Sexual intimacy just doesn’t seem to happen anymore.
Perhaps it’s been a month?
A few months?
Or maybe even a couple of years?
It’s more common than most of us realise.
We tend to think everyone else has a great relationship and sex life. We can think that there’s something wrong with us because we’re the only ones not doing it – or arguing about it.
But, you’re not alone.
Listen to the Podcast – How and where to start when you haven’t had sex in months or years
Sometimes sex stops suddenly. There’s an event, a turning point of some kind and that’s it.
Other couples notice a slow decline, until they can perhaps count on one hand the number of times it’s happened this year.
And there is counting. Because it’s always in the back of your mind – even though you try not to think about it.
Sometimes you think it’s when you had kids, but while that certainly didn’t help things, you probably noticed a decline before then.
Maybe you wish you could just understand why it happened. Hoping that will solve things.
The truth is, there are many reasons why sex stops – and it’s often a complex mix of things.
What’s really important to know is it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.
Perhaps you’ve been wishing this will just ‘fix’ itself, or wished that you could just get on with your relationship without sex.
Maybe you build yourself up, telling yourself ‘I know I need to do something about this – tonight’s the night.’ But then you forget or feel too nervous or just don’t feel in the mood anymore.
The longer you go without it, the more awkward and uncomfortable it can feel.
You remember a time when you loved making love, when you felt passionate urgency between you. But that feels so far away now.
You wish you could just want to ‘want to’ again.
But you don’t know how or where to start. And it seems like all the sex advice in the world can’t get you over that first hurdle.
Well my love, this is for you.
I’m sharing the first steps for reigniting desire and being intimate with a partner again.
There’s something I want to say about desire first though, because changing the way we understand desire can make a huge difference to your journey.
We tend to have an expectation that desire is spontaneous – that it will just arise spontaneously. And that’s our cue to then be intimate with a partner. We can think that ‘feeling in the mood’ is a pre-requisite for starting intimacy.
Science is now understanding that our sexual desire is actually responsive. That is, it arises in response to stimuli.
What this means is that we need to cultivate the conditions in which desire can respond. And for women, this begins long before we enter the bedroom. So that’s where we start. We want to build the house of our desire on a strong foundation.
Here’s how you can begin rebuilding your sexual intimacy…
1. Decide that sexual intimacy is important to you
You’re going to make change on this fastest if you feel like this is important to you.
Research shows us that there are two key things that keep passion in a relationship. The first is staying god friends, the other is making sex a priority.
While sex might not seem important to you at the moment, if it’s important to your partner, it’s important to you relationship.
And the truth is, sex really can bring you closer because of the beautiful cocktail of hormones and endorphins that sex helps you release. One of the key hormones released during sex is oxytocin, which helps you feel bonded and connected to each other.
So decide that having a loving, fulfilling sex life is important to you and your relationship. This mindset will help you stay motivated and taking action.
2. Share appreciation with your partner
When we’re not having sex, our partner can end up feeling unloved and undesired – contributing to increased tension.
When there’s tension in a relationship, we can find ourselves focusing on the things that annoy us about our partner and the relationship.
And that doesn’t lead to us feeling sexy.
Sharing appreciation with our partner can help them to feel loved, appreciated and wanted. It can help your partner understand that your lack of desire isn’t a lack of love for them and contribute to more harmony and ease between you.
When you focus on the things you appreciate about your partner, you’ll feel more open and loving towards them.
Make a point of sharing something that you appreciate about your partner with them each day to build the love, connection and closeness between you.
3. Spend quality time together
If you’ve stopped having sex, it’s likely you feel disconnected to your partner on a couple of levels.
Perhaps you just don’t spend as much time together (or any) as you used to. With so much going on in your lives, you can feel like two ships passing in the night.
You might feel like you’re missing the emotional intimacy that helps you feel close to your partner. Maybe you only connect on practical issues now, not as lovers like you used to.
Becoming close to your partner again requires that you spend time together. It’s important to make it a priority. This connection can then flow into the bedroom.
Small amounts of quality time together can make a world of difference to your connection.
Try starting with just 10 minutes a day where you sit down uninterrupted and just talk about how your day was.
You can also find more ideas for connection in my ebook: 10 Powerful Ways to Connect with your Partner.
4. Start with non-sexual physical touch
When you’ve stopped having sex, you may have found that physical touch gets avoided completely.
Maybe you pull away from affection because you don’t want to give your partner the ‘wrong idea’.
Perhaps you’ve stopped kissing passionately too.
We want to get that back. And we do it one small step at a time.
Physical affection helps build oxytocin, that hormone that helps you feel bonded and connected to each other. Oxytocin is also an important contributor to women’s lubrication and arousal.
Begin bringing non-sexual touch back into your relationship to build closeness and desire.
Don’t put pressure on yourself for it to ‘lead anywhere’. It may help for you to have a conversation with a partner about it.
You might say something like:
‘I really miss being physically intimate with you, but I need us to take this one step at a time. I’d like to hug you more, but I’m not ready for it to lead to sex at this stage. Is that okay with you?’
Try some of the following suggestions to rebuild physical connection:
- When you next kiss goodbye, kiss on the lips… and linger a little longer than usual.
- Hug your partner for no reason at all.
- Snuggle up to your partner while you’re watching TV together.
- Offer your partner a massage.
- Invite them to the shower or bath with you.
5. Reestablishing your connection will be easier with support
Starting again when your sex life has been in decline isn’t easy, but it is possible.
Often, taking the first step is the hardest.
I want you to know you don’t need to do it alone.
Great article. I think that intimacy in relationships tends to ebb and flow, and this article would be really helpful for all couples, not just ones who have lost touch.
This article assumes you are already in a relationship. What about the rest of us that aren’t? This isn’t even a topic on other sites. It’s hard to find information about this, it must be so rare. That makes me feel even worse for not having any relationship in the past 9 years.
The worst part is, I’m a nice guy. And I see assholes always dating women. Those same women have been friends of mine when they get their hearts broken, and turn to me for guidance. At this point, I say, well maybe you should stop dating assholes when I tell you who and what they are and find a nice guy to date!
Are women just this retarded? Always saying they want the nice guy and go for the bad boys and wonder why things don’t work out for them? It’s really stupid.
I feel like my wife doesn’t like the intimacy with me anymore, even holding hands. We haven’t had sex for months. She will tend to reject and find excuse to do other stuff. I don’t think she doesn’t love me. Just not as much and the priority is not on me. What should I do to improve our sex life?
This is exactly what is going on in my life we had a baby and now sex is not happening whatsoever but even before then I started to decline 🙁 right now I just feel so sad and unwanted ?
This happened to us.
We have a 12 year old boy who we adore but he loves being close to us. His room is within ours, his former nursey. Talk about a “co@l block”.
I love him so,
But when he feels frisky I often shy away feeling embarrassed. AND I DONY KNOW WHY!?! He is such an affectionate man, but doesnt push sex.
We just feel we have turned into that old married couple.
He just turned 49, am 46. know it’s important. So I mentioned it today.
He was like “bring it on”. Using a smiley emoji.
I feel to blame because I had issues in the past years with a declining labido.
He has made subtle attemps but I have turned away. I had a man friend tell me “if he isnt getting it from you,
He is getting it somewhere else”. Maybe that is true in some men but I know in my heart he adores me and our vows. He wouldn’t do that. I just know him.
And we both have packed on weight. Neither of us feels sexy anymore.
Thanks for tnis article and yhe advice. We do spend qt together and I show him love in other ways like having home colked meals ready and a clean turned back bed. He works hard for our family. I just can’t do the sexy thing anymore,
It is almost like I feel that sexy 40 something girl is gone. And Im guilty and ashamed.
We haven’t had sex in a month and have been to sex therapy NUMEROUS times. My husband was a virgin and I wasn’t. We’ve been married for 5 years now. Well, we tried to have sex this morning and he lost his erection AGAIN. (We started with oral and that’s when he lost it). I cannot keep going on like this. Any suggestions? This cycle happens over and over and over. There are no underlying medical problems.
My live in bf of 8 years and I haven’t had sex in almost 3 months. We adore each other, always show affection and appreciation for one another but just can’t seem to get there. We both work a lot and are often stressed. He travels a lot for work so isn’t home all the time either. This doesn’t help & makes me feel insecure. I feel like if we aren’t having sex he may look elsewhere while traveling. He just never really makes the effort and it doesn’t seem to be a priority for him. I don’t feel desired sexually by him. I’ve brought it up numerous times & we’ve talked about it & said we would try. Unfortunately now I’m at the point where I become upset if the opportunity is there but I have to initiate it because he doesn’t see the opportunity. I can easily initiate it but I want him to initiate it to show me that he actually wants it.
We haven’t had so much as a passionate kiss in 1.5 years, soon to be 2. He says he’s hurting from our past and current issues and doesn’t feel good enough emotionally, and doesn’t have any confidence. I have been trying to make him feel better, and then he cheats on me (cheating to ME), by sneaking around with an ex and deleting messages, lying to me about it for months – and the worst part is I would still be fed lies to this day had I not found the evidence myself. Believe me I gave him plenty of chances to tell me the truth on his own, and then when I had surgery in the spring this year and needed his help more than usual I sense his deceit, so I asked once more bluntly “Is anything going on? Anything you need to tell me?” – “No” he said, no eye contact, reclusive. I knew. AND I WAS RIGHT.
So, here we are, I’m recovering from his deceit and not even sure if I want to be with him anymore, especially so because we aren’t intimate at all, and I have often told him how much this pains me, he says he’s trying. I don’t want to hear “I’m trying” for the rest of my life and die any less happy than I want to. I want to have an honest relationship with free communication, no bullshit, and care/love for each other with passionate intimacy too. I’m not asking for a billion dollars or a six pack, or dinner made for me every night – just those few things…
I also haven’t had sex for about 8 months, which is nothing new. We have been married for 29 years. Some of those years were about the same. Every 3 months or so.I basically stopped trying to initiate sex and turned to pornography. It seems there always some excuse to not have sex. I clean house ,cook, give back rubs, the whole nine yards. On her 40th birthday we exchanged vows in front of family and friends. I wrote and preformed a song for her. Latter that night, nothing. So , right at the moment I’m contemplating what to do. I just cant continue. When I try to talk about it all she says is “I’m just tired”. She was diagnosed with depression but the meds are 400 a month, just can’t swing that much money. It does help to write this down . Still at a crossroads, don’t know where to turn for help.
My gf and I haven’t had real sex in years. I feel like I’ve forced her every time during the past 2 years and that has only been about 5 times per year. She says it’s because of meds that she doesn’t have any physical desire anymore. I’ve never felt so alone and unwanted. I told her this and she just says it’s not her fault and willing to leave it at that. Not sure how much longer I can stay with her. I just need her to at least miss it too.
I am in a similar situation as James. Married 32 years, and had sex twice last year. We have discussed the underlying issues many times. My wife was sexually abused as a child, and has off and on throughout our time together, had periods where she didn’t desire sexual contact. I have tried my best to honor her, and be supportive during these times, and throughout our marriage, in the fact that at most, we would be intimate once a month. I have encouraged counseling for us over the years, but she adamantly refuses. Over the past two years, these periods have become the norm with fewer and fewer occasions for intimacy. I tried my best to share my feelings without anger or blame, and if she would become upset, I’d let things settle down for a while before bringing it up again. This backing off has produced a pattern that has helped create the situation that we are currently in, long stretches of no sex, broken up by refusal, after refusal, discussion, upset, back off, and no change.
Well folks, I’m done! I don’t blame my wife as much as I blame myself for not insisting we get counseling long ago. I’m not sure at this point if I even want to fight for our marriage, especially if I have to fight for it alone. I’m spiritually, and emotionally exhausted.
It’s so hard ….im going to cry… it hurts so much
After myself and my fiancé our second child we haven’t had much sex at all, maybe 3-4 times in 3 years. I found when we finally did have sex I came a lot quicker than I use too. I use to have a healthy lasting sex life with all my partner and never had a problem, without having a few drinks. Now, even if I self pleasure I come so quicker and even faster during our last sex encounter I have with my fiancé. I am starting to get worried because this has never been a problem. Of course I am extremely horny (best way to put it) and want her bad but I was always able to play my part in the room but now it’s so fast. My self pleasures don’t even carry on like they use too. Last year I had a very stressful year at work, could that be a problem of the fact that we hardly or never have sex anymore?
I have been with my boyfriend for 5 years and I have been dealing with intimacy issues for about the past 3 years. The beginning was wonderful. He moved in my apartment and things were going really good. Things started to go downhill once we got a new place in the town he grew up. I would go months without and every night I would fight with myself in my mind to get enough courage to ask if we could mess around but most of the time I would fall asleep doing this because I was afraid of rejection but only because the times I finally did build up the courage to ask he would shut me down and it would crush my soul. I never could have dreamt that at the age of 25 I would have these problems but it started when I was 22! He is 5 years older than me but still that shouldn’t make that much of a difference right? We did end up splitting up for 9 months because he ran into an old “friend” that I later found out was much more than that in the past and long story short, she befriended me to get closer to him eventhough she had told me time and time again she “would never go there” because her and I were friends and she ” just can’t look at him more than just friends” and things like that. She would come over to hang out with “us” but they were the only ones enjoying themselves. I tried to be her friend for his sake just so it could all backfire in my face in the end. Needless to say after her wearing out her welcome and smothering my relationship eventhough she could clearly see it was falling apart because she was coming around and we obviously had things we needed to work on she still came over. Every. Single. Day! This went on for about 3 months and he started leaving sneaking around and leaving me home while he went out and had fun “as friends” with her. I should have left I know but my heart wouldn’t let me. One morning he told me he had to take the girl’s brother to get a new car and he said he would be back later in the day. I did some digging and found out almost immediately that he was lying and had actually went to a concert with HER. What hurt me most is they went to see the same band that he took me to for my very first concert. He did not come home that same day. He came home the next morning and when he did he told me he couldn’t keep faking this and he broke up with me. He didn’t sleep with this girl or anything until after he actually broke up with me but that doesn’t make what he did okay what so ever. Maybe a month after he told me that they decided (him and this girl) that they made each other happy and they wanted to try to be together eventhough when she was coming around when my relationship was going down the shitter when I would ask if they had feelings for each other they would both get offended almost. Anyway, this new “relationship” only lasted 3 days ?? so basically he threw away a 2 year (at the time) relationship with me over a 3 day weekend! What happened was the girl liked having a compilation to see If she could make him want her and once he did and she seen that i wasn’t going to fight for him, it wasn’t fun for her anymore and she stopped coming around all together! She made my life out to be some kind of game! We stayed split up for 9 months and in that time I had got into a small “fling” with my roommate. Nothing serious and I told him I wasn’t looking for a serious relationship. Well 4 months later I find out I’m pregnant… I’ll shorten the details on that and just say I tried to make it work with the roommate for the baby but he was lazy and worthless and didn’t want to stop smoking pot long enough to get a job so I broke it off. My boyfriend and I stayed friends even after everything he put me through and I broke the news to him and he offered to have me move back in so he can help me with my pregnancy. I was 8 weeks at the time. I ended up moving back in and we were just friends for a while but shared a room and bed. We ended up sleeping together but we didn’t discuss our relationship status. After he went with me to my ultrasound he told me he wanted to be the father of my child. (Her biological father stopped contacting me all together when I was 16 wks pregnant) we had sex on occasion (he works away for weeks at a time) and before he would leave he would kiss me and my belly and tell me he loved me and things like that so I wasn’t exactly sure where our relationship standed and I was confused but I was happy and didn’t want to ruin it by asking questions so I just lived in the moment basically. skipping ahead, I had the baby and finally after 6+ months I finally gathered enough courage to ask what exactly our “relationship” was and he reassured me that we are a couple. I was really happy to know but it was difficult to know because since I had the baby we hadn’t kissed or anything. It seemed that our sexual relationship was better when I was pregnant to be honest. My baby will be 13 months old in a few days and we haven’t had sex since I was about 6-7 months pregnant and we haven’t even so much as kissed since the ball dropped on new years. Now our lives have been crazy stressful lately and we share our room with the baby so I’m not sure if that’s the reason we haven’t had sex but I understand if that is. If so we can work on that but the thing is as you can probably tell, it has been difficult to talk to him about things like intimacy and where we stand as a relationship but he has always been the sort of shy type when it comes to talking about sex and I was scared to ask about our relationship because I was afraid he would tell me something I didn’t want to hear. I know communication is key in a relationship and I used to be able to talk to him about things relationship wise bit not so much with the sex because he has always shyed away when I would try to bring it up. I love him very much and now it’s so much more than just a boyfriend. He is my little girl’s daddy. It’s not si easy to just cut things off and move on to the next one. I really want to make this work and I have never felt the way I do with him with any other man. I miss the sex, the intimacy, and the closeness. I want that again. I won’t lie, since he did everything to me with that girl my feelings have changed towards him and it made my love for him not as strong but I also feel like intimacy plays a big role in that as well. I feel like if we had more intimacy maybe my feelings would grow stronger for him how I used to feel. I miss being sad that he had to leave and excited to see him when he got home. I miss cuddling up to him at night and getting kisses goodbye when he went to the store. I miss the warm exciting feeling and butterflies I would get when I thought about him even when I got to see him every day. I miss what we had.I miss it. I miss it all and I want that back so much. I know that the last comment on this was all the way back in December but I’m really hoping that I can still get a reply of some advice. I’m desperate for some help because it would destroy me if things didn’t work out between us again. We’re a family now and I want our daughter to grow up with her daddy but I also want her to grow up seeing her mommy and daddy in a healthy loving relationship. Growing up I always thought it was so weird to hear about my friend’s parents being together but they don’t kiss or they sleep in separate bedrooms. I don’t want to raise my daughter up to think that’s how a “normal” relationship is supposed to be.
The wife and I hadn’t had sex in just about 40 years, and its no big deal! I guess wife is the normal one , I’m the rare bird and I really enjoy being without sex. The few times we did have sex it was boring and no imagination was involved. I got more pleasure out of no sex or intimacy. Now in our 70s wife has had a hysterectomy and I have E/D. It’s the way it is, I’ve had my life and I guess she had hers what ever she’s done in the last 50 years.
Wow! Reading so many comments about this issue helps me realize I’m not alone in this… I don’t know about everyone else, but I haven’t found much relief in what I’ve read from the article. It makes sense when both people buy in, but obviously most of us in this thread seem to be in the same situation when our better half isn’t on the same page. I’m in my mid 30s and married for 15 years, yet I’ve been struggling with this issue few short years into our marriage. I feel like my wife loves me, but she’s battled with depression for years and so this along with meds she takes has taken a toll on physical intimacy. She knows how important this is to me and she wishes she wasn’t this way, but there is nothing she can do about it. She’s tried to make me happy by having sex from time to time, but it didn’t feel right. I felt guilty and stopped trying. As it stands right now, it’s been almost 18 months since the last time we’ve had sex and I’m torn. I love her more than anything and I’m hurting that I can’t have the physical connection with her. I’ve thought about leaving, but I’m afraid to do so for both of us. I just pray we can rekindle the fire while there’s still time.
It’s not fair of anyone to do this to another person.
If you have problems with intimacy & sex then don’t hide it & play games acting like things are fine & not disclose it until you’re well involved & then suddenly spring it on your partner.
The other person has the right to know from the beginning that way they can decide instead of being given no choice.
Thats the most selfish thing you can do to someone.
As far as sexual abuse goes…
Disclose it. Don’t hide it because
I may not want to ride that rollercoaster with you & it’s my right not to ride it. I’m not a therapist nor do I have plans of becoming one. I’m not the one who did this to anyone & I sure as hell don’t deserve to be punished for it & pay for it by being subjected to a sexless marriage…
Understanding only goes so far.
I need to attempt this. I’ve read a few articles but so far this one connects. I have a ton of issues and one of those is I haven’t been intimate with my gf for 6 years. She thinks I don’t love her, I’m not attracted to her and I just don’t want to but that’s so not true. I need help or I’ll lose her but I feel like I’m not in control and don’t know what my problem is. Thanks for this. I’ll definitely try some of these steps.
Me and my husband meet in 2016 and were having swx alot then when we agreed to get married on christmas 2017 i said lets not do it again till were married so may 2018 we get married and havent had sex because he says to much to do in the house but he spends all his time on xbox and i beg for sex and he keeps saying tomorrow and i say u promoise and it never happens
On January 3, 2020, it will be exactly 15 years since I have had sex with my wife. In the 4 years prior to that, we had sex twice. Prior to our marriage, our sex life was amazing. Once she started menopause, she lost interest completely. It truly looks like I will never have sex again, unless I cheat on my wife. I love my wife, but she has told me many times that she has absolutely no interest in sex – that it is the last thing on her mind. I am 59 years old, and am in pretty good shape. We have travelled the world, and been to some of the most romantic places on earth, but have not had sex in any of them. It has caused a lot of stress in our relationship, and I now resent my wife. I love my wife, but am now at the point that I do not even think about sex with her – although I think about sex with other women constantly. I am seriously thinking about seeing an escort every now and then. I don’t know what to do, but life is too short to go without sex.
I’ve tried lots to bring intimacy back to our relationship. We stopped having sex 5 years ago. I’m not allowed to say shit because my fiance believes I’m trying to make her feel bad. She has no drive, yet always blames me for wanting to have sex. She tells me that its all I think about, despite the face I don’t bring sex up to avoid arguments. Its as if she has become a block of ice when I mention physical intimacy, yet I’m supposed to be there at the drop of a hat for emotional support.
We live together, 13 hours away from our families. We have our fiances combined and cannot break them apart to move on because we can’t afford to live on just our salaries. She doesn’t want to see anyone because she doesn’t want to talk about sex or our problems, and we can’t afford to see a therapist.
I love her, but at what point is enough enough? How do we continue to co-exist and go back to the horny teenagers we used to act like? Hell, at this point I’d settle for a stereotypical 50 year old man that’s lucky enough to have sex once a month instead of a 35 year old that can’t sleep and worries that its over because I can’t do this all by myself.
What advice do you have there? To buy another book by someone that tells me its all my fault, like nearly everything in media and print does? That its always the man’s fault, but we have to tiptoe around the feelings of our female partners?
My husband comes to bed playing his game on his phone
I don’t know what to do I feel so emotional
We’ve been married 11 years and on valentines it will mark one year since we’ve had any sexual contact in any way. We are both 34 years old, 3 kids(8,6 and 4). Before last February we would have sex once a month, give or take. My wife was molested many times in her young teens by her uncle and uncles friends that were close to her same age. Never forced into sex but would be forced into hand jobs and the like. She never received any medical help and her parents didn’t handle it well. Knowing this before we were married I made a promise to myself that I would never ask her for sex in any way, hoping this would help her heal/trust me and not bring up those old feelings.
A year ago she found out I had a second savings account that I had set up. I spent give or take 30K over 3 years on myself. Mostly on outdoor equipment, tools etc. nothing illegal or illegitimate or in any way stepping out of our marriage. I gave her the password to the account and hid nothing. She was hurt by this mostly because she felt like she couldn’t trust me, and this brought up the old feelings.
We seem to be getting along now. It’s more like a business relationship. I go to work, she takes care of the kids and the house. We kiss goodnight and very rarely fight.
I’m having a hard time and I feel like I’ve been patient for a long time and I’m not sure how much longer I can do this. I don’t know what to do. Although I do have the carnal feelings of just wanting to have sex I miss the closeness and the intimacy more and am tired of the business we’re running. She’s become closer with her friend then I think we’ve ever been and I’m not seeing much light at the end of the tunnel.
Any suggestions? Thank you, it feels good anyway to write it all down.
I have been with my wife for 7 years, We have 2 kids, the 2nd is just 2 months old.
We are in our 30’s and used to have a good sex life. It’s been nearly 12 months since we last had sex.
I always make the excuse. She was pregnant. Then it was too soon after having the baby etc.
I love my wife so much,I really do, I love our life but I just don’t feel any sexual attraction to her at all and I feel horrible for it. Why has that gone? What is wrong with me?
We end up in a row when it’s brought up, mainly I get angry as I don’t know how to answer the question when she asks me. I end up storming off leaving her upset which I hate seeing her like that, I then get angry at myself. All my other friends have regular sex with their wives.
I used to have a very high sex drive.
When I was single I would sleep with average 2 different women a month (that’s not a brag just the truth)
Do you think it’s that instant sexual hit with a stranger that I craved? I would get bored easy after a few months. But that changed when I met my wife.
The reason being is I still have sexual thoughts daily and masterbate 2 times a day sometimes 4 times if my wife and kids are away. I still think of sex a lot.
It’s always to porn though that I masterbate to. I can’t do it any other way. Do you think watching porn everytime I masterbate is a problem? Do I masterbate to much?
I feel bad on my wife, its also now built up to this big huge thing that just hangs over us then errupts into a row….mainly because I don’t know what to say.
I love my wife and want nothing more then to want to have sex with her again, its getting depressing and I feel somewhat of a failure to her.
My husband and I have been together for almost 11 years and married for almost 4. We havent had sex in 5 months and he cant get hard because he says I put too much pressure on him about sex. When I wear something nice to bed and walk naked in front of him I want him to recognize me and he wants me to hold and kiss him and tell him everything is going to be okay. We both have different ideas of intimacy I guess. Any thoughts/ suggestions help. Thank you so much in advance.
My woman claims she loves me with all her heart. It’ll be 2 years in July.
We have never once passionately kissed, she refuses to even sit on the same sofa as me most of the time, and never up next to me. When I drove her across the nation to Las Vegas 8 months ago, every night, she willfully chose to sleep in my car instead of the bed with me fully clothed.
i got to kiss her boots once, 3 months after we got together and the first week she moved in, but that was it.
it’s devastated me. i’m not able to find girlfriends easily. she’s my 2nd LTR in my entire life and I’m 38 and she’s 25.
Me and my girlfriend talked about moving away and starting a life where I grew up. I have an income and lots of free time. So I looked for a house and bought it. It’s a fixer upper but it’s paid for. She seemed ok with everything until we got here. We have been fighting and no sex for a year now. No matter what I do she has a look of hate in her eyes. She tells me why and then brings up things from two years ago. I’m not a bad guy and she knows that. We used to make love for bitterly hours. We would start a movie and it would be long over by the time we were done fooling around. For play was the best with us. She would look at me and all I could see is love and commitment and now I see hate. It’s a bad time for us and I’m lost I think we should end it but she has no income or licence to drive. I told her I would take her home to her mom’s but refuses now I don’t know what to do. I’m so stressed my gawd. Sexually frustrated to. I want to see her eyes look at me like that so badly but I can’t.
I know this article is a few years old but I just came across it today.
I am in this exact situation. Wife and I married 14 years, and over the last 7 years we’ve had sex a total of 9 times. (I’ve kept count haha!)
I’ve tried everything on this list; being patient, making the first move, touching with no expectations, etc. No success. We’ve talked and talked and talked, many times leading into heated arguments. She will then make an effort a day or two later but then things will revert back to the old way. I then pull away for months at a time during which time she won’t make any effort. We were last intimate in February this year, before that was in November 2018.
Thing is she refuses to talk about anything sexually related. I always thought it was part of her charm but I realise she is holding back. There may have been past trauma she refuses to discuss with me. I know very little of her past before we met, when I did ask her questions she would be vague and sometimes get annoyed, so I stopped probing.
Thing is – she is a great wife and mother to our son. I once drew up a list of positives versus negatives and the positives far outweighed the negatives, in fact sex issue was the biggest negative. I love her alot and have never cheated, I satisfy my urges 3 or 4 times a week by watching porn and self love, but the positives are not enough to keep me from feeling miserable and frustrated.
***Apologies for the double-post, this was meant to be it’s own comment and not a reply to the other commenter.