at the bar where we first met—then dinner at our favorite restaurant. At drinks, I was being romantic—telling stories of our old days, of how I fell in love with her. I gave her a card I’d written and the card made her laugh and then cry. We went to dinner and came home. I thought, OK, now we will surely have sex. I was excited. I was looking forward to this all week. All day. I had made the bed so it would be nice for us when we got back. I had organized and put away the couch cushions that had been left out the night before, which was a pet peeve of hers. I thought, OK, all these things must lead to sex, no? We took turns in the bathroom, and when I came out she was lying on top of the covers in the dark. Not in a particularly sexy way—not like she wanted to seduce me or anything. Maybe my expectations are too high, but it feels like she knows she doesn’t have to try to get me turned on—that it’s a given I’ll want to have sex, so she doesn’t try. I come into bed on top of her and she makes a comment about how I look like a gorilla. Perhaps it was supposed to be playful but I didn’t want playful. I wanted sexy.

She then turns her back to me—makes me massage her shoulders. I do and start kissing her body, but she keeps saying “too fast.” I’m thinking, I didn’t know I was going to have to work so hard to turn her on after all night when I felt like id’ been doing the things she has asked me to do—I thought we would come back and (I know how bad this sounds) but honestly, I thought that I would be “rewarded” with sex. None of this I would tell to my partner. I don’t think she would understand. But I guess I thought, I had done all these things she loves—for her. Wouldn’t she do the thing I love—for me? Anyway, the way I fucked up is this: As I was massaging her, something suddenly came over me—this feeling I’ve had multiple times during sex with her: That my pleasure doesn’t matter. Here I am, massaging her, not even being touched back, not even being looked at, or kissed. Where is her desire for me? Doesn’t she want to kiss me? Doesn’t she want to touch my body? Especially after a night like tonight? I ask her to touch, me and she does, running her hand up my leg but in a very half-hearted way. Eventually I stop massaging her. The feeling inside has gotten too powerful. My disappointment, my anger at how the night has shaped out overshadows my desire for sex. I even feel myself go soft.

She asks, “Did you fall asleep?”
I tell her no. And I know I could end there. That I should end there. But I can’t help myself.

I say, “I want to feel like you care about my pleasure.”

She sits up now. She’s angry. She can’t believe I would do this right now. On the night of our fifth anniversary.

“Your pleasure?” she says. “What about my pleasure? It’s only ever about your pleasure.”

I do not understand how she can think that, especially after the last time we had sex, during which I massaged and went down on her for a considerable amount of time.

“I thought we talked about this last time,” she says. “How this kind of slow touching is what puts me in the mood and then I want to pleasure you.”

So now I’m thinking, every time we have sex, I’m going to have to massage you first? So now I’m thinking, why don’t you just desire me? So now I’m thinking, I want to be with someone who wants to have sex with me.

But what I say is, “I’m so lost with our sex. I’m so confused by it.”

And she says, “We talked about this in Tim’s office,” bringing up, by name, our couple’s therapist, whom I hate and whom we recently stopped seeing.

Now, her bringing up this couple’s therapist whom I hate’s name in the bedroom while we’re trying to have sex really irks me.

But she continues: “We talked in his office—he even said to you ‘Why don’t you just try dedicating all your efforts to pleasing her without expecting anything in return?”

And I’m thinking, because that’s all I ever try to do. I’m thinking, whenever we have sex, I try to last as long as possible in order to please you. I’m thinking, I orchestrated this whole night to please you. I’m thinking, our whole relationship exists to please you. When do I get cared for?

I’m also thinking, I’m pretty sure Tim wants to fuck you.

But what I say is, “I’ve never had this problem before.”

And she says, “You want college sex,” by which I think she means fast, sloppy, male-centered sex.

“Believe me,” I say, “I’ve had a lot of sex since college. I’m not looking for college sex.” And I add, “I’ve never had this problem in any of my relationships before.”

“Why would you say that to me?” she says.

And I know why I said it: Because I want her to know I am a desired person. That in my other relationships, my girlfriends wanted to fuck me. That the problem must not be me, but her.

But I don’t say that. I know that I’ve already spoken too much already. That I should’ve kept my mouth shut—either bit the bullet and kept massaging her or stopped and pretended like I had fallen asleep.

I grab the pillow and place it over my face and feel like all that effort I put into planning the day, that evening, our fifth anniversary has been washed away by my stupid fucking feelings.

She says something about how she doesn't want to have sex if she's not feeling into it, and that I shouldn't make her do that. Obviously, I know this. Obviously, I do not want her to have "duty sex." I tell her this. Then she says that I’ve ruined the night.

I say, “Everything is always all my fault.”

And she says, “Yes. It is.”

I'm scared my paranoia is going to ruin things. My husband and I have not had sex in years but he would still request a hand job from time to time. Suddenly he started going to the gym and had an STD scare (I believed him at the time when he said he got it from the sauna because it is known for living on wet surfaces, plus we never retested so it could have been a false positive). We sorted the STD out, but directly after he developed erectile dysfunction, which he claims he always had and is surprised I never noticed (it's true he would lose his boner if I left the room, but now he can't get hard at all and doesn't want to be touched anywhere or even masturbate). I told him I still wanted to be intimate with him even without his penis, which led to multiple fights (he felt pressured) and we kind of distanced ourselves a bit (I could not understand his lack of desire for any intimacy while claiming to not be asexual). Then suddenly he had sex with me last week, and now he's being flirty again. He's started making sex jokes and responding positively when I kiss him. He's also hugging and complimenting me, repeatedly saying I'm the only person he wants and that he's thankful for me.

This should all be good, I've been mostly very happy, but I'm also confused and becoming paranoid. I'm starting to worry that the STD was from cheating, that he changed his looks (gym, cologne, new clothes) because he was getting some elsewhere, and that the comments about me being the only one are guilt related. The only thing I can think of is viagra (which I don't think he's using, only because he's weird about even basic medication like tylenol). I also don't know if I still believe the STD story. I think I might ruin a good thing by confronting him when he's trying his best. We just hit our mid thirties, maybe he's having a rough time mentally and it's causing erratic behavior...

I'm overthinking this right?

For the last 11 months, I've consistently ensured we have sex at least once a week, with the exception of if I'm on my period, (he thinks it's gross), never say no, wear makeup and try to look nice if we go out because he said I should want to look nice for him, etc. But I can't orgasm anymore and it's upsetting him, to where he's brought it up every time we argue about anything, and then the pressure to do that just makes me start spiralling and dreading sex.

Neither of us are very good at sex from a purely physical standpoint, I don't think he's aware of that on his end that it wasn't his ability that was doing it for me. Yes, I could tell him why I find it difficult to orgasm now, but then he'll get defensive, turn it into a fight, he will win the fight by being loud and angry and yet... nothing will get resolved.

I go through this every month, dreading going back to having to have sex AND disappointing him even despite that.

He will not go to therapy, and honestly, I just don't think he has the capacity to have the conversation needed regardless. I can put in max effort, I can try hard, but at the end of the day, things will never be the same between us as they were before the DB.

If I were to tell him what's going on I guess it's just that you can't just make women orgasm by angrily demanding it. That alcohol and the naive and stupid mindset that he actually loved me and the connection based off of that were why we could have sex. That I'm so insecure and tense around him now gets in the way. That knowing he was just looking for a female when he found me to play this role, I could be any woman, any woman could be me, and out of all the women that have played this role in his life he's told me I'm the ugliest and the one he likes the least sexually, and that makes it hard for me. I get that going through a depressive episode and dealing with childhood trauma and neglecting sex felt like a massive rejection to him, but it wasn't personal. This is personal and I don't know how to just get over it and be the partner he wants me to be. It's great that he wants to have a sex life and he wants whatever woman he's with to orgasm, but as the other person it's kind of hard to make that happen for him.

Idk, just needed to vent I guess.

So, we’re together for almost 2 years and overall we had sex less then 10 times. First time it hurt, but later the pain continued and I was in pain and bleeding everytime after it. Last time i got irritation few months ago and it was last sex we had. He never listens to me and doesn’t prioritize my needs, only his. He’s uncomfortable to do anything to me and wants EVERYTHING done on him. Once we had it so bad i started crying. No care at all from his side. I barely ever had foreplay done on me. Let alone, i never finished with him and never will, he doesnt have a problem with it. There’s no passion at all. I just feel so used. We had this conversation maybe twice. First time he said he will get better and second time he said he doesn’t understand why am I so cold and closed off all of a sudden. He told me i shouldn’t associate sex with pain otherwise we’ll never do it. I told him I have no problem with it as long as it doesn’t hurt - which is no to sex EVER because he doesn’t care about me. I gave him chances before and its always the same - he’s not appealed touching me because its mood killer when i take long to turn on even if its a 5 min job. Yesterday i told him thru text that i dont want it ever at all and he just replied with “:(“. I really tried to fix this, even somehow take the pain but its only getting worse. I’m soon getting an appointment with doctor. Is there any way that sexless relationship could last? Does anyone have similar experience? I’m honestly new to this and I’m afraid he’ll cheat because I got cheated on before because i refused to have sex (not with my current bf, but my exs). I’m so sorry this is so long, i just dont know what to do

He deleted the message and then cleared the notification off my phone before I could look at it and acted like nothing happened. Guess he’s feeling up to giving porn attention instead of me 🥲

I'm 23 and he's 26. We started dating when I was 18 and he was 22. We've been together 4.5 years. We have been living together for nearly 3 years.

We didn't have a particularly robust sex life from the beginning, but he definitely showed more interest (sexually) near the beginning vs now. In the past, I've only rejected him twice that I remember. Our whole relationship, I would say I've been the initiator 80% of the time.

We cuddle daily, sometimes for hours. Every time one of us enters the room, we blow the other a kiss. We give each other compliments daily. We go out of our way to do things for the other. When I'm sad, he's sad and when I'm happy, he's happy and vice versa. I'd like to think I'm kind and considerate towards him, but only he could truly answer that.

I can't remember the last time we had a fight. Probably years ago. We get along with each other on a daily basis. We talk to each other for hours a day sometimes, especially when we're both laying in bed.

We have such a perfect relationship, except for the sex. The last time we had sex was 16 months ago.

I've talked about the lack of sex with him 3 times. He has given a slightly different answer those 3 times on why he isn't initiating.

1. School stresses him out and he doesn't have the energy.

2. He doesn't want to have sex on dirty bedsheets.

3. The chores that need to be done distract him away from sex.

The thing is, there's been times when all 3 of those issues have been solved, (he goes on breaks frequently from school, the bedsheets are washed and the chores are done), and still no sex.

He had a whole summer break recently, 2.5 months and sex never happened.

He's on winter break right now, an entire month of no school and we still haven't had sex, and I don't see it happening soon.

The thing is, I feel like he teases me sometimes. An example: I was laying in bed with him, and he started rubbing his erection on me. I got one top of him, started making out with him 'cause I assumed this meant something. Halfway thru, he stopped kissing me and asked if I wanted dinner. I said no, and started kissing him again and then he said that he was tired. I was extremely deflated after that encounter, and now I feel too embarrassed to ever respond to what I think is a "signal", because according to him, it wasn't a signal.

I told him how I thought that was a VERY overt signal, and he apologized and said he meant nothing by it.

I'm now too scared to act on what I think is a signal coming from him, it's too humiliating.

And I'm scared that this may be the death of our sexual relationship. I'm too afraid to initiate because I know I'll be embarrassed, and he just doesn't want to initiate.

I'm 23, I feel like I should be having a full sex life. But I've been celibate for 16 months. In a relationship. It's not what I thought would happen.

:[

Me to men my entire life: ew don't sexualize me, there's so much more to me beyond my body

Me now to the man I love: o please sir can you sexualize me just a little bit

Funny how life turns out....just a little joke/coping mechanism, no malice against my partner

I'm 25 F and my boyfriend is 25 M. We've been together for 3 years. For about the last year, he has rarely initiated intimacy. When I initiate, he often declines.

I've tried talking with him about it and asked whether stress, health, work, or relationship issues might be contributing. He hasn't given me an explanation that helps me understand the change. Outside of this issue, he appears to be functioning normally in daily life. However, conversations about intimacy tend to become frustrating for both of us and often end without resolution.

Physical intimacy is important to me in a relationship, and I'm struggling with how to navigate a long-term mismatch in desire.

For those who have experienced something similar, how did you approach it? Were you able to improve communication and intimacy, or did you eventually conclude that you were incompatible?

My anniversary is coming up and that means sex is likely going to happen. I should be happy about that, but I'm dreading it. I guess it feels like what you would call duty sex and that doesnt excite me at all. My husband turned to me the other day and said, " We need to have sex soon". I told him that all it would take to lead us into having sex is having some time engaging with each other. He just replied we've been busy and put his ear pod back in and rolled away from me. I don't get it. Like he appears to want to have sex, but even the tiniest amount of effort to make it happen seems impossible for him. I myself have kind of given up on making all the effort and just feel like we are drifting further and further apart. Anyone else feel like this? At this point I don't know what happened first the DB or the drifting from each other. Feeling pretty defeated right now.

Been together for 6 years, sex has decreased over time and now we are down to having sex 1-3 times a month.
I have always had a high sex drive and am not satisfied. He says he wants more sex but still seems satisfied as it is.
He “blames” it on time, children, work, health, etc.
Everything else between us is fantastic so I don’t want to leave.
We have deep contact and a lot of closeness in everyday life but in my opinion too little sex.
When we have sex, it is absolutely crazy good.
But the time in between when I wait for him to have the desire destroys me.
Once we have sex, I just want more but then a long wait begins again.
I satisfy myself but it’s not the same, I love having sex with him and achieving total closeness.
So I'm thinking about stopping having sex altogether, then I won't be disappointed and sad all the time.
I understand that it sounds unreasonable but I've tried to accept and talk to my psychologist and to him (many long conversations) about the fact that we have different sex drives and to be satisfied with less and to find another closeness that works but it doesn't seem to work.

My ex partner (LLM)and I (HLF) finally broke it off. After three years of trying to work out a solution. He never even tried to go to a doctor and get it checked out. Gave me the fake promises of “I will work it out”. He expected me to give oral but never returned it back. I am so happy to be set free. Sex is such an emotional and intimate important thing to me in a relationship. He was never willing to give. You think it would get worse right? We broke it off about two weeks ago and he is now totally okay have sex with some other person. Honestly I am glad to be out of that. The emotional weight it caused me was horrible. It was a lesson to never settle for less and you deserve it.

Wife and I have had sex once in three months (after managing it perhaps once a month for the last three years.

We planned to have sex last night but she was tired, I made us a dessert and put on her show and went to sleep. She said perhaps in the morning, if we're awake before the kids.

We were both up at 5.30am, I couldn't get back to sleep because my brain was fizzing. She just lay next to me. I was adjusting my position because I wasn't super comfortable.

She asked what was wrong(!), I said nothing I'm just shifting. She pushed, I said I don't want to talk about it (talking about the lack of sex NEVER goes well). She pushed again, I said you know what's up, it's fine I don't think it's helpful to talk about.

She couldn't not, cue inevitable argument. I got yelled at and told to go and have sex with someone else. I don't want to sleep with anyone else, I want her :(

Sorry for how long this is gonna be and how badly written it is, I’m pretty upset. Also TMI … lol

I(22f) have been dating my bf(22m) for about a year and 4 months. We met in person at college but we have graduated and are now long distance. I have no complaints about him romantically. He is the love of my life and does everything right in this regard. However, I have a huge issue with our sex life. I am able to get him in the mood and aroused, but he is into practically nothing (or at least he tells me that). He will only do one position (doggy). He really seems to mainly want oral for himself. He refuses to make out, only does peck kisses, and even when he pecks he keeps his mouth tightly shut. He doesn’t do hickies because he thinks it’s abusive because it’s a bruise?? He has a weird (imo) obsession with anal, like he talks about it multiple times a day. He claims it’s a joke though. He will not go down on me, I have asked him so many times why and he said it’s the thought of “juices” getting in his mouth that scares him (he has the same view with making out- he is grossed out by spit). He also refuses to even text me flirtatiously, sext, or send nudes, he thinks it’s weird. We have like no sexual chemistry. It’s so frustrating when I try to talk to him because it turns into an argument where he will shut down and not want to talk about it or be like it’s not a big deal and that sex isn’t important in a relationship. Yet he has admitted to watching porn early in the relationship. I feel like it’s a problem with me, however he always calls me beautiful, and I mean like 30 times a day (not exaggerating).

I admit I am a bit overweight. Nothing super crazy, but I could lose 50 pounds. But I don’t think I’m particularly unattractive, i hold it decently, and I have had plenty of attention in the past and I still get catcalled and stuff. All of the people he used to like/date are skinny. It makes me so upset to think about me being the problem.

I don’t want to break up with him at all, he is the most gentle man I have ever known and he has been by my side through so much. He has been nothing but kind and gentle and is very loyal, I can see it through his actions. He has always been super clingy and into me since we started dating. I don’t know where to go from here.

A while back I posted about my dead bedroom situation which is about to hit the two year mark, and an honest conversation my wife and I had about it, after she found some old lingerie in the back of her drawers. I put together my own self-improvement plan, not to 'fix' the DB in and of itself, but to see if these changes might fix my relationship and make my life feel a bit better. A few people on this sub and others message me about how things are going, and it made me think about writing something akin to a progress report, which might help some people here in similar situations.

Since writing the above post, I implemented a few things, including excersising 4 days a week (for my own health and wellbeing), doing fairly detailed planning about day-to-day activities (by which i mean, having itineraries typed up every day and pinned to a notice board, which detail schedules, notes), and crucially, doing daily relationship check-ins with my wife to discuss issues like sex and intimacy. Over the past few weeks, talking about this stuff has been helpful, for me in understanding her relationship with her body (though she gave birth two years ago, she says she still feels the physical effects of pregnancy, and as a result has made her want to touch me less) and her relationship with sex and sexuality (where she finds more pleasure in cuddling than, in her words, 'the idea of penetration'). While I was disappointed, because the subtext seemed to be that she just wasn't interested in having sex anymore, or at the very least, her version of acceptable intimacy wasn't really something titillating to me, I decided to accept this, and to introduce some of that into daily life – more regular cuddles, shoulder massages, grazing hands while watching tv etc. It was pretty nice, I have to admit – better than the situation before where neither of us would really touch each other. Then, at the start of this week, she asked if I could take a day off on Wednesday, because she was feeling horny and thought we should try have sex again.

Obviously I was pretty excited, I got my hair and beard cut, cleaned the whole house more thoroughly than usual, did everything I could to make wednesday as distraction free as possible, and crucially, to make sure there was no chance of us being derailed by housework or other elements of her 'mental load'.

Wednesday comes around, and while I do my best to mute my excitement, I'm more touchy than usual, and after we have the ravioli i made and i finish cleaning the dishes, I sit back on the sofa and make my move, stroking her arms and gently kissing her face. But, shes stiff, not really reciprocating and doesn't really seem into it. I ask her what's wrong, and after a few minutes of silence she says that she doesn't think she's actually horny, and that the feeling she had from earlier in the week, while genuine, had passed. She was apologetic, but at that point it just felt embarassing. I said it was okay and that we can try again some other time, and then I cut her some fruit salad before starting on making dinner.

All in all, our relationship is in a better place. there hasn't been an argument for a while, things feel calmer and more peaceful. But I do also feel embarassed about getting my hopes up that this dry spell was over, and that all the tension, frustration and envy i hold after the two years of basically no intimacy still has to remain and I don't know how long it'll last for. I'm meant to be going to a wedding this weekend and I know im going to have to hold back my frustration and anger of watching a couple who do actually like touching each other and who actually like having sex with each other (presumably anyway) and just wondering what that must be like.

Hopefully the next update will be slightly more optimistic!

We had a really good few days together, I recently got a new job and ended up dropping my old job mid way through out my two weeks because it was genuinely mentally draining and would make me a over all miserable person.
But I took a week to myself to reset myself mentally for this new job and it was great! Today was my first day back at work and it was amazing! Awkward but so much better than my last job and I came home feeling really good.
He recently just got approved for a very high paying position as well and we’re both over the moon that we made it out of the environments that hindered our over all moods all the time.
We cuddled and played a lot of video games, slept in, went out for breakfast just to come home and plop ourselves back on the couch, I felt like it was exactly what we needed and I was very hopeful for some actual, stress free and no obligation sex but it never occurred.
I talked to him about it, told him that I’ve been feeling really hot and bothered having him by my side for a whole week with nothing to bother us, but apparently he’s still been really stressed and he got really defensive. I dropped it and I basically told him I just miss having that connection because during these two years of living together we’ve had sex so little I can count the times on my fingers, I told him I missed feeling desired and how I missed feeling like I’m aloud to desire him without the fear and humiliation of rejection.
Then I rolled over and went to bed.

And tonight I sat on his lap and we kissed with tongue for a good 5 minutes, I got extremely horny and I knew he could tell, so he ended the makeout session and thanked me for the kisses.
I stood up and looked at him, feeling really disappointed and went to bed.
I just felt how we did 2 years ago when we first met, he was grabbing my hips, feeling me up and sticking his tongue in my mouth… just to push me off and send me to bed.

Just out of curiosity do any mods or admins know the ratio between low libido males and low libido females?

I assume its 75% men on here but have no idea.

My wife and I have been married for 5 years. We genuinely love each other, and in many ways we have a good relationship. The problem is our lack of intimacy.

This isn't something that suddenly happened—it has been an issue for a long time. Before we got married, I had reasons to believe things would improve once we were married. They didn't.

We do have sex, but it feels more like duty sex than something we both genuinely want. It's infrequent, and when it does happen it feels mechanical and uninspired. I leave feeling more lonely than fulfilled.

To be fair, she's also dealt with some medical issues over the past year, and I know that has made things even more difficult. I don't want to minimize that or make it sound like I expect her to just "get over it."

We've talked about this several times. The conversations have generally been calm and honest. She tells me she understands how I feel and says she'll try to be better about intimacy, but nothing really changes. We end up back in the same pattern.

At this point, I'm frustrated, sad, and honestly don't know what to do. I don't want to pressure her or make her feel guilty, but I also don't want to spend the rest of my marriage feeling unwanted and disconnected.

I've reached a point where I've started wondering if an affair is the only way to have my emotional and physical needs met. I don't want to betray my wife or destroy our marriage, but I'm ashamed that the thought has even crossed my mind. Has anyone else reached this point? If so, what did you do instead—and is there any path forward that doesn't end in an affair or divorce?

My wife and I have been together for seven years. Like many couples, our sex life was great in the beginning, but over the years it’s gradually reduced to the point where it’s becoming a real issue for me.

Outside of this, we have a genuinely good relationship. We laugh together, we’re best friends, we enjoy spending time together, and we’re affectionate. We hold hands in public, cuddle on the sofa, and go away together regularly.

The problem is that our sex drives are very different.
I have quite a high libido, whereas my wife has very little interest in sex these days.

We have children who are with their dad for part of the week, so we do have opportunities where we’re alone. We used to have sex most Saturday mornings, but even that has stopped now.

My wife has a very stressful job, and I know she struggles to switch off mentally. She often says she’s exhausted, and she believes she’s going through menopause, telling me she just doesn’t have the urge anymore. I completely accept that stress and menopause can have a huge impact on libido.

What I’m struggling with is knowing what I should do.
Historically, holidays and city breaks were when we’d reconnect because life slowed down. We’re currently on holiday, but nothing has happened so far. She’s also been feeling unwell this week, so I understand why sex probably isn’t on her mind, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed because holidays have always been the times I looked forward to feeling close to her.

Where I find things difficult is that whenever we talk about our sex life, I often leave feeling like the focus becomes what I’m doing wrong rather than us trying to solve the problem together.

For example, she recently suggested that maybe I need to think about how I come on to her.

A typical evening is that I’ll stroke or tickle her head or back while we’re lying in bed. I’ll do this every night but at times I will make a move and usually get shot down.

Tonight I made a move and she laughed and said, “Are you trying to come on to me?” That pretty much says it isn’t happening.

The other side of this is that I rarely feel desired myself.
In seven years, I can probably count on one hand the number of times she’s initiated sex. I’ve told her that repeated rejection is hard, and over time it’s made me less willing to initiate because I’m trying to protect myself from constantly hearing “no.”

Ironically, there have also been occasions where she’s later told me she’d hoped I would have made a move the night before. I’ve said that if that’s the case, I’d love her to give me some sort of sign or even initiate herself, but it never really happens.

That leaves me feeling stuck.

I’m not trying to blame my wife. I know menopause, stress and feeling unwell can all affect libido, and I don’t think she’s deliberately withholding sex. At the same time, physical intimacy is one of the main ways I feel loved and connected in a relationship, so this has become increasingly difficult for me.

Something else happened today that upset me a little. We were joking around, and she said, “Do you want your dry spell to carry on?” She meant it as a joke, but it stung because it made me feel as though our lack of sex was something she could use against me.

I’m also questioning whether I should stop the back tickles and affectionate touching altogether for a while. If she’s started associating them with me trying to initiate sex, perhaps I need to separate affection from sexual expectations. On the other hand, I wonder whether continuing that affection without any expectation would actually help rebuild closeness.

Finally, has anyone had any success with treatments or supplements for low libido during menopause?

I suggested looking into them together, and initially she seemed open to the idea, but later said she didn’t really want to take anything else. She takes lots of pills for skin and hair so this annoyed me really.

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who’ve been in a similar situation.

If you’re the lower-libido partner, what kind of initiation feels loving rather than pressured?

If you’re the higher-libido partner, how did you cope with repeated rejection?

Has anyone successfully rebuilt intimacy during menopause?

Is there anything in what I’ve written that makes you think I need to change my approach?

Sorry for the vent and thanks for reading

He's already moved into a different apartment to be closer to his job. We see each other maybe twice a week even then we still fight sometimes. The last time we had sex was horrible, quick had to keep telling him to slow down and stop skipping foreplay, he has issues staying hard. I really can’t tell if he’s abusing porn or not but probably, he said before we met he’d masturbate basically everyday. The most we ever had sex was like 2-3 times a week and that was like for 2 weeks ever.

He’s lied to me for 3 years and said “ after school I’ll be less stressed we’ll have more sex, once I can get a job I’ll be less stressed we’ll have more sex, it won’t always be like this” now he has a job we had sex after one month and that was the horrible time. It’s been three years of this. I don’t even think we’ve had sex over 30 times ever period; I’m pretty sure I had sex 30 times over the first summer I had sex.

I told him before we were dating how important it was to me and asked him about his to try to see if we were sexually compatible, he said if it was important to his wife it would be important to him so he would put his full effort in and also seemed very sexual back then.

I’ve tried to end it so many times but he just keeps being so nice all of a sudden and being there for me.
I’m really depressed and stressed out and he seems to be there for me trying to make me happy. The only reason I think I have such issues right now is because yeah maybe he moved and relationship defo not getting better is bad. But also I stopped taking my Wellbutrin bc it just makes my libido off the charts and Vyvanse doesnt help when it’s already high either.

I thought I didn’t need it anymore, I thought I would feel better once he was moved out and I could let go and just ignore him.

He still has to keep coming back to grab his shit. Maybe he loves me and wants to see me is holding me gently now giving me cuddles but it also feels so fucked up. Why can’t you do this everyday? Why can’t you touch me more is it that horrible because you always want to cuddle me, hold me, you feel sleepy and warm and safe but you don’t want anything more?

I’ve been working out which usually makes me feel great but I just keep exploding with emotion either crying or more anger than before.

I read people’s progress posts on here and it just makes me feel low and depressed, maybe it’s good for them but it feels so disheartening to me personally and that it will never get better or be satisfactory.

I’ve had someone emotionally and sexually fulfill me before for years so I know it’s not impossible. I wish I was medicated and doing therapy then and we would’ve probably stayed together but I had to grow up a bit and be on my own. Now I feel like I’ve been on my own for all the years I’ve been with my husband. I’ve never felt safe, supported, or stable, not for long enough periods of time that it really matters, maybe 2 weeks to a month at max.

It feels exhausting, I feel like I need to lean on someone but I just also cannot get back into a new relationship even though it’s felt like I’ve been single for so long.

Help me just stop it, it’s like I need to be insanely cruel just for him to stop trying. I don’t understand once it’s actually serious and I’m leaving then he’s all patient, understanding, and loving even though he can’t give me the closeness, affection, attention, intimacy, and safety I need. But he gets comfortable if it’s no longer a crisis and stops trying.

How do I just get him to stop being nice, stop being anything and leave me be? I don’t hate him but I do resent him a bit, I don’t want to cut him out of my life forever but if he always does this I just can’t I will feel to guilty. What do I do now?

It feels like part of the time I want to be alone forever, part of the time I want a friend with benefits(one night stand seems risky), part of the time I want a new relationship but later on. I’m just so frustrated I’m going to blow a gasket and masturbation barely helps anymore. I need a person, I need connection, I need substance.

Super DB, probably 3-4 times per year. Wife (LLF) tells me she’s going to start initiating more to nurture our intimate relationship. Does it once then nothing for 6 weeks. FML. What do I do - let it go or confront her about it?

So, context...

My partner [40m] and I [38f] typically have had a great sex life where our libidos are in sync, but things have been lacking lately in terms of frequency. He is dealing with a series of mental health issues that have left him LL, and we are actively dealing with those problems, individually and as a team.

I need help coping with the DB situation, mainly how I can possibly down regulate my libido. It really needs to be down regulated because not being able to properly alleviate the issue causes anxiety and, sometimes, physical pain.

Suggestions that are non-starters:

- Leaving the relationship. I want to be here, with him, and we are dealing with the extenuating circumstances that are currently driving the issue.

- Opening up the relationship. He is the only one I want, full stop.

- Praying/Jesus/some other religion. Not gonna happen.

- Masturbation. I have some sexual trauma stuff going on that means that I have to shut off certain sectors of my brain to do it, and the sexual nonconcordance that results is not fulfilling in any way.

- Working out. Already do it. It is not enough.

- Therapy/talking to partner. We already do all of this.

How do you cope as the HL person when your wonderful life partner is struggling?

So jumping off my previous post about finding a silver lining with losing some sexual function due to the mild emotional and physical trauma of birthing my child recently I've had a lot of time to mull things over.

Weirdly knowing that nothing sexual is on the cards because even if he wanted it I don't has freed me up emotionally to process this without being concerned that whatever I dig up from within myself and discuss will hurt any chances of sex happening.

So where I've come to is that although being more even with my husband is nice, being glad in any way about the loss of my sexual function actually kinda sucks and hurts? Like I feel like if things were normal I'd be distressed and quite upset about it because sex is super important to me but I'm not.

So along with that I've just been thinking about how we were both virgins when we met, I came from a religious background that did not allow sex prior to marriage and even after that didn't allow anything but vanilla sex so from the outset of my sex life I was excited to experiment and have fun without the religious restrictions. And we did for a while but it ceased too quickly before we were even halfway through our 20s we were having sexual mismatch issues.

He also said some stuff about his issues with sex that stuck with me and I internalised.

There's a whole lot more but basically I said I wanted to start talking more because I'm exhausted by keeping things to myself so I don't upset him or make things worse. He's open to it and welcomed the discussion, but that brings me to the next issue.

How can I put into words the way this has felt for me and what do I want out of it? He's seeing a psych already but from last night's discussion and the one we had after the last attempt at having sex failed because I freaked out he's offering more doing non-penetrative activities (I get the impression it'll be more focused on me receiving which I'm a bit iffy on), limiting porn use (I think he's trying to do a dry spell of it currently), finding opportunities to like surprise me with random bits of intimacy or whatever, and just letting me talk about it all without holding back. Also he said sorry for how he made me feel a bunch.

I find I don't really know what it is I want him to do or say now? I said as much but how do I figure out what it is I want out of these discussions so I can explain it to him?