# Help ideas?



## Mason2770 (Jun 7, 2021)

My wife of 7years has little to no interest in sex. When we do have intimacy its maybe once every 1 or 2 months. I'm starting to resent her and it puts me in a bad mood all day. I this has been going on for 3 or 4 years now and its really affecting me. I have talk to her about this numerous times and she would get mad or say okay I will try and after 1 or 2 weeks its right back to it. I mean I love her and I know she loves me but she just has no interest in being intimate with me. This started after we had our son. And no she is not cheating all she cars about is her shows and her social media. She is a great mother and wife when it come to taking care of the family but she has no interest in intimacy. Any thoughts or ideas on what I can do to improve this?


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## ccpowerslave (Nov 21, 2020)

Buy “The Dead Bedroom Fix” from @dadstartingover and read or listen to it and it will set you on your way.


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## re16 (Oct 9, 2012)

By definition, she has put you in a sexless marriage.

It wasn't something that you agreed to. True partners don't force major decisions on each other.

I think you need to have a serious discussion to find out her true feelings about why she is doing this.

Does she work? Have you done any recon into checking phone bills / texts to be sure there is nothing nefarious going on.

Have you gone to counseling?

Have you read Married man sex life primer?

Hopefully you're not falling into a trap of her giving reasons why (like you don't help enough) and trying to simply do more things for her to nice her back to you.... (that doesn't work).


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## Marc878 (Aug 26, 2015)

These come up often. Talk is a waste of time. Go your own way.


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

Mason2770 said:


> My wife of 7years has little to no interest in sex. .... this has been going on for 3 or 4 years now
> 
> ....I have talk to her about this numerous times and she would get mad or say okay I will try and after 1 or 2 weeks its right back to it.
> 
> .........I mean I love her and I know she loves me but she just has no interest in being intimate with me. *This started after we had our son*. And no she is not cheating all she cars about is her shows and her social media. She is a great mother and wife when it come to taking care of the family but she has no interest in intimacy. Any thoughts or ideas on what I can do to improve this?


So your son was born 3 or 4 years ago after about 3 or 4 years of marriage and your sex life is on life support.

You may have talked to your wife but have the two of your really communicated? From what you posted she gets angry and tries for a while. Have you asked her why she gets angry? Is if embarrassment, is it her inability to change, is it some fear she has? If you have really communicated, you should know why and why she can't make lasting changes more than a week or two.

Becoming a mother is a huge and exhausting deal. Many men just don't understand the pressure of being a mother combined with being a wife. Also many women find that their body and self-image change. Some no longer feel sexy and can't seem to loose baby weight or are no longer like the looks of their bodies. Also, many men don't perform well in supporting the new mother and resentment for that lack of support can build.

For the sake of your son, I strongly recommend that you ask your wife to go with you to marriage counseling sessions with a sex therapist. You obvious problem that you have discussed is one that a sex therapist is best trained to handle. However, I suspect that there are some deeper problems in your marriage.

You might want to do some introspection on what you have done wrong in your marriage. I was in a sex starved marriage. I thought I was the victim of a frigid wife. After some introspection, and reading a number of books, I realized that I was part of the problem. I bet if you do marriage counseling you will find out what part of the marriage problem you caused. Once you figure that out you need to apologize to your wife and then try to rebuild the relationship.

May I suggest you start by reading M.W. Davis book the sex starved marriage. Then you might want to read Glover's book No More Mr. Nice Guy. Becoming an ex-Nice Guy is not becoming a jerk, it is becoming a more integrated man who is not co-dependent upon his wife's approval for his own self-worth.

Good luck to you and go to marriage counseling for the sake of your son.


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## FlaviusMaximus (Jan 10, 2012)

Infrequent sex is worse than none at all as it strings the partner along just enough to want to work things out. Often, they will sing the praises of other aspects of their spouse as you have, she’s a good mother or other than sex, she’s a good partner. In truth, she is neither of those things if she can, at will, abandon her responsibilities to the marriage without explanation or effort to right the ship. What if, one day, she decided she didn’t want to be a good mother? Would that be ok?

Sex is a part of the marital contract. It is an expectation and what you are experiencing is sexual abandonment. It is mean and it is cruel and can’t continue for long. You already resent her, as you should. How long before you retaliate in some way?

Look, I don’t know the details of your marriage obviously. But I do know that partners who abuse their spouses as your wife is abusing you need to explain themselves or seek help in correcting their neglect. If she feels abandoning you is legitimate, she should be able to explain why, and she has a responsibility to do so. Too many people think they can enter a marital contract and renegotiate sex after the fact. What misery. 

You need to confront this forcefully and immediately. If she is unwilling to have frequent, meaningful sex with you, she needs to enter into counseling. If she isn’t willing to do that, you need to give her an ultimatum that has the potential of putting your marriage in a place that is acceptable to you or of releasing you to find a meaningful relationship. You say you know she loves you. Where is the indication that she does?


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## badsanta (Oct 13, 2014)

Mason2770 said:


> Any thoughts or ideas on what I can do to improve this?


Does she offer you a one-sided opportunity to relieve your sexual tension, like a handjob? And if so, do you reject this and insist that she needs to be in the mood? If so, generally speaking some women only experience spontaneous desire during ovulation, which only happens once a month. 

In the meantime your ability to interact with her responsive desire (she get aroused by you being aroused) does not seem to be developed in any way. Perhaps you go straight for rubbing/stimulating her erogenous zones way to fast because that is what you enjoy. As in you are trying to stimulate your own responsive desire by first pleasuring her. DON'T DO THAT! Allow her to pleasure you so that it works the other way around and she responds as a result. If you however have a history of insisting that she be in the mood, you likely broke her responsive desire and replaced it with a responsive system of resentment. Perhaps you can reverse it, perhaps not. 

Regards, 
Badsanta


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## DudeInProgress (Jun 10, 2019)

It’s not that your wife isn’t into sex, she just isn’t into sex with YOU.

If you want your situation to improve, you need to be willing to stand up and take control of your situation.
Are you passive in your marriage?
Women respect strength and leadership, they despise weakness. I’m not suggesting that you’ve been weak (maybe you have, maybe you haven’t) but you certainly seem to have been passive and resigned to the fate of a sad passionless marriage for the last few years. You are in control of your situation and you can change it if you choose to.

The first thing you need to do is make a decision as to whether or not you will passively accept a sad, sexless, unfulfilling marriage or not.

You are responsible for being the leader in your marriage. That means setting the tone of your interactions and relationship, as well as being more attractive and being less unattractive as a man and a husband. Be playful, be flirtatious, tease her with a smile. Don’t expect her to respond right away, consider it practice.

You can’t negotiate respect or desire. But you can build / rebuild it. So focus on what you can control, YOU. Take advantage of this opportunity to recognize that your wife is not attracted to you, does not desire you, may or may not respect you - and focus on becoming a man she does respect and desire.
Important - You need to do this for YOU, to improve your situation (in or after your marriage). Do not do it to please her, that’s just a possible positive byproduct.

Be more attractive:
-If you’re out of shape (or even marginally in shape), start hitting the gym hard. Lift heavy things.
-You are responsible for being the leader in your marriage, that means setting the tone of your interactions and relationship. Tell your wife what you expect out of your relationship together and then start behaving as such.
-Operate in your own frame and don’t take her too seriously. Be more flirty and charming and fun. Show confidence and leadership.
-Initiate sexually. Do it regularly. **But do not complain, sulk or act butthurt when she turns you down. Just go do your own thing somewhere else (go to the gym, go do some work, hobby etc).

Be less unattractive:
Recognize it you’re acting whiny, needy, etc. and stop doing it.
-If she gets pushy, bossy, *****y, overly critical, etc - don’t take her seriously. Don’t get sucked into arguments or defensiveness, be a bit dismissive, with a smile. (this doesn’t apply to actual, legitimate complaints/requests)
-see ** above

Give it 6 months. Be consistent and you will be in a much better place. At that point, if things aren’t improving significantly in your bedroom, they probably never will. And you’ll have some decisions to make.

Try to avoid stepping on your own ****:
1. Do not make ultimatums at this point. Ultimatums are usually made from a place of weakness, not strength. It’s not the time for that yet, and you’re probably not ready anyway.
2. A lot of people have / will tell you to get marriage counseling. Don’t.
In this situation, I would recommend strongly against it, at least for now. Marriage counseling (while helpful in some areas) will not fix this and may make things worse as it will give your wife many opportunities to stall, conflate issues, make up peripheral (rather than core) reasons for her lack of desire and just make excuses.
The counselor will probably try to help negotiate a middle ground, which is total ******** here because you cannot negotiate genuine attraction and desire.
3. As others have mentioned, download and read Married Man’s Sex Life Primer and No More Mr. Nice Guy.


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## shortbus (Jul 25, 2017)

Trust me, you've got nothing but **** advice, except for Marc878.
You're not going to fix this, it can't be fixed.
I'm sorry for the situation that you're in, but I wouldn't waste anymore time with her. All that staying with her would do is further harm your mental and emotional well being.
Try to divorce amicably as possible and get the best custody agreement you can for you and your son.
Sounds like she's a stay at home mom, if so, push her into full time employment prior to divorce.
Need some further info, check out reddit/deadbedroom for some light reading on the subject.
Best of luck going forward for you and your son.


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## fanfarebigron (Jun 7, 2021)

Mason2770 said:


> My wife of 7years has little to no interest in sex. When we do have intimacy its maybe once every 1 or 2 months. I'm starting to resent her and it puts me in a bad mood all day. I this has been going on for 3 or 4 years now and its really affecting me. I have talk to her about this numerous times and she would get mad or say okay I will try and after 1 or 2 weeks its right back to it. I mean I love her and I know she loves me but she just has no interest in being intimate with me. This started after we had our son. And no she is not cheating all she cars about is her shows and her social media. She is a great mother and wife when it come to taking care of the family but she has no interest in intimacy. Any thoughts or ideas on what I can do to improve this?


Keep the communication going as that is key. Marriages go through phases like these. My wife and I had no sex for almost a year after the birth of our daughter, and I felt the same resentment you did, which builds up and can be so damaging. She acknowledged years later that it must have been hard for me. There are so many factors that effect sex in a marriage and sometimes we need that extra patience, to wait till our partner is prepared to talk about what is putting them off sex. It's also important not to sound demanding when bringing the subject up. When you say she gets mad when you talk about it, it sounds like whatever the issue is, she finds it hard to discuss. Have you and your wife had enough time to yourselves since the birth of your son, like a break away just the two of you? That might make a difference. I hope things improve for you soon


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## badsanta (Oct 13, 2014)

DudeInProgress said:


> It’s not that your wife isn’t into sex, she just isn’t into sex with YOU.


This mantra of so many TAM posters wears on me as I don't think that statement will help anyone. At the end of the day it is all about self confidence and a comment like that is possibly a sucker punch-in-the-face to most with a fragile male ego. Perhaps you do need to brake it in order to fix it and put it back together stronger...

In the event that statement is true, it would be more about NRE's unsustainability. Sure sex would be great with someone else and then it would get boring and then someone else, someone else, and so on and so on. There are some people that are into sex, but do not have the personal development skills needed to sustain it monogamously. They want the romance and the chase, but once things are comfortable it gets boring. 

Your statement should read that she may just be into sex with adrenaline (butterflies) and not oxytocin (relaxed and cozy sunsets).

In my opinion NRE is an immature form of excitement. A relationship is gonna grow up at some point and your not going to get that back. It is possible to get something immensely better which is intimacy with relentless-shared-selfishness, but that is not easy to allow a long term partner to see that side of ourselves in most cases. 


...unless you are into role play. In that case you can indefinitely explore new characters and scenarios for some of that sweet NRE adrenaline. Person A) can be the hotel maintenance and meet person B) trapped in a glass elevator and have a quick rendezvous while ascending the 30+ floors needed to reach B)'s room. Once in the room A) can alter into the role of a business professional meeting B) a high priced escort for a night of lust. .... and so on and so on until you run out of characters to pretend to be.


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## FloridaGuy1 (Nov 4, 2019)

Lots of good and varied info so far so all I can add is this.


Many people face what you are facing (both men and women)
My experience after being married to two women who were so so about sex is talking isn't really going to do much except start arguments.
All the couples I know who have good sex lives don't really have to work at it, its just is there. I think at the point you have to start working at it, its too late. Kind of like liking ice cream. I and my wife like ice cream. I don't have to explain or work out details or promise anything or do chores to get her to eat it. I just ask "want some ice cream?" and within minutes we are having ice cream.
At the end of the day you have two choices.
 1. Live with it and take care of yourself watching porn and masturbating or going without altogether
2. Leave her get divorced and hope to find someone that DOES like sex.

And for full disclosure, I am in your shoes just haven't decided which of the two options I want to pursue.

Good luck


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## Divinely Favored (Apr 1, 2014)

Earlier in my marriage i was sexually frustrated. I read NMMNG and MMSLP. Decided i needed to quit chasing her. I started working out and buffed up. Lost 60 lbs in 5 weeks. Stopped the chasing and neediness behavior. I was of the mindset that i will become the best version of myself and if she does not change then i am gone. I will be ready to hit the ground running and looking good! 

She about **** a brick. I got a reaction alright....she was protesting about tge rapid weight loss and lifting weights. She would ask if something was wrong, why am i lifting so much and loosing weight. I just SMH and said nothing...just thought i need to be healthier. I was not whining about sex and had detatched and was behaving toward her like a roommate. She said later she thought i was already gone. She is 52 and im 49 and we have sex 5x week usually if neither is sick. But even then, she is constantly saying she misses me if it goes past 2nd day with no intimacy.


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## ccpowerslave (Nov 21, 2020)

+1 to @Divinely Favored there. It is possible for some people to go from dead or life support level bedroom to a reasonable amount of sex. My wife and I also did this.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

badsanta said:


> This mantra of so many TAM posters wears on me as I don't think that statement will help anyone. At the end of the day it is all about self confidence and a comment like that is possibly a sucker punch-in-the-face to most with a fragile male ego. Perhaps you do need to brake it in order to fix it and put it back together stronger...
> 
> In the event that statement is true, it would be more about NRE's unsustainability. Sure sex would be great with someone else and then it would get boring and then someone else, someone else, and so on and so on. There are some people that are into sex, but do not have the personal development skills needed to sustain it monogamously. They want the romance and the chase, but once things are comfortable it gets boring.
> 
> ...


Do you think it could be possible that for some people, it’s this kind of narrative that that keeps them trapped in lifeless and even toxic relationships?

As a society we are being told that “intimacy with relentless-shared-selflessness” is a higher state of being and a higher calling and that people that endure the loss of sexual desire and compatibility are somehow more advanced and evolutionarily superior beings. 

And we’re being told that if we have lost that desire and compatibility that if we dress up like a bellhop and a hooker that that desire shall some be restored to some degree. 

No wonder we have couples on here that have endured YEARS of sexless marriage and no intimacy. They’re being told if they can just endure feeling dead and inhuman for now, that the greater and higher level of intimacy will come if they can transcend above their carnal desires. 

Is a wife that has lost her desire and attraction for her husband really going to want to dress up as a hooker to bang her partner that she has no desire for in the first place while he plays bellhop or oil sheik or whatever?

Role playing is fine for couples who have good attraction and desire and good sex lives. It’s fine for fundamentally healthy couples.

But for couples that have reached distress levels it would make them feel even more pressured, more awkward, more distressed and even more turned off to dress up and act like dancing monkeys. 

If my partner and I have to transform into people that we are not and do not want to be in order to want to lay a finger on each other, then what is the goddang point? 

How is dressing and acting like a bellhop and prostitute a higher level of being and a greater level of intimacy when we don’t want to touch each other in the first place??


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## Jamieboy (Jan 14, 2021)

I love the ice cream analogy, but it is slightly faulty. Having sex requires work and you don't have to feel good about yourself to want it.

However, not what I wanted to say. In a nutshell, your lady needs to believe on a subconscious level that she needs to work to keep you. 

Im talking from experience, I was taken forgranted for years. I tried explaining that I had needs blah blah, but it just falls on deaf ears when there is no subconscious belief that she might have to do with out you. 

My solution was I packed up and left. I paid generously towards my kids and supported my ex through the transition. However, I never stopped caring for her, I just resented the **** out of her. 

Long story short, she begged for me to come home. I dated and enjoyed myself while separated. I was confident that no matter the outcome I was going to be alright. In the end I agreed to give things another go. 

I am happy to report things are great. I still treat her like a princess, however she now treats me like a Prince rather than the Palace steward. 

Some might say it was a high risk strategy, but honestly I was deeply unhappy in the marriage so I couldn't really lose.

Now for all those who may be wanting to judge me, I called time on the relationship before dating/sleeping with anyone else. Those whom I dated I was honest with about my situation, ie I was separated and divorcing, but still supportive of my ex and children. 

Noone was lied to, just to be clear, I don't believe a decree absolute is necessary to embark on another relationship. My wife and I decided together to reconcile and start our marriage anew. Had she dated also that would have been fine


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## Evinrude58 (Jun 16, 2014)

FloridaGuy1 said:


> Lots of good and varied info so far so all I can add is this.
> 
> 
> Many people face what you are facing (both men and women)
> ...


Excellent post.


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## Blondilocks (Jul 4, 2013)

badsanta said:


> n my opinion NRE is an immature form of excitement. A relationship is gonna grow up at some point and your not going to get that back. It is possible to get something immensely better which is intimacy with relentless-shared*-selfishness,* but that is not easy to allow a long term partner to see that side of ourselves in most cases.





oldshirt said:


> As a society we are being told that “intimacy with relentless-shared-*selflessness*" is a higher state of being and a higher calling and that people that endure the loss of sexual desire and compatibility are somehow more advanced and evolutionarily superior beings.


Y'all might want to make sure you're discussing the same concept.


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## badsanta (Oct 13, 2014)

Blondilocks said:


> Y'all might want to make sure you're discussing the same concept.


I couldn't make any sense of that post until you pointed that out. Confusing for the OP as well. 

Good intimacy is about having the confidence to be "selfish" in a way that you can share the joy of your own selfishness with a spouse. This does not mean that someone has to compromise themselves in anyway. 

Regarding NRE and role play, the OP would need to understand that both need to enjoy role play as an inherent mode of sexuality in order for that to work. Some therapists actually assign role play exercises with a great deal of success, but there are those that find that mode of sexuality to be highly offensive for whatever reason.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

badsanta said:


> Good intimacy is about having the confidence to be "selfish" in a way that you can share the joy of your own selfishness with a spouse. This does not mean that someone has to compromise themselves in anyway.


Ok I misread and misquoted. 

That doesn’t really change much of what I said though. 

The problem is a lot of these sexless marriages (the OP may not be technically ‘sexless’ ) do not have good intimacy as a starting point. 

Role play may help some of those couples if there is some kind of foundation of attraction and desire in there somewhere. Maybe. Maybe not.

But when there is a fundamental lack of desire and especially if there is also an underlying element of resentment and bitterness and disdain, asking someone to play gladiator and Roman Senator’s wife is not going to go over well no matter how hot and bothered she got watching the Cinemax Spartacus series. 

When my W and I were in MC, if the MC had suggested role playing, we both would have walked out (but at least we would have agreed on that and had that in common).


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## 346745 (Oct 7, 2020)

_"You can go your own way. Go your own way ..." _-* Fleetwood Mac*


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## badsanta (Oct 13, 2014)

oldshirt said:


> When my W and I were in MC, if the MC had suggested role playing, we both would have walked out (but at least we would have agreed on that and had that in common).


Sometime role playing scenarios might be one related to Michele Weiner Davis' idea of just do it and fake it until you make it. This would be where a couple role plays themselves but pretending to have some enthusiasm for sex. The intended result is to learn how to develop one's responsive desires and overcome the initial anxiety of feeling like you may not be able to get aroused. 

One of her speeches goes something about like this, "if you are someone that does not like the idea of having sex, but really enjoys it once it happens, perhaps you need to write a note on your arm that says, 'I like sex' to help you remember that it is likely going to be enjoyable!" 

There are people that fall into that category if they do not understand that they have a responsive desire. Role playing a little to fake some enthusiasm can actually help.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

badsanta said:


> Sometime role playing scenarios might be one related to Michele Weiner Davis' idea of just do it and fake it until you make it. This would be where a couple role plays themselves but pretending to have some enthusiasm for sex. The intended result is to learn how to develop one's responsive desires and overcome the initial anxiety of feeling like you may not be able to get aroused.
> 
> One of her speeches goes something about like this, "if you are someone that does not like the idea of having sex, but really enjoys it once it happens, perhaps you need to write a note on your arm that says, 'I like sex' to help you remember that it is likely going to be enjoyable!"
> 
> There are people that fall into that category if they do not understand that they have a responsive desire. Role playing a little to fake some enthusiasm can actually help.


For SOME perhaps.

We need to keep in mind that loss of desire for one’s partner comes in many forms and from many different causes and factors.

If you go on the presumption that desire loss is a natural result of kids and long term relationship and that people simply get bored with same ol’ same ol’ but have a fundamentally sound relationship and and are both attractive, kind and decent people - then yes, some role play may be fun. 

But if someone has let themselves go and has put on 100lbs and their hygiene is poor and they are simply too lazy to lift a finger, are you really going to try to squeeze a 100lb overweight woman into high heels and fishnets and a leather mini skirt to play the $1000/hr escort? 

If he’s 100lb overweight and hasn’t seen his own Johnson since Obama’s inauguration, I’m sorry, him dressing up as a gladiator is not going to get her motor running. 

What if one is mean and abusive or a falling down drunk or druggie? 

If someone is on a host of anti depressant meds or has some kind of hormonal disorder, you can play Swedish porn star till the cows come home, but they’re not going to feel any actual arousal. 

And let’s face it, after years of marriage and kids and bills and life challenges - some people simply do not like their spouse anymore and do not want them touching them...ever. 

You can’t play-act that away and I question if enduring a lifeless, sexless marriage and lack of intimacy is ever going to lead to a greater intimacy or higher state of being or any kind of greater reward. 

It just leads to more sexless marriage and lack of any real intimacy......until they die.


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## direction32 (Jun 29, 2018)

You say this situation has been going on for several years? I think she is not interested in you any more. It sounds like she does not work? Seems to me she is enjoying the life you give her, house, car(s), money, any extras, AND no child custody issues? 

If you mention divorce my guess is that your sex life reignites for a while and then back to the revolving door of no sex? Does this sound familiar?

It sounds like you know that she no longer wants you, but you choose to make excuses for her. You know deep down the truth, but not facing it is easier. 

Set yourself free from this situation because this is how the rest of your life will be with her. I bet you know that though. Find a woman who you are better suited for, that will treat you well.

Life goes by so fast, do not short change your worth for a woman who does not see it. You may find the happiest days are coming but get out now. Best of luck.


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