# Need to get my head in the game!



## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

*EDIT - See my latest post for an example of our typical dynamic that I am trying to fix....*

I'm not sure if anyone else experiences this...I have been reading this forum for a long time and have never really seen this brought up before.

I would say I am mid-drive and my husband is the same.

We have sex frequently, I think we are both satisfied with the frequency. My problem is, I can have sex whenever for the most part, but mentally it seems like I just can't engage fully most of the time. I don't know why.

I take SSRI's, which yes do have an effect in the bedroom, but this problem has existed since the beginning of my sexually active days. Not just with my husband.

It makes for less than fully enjoyable sex (for me). I still very much enjoy being with him and its not duty sex, but its just like I can't keep my mind from wandering to everything else. I cannot force myself to focus on the act of what we are actually doing, or maybe I haven't learned how to master that yet.

It's hard to describe.

I can only put it this way - I watch porn occasionally (my H knows and doesn't care), and I find myself watching a clip that I think will be worth watching, and ten seconds in I end up fast forwarding due to boredom and trying ro find the parts that are actually GOOD. When I watch a sex scene that is boring to me, I might as well be watching a toothpaste commercial.

I do not find my husband boring. He puts in 110% effort to please me and try new things and keep things exciting. But I find myself easily zoning out, even though I don't want to. Like the toothpaste commercial. 

I try to remember how it was back when we first got together, when every touch was electric and overtook me. I try to recreate those moments but I don't know how.

I have not talked to my husband about this because I don't want to hurt his feelings. I really think the problem is ME, not him. Maybe I have ADHD in the bedroom or something?

The reason I am coming here for advice or commiseration is that lately I have been left with this hollow feeling. I keep initiating sex hoping that something in me will click, we will get that connection I am seeking, but no matter how physically satisfying it is it just seems like I am not getting there.

Suggestions? Do I sound crazy?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

You need to work on intimacy and being truly intimate with him. It is difficult. Much more difficult than just "having sex", which can be very easy. What you are describing is lack of intimacy and desire, which then leads to passion. Sexual arousal (for instsance, from porn) can happen with NO intimacy whatsoever (and that can be a great thing). But it is not so great when partnered sex happens with no intimacy.

This is a good book:

Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship: David Schnarch: 9780825305672: Amazon.com: Books

It doesn't give straight up easy answers. But it does give you some good information that you can process and use, over time, with practice.


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## ClimbingTheWalls (Feb 16, 2013)

No, you don't sound crazy. I also find it very easy to zone out. Even when masturbating I can suddenly find myself noticing a cobweb on the ceiling. It is very annoying.

I find that if I am away in a hotel this does not happen, but of course one cannot pay for a hotel every time one wants sex. More's the pity.


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## kingsfan (Jun 4, 2012)

No, you're not crazy. From what I hear, this is a common issue for women, and for some men as well. I know on occasion I do it, and other times I do it to try and delay orgasm (doesn't work very well).

The key piece of information here that you have supplied is two-fold. Firstly, your husband is trying, and it sounds like he'll try anything (or mostly anything) in order to make you happy. That's huge.

Secondly, you recognize the issue and recognize the importance of fixing it. 

I think all of this may be just a boredom issue in the overall sense. You need something new. A new position is nice, but since that's not working, try a new locale, like a hotel room like ClimbingtheWalls suggested. You can't do it always, but try it from time to time. Or try something else that sounds interesting, like inside a car, out in the woods, etc. As long as both of you are comfortable with it, it can't hurt to try. If you do find something that excites you, see if you can figure out what about it excites you.


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## Anon Pink (Jan 17, 2013)

You can't overlook the depression, even if you had this wandering mind during sex prior to depression. The brain is dynamic and it learns from itself. When behavior is repeated, repeatedly, those connections become cemented. During stressful times, such as depression, the cemented connections take precedence. It's actually much more complicated than this, but that's the gist of it.

You have to learn to focus your mind during arousal. You have to seek ways to stimulate all your senses and practice keeping them engaged. When you find a scene that produces arousal, keep watching that scene with new eyes. notice something new each time. Close you eyes and picture yourself in that scene. Retrain your mind to focus on that which makes you engaged and aroused.

Also...
I think Faithful wife hit the nail on the head about intimacy and passion. Your mind is not fully engaged so it wanders.

When you masturbate, are you fantasizing about something in particular? Do your fantasies revolve around a scenario or a person or a place? Are your fantasies scattered too and what works one time might not work another time? If your mind tends to automatically focus in on a favorite scenario then the issue may be a lack of passion which may come from a lack of intimacy.


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

Anon Pink said:


> When you masturbate, are you fantasizing about something in particular? Do your fantasies revolve around a scenario or a person or a place? Are your fantasies scattered too and what works one time might not work another time? If your mind tends to automatically focus in on a favorite scenario then the issue may be a lack of passion which may come from a lack of intimacy.


When solo, I am the same way. I don't focus on anything particular...my brain doesn't work that way. I am all over the place, most times not thinking about anything sex related at all. It probably sounds ridiculous but its true. I turn to porn to try to override that trait and engage myself fully in the act - force my brain to focus on the matter at hand - but as I mentioned in my opening post even that is futile most of the time. It takes me four times as long to find something that I can really escape into vs. like two mins to get off. I can O without any sexual thoughts whatsoever. Its really just a mechanical thing. I realize I sound so blah and passionless! I try hard not to be that way with my husband. I do focus on making our sex intimate and exciting for him, I just have a lot of trouble getting myself there. My focus has always been to divert the attention away from myself, let myself get lost in pleasing him to give myself something concrete to focus on (a task) and with that I find the ability to become aroused myself, but it doesn't always work that way.
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## LovesHerMan (Jul 28, 2011)

Think the sexiest thoughts that you can conjure. Imagine that you are a sex goddess and your husband is a primal male who cannot get enough of you. Think of all of the sexy men and women that you have seen on screen and IRL. Concentrate on arousing thoughts, and how you two cannot wait to please each other. If you divert attention away from yourself, it is very difficult to have passionate sex.


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## Anon Pink (Jan 17, 2013)

lovesherman said:


> Think the sexiest thoughts that you can conjure. Imagine that you are a sex goddess and your husband is a primal male who cannot get enough of you. Think of all of the sexy men and women that you have seen on screen and IRL. Concentrate on arousing thoughts, and how you two cannot wait to please each other. If you divert attention away from yourself, it is very difficult to have passionate sex.


This :iagree:

Think of it as a training course. Masturbate every day trying to focus on dirty sexy thoughts. Retrain your brain!


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

Actually, fantasizing will take you further away from intimacy, not closer to it.


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## LovesHerMan (Jul 28, 2011)

Faithful Wife said:


> Actually, fantasizing will take you further away from intimacy, not closer to it.


Not my experience.


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## Anon Pink (Jan 17, 2013)

lovesherman said:


> Not my experience.


Nor mine.


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## kingsfan (Jun 4, 2012)

Anon Pink said:


> Nor mine.


It is mine. Fantasizing is good, if about your partner, but only when you can carry out those thoughts on a regular basis, or at least close to when those fantasizes first form, which it sounds like the OP will have the chance to do. If you are unable to fulfill those fantasies, or have to want a while (months, years), then it just causes problems. It was a huge issue with my ex and I.


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## Anon Pink (Jan 17, 2013)

kingsfan said:


> It is mine. Fantasizing is good, if about your partner, but only when you can carry out those thoughts on a regular basis, or at least close to when those fantasizes first form, which it sounds like the OP will have the chance to do. If you are unable to fulfill those fantasies, or have to want a while (months, years), then it just causes problems. It was a huge issue with my ex and I.


Wait... what? 

So fantasizing and retraining your brain to focus is good to do if you limit your fantasies to your partner and then seek to make those fantasies happen IRL? But stay away from fantasies if they are not partner focused?


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

To really be intimate, you must really "be with" your partner and allow them to "see inside" you. How can you "be with" your partner or let them see inside you if your mind is somewhere else?


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## romantic_guy (Nov 8, 2011)

Ah yes...I remember when we were dating. We could not wait to find somewhere alone to have sex (we were teenagers). What happens after 41 years??? To be sure, there are still times like that, like when we go away for our anniversary trip to the Riviera Maya every year. But what about the daily grind? We make sure to get away to a romantic B&B as often as we can, but you can only do that so often. Watching a romantic movie helps too, but sometimes you want more. 

So I heard about this book, "Kosher Adultry: Seduce and Sin With Your Spouse" and it looks great! We set it aside while my wife recovers from a hysterectomy that went wrong about 11 weeks ago. When she finally recovers, we are going to pick it up again. Get a copy. It addresses this very common problem.


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## Mavash. (Jan 26, 2012)

I've suffered from anxiety and depression for most of my adult life. Early on I began to have trouble sleeping so I got a fan. The white noise stops my mind from racing/wandering with my help of course. I did have to practice. It's like meditation learning to clear your head. The fan is my tool. To this day and its been 27 years I still need a fan and I use it when having sex too. If its too quiet or I hear random noises my mind wanders.


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

So here's a great example of the problem, as I see it:

This morning we woke up and started making out, it was great, we were both so in the moment and in a perfect world we would have been able to pause time and enjoy ourselves. But, its a work day and neither of us could be late, so we had to pry ourselves off of each other and go to work.

I left feeling great though and thinking to myself how this gives us a good opportunity to continue to build the passion through out the day. I was thinking about the anticipation of tonight on my whole drive to work and sent him a sexy text knowing he would read it when he got to his desk in the morning. I get to work before him so I started my work day eagerly awaiting his reply.

Instead of responding at all to my text in a sexy way, he starts telling me about how he is having cold feet about the date we had planned for Sunday. (We were supposed to attend a wine festival with a group of friends, he had many opportunities to purchase the tickets to it well in advance at a cheaper price but he kept putting it off, so now we will have to pay full price at the door which he was b!tching about.) So I get a series of texts about how he doesn't want to spend the money and how our babysitter is trying to back out at the last minute.

So I immediately lose any sexy feelings and just become irritated and disappointed that we will probably miss this event that I was soooo looking forward to due to lack of babysitting and his resistance over the cost. There's more back and forth between us - not fighting, just mundane details and trying to figure out if we can salvage the date. 

I stop writing to him and get involved in my work, figuring the dreams of passion are gone at this point - out of dreamland and back to reality. 

Then he writes "So, do you want to leave work early today to pick up where we left off?"

I have completely diverted my mind from what was going on this morning at this point - this morning might as well have been months ago - and I am not sure I can get myself back there.

I haven't said anything to him, but his derailment of the mood I was trying to set was offputting to the point that I would rather just forget about it at this point. But I will probably get with him tonight because I know he is expecting it and I will try to let go of my mind during that time but won't be able to fully enjoy myself because too many things are swirling in my head.

So, in this case what do you do? This is a pretty frequent occurance and I don't transition well from mundane or irritating stuff to being able to think sexually and let myself completely be in that moment.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## LadyOfTheLake (Feb 25, 2013)

kag123 said:


> We have sex frequently, I think we are both satisfied with the frequency. My problem is, I can have sex whenever for the most part, but mentally it seems like I just can't engage fully most of the time. I don't know why.


This describes me perfectly. I can be thinking about 10 different things during sex, none of which have to do with sex. 


> I take SSRI's, which yes do have an effect in the bedroom, but this problem has existed since the beginning of my sexually active days. Not just with my husband.


So do I



> It makes for less than fully enjoyable sex (for me). I still very much enjoy being with him and its not duty sex, but its just like I can't keep my mind from wandering to everything else. I cannot force myself to focus on the act of what we are actually doing, or maybe I haven't learned how to master that yet.


I enjoy it and O easily. But I don't think I get "aroused" like the other women here write about. I want sex, and initiate frequently. But I only initiate because if I didn't, we'd rarely if ever have sex. So I keep up the frequency. Otherwise he'd just sit in his stupid chair and play on his iPad all night. I initiate for reasons other than being horny, which rarely happens to me.



> I can only put it this way - I watch porn occasionally (my H knows and doesn't care), and I find myself watching a clip that I think will be worth watching, and ten seconds in* I end up fast forwarding due to boredom and trying ro find the parts that are actually GOOD. When I watch a sex scene that is boring to me, I might as well be watching a toothpaste commercial.*


LOL, same here. I do watch porn from time to time and most of it bores me. It has the amount of appeal of toothpaste ads....exactly!!



> I do not find my husband boring. He puts in 110% effort to please me and try new things and keep things exciting. But I find myself easily zoning out, even though I don't want to. Like the toothpaste commercial.


Sort of the same. I don't find my husband boring at all. I really do love him. But he is very vanilla and sex is always the same. I've told him I'm willing to do almost anything, but there is nothing he wants to change. There are a few things *I'd* like, but they don't appeal to him at all. Sex is very predictable and usually me initiating and foreplay is me arousing him. *sigh*



> I try to remember how it was back when we first got together, when every touch was electric and overtook me. I try to recreate those moments but I don't know how.


Same



> I have not talked to my husband about this because I don't want to hurt his feelings. I really think the problem is ME, not him.


Same. He gets extremely defensive about sex and clams up. Everything is left up to me. So nothing changes.



> The reason I am coming here for advice or commiseration is that lately I have been left with this hollow feeling. I keep initiating sex hoping that something in me will click, we will get that connection I am seeking, but no matter how physically satisfying it is it just seems like I am not getting there.


I don't know about hollow...this is my normal. I don't equate emotions with sex because I don't feel any and never have. And it seems as though DH doesn't either. We have no passion. There is no heat or excitement like what I read about here. And I don't even know if I am capable of that, whether due to the SSRI or just my personality. 
The only way I can learn about people is through observation. There is so much about humans that does not come naturally to me at all. So for years and years and years I have thought things between DH and I were perfectly normal, the same as everyone else. And now, through the window of TAM, I am seeing that they are not and firstly I am really really pissed off, secondly I'm confused and thirdly I'm at a total loss of what to do next. 


> Suggestions? Do I sound crazy?


_Posted via Mobile Device_[/QUOTE]

I don't know.....Do I?


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

quote: "So, in this case what do you do?"

Stop having so many rules for yourself that have to be followed in order to feel sexy, maybe? Your husband isn't responsible for the thoughts that go on in your head that he didn't even know you were having. You think he "let you down" due to the non-warm-fuzzy texts you received. Yet he had no clue he was being expected to behave a certain way.

quote: "This is a pretty frequent occurance and I don't transition well from mundane or irritating stuff to being able to think sexually and let myself completely be in that moment."

So then you need to own that this is something for YOU to work on. Yet, you seem to be wanting to shift the blame to your husband in the text example.


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## anotherguy (Dec 14, 2011)

Faithful Wife said:


> ...Stop having so many rules for yourself that have to be followed in order to feel sexy, maybe?....


Faithfu wife - all good advice. This most of all, I think.


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## CreekWalker (May 31, 2013)

I try to fantasize about hot sex we've had in the past. I have a few crazy favorite memories of things we did in a bread truck he used to drive....when he picked me up at work and ripped holes in my panty hose. God those were the days. I think about them and train my mind to remember them instead of thinking "**** we need milk and eggs."


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## Kari (Feb 17, 2012)

If it happens to me, I get more active with my hands and mouth during sex. Try to maximize his moaning. Suck harder or in different ways during a BJ. Touch and kiss him everywhere, hands, feet, etc.. Using my hands and mouth a lot, with hard pressure, somehow cheers me right up if I'm starting out lethargic or distracted. Also, turn on the light, the visuals help. Maybe alter your positions more often, get out lotions or toys, or anything to spice it up.


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## anonim (Apr 24, 2012)

spice things up! get a blindfold, it will make your attention focus more on feelings and sounds. Go shopping for sex toys! try a little soft bondage.


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

Faithful Wife said:


> quote: "So, in this case what do you do?"
> 
> Stop having so many rules for yourself that have to be followed in order to feel sexy, maybe? Your husband isn't responsible for the thoughts that go on in your head that he didn't even know you were having. You think he "let you down" due to the non-warm-fuzzy texts you received. Yet he had no clue he was being expected to behave a certain way.
> 
> ...


I definitely own that this is my problem, the thing is that I don't know how to fix it. I don't seem to have good enough control of my mind to be able to transition out of something that is bothering me and put it aside to fully engage in another activity - like sex.

I did end up having sex with him that night, because I knew he would expect it and I wanted to give it a shot. But it was more of the same old stuff for me...just ruminating on what was bothering me from the day and going through the motions with him. I wanted to be there and wanted a passionate experience with him, it wasn't duty sex, but I couldn't fully get into it.

Maybe I need to up my SSRIs or something, I don't know. I just don't know how to fix the problem to be honest. My mind is constantly churning and I can never turn it off b
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## CreekWalker (May 31, 2013)

Try to focus on your 5 senses. What you feel, smell, taste, etc. when you feel your mind wander. 

Notice what he is noticing. Talk to yourself "he likes grabbing me by the hips..." "I'm going to blankety blank his blank and I'm going to watch his face when I do it." 

Being in the moment helps. Like I said...listen to your five senses. Figure out what really warms the ****les of your....ummm heart and stuff. (lol I wrote cokles with a c and it blanked it out as a naughty word)

Being a great lover, IMO, has a lot to do with being in the moment, and really enjoying the sensations of it all, even the laughter when it doesn't go perfectly.


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