Indeed, one reason for lack of sex might be lack of trust. Cheating isn’t going to help that.
Well obviously every situation is different, it depends on the relationship you have with the person.
The question is, if the spouse is happy in the marriage would it be more considerate not to tell them or to tell them you were going to go outside the marriage for sex? I think most would say to tell them. But it could be argued that if they’re happy in the marriage why risk that? I’m sure that’s the situation a lot of people get into.
With my current SO I’d be able to talk to her if lack of sex got to be a problem. But you know some people would go apeshit at the mere suggestion.
I left, but not before telling her in the therapist’s office that we had sex 4 times the previous year. She said, “How do you know, were you COUNTING THEM?” “Yes, I was, because I noticed that the lube you had me buy was only a quarter used and nearing its 3 year expiration date.”
Keep in mind that my sexual history goes back a couple of decades, so I’ve learned a few things over time. To wit, back in the early, exploratory days, 
I didn’t realize that I didn’t have to put up with crappy sex. Now, with more experience below the belt (heh heh), I can grant a pass on first-time awkwardness, but if things ain’t getting better by the third encounter, buh bye.
To your second point: Same thing. It took me a few years to figure out how to ask for what I want, how to give feedback, and to take responsibility for my own orgasm. However, I have encountered a couple of guys whose self-esteem was so terrible that they took any coaching (uh, a little lower please, faster, harder, NO TEETH!) as criticism, which was understandably quite a turn off. For both of us. I can’t scream “Faster! Harder! Deeper!” because you think I’m criticizing your technique and I can’t get off with this stupid pace and rhythm you’ve set without consulting me. If you didn’t want feedback, dude, why did you choose to have sex with another person?
What blows my mind is that I thought this estimate (60-70% are shitty lays) would go down as I got older and was with men who have more experience than the 19 year olds I hooked up with in college. Turns out, a stunning number of men seem to be very set in their ways and just cannot break out of their comfort zones and try to do things in a different way. I suspect that some of these men have actually had very few lovers so the maybe 3-4 people they’ve slept with makes them think ALL women like it that way.
I don’t appreciate you shattering my dreams for my future. :mad:
Can you start a thread? I’d be interested in the answer too. And WHY theit lust decreases after marriage.
I wanted to start a thread:
You have no self esteem, are batshit crazy, and aren’t putting out? Yes you are a certifiable nutbar, do you know it?
But I was afraid where it would go.
I DO know that, as little as I was getting at time in my marriage, if I’d married my first fiancee, one of us would have been dead inside a year, and there wouldn’t have been a whole lotta sex going on either. (yeah yeah, perhaps it’s me. 
)
I voted for the first option.
I have a close friend whose wife apparently has zero interest in sex. He didn’t like always being the one to initiate sex, so he once went seven months (!) without doing so, just to see how long it would be before she either (a) noticed or (b) minded. And she never did, he said. They have a buncha kids and she’s very busy all the time, but I feel for the guy. They have a good marriage otherwise, from all I’ve seen, and they’ve talked about this, and she acknowledges it’s an issue and promises to change, but I wonder. Maybe counseling would help them.
I’m not sure if it needs its own thread. The topic seems perfectly cromulent in this one.
I don’t have an answer to this, but I can take some wild guesses.
It’s probably not entirely hormonal. A woman’s sexual peak usually hits somewhere in her forties, so that can’t be it. But I can see that if a woman has babies, then her body has fulfilled its purpose in that phase of the life cycle. Her job becomes to raise the children, so maybe there is a bit of a hormonal shift there. But I dated a mom of teenagers who was quite the tigress. For whatever reason, I’m sure she had sex with me far more than with her husband in the last years of their marriage.
I think a lot of it may be that the husband gets lazy. The once stud-muffin who swept her off her feet is now a lazy, beer-swilling, football junkie. That’s not going to inspire a lot of lust.
And as mentioned before, some women slowy start shutting down their sexual channels and forget how to re-open them.
Those are all complete guesses.
I can answer that one! BREASTFEEDING. At least for me.
I naturally have a fairly low sex drive except once a month, at which point I get extremely horny for about a week. (Um, why yes, took us two months to conceive, and I’m convinced it took two only because we were super sick with the flu the first month.) While pregnant it went sky-high. But since the Little One was born it’s been… gone. I mean, my husband’s hasn’t disappeared, obviously, though lower because we’re both getting less sleep, so we aren’t quite living celibately – but I would be happy to, at this point. I’m kind of looking forward to quitting the breastfeeding so I can get back to the normal schedule.
I also had some undiagnosed thyroid problems for about a year after we got married which played havoc with my sex drive. I’m very lucky my husband is so understanding, especially since for much of that time we weren’t aware there was an underlying medical problem that needed to be addressed, so for that time probably from his point of view it looked a little like the situation in the OP. Poor husband!
“I promise to change” when stated about ANYTHING in a relationship translates to “Get the fuck off my back already. Nothing is going to change. I just don’t want to talk about it anymore right now.”
This is correct. The only thing I’d change is “right now” to “ever.”
:: cuddles Diosa ::
We want pix! We want pix!
I think this may be a common fallacy. I think the true situation is that both people are essentially the same, it’s just that the flood of love hormones have faded. Those hormones are floating in your body and cause you to act irrationally, think of the other person all the time and get turned on from just a light touch. Once those hormones are gone after the first year or so, you’re left with your true sexual drive.
In general, I think a man’s drive never goes to zero. If he’s not having sex with his wife, he is either cheating or masturbating. He is finding ways to satisfy that need.
In contrast, I think a woman’s drive can go to zero. She’s not having sex with anyone nor masturbating. She truly has no desire for sex.
The reason I think this is that a man will go to great lengths to fix the problem but women generally don’t. They often come up with excuses like work was hard, too many chores, too tired, etc. It’s hard for me to understand those excuses. No matter how work was or how tired I am, I still have the urge for sex.
The shocking thing to most people is when they find out that the free and easy sex from the beginning of the relationship is no more. You assume the sex will always be the same. The crucial thing at this point is how the couple reacts. The high drive spouse should understand that they may not get sex as often as they want. The low drive spouse should understand they must make sex a priority even though they may not be in the mood. They should be willing to get in the mood with a reasonable amount of effort.
What? Why wouldn’t there be? I ask this seriously as someone with plans to get married in the near future. To me saying there is no entitlement to sex in marriage as saying there is no entitlement to emotional support, no entitlement to kindness, no entitlement to love etc.
Are we not entitled to all those things in a marriage? If so, why is sex different?
I concur. I may end up marrying my girlfriend in the future, and we certainly have more going on than sex. That said, sex is what separates our relationship from the other close friendships I have. Without sex (or children, which are kinda connected), what makes a spouse different from your buddy from 'Nam?
Eh, it’s been done. Mostly ends up as a long laundry list of random accusations against men for being useless in bed, inconsiderate out of it, or any other reason why it’s all their own fault. :dubious:
I agree as well. Well, it’s not the only thing that separates the relationships, but it’s one of the main things. And it can be a bit of a canary in the coal mine, so to speak.
I will never understand why some people get married who cannot talk to their spouses about sex and expectations about it. People is weird.
I can - not from personal experience, I might add. If one partner is rejected - and I assume that they’ve talked about it - he or she may feel not very worthwhile as a sexual being. An affair can give that kind of reenforcement, and this might be more important in the long run than the sex.
I can imagine a person not leaving for fear that no one would ever be interested in him or her again, since there must be something wrong to have turned off the person he or she married. This might be enough to not go through the hassle of divorce.