SprucHub

All we can do is to actively care whether our spouses are happy/satisfied and do what is reasonable to meet their expectations. What is reasonable is the difficult thing. That is a matter of a continuing discussion with your spouse.

jaharthur

Yes! I agree 100%.

ukf32

@effess

Your post humbles me now and shames me for the person I have been. I can’t speak for your partner but I think it’s worth mentioning this all the same. At no point during our relationship have I ever found my husband to be ugly or unattractive. When I declined sex, in my own mind *all* I was refusing was the physical act. I literally had no idea of all the feelings my husband had when I rejected him. There were times he would try to make me see how it was in his shoes but it was futile, I thought it was all just manipulation to get intimate. I don’t honestly know why I didn’t absorb his perspective more, perhaps because we think that’s just how it is, full stop- that drive can’t be changed so why feel horrendous about it. I see how difficult it is to be HD- even though you try to voice how you feel your LD partner only sees it as an attempt to get more sex and the rest is white noise.

@SimplyAmorous


I really appreciate you taking the time to write such detailed responses. I must admit I am envious of your drive, I can’t help feeling more of a failure when I read your posts and that hurts. I WISH I could have all of that inside me to give to my husband. I do hope that one day I will but I can’t know what the future holds, what if that never becomes a part of me? I wish having a low drive WAS a deliberate thing and that I could simply switch it off!

In response to your question, at any time during all of this, yes I would have understood if he had decided to leave our marriage. It would have destroyed me but I could have accepted it. A while back I think I would have resented him making that choice far more, simply because of my ignorance surrounding the issue.

"So NOW...you feel honest DESIRE welling up ?? How often does this happen ???"

Hmm, currently I am enjoying feeling desire for my husband almost daily (I don’t mean we have sex nearly this often, just that when we kiss or touch or flirt I enjoy it. The fact that I enjoy these moments without the apprehension I used to feel allows my body and mind to be free to embrace it). When I first began trying to change I would touch and kiss him but with conscious effort . Now it feels much more natural and I love the way he melts at my touch and falls apart as we kiss. I hate that I robbed us of so much time to enjoy that.

As for how long I have been LD, I honestly can’t say. There’s no time or event in my past that I can definitively identify as being ‘the’ point of decline. I would estimate 6 years or so, maybe around 4 years ago my husband began actively voicing his discontent. I have been worried about it for around 2 years and finally went to the doctor around 12 months ago and that signifies the start of change.

@Enchantment

“do YOU feel like you are doing enough?”

I hope so. I am doing everything I can think of to address the issue but I don’t know if that is going to give me an autonomous drive of my own in time. I am worried that the absence of that will mean whatever I do, I won’t be giving my husband enough.

I deliberately didn’t mention my husband’s infidelity in relation to my LD. I would say while that must have been a contributing factor, in my heart of hearts it isn’t the ‘reason’. Prior to his EA my drive was almost equal to his. Initially because we were on bad terms there was no sex wanted or had by either of us. When we made the decision to reconcile my drive remained fine. It was probably 2 years or so later my drive began to decline and was the result of other external variables. I wouldn’t exclude his infidelity but it is not the only or most significant factor (though when I was grasping for reasons to explain my low drive to myself I did allow it to feature!). I wanted to ensure that people’s responses were as objective as possible and I suspect for some people that may have affected their opinion.

I have forgiven him. I like the sentiment that someone else highlighted on my other thread- good people sometimes make bad choices and that is exactly how I feel about the whole thing. It’s part of our past so it has contributed to where we are now, which is (mainly!) a very good place!


In response to your other questions- our marriage is exceptionally strong in a lot of ways. I won’t go into everything in depth but we’ve worked hard to have a marriage we both value and to be the best people we can be individually and together.

MEM11363

UK,
You are doing fine.

Please ignore my earlier post on this thread, I was very sleep deprived when I wrote it.

It is obvious you deeply love your H and have prioritized him highly in your life. And as part of that, you have prioritized the physicality in your marriage.

You describe an emotionally healthy man. And you are completely right that he would far prefer a mid-point sexual frequency that you enjoy to a daily frequency that burns you out. Or that you simply tolerate. There are many very happy marriages with large core drive mismatches: To find out if you have one, ask him this:

(LD to HD): Do you feel loved?

That's it. Don't ask "Do you know I love you?"

Of course he "knows" you love him. The reason he will FEEL loved, is that all the "other stuff" you do gets amplified by the physical intimacy you have.

Even more so because you are LD. If someone is already feeling lust, it is effortless for that person to arrive to bed with a loving hard and commitment to please.

But someone with - responsive desire - that is a different thing. For the LD spouse, it requires commitment and love. And for the HD spouse it may require a different approach than what worked before.

Please forgive in advance this analogy - I love everything about my W. If there was anything "mechanical" about the way I treat her in or out of bed, we would not be happily approaching year 24 and she wouldn't say "you treat me like gold".

I remember learning to drive a stick shift car. The gears selected have to match the speed of the vehicle. If not, you stall the engine which feels bad. With an LD partner who is starting out at a speed of "0", the HD partner needs to act accordingly. We both get in bed lightly dressed.

1. Non-sexual touch: back/neck massage or back/neck scratch or both - for her, this is the start of a mental transition from the anxieties of the day to being in the moment. When she is relaxed (and the timing matters because waiting too long means she gets sleepy )...

2. I transition to a lightly sexual massage. Border between lower back and ..., and upper thighs. When she is starting to respond...

3. I change positions - she is lying facedown - I am now straddling one of her thighs - and one of my thighs is now pressed up against her - broad pressure against her (she likes this) down there.

4. She rolls over - this means she WANTs to transition to a fully sexual encounter. This might be the first time we start kissing. After a while I can tell if she is feeling turned on enough to O. If not, this is more a nice warm connection for her, than a passionate encounter. In that case, this is a gentle, soft ILY to each other. If she is turned on enough...

5. I usually transition to a more aggressive/dominant approach. This includes a very small amount of talk.

FWIW - when she has that 3 day monthly spike and I happen to be home - (not travelling for work) - it is totally different. And we might be kissing passionately from the get go. But when she starts out in neutral - my kisses are more the romantic - soft lips style until she takes it further.

As for the 1-5 above, just as often it happens in reverse with me lying face down on the bed. Similar set of stuff - similar pacing.

My W told me early in our marriage that at worst, this feels "very nice". And that setting a pace that is faster than the rate at which she gets aroused, feels bad. Which made total sense to me the first time I heard it. I like it better when she gets super turned on and feels like I do. And it is also true that as long as it doesn't feel bad for her - as long as she doesn't dislike it, or feel grossed out, I can live with that. Might sound like a low bar. But the alternative is to PRESSURE her to lie to me about how it feels. About why she didn't O.

I know her body well. When she doesn't O, it isn't due to a lack of effort or patience on my part. I like foreplay and long sessions. And hour is good for me. If I were to complain about her not finishing, that would convey disappointment in something she doesn't control. It would be a bit like her showing disappointment to me if I had mild ED.

Kasler

I'm an LD man, and one of my LD spouses was too LD for me.

I'm pretty much satisfied with once a week or two weeks(bumped up for current SO), but she only really wanted it between spans of 2-3 months.

The biggest thing to get through to an LD woman isn't not to get physical or try foreplay, huge turn off for many of them. Just gotta explain it well so they understand how important it is. Also I found getting more emotional than physical helped greatly to where she would initiate at times or be thinking about what we talked for hours about and jump my bones as soon as I got back home.

SimplyAmorous

I often get carried away when I write about this stuff, I tend to be overly passionate about it -because I , too, hurt my husband.... so am I any better...No

There is always a possibility -as you grow older... you may get a taste of this.... they say women's PRIME is in their late 30's - early 40's -because as our Estrogren is going down a bit, Testosterone is going UP- and WOW...it can take you like a whirlwind, not knowing what hit you...or it may be just a slight increase.

Here is something I found on the net to explain just a little bit of why this happens >>> hormones of course...

One poster on here... Mary35.. she didn't come into her drive until her late 40's...... Biodegradable Hormones was a part of her story.....it took her for such a WILD RIDE, she thought she was going crazy (a thread like that)...... but before that...so many fights over sex in her marraige.... didn't get it at all....she also had too much of that "good girl snydrome" going on ....(As did I)... One of her threads here.... >> The reason wives won't have sex

I appreciate your honesty in this, and this is what I suspected... which would make this TRUE for countless other wives. Many on TAM will say "just divorce" -if they can't take it...knowing that "temptation" elsewhere may overtake them ....but how doublely tragic it is... if one DOES leave over Sex (acts with integrity to not cheat).........but is forever hated and felt as a Horrendous person for doing so....When others would hear the reason, most especially women friends -then leaking to others... it can blacken one's name for being "very shallow" and loveless I suppose.

It truly is like speaking 2 languages - a grand canyon divide in understanding the other. And kids, they would never understand it, the fathers who leave would forever be looked upon with a tinge of evil for leaving MOM, cause she didn't want it and she is a good person.

Me admitting I would have to "get out" myself makes me feel outright SELFISH for even speaking that....though I do feel this would be even HARDER on women as we are more emotional to begin with & meant to be the "objects of desire" - most of us take this for granted even. Then it is far less common in society -we'd want to pull our hair completely out of our heads

to be in the midst of wives complaining all their husbands want is sex & chasing them around.

At least men can go yak to pretty much any man he can grab about how frustrated he is & crack jokes about it...husband hears this talk near every day at work.


You mention feeling desire almost daily -but not having sex 'nearly this much"...

Just curious, but you can ignore me.. or maybe I missed it in another post.... how often would HE want it naturally -if he could wave a magic wand .... and what is the norm -what you've both built up to....with your progress- Is the gap narrowing ?

What about hand jobs, BJs, when you aren't feeling it .... does it bother you to give him 15 minutes of hands on, even without a physical desire but having an emotional desire to please him in this way.... a "his pleasure is My pleasure" approach.

I did a thread ...born out of one of my many little spats -over his antsy desire slipping as he has gotten older... this is how we both see it... and it's been a blessing for us both.


The Joy it brings & importance of "allowing" our Partner to turn us on to love making

.

__________________
"Love Good Blog"

MEM11363

SA,
Since we are talking HD/LD - Mary35 is a great example and I am glad you mentioned her. She and her H had a big sexual disconnect for 25 years. Basically from the start of marriage into her late 40's. And suddenly she woke up and became sexual.

I like Mary35. I find her posts to be very honest and valuable. And I believe her H was clearly a partner in their sexual dysfunction, he simply didn't understand what/how to address it. I recall they have 5 children.

And it seemed to me that the big driver for her change was the departure of her last child from the house.

That was an emotional driver and a powerful one. It is one thing to have a distant/semi-angry husband in a house full of boisterous 5,4,3,2,1 kids (the sequence describes their departure from the house - to their own lives).

It is an entirely different matter to have only 1 other person in the house - when that person is not happy with you/how you treat them. That is the situation M35 found herself in. And her approach was very practical, she made the effort (an effort she had chosen not to make for 25 years) to create a happy / healthy dynamic with her H.

I am not going to say her hormones were a non-factor. As I have zero basis for an opinion in that regard. I will say that a woman with the normal level of emotional attachment/focus on her children can get many of her core emotional needs met through daily interaction with her offspring. This is perfectly normal stuff. And unfortunately for M35 but MUCH MORE SO for her H, the consequence of that was simple: She had a HAPPY 25 years, and he had a tense - mostly unloved 25 years. I got the sense they are strong Christians and that divorce was not an option for him so he just "sucked it up".

But ultimately - with the daily distractions, love and interaction with the children removed, she found herself "home alone" with a guy who was distant and angry. The same distant - angry guy who had been there for decades. But now, she could either be essentially alone - or she could engage him. Which she did. And AFTER she did so, she realized she loved him, that he actually MATTERED, not just as a sperm doner, financial provider and handyman but as a human being with feelings every bit as real as hers.

Emerald

LD here & was married to HD for 22 years. Married young & naive; no bait & switch intentionally....but.....

SEX was ALWAYS a BIG problem for both of us like an everyday/night problem (he wanted; I didn't).

Not worth it.

Lots of LD/HD folks here & IRL married and/or LTR so no disrespect (been there) but it is hard......uggg.....so many compromises, frustrations, bad feelings not to mention really bad stuff like affairs.....

For me, never again.

ocotillo

That was my wife. She was seriously LD the first half of our marriage. Somewhere in her mid forties, that changed and the elaborate mystique that's often cloaked around female sexuality evaporated into thin air.

She'd walk through the door and her briefcase and legal briefs would fly through the air in a flat trajectory towards the couch at the same time her shoes were coming off. I went from being the HD partner to being the LD partner literally overnight.