I’ve been married 20 years. All the hand holding, touching, romantic stuff is nice, but it does not make me aroused. And, if you are giving your wife massages and touches and extra attention for NOT having sex with you, what’s her incentive to change?
What gets me intensely sexually interested is when I see other women around my husband and they are flirty with him. When one in the pair bond feels slightly threatened, the other will ramp it up to maintain attraction.
Its a pretty common story that when one partner has cheated and the couple decides to “work on things” that sex becomes really hot again. There’s actually a term for it: “hysterical bonding”.
So, if you want your wife to desire you more, become more desirable to other women. Work out, dress nice, make her think there is competition out there.
Women want to marry the “nice” guy. The want to fuck the “bad” guy. So you have to be a little of both. The hand holding and cuddling and stuff is great for creating affection. Do it. But that is nice guy stuff and don’t expect it to lead to sex.
And I’m not talking about playing games, either. Just create a little uncertainty in her mind, you know? She has to think that you have options out there, and that sex is a part of marriage that you expect and you want to enjoy it with her, but if its not forthcoming from her direction you might be tempted by someone else.
A little perceived instability is a good thing. Both partners need to keep working to maintain attraction, and if you are doing that correctly, then you will draw attraction from outside parties.
None of this means to actually cheat, or even threaten to. Just the awareness that a partner has options and could leave, does ramp up sexual interest.
To the OP: It might be better if you found out what YOUR woman wants instead of relying on some vague opinion of what every woman wants.
My SO have been together for seventeen years. If I told you how many times a week we have sex it might sound like attention-whoring so I’ll just politely say it’s a fair bit. We work hard to keep the romance and the relationship alive, we are good, giving, and game to each other’s interests, and we know how to have fun together. And we do talk, but we try not to talk it to death.
I hope it works out for you. I have directly asked him on occasion to do X more often, or whatever. No human is a mind-reader, we need to be told sometimes what our beloved wants.
So next time you are going off to banjo class, smile and flirt with your wife. Make her think you are thinking about sex - can you playfully joke, “Bend over, wench! I am going on a long journey and need sex to sustain me!”, in your best Viking voice. You know, make it fun, but sexy. Or grab her from behind and mock-roughly bite her neck and say, “When I come back we WILL have hot sex. Be ready.” Make her think of you sexually.
This seems like it might have been better advice 9 years ago when the OP first started to have these issues with his wife. They are in an established pattern now.
I wonder if the OP’s wife’s Ironman/fitness hobby is part of the problem. Ironman training is intense and takes up a lot of time. Then she’s probably physically exhaused and sore.
Yep, I thought about this, and mentioned it (I think in the other thread).
She is now also exercising a friends horse 3 days a week. That just started this week. I’m glad for her though. She was on the equestrian team in college and is quite a horseman. Up at 4am to train, then work, then the horse, home at about 7:30pm 8pm. Don’t know how she does it, though she never acts tired.
It’s going to vary wildly per person. My wife and I have gone through fits and starts (we’ll have been married 10 years tomorrow), but it’s never gotten to a point where we’re dissatisfied with the relationship. What both of us know, however, is that if she is stressed out, our sex life goes down significantly. She can’t get herself in the mood if she’s under a ton of stress, and so those tend to be low points. Relieve that stress, and we end up like bunnies.
Nah. We get along great. But it’s true we have pretty different hobbies/interests. We where trying to figure out a way I could ride too, but it did not pan out.
And I am NOT going to start doing IronMan’s :eek:.
Passion fades after a while. I’m married for 21 years, love my wife deeply and we are truly partners. Sex is not something that happens a lot anymore, but we both seem to have adjusted to it pretty well. Does passion necessarily equal sex? I think that passion equals intimacy and we have plenty of that. Re-kindle, no, we’ve always been intimate.
There was an article in the Times Magazine a while back on attempts to find Viagara for women - not for performance, for interest. It noted that there have been studies showing a definite fall off of interest when there is a single partner for multiple years. The same woman gets real interested in other potential partners.
No, I’m not suggesting wife swapping. The secret seems to be seeming new. Romantic date nights are one way of doing this. How about a romantic restaurant, not Denny’s? And the European trip can be also. Sometimes a guy putting on a suit when he never wears one can help.
But before all this is a good non-sexual relationship, and I read her gift as an excellent indicator of this. Hope it works, and try not to get too tired, which is easy when traveling.
I have been trying to change things. Subtly. I’m buying some new clothes for the Germany trip. Stuff that will be easier for this kind of trip. We are trying to travel very light. My Wife has picked out a lot of it. It’s stuff that she thinks I look good in. And I think I do.
I read the gift of the trip as a good indicator too. We do love each other. We have it planned so that we spend at least two days in each town. Usually three. This should give us some time to relax and settle in. But I do know that it will be tiring.
We live in a ski resort community, so the restaurants we frequent are either very fun, or very upscale (for a mountain town). We couldn’t go to Denny’s even if we wanted to.
Your wife’s extreme exercise keeps setting off an alarm bell for me. I don’t know how that plays into your marriage’s lack of sexuality, but I have a feeling it does.