Best user name/post combo I have ever seen.
You might try baby wipes. They come in a traveling case to keep in a drawer by the bed.
I have had ‘underperforming’ men in my bed in the past, and it didn’t make me want to quit having sex. It made me want to give them pointers. Which were always received gladly.
I’m not married and haven’t been married before, so feel free to disregard this:
- Are you the same guy doing the same things you did in the first 3 months of your relationship? Or have you let yourself get out of shape, stopped putting effort into your grooming, haircut, cologne, stopped whispering dirty things into her ear to give her goosebumps, stopped teasing her throughout the day instead of jumping right for intercourse, stopped aggressively ravaging her, etc. etc.?
Or have you guys become roommates, where now you try to remove the obstacles to her getting in the mood (doing the housework etc.) and politely/unaggressively ask if you can have sex and then sit back and hope she gets in the mood?
I was seeing a girl for a while and we went through this, but I realized a few weeks into it that I had been sitting back and waiting for her to get turned on instead of doing what I was doing at the start of the relationship…it really wasn’t her fault, how was she supposed to get turned on and want to fuck me when I was being an asexual nice-guy instead of the “god you look sexy in that outfit, I can’t wait to get you home and…” sexual flirt she was first attracted to? Made sure to step that back up and the magical low-libido problems suddenly vanished and we’re back to normal.
This may not even be entirely your fault, if she’s let herself go physically you may not be as attracted to her as you were at the start so sub-consciously you don’t WANT to put in the effort you used to. Far as I’ve found though, if a girl USED to have a normal libido, it’s still in there SOMEWHERE…it’s just gotten used to not being tapped into.
- This has been going on for so long that you may be fucked. She might not be into sex anymore, she might not see you as sexually attractive enough to put in the effort anymore, you might not see her as sexually attractive enough to put in the effort anymore…but at the end of the day, you want sex and are unsatisfied. Consider getting a girl on the side…whether openly (“honey, I know you don’t have a sex drive anymore, and you know that it’s important to me to have sex, I love you and would never leave you or the kids, but I’m going to have to find a way to take care of these needs before I start to resent you” and then slowly work your way into a situation where you can have a girl on the side just for sex or go to massage parlors or something), or secretly (but this’ll blow up in your face and hurt her if you get caught and, personally, I don’t like dishonesty in a relationship).
Ideally this was a conversation to have waaaaaay back when things started dying off, but what’s done is done. If Option 1 above doesn’t apply to you and Option 2 doesn’t appeal to you or you don’t want to risk her taking it badly (which there’s a very good chance she will), you might be stuck in a sexless marriage and I feel for you epically because I was in a sexless monogamous relationship for a couple years and felt the exact same frustration/depression you are.
For the sake of your kids try the fuck out of Option 1 before even considering Option 2. And if you go with Option 2, consider that even if you didn’t go through with it, or just stayed late at work a few nights so she wondered about you and that secretary, it might help her go “whoops, if I don’t figure this out another woman might steal my husband away!!” and make a trip to Victoria’s Secret.
Good luck! You deserve sexxin’! 
- TWTTWN
And if you DO try Option #2 be sure to fill us in on what happens. I’m sure suggesting to her that you be allowed to have a girl on the side will go over just fine.
Your kids are young: are they both in school or care, or is your wife taking care of them all day when she’s not at school? Are you planning a third or would an accidental pregnancy be a Very Bad Thing™ right now? And, as others have asked, is she on birth control (new or what she used before), did she go through post-partum depression with either or both kids or is she on anti-depressants (along with BC, excellent libido killers)?
I think most of **Curious 3D’**s observations are spot on. Bottom line is, nothing’s going to change if your wife doesn’t think there’s a problem. Bargaining, begging, blackmailing – the most you’ll get is duty sex, which is anything but sexy and will likely build resentment.
ETA Calculated your approximate ages between posting and hitting Reply, and noticed that thiis started nine years ago, before you had kids. Hate to say it, but if this happened two years in, while you were both in your twenties, maybe you’re not sexually compatible.
I can’t speak for your wife, but I can tell you what I have found:
Our libido peaks are completely off; middle of the day for me, bedtime for hubby. When I go to bed, I am exhausted. Hubby wakes up at 5:00, raring to go, but I am deeply dead to the world. I have hard time staying asleep so if he wakes me up, I am pissed and I am so not going to give it up.
He does this stare at the ceiling, heavy sigh, pouty, Im-so-neglected, thing when I tell him no. WTF!
I have told him many times about what I need from him, but he either doesn’t really listen, or he just doesn’t care enough to remember. And continues to act mystified.
Women don’t always say outloud what they want. If we have to ask, it doesn’t count. Are you really really listening? Are you reading between the lines?
Some say a woman’s brain is her biggest and most sensitive erogenous zone. I know that a man who thinks Im smart becomes sexy to me.
Wow. Not to hijack, but what do you think is going to happen if you DO conceive and basically have a great excuse for the next 5 years to never have sex. I wouldn’t want you to feel guilty, but you should wonder what the situation is going to be in the near future.
All due respect, that right there is precisely why women are unsatisfied in relationships. And it’s their own fault.
Men (partners - I’m sure this goes for same sex couples too) are not mindreaders, they’re not wired to read between the lines. It’s not that they’re not intelligent or anything of the sort, it’s just that in my experience a man reads situations, he doesn’t read INTO them they way a woman will.
It’s not your partner’s job to intuit your desires through your extended sighs, heavy footfalls and glares.
You want something from your man, ask for it. In plain language. And if you haven’t figured out what it is you need - do some soul searching and figure it out before you start mysteriously pouting - or tell him something is bothering you and let him help you work it out. Again with the generalizing, but men are fixers. My husband can figure out what’s bugging me long before I can.
So yea. TALK. :smack:
Curious3d reminded me of a story I read a while ago:
Couples sometimes communicate no better than strangers, study finds
I agree with those who say that if she doesn’t see this as a problem, it’s not going to get better.
Some women can simply fall out of the habit of sex and it takes an act of will to get back into the habit. Like any habit, it needs to be nurtured and some days it might be difficult to feel like it.
Just as women’s orgasms often take more effort, women’s libidos often seem to take work and tending rather than just letting it all happen on its own.
This is not remotely true of all women, but perhaps a significant minority.
Honestly, the women who pull this crap make everyone’s life harder, even mine and I’m not involved with them.
It’s entirely possible, a woman’s libido dying down in a long-term relationship is not a unique situation:
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not for amateurs. And this totally should have been addressed in year 2 instead of year 11 (or better yet, day 1). But if the options are piss of your wife and risk a divorce for the chance at having sex more than once a month VS go the rest of your life without regular sex, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Only the OP can decide what to do.
Some people will tell him he’s a monster for wanting a satisfying sex life, I’m just offering a different opinion…once I got my first actual blowjob after 2 years of a sexually unsatisfying relationship I was like “How in the world did I go 2 YEARS without this???” and now I would never willingly get into that situation again. It’s not fair to me or to my partner who I’d come to complain about on a message board down the road.
I’d recommend doing a lot of reading of relationship/sex forums on this particular topic before you attempt anything drastic though. PM me if you want links to relevant reading material.
- TWTTWN
I’m not sure. I hope that I’ll keep at it, but I know it will be tough to keep up our current schedule (5+ times a week). A little TMI, but I enjoy giving BJs, so I’ll sometimes do that instead. Faster and cleaner. I don’t see myself stopping that habit any time soon.
Dan Savage gives advice like having someone on the side often when all other options in the marriage have been exhausted and they’re staying together for the kids. Just read through the archives a bit.
This part is critical - you really need to come back and let us know how that went.
If your husband is spending enough time at it that it actually cuts into your hours of sleep he’s some kind of superstar.
This isn’t a recipe for making the sex part of your married life better, this is a recipe for destroying every other part of it. In my opinion, a woman who falls for this is not particularly stable to start with. A relationship needs to move forward, not go back to what it was; after this honeymoon period wears off, you’re left with a marriage where trust has been destroyed and a desire for cheating has been brought in.
Exactly. Consider my Option 2 as a REALLY big “YOU SHOULD PAY ATTENTION TO THIS, THIS IS A PROBLEM.” flag to wave at her since the OP admits that trying to talk to her has apparently not helped.
It’s not advice that your friends and family (who probably haven’t been in as dire a situation as you feel you’re in) or people in sexually fullfilling relationships will give you a thumbs-up for, but the reasoning behind the advice is pretty logical.
Which every other part of it? The part of it where his wife feels guilty and uncomfortable because she doesn’t want sex and knows he does? The part where his wife worries that he’ll leave her because they aren’t discussing anything? The part where his wife has no idea what his needs are because she dismisses them as unimportant? The part where his kids pick up on the sexless relationship his parents have? The part where his kids wonder why mommy and daddy get snippy with eachother (sexual frustration)? The part where he wakes up every morning depressed? The part where she’s married to a depressed husband who’s slowly growing to resent her? The part where all of this blows up in their faces down the road and they end up getting a divorce except they’ve both wasted another 12 years of their lives? The part where they no longer feel the need to chase eachother since there’s no jealous sexual tension in the relationship and they both start sleeping in separate beds which I imagine wasn’t at ALL what either of them wanted when they first got married? The part where he ends up cheating on her because he’s not sexually fullfilled at home and she finds out about it and divorces him and takes half his money and custody of the kids?
Which part of this awesome fullfilling life he envisioned for himself when he was younger is he’s fucking up?
No one really wants to cheat. She has no sex drive, so she won’t cheat (if she DOES cheat, then clearly she has a sex drive, just not for HIM, which brings us back to Option 1 which is why he should try that first). He loves her and his kids but just isn’t satisfied with sex so he’s not going to leave the relationship, just get his sexual needs taken care of by someone who wants to.
- TWTTWN
Please watch your attributions, TheWhoToTheWhatNow. I don’t want to be given credit (or blame!) for someone else’s words.
Oh, as long as that’s all it is. I don’t know why so many couples break up over infidelity, in that case - “Honey, I was just getting my sexual needs taken care of by someone who wanted to.” (That was sarcasm, by the way.) This is one of those ideas that sounds great on paper, but would blow up spectacularly in your face if you actually tried it in the real world (in my opinion).