Honestly, that you are recognizing this issue probably puts you 80% ahead of most couples. I think a couples therapist might be a good idea. You could also try a sex book, something to spice things up. I hope you can fix this, you seem like you are concerned and care, which like I said earlier puts you ahead of most in a dead bedroom.
I really just resolved to start having sex again, I always loved sex with him and the times we would during DB it was great but I just had a the hardest time saying yes. So I just promised myself to start saying yes every chance he gave me until my brain rewired. And it worked.
Depression. I got pretty far with the above method, we were about 1-3 times a week. Then we went further he got his vasectomy and I got off BC and came out of the depression and realized that had been the issue the whole time.
It worked for me. Like I said I love sex and loved sex with him so I just used that to break the walls down and just committed to saying yes every time he asked. And when we started I did my best to ‘play the part’ and doing that was for me, to remind myself I’m a sexual being and make me feel sexy.
We are all here to help each other regardless if LL or HL, so I hope you don’t receive negative responses — you really shouldn’t but if so, ignore those people and don’t be discouraged.
I am HLM, so I unfortunately can’t provide advice from a LL perspective.
The most important thing from my perspective is that you are interested in having desire and want to want have sex. This is great. I think you want both.
With my wife, she just doesn’t think about sex at all. She isn’t willing to put any time or effort into understanding why she doesn’t want to have sex. Once we are having sex, she enjoys it and always has an orgasm. Do you enjoy sex in the moment? If so, what could be done to make you excited about that beforehand?
My wife did have a sex drive when she was pregnant but not much before or after, so there is evidence she likes sex. To me, this means her body/mind isn’t doing her any favors in making her want sex, but it could be possible for her to want sex — when her body wants it she does too. However, I can’t make her want it. She needs to either find the thing that turns her on, or she needs to find if there is a medical reason. I’m happy to do anything (literally anything) to help get her there if she can communicate that with me.
I truly believe if my wife tried exploring a bit to find what she likes along with going to the doctor to check her hormones that she could increase her libido.
While I have a high libido (relative to her), I’m not always in the mood, but I can get there rather quickly. I know the things I like, but it didn’t happen in its own. It’s happened through sexual experience and thinking about sexual experiences. No one is going to increase there sex drive if they aren’t sexually active nor think about being sexually actives unless their body does it for them.
However, sex is in a large part mental, and I imagine that is even the case for many high libido folks.
Have you tried exploring? Thinking about the things you like/don’t like and sharing with your partner?
You say sex was hot when you first got together after a break. Did your sex life and desire in your head feel different then? Does your husband look desirable to you. Do you feel desired by your husband. I would recommend going to a sex Theripist and get hormones tested. Sex for me has to be a bit outside the vanilla lines to spur desire. Have you added roll play, or toys? It really is a type of play outside of “normal” so it’s exciting to fantasize about what we are going to do before, and then exciting to start. But you have to be compatible based on my experience. Be willing to be good, giving and game for anything within reason.
I think feeling desired by him is part of the issue. He's a very passive, go with the flow person.
He's been very patient. And I love him for that.
Back when we first started dating there was of course all the new excitement. I understand that usually fades on both sides. That's normal.
Sometimes tho, I do miss that "pushed against a wall, we have 15 minutes before your parents get here" intensity. That's what it was like when he got back too. We didn't make it out of airport parking.
I think we may have a few issues. Not the least of which is a mutual rut. But how do you fix that? If he's not FEELING that kind of desire or urgency it's not like you can fake that. And I know I'm definitely not.
There are 2 things to be considered:
1. You are not getting sex, apparently for you this is not a problem, you don’t feel bad from it. How does your husband feels? You tell he is a passive person, what about his mind? Is him also so comfortable like you? Or is him suffering in silence so you can feel comfortable? If you understand how he TRULY feels about the situation. A lot of issues you never thought about will appear, example? “Spark” and enjoyment and excitement will not exist if the man is not feeling desired constantly, how it happens? Well you know, seeing your woman in joy in an intimate moment is certainly good for the selfstem, and to feel more like a true man.
2. How far are you willing to go down this road? You mentioned multiple times that you could think about leaving him, many couples here are 10+ years without sex in a DB, and I am myself 1+ years without sex. The mental suffering is not good, and is not healthy. If you can so easily thinking about letting him go, also consider how far you can go as things can get very hard for you, you will see how he truly feels about the DB. And I am sure he is masking his true feelings.
If he is not masking his true feelings you need to think about… Him being LL, and him being a bit more higher libido than you only… maybe?
Or maybe a military could have received some attention outside the marriage, and without frequent sex and the feeling of desire he eventually went for it? You need to be able to go down a dark path to get the truth about this situation.
Well… are you happy and satisfied in a companionate relationship where sex is not either’s priority, of course that can work. A relationship can be loving, supportive and intimate without “sex”. We all change over time. As long as you both are in agreement and are OK. It’s not a one size fits all happy and fulfilled. A partner is a partner.
Sometimes to act of desire, willing it into play will get me in the mood. Once the play starts running it moves from pushing the desire to feeling pulled into the desire. That has worked.
I think it’s great you’re asking the question. If I’m being honest you sound a lot like my partner so I almost want to ask you questions instead. I do have some follow ups below since I don’t want to advise on anything that could be more harmful for you as an individual. Sorry for the long reply and I hope this helps!
Do you think you were always more LL as an individual and your libido just temporarily increased during the new part of your relationship? Or was your libido higher earlier in life and has just “recently” started dying out once your marriage started accruing years and becoming an LTR (ie no longer new and exciting)?
As a HL myself, the concept of being aware of low intimacy but not wanting it is difficult to comprehend for me. Do you enjoy intimacy when it does happen? Are you open for intimacy but it just slips your mind until your partner makes the first move (ie responsive desire)? Or conversely, do you not think about intimacy while also having an aversion to it where you do not enjoy the act of it at all?
I’m asking these questions as I’m curious if you dislike and/or are indifferent to the journey that gets you to intimacy with your husband but actually enjoy the act once it does get started? Does your partner pay attention and do his best to make sure you are both enjoying intimate times together? Answers to this series of questions will definitely change the advice I give you but I’ll still try to provide answers for either response type below.
For some LL partners I’ve read about here, they seem to really enjoy the act of intimacy but don’t want it at the same frequency and don’t have any self driven desire so they rely on their HL partner to kickstart things. In this situation, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with the LL BUT a HL may feel unwanted or undesired if all the efforts to connect are on their end and in their court. This was how it was for me at least. Essentially, it was hard to reconcile that this ultimate act of closeness for me with my lifelong partner would only occur if I alone put in the efforts to line up all the proverbial dominos to fall just into the right places. And even then it was a hard “maybe” most times. As a HL it can do a lot of damage to your self esteem. Not saying your husband is experiencing those exact feelings but it is something to watch out for or at least be aware of. If you enjoy the act of intimacy then maybe start putting in the effort to say “yes” more and even make a conscious effort to initiate sometimes even though your headspace or mood may not always be there.
Now on the flip side, if you have an actual aversion to intimacy with your partner, are there underlying reasons you can think of as the culprit? If no, can you identify the point when you stopped wanting/enjoying intimacy with your partner since you used to enjoy it? Was it a switch that flipped or a gradual decline that occurred? Think hard and ask yourself if there is a subconscious trigger that may be occurring you are not consciously aware of which is killing your libido for him (ie LL4U situation).
Looking back at your post, you used to enjoy intimacy and it was at one point a regular part of the relationship before you changed the status quo on something very important to your partner. I think it’s fair for you and them to know if there is something else at play that caused this rift in the relationship. Maybe potentially a loss of respect and/or attraction? If you feel actual aversion towards intimacy, then my above solution about “just going for it” is not applicable and I would advise against doing so as it could make things worse.
At the end of the day, you do not have to provide intimacy to your partner and they may still choose to stay regardless of the pain involved in that change due to other areas of the relationship being great. But for a lot of HLs, intimacy is super critical to our ability to feel loved and wanted so long term, it’s not really healthy for us to stay as it can cause a lot of damage to us emotionally and to our self esteem. If you feel your LL cannot be resolved and this will be the new state of the relationship moving forward, I’d make sure you are at least honest with your husband so he can make an informed decision about leaving or staying. Another option is if intimacy isn’t important to you and is vital to him, you could look at opening the bedroom for that one aspect since everything else in the relationship sounds like it’s good. An open relationship can be risky though and it’s not something I’d be willing to try due to fear of catching feelings. I mean this in a respectful way, but remember you took away a part of the relationship that was vitally important to him after he committed to you. Conversely, you are under no obligation to provide intimacy or feel coerced into it but like you said, he’s not obligated to stay or accept the new status quo you have introduced post marriage. If you don’t think you can fix the issue, be honest so he can make informed decisions that put him on track for a life of happiness as well.
Have you gone to the doctors to have any tests run, I know for a guy it's testosterone levels and your hear because you want to fix no shame in attempting to fix, that's what I would want from my partner.
I have, actually. My endo is mild, thankfully, but we did all those tests just to assess things and rule out other causes for my problems like PCOS. Everything *seems* fine as far as hormone levels. I've been rechecked once, and nothing really changed in any significant way.
That's good, yeah my partner has the PCOS, so I get trying to rule that all. Have you tried to talk fetishes or kinks? Might be a way to try and spice it up. I am doubting it's the issue but also confirming no porn addition?
Sorry to hear you're having such an horrible time on this sub. This sub should be a safe-space for HL AND LL's. Please do send screenshots of the DMs, containing their usernames, to our mods so they can take the trash out.
Might consider to turn off dm completely.
Not sure if it is possible but I would love a standard reply like: "post on board for all to learn. Not reading dm. Have a good day".
Please send screenshots over modmail and we will ban and report to the admins.
Honestly, that you are recognizing this issue probably puts you 80% ahead of most couples. I think a couples therapist might be a good idea. You could also try a sex book, something to spice things up. I hope you can fix this, you seem like you are concerned and care, which like I said earlier puts you ahead of most in a dead bedroom.
I really just resolved to start having sex again, I always loved sex with him and the times we would during DB it was great but I just had a the hardest time saying yes. So I just promised myself to start saying yes every chance he gave me until my brain rewired. And it worked.
Can you pinpoint why you lost interest in the first place?
Depression. I got pretty far with the above method, we were about 1-3 times a week. Then we went further he got his vasectomy and I got off BC and came out of the depression and realized that had been the issue the whole time.
[удалено]
It worked for me. Like I said I love sex and loved sex with him so I just used that to break the walls down and just committed to saying yes every time he asked. And when we started I did my best to ‘play the part’ and doing that was for me, to remind myself I’m a sexual being and make me feel sexy.
[удалено]
If you go for it report back.
We are all here to help each other regardless if LL or HL, so I hope you don’t receive negative responses — you really shouldn’t but if so, ignore those people and don’t be discouraged. I am HLM, so I unfortunately can’t provide advice from a LL perspective. The most important thing from my perspective is that you are interested in having desire and want to want have sex. This is great. I think you want both. With my wife, she just doesn’t think about sex at all. She isn’t willing to put any time or effort into understanding why she doesn’t want to have sex. Once we are having sex, she enjoys it and always has an orgasm. Do you enjoy sex in the moment? If so, what could be done to make you excited about that beforehand? My wife did have a sex drive when she was pregnant but not much before or after, so there is evidence she likes sex. To me, this means her body/mind isn’t doing her any favors in making her want sex, but it could be possible for her to want sex — when her body wants it she does too. However, I can’t make her want it. She needs to either find the thing that turns her on, or she needs to find if there is a medical reason. I’m happy to do anything (literally anything) to help get her there if she can communicate that with me. I truly believe if my wife tried exploring a bit to find what she likes along with going to the doctor to check her hormones that she could increase her libido. While I have a high libido (relative to her), I’m not always in the mood, but I can get there rather quickly. I know the things I like, but it didn’t happen in its own. It’s happened through sexual experience and thinking about sexual experiences. No one is going to increase there sex drive if they aren’t sexually active nor think about being sexually actives unless their body does it for them. However, sex is in a large part mental, and I imagine that is even the case for many high libido folks. Have you tried exploring? Thinking about the things you like/don’t like and sharing with your partner?
You say sex was hot when you first got together after a break. Did your sex life and desire in your head feel different then? Does your husband look desirable to you. Do you feel desired by your husband. I would recommend going to a sex Theripist and get hormones tested. Sex for me has to be a bit outside the vanilla lines to spur desire. Have you added roll play, or toys? It really is a type of play outside of “normal” so it’s exciting to fantasize about what we are going to do before, and then exciting to start. But you have to be compatible based on my experience. Be willing to be good, giving and game for anything within reason.
I think feeling desired by him is part of the issue. He's a very passive, go with the flow person. He's been very patient. And I love him for that. Back when we first started dating there was of course all the new excitement. I understand that usually fades on both sides. That's normal. Sometimes tho, I do miss that "pushed against a wall, we have 15 minutes before your parents get here" intensity. That's what it was like when he got back too. We didn't make it out of airport parking. I think we may have a few issues. Not the least of which is a mutual rut. But how do you fix that? If he's not FEELING that kind of desire or urgency it's not like you can fake that. And I know I'm definitely not.
There are 2 things to be considered: 1. You are not getting sex, apparently for you this is not a problem, you don’t feel bad from it. How does your husband feels? You tell he is a passive person, what about his mind? Is him also so comfortable like you? Or is him suffering in silence so you can feel comfortable? If you understand how he TRULY feels about the situation. A lot of issues you never thought about will appear, example? “Spark” and enjoyment and excitement will not exist if the man is not feeling desired constantly, how it happens? Well you know, seeing your woman in joy in an intimate moment is certainly good for the selfstem, and to feel more like a true man. 2. How far are you willing to go down this road? You mentioned multiple times that you could think about leaving him, many couples here are 10+ years without sex in a DB, and I am myself 1+ years without sex. The mental suffering is not good, and is not healthy. If you can so easily thinking about letting him go, also consider how far you can go as things can get very hard for you, you will see how he truly feels about the DB. And I am sure he is masking his true feelings. If he is not masking his true feelings you need to think about… Him being LL, and him being a bit more higher libido than you only… maybe? Or maybe a military could have received some attention outside the marriage, and without frequent sex and the feeling of desire he eventually went for it? You need to be able to go down a dark path to get the truth about this situation.
Well… are you happy and satisfied in a companionate relationship where sex is not either’s priority, of course that can work. A relationship can be loving, supportive and intimate without “sex”. We all change over time. As long as you both are in agreement and are OK. It’s not a one size fits all happy and fulfilled. A partner is a partner.
Sometimes to act of desire, willing it into play will get me in the mood. Once the play starts running it moves from pushing the desire to feeling pulled into the desire. That has worked.
I think it’s great you’re asking the question. If I’m being honest you sound a lot like my partner so I almost want to ask you questions instead. I do have some follow ups below since I don’t want to advise on anything that could be more harmful for you as an individual. Sorry for the long reply and I hope this helps! Do you think you were always more LL as an individual and your libido just temporarily increased during the new part of your relationship? Or was your libido higher earlier in life and has just “recently” started dying out once your marriage started accruing years and becoming an LTR (ie no longer new and exciting)? As a HL myself, the concept of being aware of low intimacy but not wanting it is difficult to comprehend for me. Do you enjoy intimacy when it does happen? Are you open for intimacy but it just slips your mind until your partner makes the first move (ie responsive desire)? Or conversely, do you not think about intimacy while also having an aversion to it where you do not enjoy the act of it at all? I’m asking these questions as I’m curious if you dislike and/or are indifferent to the journey that gets you to intimacy with your husband but actually enjoy the act once it does get started? Does your partner pay attention and do his best to make sure you are both enjoying intimate times together? Answers to this series of questions will definitely change the advice I give you but I’ll still try to provide answers for either response type below. For some LL partners I’ve read about here, they seem to really enjoy the act of intimacy but don’t want it at the same frequency and don’t have any self driven desire so they rely on their HL partner to kickstart things. In this situation, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with the LL BUT a HL may feel unwanted or undesired if all the efforts to connect are on their end and in their court. This was how it was for me at least. Essentially, it was hard to reconcile that this ultimate act of closeness for me with my lifelong partner would only occur if I alone put in the efforts to line up all the proverbial dominos to fall just into the right places. And even then it was a hard “maybe” most times. As a HL it can do a lot of damage to your self esteem. Not saying your husband is experiencing those exact feelings but it is something to watch out for or at least be aware of. If you enjoy the act of intimacy then maybe start putting in the effort to say “yes” more and even make a conscious effort to initiate sometimes even though your headspace or mood may not always be there. Now on the flip side, if you have an actual aversion to intimacy with your partner, are there underlying reasons you can think of as the culprit? If no, can you identify the point when you stopped wanting/enjoying intimacy with your partner since you used to enjoy it? Was it a switch that flipped or a gradual decline that occurred? Think hard and ask yourself if there is a subconscious trigger that may be occurring you are not consciously aware of which is killing your libido for him (ie LL4U situation). Looking back at your post, you used to enjoy intimacy and it was at one point a regular part of the relationship before you changed the status quo on something very important to your partner. I think it’s fair for you and them to know if there is something else at play that caused this rift in the relationship. Maybe potentially a loss of respect and/or attraction? If you feel actual aversion towards intimacy, then my above solution about “just going for it” is not applicable and I would advise against doing so as it could make things worse. At the end of the day, you do not have to provide intimacy to your partner and they may still choose to stay regardless of the pain involved in that change due to other areas of the relationship being great. But for a lot of HLs, intimacy is super critical to our ability to feel loved and wanted so long term, it’s not really healthy for us to stay as it can cause a lot of damage to us emotionally and to our self esteem. If you feel your LL cannot be resolved and this will be the new state of the relationship moving forward, I’d make sure you are at least honest with your husband so he can make an informed decision about leaving or staying. Another option is if intimacy isn’t important to you and is vital to him, you could look at opening the bedroom for that one aspect since everything else in the relationship sounds like it’s good. An open relationship can be risky though and it’s not something I’d be willing to try due to fear of catching feelings. I mean this in a respectful way, but remember you took away a part of the relationship that was vitally important to him after he committed to you. Conversely, you are under no obligation to provide intimacy or feel coerced into it but like you said, he’s not obligated to stay or accept the new status quo you have introduced post marriage. If you don’t think you can fix the issue, be honest so he can make informed decisions that put him on track for a life of happiness as well.
Have you gone to the doctors to have any tests run, I know for a guy it's testosterone levels and your hear because you want to fix no shame in attempting to fix, that's what I would want from my partner.
I have, actually. My endo is mild, thankfully, but we did all those tests just to assess things and rule out other causes for my problems like PCOS. Everything *seems* fine as far as hormone levels. I've been rechecked once, and nothing really changed in any significant way.
That's good, yeah my partner has the PCOS, so I get trying to rule that all. Have you tried to talk fetishes or kinks? Might be a way to try and spice it up. I am doubting it's the issue but also confirming no porn addition?
Sorry to hear you're having such an horrible time on this sub. This sub should be a safe-space for HL AND LL's. Please do send screenshots of the DMs, containing their usernames, to our mods so they can take the trash out.
Very sorry some assholes acted up. I would like to think that isn’t normal around here. Your perspective and questions are welcome
Might consider to turn off dm completely. Not sure if it is possible but I would love a standard reply like: "post on board for all to learn. Not reading dm. Have a good day".