Sex in MarriageSexual problems are common in many relationships. This section is for discussions about sexuality. Please limit discussions to those asking for help with a problem and those offering advice. Any other threads may be deleted.
View Poll Results: How often do men's sex drives kick in
Maybe it's 30 years of repressing, to some degree or another in various phases of my life, but I find mine is gone, I suspect it has been gone for a few years and I fear it isn't coming back. I still yearn for the company of an attractive woman, I am still "horny" but it is no controlling force in my life - my desparation is but it wasn't until recently, after my separation, that I realized these are two different things.
I'm hoping I'll be able to jump start it again, because it feels like that is such a crucial part of my life I'm missing, but I'm afraid to turn it on and not have the right person or outlet in my life to express it.
Now I've had a few brief times in recent months where the lust and desire and physical arousal came to life in a big way, but as fast as it came up it has quickly went away.
I've been doing a porn moratorium, and I suspect my "2 minutes a week" habit from before must have been a big factor in whatever sex drive I had. I'm hoping that within a few months, I'll be able to experience arousal and that healthy drive without it.
It feels like all the love and respect I wasn't getting in my marriage helped shut me down, and it broke me quite awhile ago in fact. It feels like I'm not meant to be repaired, and honestly like there is no reason to go on living except to provide for my son and honor my responsibilities. My Doc has little advice other than antidepressants, I haven't gotten into this too deep with my therapist, exercise doesn't really seem to help - it feels like I'm going into celebacy and a part of me is welcoming it (like a tired body would welcome death) another part wants to desperately fight it, and I find it very depressing (on top of all the other things I find depressing) because I don't really know how to fight this.
ok rant over, life isn't that bad, but I sure as hell want this behind me, want to be healthy again (emotionally, sexually, physically etc)
The drive is always there. I can literally, physically at least, have sex several times a day. I can easily orgasm 5+ times in a day, and the most we've ever had sex was six or seven times in a single day.
But I'm not totally comfortable with my body's constant ability to have seemingly endless sexual pleasure, so I just ignore it sometimes. I've gotten pretty good at control. I chose not to have sex daily, just like I have to curb masturbation because once is never enough for my body. It's actually pretty funny because sometimes I won't feel like having sex, but my wife "takes advantage" of how easily arousable I am after I've declined sex, almost always wins, and afterward I mock chide her for exploiting me LOL!
So I think there is a difference, for me at least, between sexual "drive", and how often I give into that drive.
Although I like your ideas, I'd have to say that I disagree with your initial point of a declining sex drive. Being a 41 year old man, I find that my sex drive is as strong as ever and frankly I don't remember it waning. In my case it is my wife who's in her late 30's who is experiencing a decreasing sex drive. Maybe I'm one of a kind but I doubt it.
All men are different with both their ability and desire for sexual intercourse...Many men live in fear...Worry about what they have read....They assume with the first hint of being tired or not as erotic that they are getting past their prime...This, for many men is a big hang up...My husband's drive was always strong...I would say in his 50's I noticed a difference...Unfortunately, this was when I was really getting with the program...At 64 or 65 he got some Viagra from the doctor...I didn't know about this and was mad when he did as I felt it was an insult to me and my sexuality...After he tried it out, I loved it...I had noticed the loss of erectile power over the last few years, but let it go...It was at that time that I should have taken over and been his hot to trot porn queen and kept him alive...But I didn't...Maybe still too inhibited or still not able to let loose as I soon would do...
After he was on Viagra a couple years (during that time we had sex I would say once a week) I noticed a decline in his coming after me...It became more noticeable...We even had a couple of words about it...Despite this lack of sexual want on his part, which he did have, but I didn't know his problem, during sex we were really going at it...It was during that act that I raised my right leg and ejaculated...This, for me was the start of who I was to become...
From this happening I decided to for some crazy reason, turn him around and off Viagra...I don't know why I did it or where the thought came from so I started my own sex clinic on him and within three months he never used it again...After about two weeks of my "gonna get you baby" clinic, he told me something that I never knew...He said Honey, I hated to take that pill...It would give me such headaches that I would think I would faint...That's why I cut back on our sex..."
From that day forward we never needed any help....However, now with his being 76, I am finding a new problem...That being that even the drive has slowed down...This can be affected by his weight and just plain age...For me it is a new venture...That being keeping him feeling that he is young...Oh, I never pressure him, but he also knows that what I have to offer can bring him to his knees....
Who knows, maybe a lot of your sex drive is governed by love and much to the women who reject you...IMO, men need that hot erotic feeling that lets the animal in him go back to his yesterday and take woman....I look at him as well as let him know that sexually he is my master...Saying this, I believe that this feeling has given him as well as been one of the hottest aphrodisiac I could feed him...
I am sure I am a bit off topic on this, but so much is not written about man and his sexual problems...To me there is so much that can be done, but nobody really knows how to help...Take care...
P.S. I am also going to add this to my LT marriage thread when I have time...I think that it really is important...
Threetimesalady, you not only live up to your name, but you are an absolute gem of a woman and educator.
And yes, I do view you as an educator. Your ideas are so pro-male, pro-marriage, so exactly what many, many of us need to hear, and desire, from our women.
I am many decades your junior, but I find myself absolutely loving the way you've aged into your sexuality, and the incredible effect it's had on your sex life with your husband. My wife has some of your attitudes, and I can only hope she holds on to those, and continues to evolve them over time, such as you have.
I am genuinely thankful, not to mentioned floored, at your perspective because it so embodies what I believe a lot of men and women need to take heed to at ANY age.
Threetimesalady, you not only live up to your name, but you are an absolute gem of a woman and educator.
And yes, I do view you as an educator. Your ideas are so pro-male, pro-marriage, so exactly what many, many of us need to hear, and desire, from our women.
I am many decades your junior, but I find myself absolutely loving the way you've aged into your sexuality, and the incredible effect it's had on your sex life with your husband. My wife has some of your attitudes, and I can only hope she holds on to those, and continues to evolve them over time, such as you have.
I am genuinely thankful, not to mentioned floored, at your perspective because it so embodies what I believe a lot of men and women need to take heed to at ANY age.
Dear Jaquen: Thank you for some of the kindest as well as most encouraging words that I have ever heard...Believe me, sometimes it is not easy being me...First, I have the most wonderful life in the world, yet for some reason this call of the wild in me to speak about it...This is something I will never understand so I now accept it.....
I find it interesting that this thread is on the Man's Sex Drive, when this is but one small problem with so many marriages...I feel a lot of the duress that a man can face is wondering what he is doing wrong that she no longer wants sex with him...As far as a man's drive, I think just about all men have a normal drive, but it is usually the woman who stifles it...When a man is turned down enough or feels that he is just being tolerated sexually, it can tear him apart...Soon he can either grow into his own self doubt or get a roving eye that many do...I believe that we women must help men with this problem...This is especially true as they age...I think a lot of the problem with a woman is they have no idea of what married life really is...If they have lived with the man before then they know the score...BUT, if this is a new union of living together and all the sudden they are together all the time and the drive shows, then we often do not know how to handle it...Not only can we not find our own orgasms, but we, for some wild reason, blame this on him for not making us orgasm....We forget that before marriage that we used to be hot to trot and never had a problem, but for some reason this inner part of our brain goes in reverse and no longer can we turn ourselves on...Thus, so often the "not tonight dear" becomes too easy to say....The one problem that these women do not realize is that years from now that they will be the one with the over powerisng sex drive and need filling and the man who has been turned down far too many times will no longer be willing and able to fulfill their needs....I also think that vibrators have been become far too much of a substitute for intercorse and have affected many marriages...As for me I never knew they existed until about nine years ago...My husband knew, but never told me...Now I truly think that this was one wise decision on his part...You see they reach a part of a woman that a man cannot find...That being solo sex and blowing her own mind and then expecting man to do the same...And that is IMO, where the trouble begins..........
Yes, I guess I am pro-man as well as I am pro-woman...I walk the middle of the road...I hurt when either sex hurts...For I truly know what they are missing...As for man, he and again IMO has the physical as well as mental struggle in a partnership/marriage...He is the person that has to work his butt off to get an erection....From watching my husband age and knowing the facts of life myself, I know that they can be helped...I think ED drugs are widely misused...Medical problems can happen and many of this because women do not come to the plate and help before this is needed.......
I believe so many men miss the best days of their lives because of women that let both of them fall into the snake pit of "I am past my prime"...You know, "we are not supposed to be like that anymore"...
I wish I could tell you of the women that have written me and the about ten who have come up to me in the last fifteen years and asked me how we got to be the way we are...Spoke about regret...Told me if they could only do it again...Sorry for a divorce that should never have happened and wished to hell that they could change it....This is what can tear me apart, but I can't change the world so I guess I write...
I am going to put this on as it is and come back tomorrow and alter it...I am tried tonight as I am so darn busy with my hobbies that I swear I don't have time to grow old...Now I am going to join my naked husband in bed and pray that God will keep us both safe and sound...My best to you and your wife....Take care...Caroline or Threetimesalady....
As a husband, years of rejection, being turned down, pushed away etc has certainly taken its toll on me.
You shy away from ANY physical touch because you will get turned on and (more than likely) turned away. It hurts....so you don't put yourself in that situation.
Sadly it conditions you into believing that women who love and enjoy sex either with their spouse or 'whoever' don't exist.... or when you read/see/hear about wives/women who DO initiate, who DO understand theri husbands need for physical intimacy etc...it makes you feel even more bitter and resentful.....
....sometimes to the point that you just give up 'living' and simply exist
I'm in my mid 40's.... if I found a lump on a testicle or started having prostate problems etc, I really don't think it would bother me atall...
As a husband, years of rejection, being turned down, pushed away etc has certainly taken its toll on me.
You shy away from ANY physical touch because you will get turned on and (more than likely) turned away. It hurts....so you don't put yourself in that situation.
Sadly it conditions you into believing that women who love and enjoy sex either with their spouse or 'whoever' don't exist.... or when you read/see/hear about wives/women who DO initiate, who DO understand theri husbands need for physical intimacy etc...it makes you feel even more bitter and resentful.....
....sometimes to the point that you just give up 'living' and simply exist
I'm in my mid 40's.... if I found a lump on a testicle or started having prostate problems etc, I really don't think it would bother me atall...
Just catching back up on this thread.
I agree 7737, I have felt EXACTLY like that. Being on this forum, while overall a wonderful experience, is often times hurts. I can feel it in my chest (and saying it this way belittles the depth of pain), the sense of loss, the years gone by that I'll never get back, the experiences, etc.
It's all I can do to be hopeful for the future. While really difficult, I find for me all the resentment and sense of loss in the world won't change my past. It can ruin my future though.
I too feel the pain in 7737's words. For me it wasn't just the deterioration in the marriage, though I think that is definitely what brought me back to this place... it was also my many years of being single shy and too afraid to approach women and not having someone to love and make love to. When I first met my ex and got married, those miserable single years faded from memory and I thought I'd have someone to share some amazing experiences (sex) with forever. As it tapered, instead of remembering the past loneliness I just kind of shut everything out and closed up. Then after separating is when those horrible memories all flooded back and knocked my confidence and self esteem way down. Now I suppose I'm forced to deal with how I am and finding out how to get what I need in life without fear and stifling trepidation.
56Likes
Re: Men's sex drive 
