Anyone else ever had one of these dreams where you didn't want to wake up? I've had one last night and I'm so sad because of it it. I know it was just a sex dream but it was so passionate, I felt so loved and desired. It felt so real. I woke up with my heart racing. Man, I wish I could have experienced it a little longer.

My (29 HLM) gf (33 LLF) and I had sex last night for the first time in a while, and it left me feeling so defeated. She always says she has a low sex drive due to health reasons, medication, feeling tired, not feeling good about her body, etc. which are all valid reasons to not want to have sex. I never try and persuade her to have sex when she’s not in the mood. Earlier this week we both agreed and planned a time to have sex. And when the time comes she’s telling me there’s certain places she doesn’t want me to touch or do cause she’s feeling self conscious about her body. I respect those wishes. Then when she gets to pleasuring me, I start telling her things I want her to do to me. And she won’t do them. Later on I ask why and she said she just wasn’t in the mood for that right now. And these are things we have done before. Not something we were trying for the first time. Again, I respect that and I don’t want her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. But there’s also a big part of me that is so hurt by it. It makes me feel so undesired, unwanted, it makes me feel like she’s grossed out by me. I don’t feel any emotion from her or even like she’s having a good time. She always says she enjoys it and wouldn’t do those things if she didn’t want to. I believe her when she says it but her actions just say otherwise to me. I think the thing that I find most appealing about sex is the emotional connection. Nothing turns me on more than someone who wants you just as bad as you want them. And I don’t feel any of that. I’m just sick of what feels like half assed sex. I’d rather just not have it at this point. It’s making me not want to have sex at all. But at the same time that makes me sexually frustrated. I get having boundaries and clear communication about what we like and don’t like, but all these rules and things she doesn’t want to do is making it feel so unnatural. I love her a lot and I so badly want to feel more intimately and sexually connected to her. I don’t want to have sex with other people. I want her and only her. I crave her so bad and to not feel that in return is so defeating. I have never had this issue with a partner. I’m sick of trying, I’m sick of feeling rejected. I’m so upset and I don’t think she understands. But I guess I don’t understand her either. I’m worried about talking to her about it all cause it’s always the same conversation with no resolution. And then she feels bad cause she’s not meeting my needs. I don’t want that. I just feel at a loss and don’t know where to go from here.

I'm 21M and my girlfriend is 20F. We've been together for about 2 years, and we used to have a pretty active sex life.

About 6 months ago, she went abroad for work and became much more religious. She's now a hardcore Christian and has decided that she doesn't want to have sex again until we're married.

This hasn't been a huge issue so far because we've been long-distance for her job, but she's coming back in a few weeks and staing for good and I'm honestly worried about how difficult it's going to be.

I'm not Christian at all, and I don't really see much value in marriage for myself beyond making my partner happy. Because of that, the idea of potentially getting married just so we can have sex again doesn't sit right with me.

At the same time, I really care about her and don't want to throw away a 2-year relationship over this. But I'm also not sure I can realistically give up sex for potentially years and years.

I'm not looking for people to tell me that she owes me sex — obviously she doesn't. I respect that she's changed her beliefs and that it's her decision. I'm more interested in hearing from people who have actually been in relationships where one partner became religious or where one person wanted to wait until marriage and the other didn't.

How did you make it work? Did you find a compromise? Did the relationship eventually work out, or did the difference in beliefs become too much?

I'd really appreciate hearing from people who've been in a similar situation.

My wife (38F) and I (38M) have been trying to figure out our mismatched desire (I'm more spontaneous, she's responsive). We've been doing sex therapy for close to 10 months and we have made some progress - primarily around what her needs are focusing on pleasure over performance. We are intimate 1, maybe 2 times per month - which I know many folks would not consider "dead", but it's not without work. I am always the one asking for/suggesting intimacy...it leaves me feeling pathetic.

Anyways, this specific post isn't meant to complain about our frequency - but I have been struggling to share the burden of resolving our mismatched libido. My wife has gone to numerous doctor appointments, which are normally a bit invasive and overall exhausting (testing for Vaginismus, polyps/cysts, HRT eligibility etc.). Its all for the sake of trying to repair our sex life, which is a problem I have highlighted (she seems fine without intimacy).

I wish I could match her libido by lowering mine (unfortunately, it seems chemical castration is a bit on the extreme spectrum nowadays). I don't even care so much about act of sex - I care more that I'm wanted, that I'm desired...that I'm the man who satisfies her in every way. Yes, I have confidence issues, but who doesn't (to some extent)?! I'm in shape, hygienic, a good father, an equal contributor to household obligations, and the sole financial provider. I also engage in many hobbies, such as running, golfing, and surfing; I think I have a good balance.

TLDR - my empathy eats at me as my wife consumes the burden of trying to raise her libido, all the while I stand on the sidelines as a glorified cheerleader.

I’m not really posting this looking for advice. I think I just need somewhere to say it where other people might understand.

It’s been almost seven years since I’ve had real intimacy in my marriage.

Seven years.

Writing that out feels insane.

My husband and I actually get along pretty well. We have children together. We can laugh, talk, function as a family, handle life together. We fight less now than we used to. From the outside, I’m sure our marriage probably looks fine.

But there is essentially no physical intimacy between us. And after this long, I don’t even know whether I can call what we have a romantic marriage anymore.

I am so lonely.

And lately the loneliness has become almost unbearable.

I miss being touched. I miss being wanted. I miss someone looking at me like I’m beautiful. I miss flirting. I miss anticipation. I miss feeling like a woman someone actually desires instead of just a wife, mother, coworker, person who gets things done.

Sometimes I wake up wanting sex. I go through my day thinking about sex. I go to bed wanting sex. And it isn’t even purely about sex anymore. I want closeness. I want someone I can talk to about everything. Someone who is excited to hear from me. Someone who wants to know what I’m thinking. Someone I feel emotionally safe enough with that affection feels natural.

The saddest part is that I’m not even sure I want that from my husband anymore.

We’ve gone so long without touching that his touch feels unfamiliar to me now. There have been times he’s asked me for a hug when he was upset, and I gave it to him, but I didn’t enjoy it. I hate admitting that.

For years I kept thinking that if the physical issue got fixed, maybe everything else would come back. Maybe if he took better care of himself, addressed his health, addressed the ED, we could have sex again and somehow find our way back to each other.

Now I don’t know.

I’ve talked to him about this many times. I even gave him a deadline a long time ago because I needed to see meaningful change. That deadline came and went.

When we have serious conversations about our marriage, he shuts down. Eventually life returns to normal and it feels like the conversation never happened. Recently he keeps asking me if I’m okay.

I usually respond, “Are you?”

Because I’m tired of answering.

He knows I’m not okay.

I finally told him recently that I’m struggling. And I am. More than I think he understands.

Sometimes I fantasize about being single. Sometimes I fantasize about meeting someone who wants me. Sometimes I just want someone to message during the day who is excited that I exist. I understand now, in a way I never did before, how people in dead bedrooms become vulnerable to affairs. I’m not saying that because I’m planning one. I’m saying that prolonged loneliness does things to you.

It slowly changes you.

It changes how you see your spouse. It changes how you see yourself. It makes you question whether you’re attractive anymore. Whether anyone would want you. Whether this is really going to be your life forever.

And I think that’s where I am tonight.

I don’t know whether my marriage is salvageable. I don’t know whether I want to leave. I don’t even know exactly what I want anymore.

I just know I cannot imagine another seven years like this….

I’m tired…

And I’m lonely…,

Sorry for the long ramble, I needed to say it somewhere…

I’m a married man in my 40s. My wife and I have been married for more than 20 years, and we have a child together. I want to establish something at the beginning because I think it changes the entire nature of the problem: I love my wife. Deeply. She is my best friend. We get along extremely well. She knows me better than anybody on earth. She is incredibly loyal, an amazing mother, and somebody I fully intend to grow old with. When I look at her, I still see the beautiful woman I married more than two decades ago. I’m not sitting around wishing I’d married somebody younger or hotter. I adore her.

The problem is that the sexual and physically intimate part of our marriage has basically disappeared. And when I say that, I don’t mean that we have sex once a month and I wish it were three times a week. I mean essentially nothing. We haven’t had intercourse in around two years. There are no oral or manual sexual acts. No making out. No French kissing. No groping. Very little lingering physical touch. Her breasts are completely off-limits. We kiss on the lips, but I genuinely can’t remember the last time we passionately kissed each other. There is almost nothing sexual about our relationship anymore.

My wife is autistic, and physical touch has always been more complicated for her than it is for me. I knew that when I married her, but this wasn’t always our relationship. When we were younger, there was sexual desire. There was touching, making out, sex, and a sense that my wife actually wanted me sexually. Over the years, though, she has become much more accepting of her own boundaries and sensory preferences, which in most areas is understandable. But from my side of the marriage, it sometimes feels as though preferences gradually became absolute limits. Something being uncomfortable for her became sufficient reason for it never to happen.

And because you obviously can’t negotiate someone into enjoying physical or sexual contact they don’t want, the person who wants less intimacy effectively determines how much intimacy exists. That’s one of the things I’ve had the hardest time wrapping my head around, because I absolutely do not want sex or physical affection that she doesn’t want to give, but the practical result is that my need for that kind of connection basically has nowhere to go.

Years ago I also developed a snoring problem. At the time her job was the more stable one, provided our insurance, etc., so protecting her sleep mattered and I moved into another bedroom. That arrangement made sense then. Circumstances have changed considerably since, and sleeping together would be much more realistic now, but she has become accustomed to sleeping separately and doesn’t want to change it. That has removed another little piece of ordinary marital intimacy.

One of the things that probably affected me most happened during the last few years when we were still occasionally sexual. She would tell me that she was perfectly willing to have sex with me, but that I needed to get her drunk first. She genuinely did not understand why that bothered me. Her position was basically, “I’ve told you what works. Get me drunk and then we can have sex.”
There were a couple of times I actually took her up on it because she had explicitly told me that was what she wanted, and every time I felt awful afterward. Not because she believed I had done something wrong. She was the person suggesting the arrangement. It bothered me. What I wanted was for my wife to want me. I didn’t want sex badly enough that I wanted to pour alcohol into her until whatever inhibition or aversion she normally experienced disappeared. We talked about it several times, and she never really understood the distinction. Eventually I mostly stopped trying.

After years of this, something weird has happened to me sexually. The last several times we attempted intercourse, I began experiencing erectile problems with her. Sometimes I could get hard but couldn’t stay hard. Sometimes I couldn’t climax. Sometimes I couldn’t get an erection at all. That is not generally what happens when I’m alone. I can still become sexually aroused. I can masturbate normally. I can climax normally. I read erotica/smut and occasionally watch porn, and my wife knows about both. Neither is something I hide from her. She seems perfectly content for those to be my outlet, probably in part because it means I don’t bother her about sex as much.

So this doesn’t feel to me like my sexuality disappeared. It feels more like my body eventually stopped associating my wife with the possibility of sex. On the very rare occasions when she is receptive to something sexual now, there’s this enormous psychological difference between feeling that somebody wants you and feeling that somebody is allowing you to do something. Apparently that distinction matters to me a lot more than I ever realized.

I can still find my wife physically attractive. I can look at her and think she’s beautiful. I can love her body. I can want closeness with her. But I can’t seem to manufacture sexual arousal in an environment where I know the other person would generally prefer that the sexual interaction wasn’t happening. That’s the hardest thing for me to explain.

Sex itself isn’t even the entirety of what I miss. I miss being wanted. I miss making out, touching somebody and having them enjoy being touched, being touched because somebody wants their hands on me, flirting, sexual tension, and that feeling where kissing naturally becomes touching and nobody had to schedule anything or negotiate beforehand. I miss the entire physical language that normally exists between two people who are lovers.
And at the same time, I don’t want to leave my wife. That’s where I feel stuck. I’ve been married to this woman for more than 20 years. We have a family. We built a life together. She’s my closest friend. We laugh together, function well together, support each other, and genuinely love each other. This isn’t a miserable marriage with one redeeming feature. It’s a very good marriage with one enormous missing dimension.

Years ago I took the lack of sex much more personally. I interpreted it as rejection and sometimes as evidence that something was wrong with our marriage. I don’t really see it that way anymore. I understand her better now. I don’t think she’s withholding sex to punish me. I don’t think she doesn’t love me. I don’t even think she fully understands what this feels like from my side because physical and sexual intimacy simply doesn’t carry the same significance for her.

But understanding why something is happening doesn’t make the loss disappear.

So I guess I’m looking for perspective from people who have actually lived this rather than generic “communicate more” advice. Has anyone had a marriage reach this point, essentially no sexual relationship at all, and actually rebuilt genuine physical intimacy? Not duty sex or “Tuesday at 8:30 is intercourse night.” I mean genuine affection and erotic connection. Is it realistic to hope that something like that can return after years of absence?
If you are the lower-libido or touch-averse partner, was there anything your spouse did that helped you understand what being physically desired meant to them without making you feel pressured? And for people who stayed in otherwise good marriages where sex never came back, how did you eventually make peace with that without becoming bitter toward someone you genuinely love?

Because that’s ultimately what I’m trying to avoid. I don’t want to resent my wife. I don’t want sex that she doesn’t genuinely want. I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life pretending that being sexually wanted by the person I love doesn’t matter to me.

Right now I’m trying to figure out how all three of those things can coexist.

My wife (65 LLF) and I (67 HLM) have been married 22 years and looking back , I have been the one initiating sex all the time but after menopause , it ground to a halt and perhaps started earlier when she was 44 and we tried in vitro and the timing made sex more like a duty and chore on the clock and seemed pressure based instead of naturally occurring . She’s since put on weight and while we get along wonderfully , We’re more roommates than lovers and yet I still
Feel a strong attraction for women
But acting on that seems
Like cheating . My only sexual outlet is masturbating when traveling for business. For someone who has always had a high libido , I’m frustrated that I don’t have what many would consider acceptable outlets for my desires and asking the forum for solutions

I don't crave sex, touch, affection... being tolerated by others fills my cup. I think that through introspection I revealed to myself that my younger sex drive was egocentric, and used to bouy my self-confidence. I wanted to try everything once or twice and feel competent at something.

Once my career started improving and my confidence in other things improved I feel like I am borderline aroace.

I am comfortable saying that despite not yet being 40 years old I could go the rest of my life being celibate.

In the past, giving my wife massages could turn sexual because hearing her, smelling her, and touching her could turn me on. About 10 years ago she asked that massages not be foreplay... And so I tried to be more therapeutic and now it feels clinical.

I thought maybe my hormones were messed up so I got test and was told I'm normal. I had erectile dysfunction and got 10 pills for it about 4 years ago. We had sex 4 times since then with help from the pills. They're expired now with 6 left.

It has been over a year since we've had sex and I don't get it.. I don't get the drive to do it, I don't get the value from trying. I am sure my wife would have a better orgasm from masturbation. I encourage her to.

I love my wife and I want to want to have sex with her again. I just can't figure out how to want.

My (32 HLM) wife (32 LLF) had her friend coming over for a girls weekend. I’ve really been feeling the strain from our lack of intimacy to me growing over the last few months, and I’ve responded by just picking up more and more responsibilities to channel my frustration.

So last week I took care of everything. Cleaned the entire house. The week’s dishes. Lawn mowed, fireplace swept, propane tanks filled, bedsheets laundered and changed. Went shopping for food, did the laundry, etc. She basically did one chore for the week: cooking dinner once.

I made her custom coffee three times and bought her favorite flowers, although I do that every few weeks. Helped her grandparents organize their house.

Then when the friend came, I was a perfect host. Drove them around, entertained them.

After the friend left my wife enthusiastically initiated sex for the first time in…. I don’t even know, a year? More?

I told my therapist about it, thinking it was a success. Then he asked how I felt. And really what I feel is even more sadness and frustration.

The level of effort I gave was insane and unsustainable. I’ve given more to the relationship in general for years now, but I can’t carry 100% of the weight for myself, us, and my partner forever with nothing in return.

I know the common advice is to reduce the mental and physical load to create space for intimacy. But if all of it has to completely be on me just to have good sex, that makes me feel even less confident in our relationship.

If this is the level I have to operate at forever just to have a meaningful intimate life, I don’t know how long I can sustain it.

Has anyone’s dead bedroom actually improved after they lost weight?

I gained a significant amount of weight about three years ago, and around that same time our sex life started declining pretty heavily.

My wife says my weight has nothing to do with it, but I still wonder if attraction could be playing some role, even subconsciously.

I’m currently in the process of losing weight, but the constant rejection definitely gets to me and makes it hard not to wonder if my weight is part of the reason.

For anyone who was in a dead bedroom and later lost a decent amount of weight, did anything change? Did your partner seem more attracted to you, initiate more, or did your sex life improve at all?

Everyone says, “Communicate with your partner.” But there’s a strange paradox when the problem is desire itself: talking about it changes the very thing you’re trying to understand.

If you repeatedly explain how unwanted you feel, your partner may start feeling pressured, guilty or responsible for your emotional state. You may also begin appearing increasingly insecure. That pressure can lower their desire even further, meaning every attempt to fix the problem potentially makes it worse.

But if you stop mentioning it, nothing gets resolved and the resentment continues growing.

Then, if intimacy suddenly returns after one of these conversations, how do you know it’s genuine? Are they touching you because they truly want you, or because they feel bad and are doing you a favour? Even when they initiate, you may think, “Would this be happening if I hadn’t complained?”

It becomes a loop where neither person can win. If the lower-libido partner does nothing, the higher-libido partner feels unwanted. If they make an effort, it may feel like duty sex. Meanwhile, the lower-libido partner may feel that whatever they do will be questioned or judged.

Maybe desire and generosity can coexist. People sometimes do things partly because they love their partner, and that doesn’t necessarily make the intimacy fake. But where is the line between loving effort and simply servicing someone else’s need?

Can genuine desire and spontaneity ever return after sex has become a repeated topic of discussion? What eventually made you trust that your partner truly wanted you rather than merely doing you a favour—or did that doubt never disappear?

I used to be a tourist to this subreddit. I had a lot of empathy for the people in these situations, but I never thought it would be me. I hate that I'm here, but I'm thankful this community exists.

Me (35F) and my husband (41M) have always had a healthy, happy sex life, complete with kink. Over the last 2 years, things have shifted to the point of a dead bedroom. Since the end of 2025, it's become a huge point of contention in our marriage. I've tried everything to fix this, but I just don't have the energy to keep being the only one. I think fetishism is a huge part of the death of our bedroom and I don't know how it got to this point.

My husband has a cross-dressing and lingerie fetish which I have always happily participated in. I've known since the very, very beginning of our relationship, so there's never been a need to hide. And yet, throughout our 15 years together, he has constantly been caught doing it behind my back.

He's been caught repeatedly hiding lingerie around the house, despite the fact that he has a small, 3-drawer dresser full of lingerie, he continued to purchase and hide it in various spots. To put it into perspective, I own a couple pieces of lingerie, while he had an entire small dresser full of it. He even got caught buying used lingerie from women locally, which totally pissed me off. At the time, I was recovering from a c-section after having our son (now 9yo). I'm still hurt that he took advantage of me being in a post-surgical state, as I was not allowed to use stairs more than one time per day, so essentially stuck in my bedroom. Women's clothing has caused rifts in our marriage years before the dead bedroom.

In 2025 I began to notice that our sex life was really starting to be completely shaped by lingerie. Previously, we had plenty of spontaneous sex that didn't involve either of us wearing lingerie. Suddenly, it became the focal point of each and every sex act. He completely stopped reciprocating too. Every sex act was about himself, his orgasm and the lingerie. He went 6+ months without touching my clit before I finally started losing interest myself.

Now, we're having blow up conflicts about this every couple of months. I've told him how much it hurts that I have to initiate every rare sex act. I told him how much it hurts to never have sex acts reciprocated. He keeps insisting that if I want to have sex, I need to put lingerie on and ask for it. He says he's no longer in the mood to initiate and if I want a sex life, that's the way it is. He insists that he's not asking too much. He's acting like I'm totally unreasonable because I don't want lingerie to have a death grip on our sex life anymore.

Today, I told him I think that the cross-dressing/lingerie has become paraphilic and that I'm not participating anymore. I think it might be the end of our marriage. He refuses to see my side of things. The lack of empathy I've received makes me feel very, very unattracted to him. I've been in therapy, I'm medicated, I've been using all of my coping mechanisms and feeling so much better in all areas and aspects of life- except my marriage. My gut is telling me it's time to throw in the towel. He's asking me to get couple's counseling. I told him to get solo therapy first- then we can do couples.

I'm open to advice and support and opinions, but please be kind. I'm not open to inflammatory opinions on cross-dressing itself, or the people who do it. If you have a problem with it, please kindly keep it to yourself.

First off this is my second account that nobody irl knows about.

Secondly; I honestly don’t even remember the last time we kissed.. let alone did the deed.

We’ve been through a lot in the last couple of years so we haven’t had much time for intimacy. Without going into too many details; I had a severe mental breakdown that put me on new meds. I’ve gained weight and my libido hasn’t been the same since.

I’m not the same person I was. Me being gone for a couple of weeks finally made her realize how hard I worked at home and everything I did to support the family. Since coming back home, we got married. It didn’t help the bedroom much. I haven’t been keeping up with chores or general house cleaning that I use to do so everything got backed up.

It got so bad that she said “I wouldn’t have married you if I knew this is how it was going to be.” That was before the honeymoon. That was all I could think about during the trip that she wanted and I paid for. I’m not getting that time or money back.

Now that we’re back home, I really don’t know where to go from here. I don’t know if it’s a lost cause or worth sticking around for.

Me 32f and my partner 31m have been together for 10 years. We never had a problem with our intimate life.

2years ago, we had our first baby and the birth was traumatic. I had to have an emergency C-section and baby was admitted to NICU. I never got to hold them until 20 hours later. The separation as well as my own poor health at the time caused me to have postpartum depression and OCD. I was always crying and always on alert for potential harm that could come to my baby.

This eventually settled after a few months and intimate life steadily got back on track after my partner decided to also use condoms (as well as me being on the pill) to ease my crippling fear of becoming pregnant again. This went well until I was 10 months pp and I came home from the pub after me and some co-workers had a gruelling day at work and needed to let off some steam. I was quite drunk and tired but I initiated. My partner left the room and i assume it was to get a condom but it wasn’t until after that I realised he didn’t wear one.

A month and a half later, I take a test and I was horrified to see it was positive. I cried, yelled and wrestled with what to do. Eventually I decided to go through with the pregnancy and I’m so happy I did but it made my PP-OCD so much worse to the point where I haven’t slept longer than 3 hours a night since baby 2 was born and since then, it’s like a switch flipped in my mind. I don’t think about sex in any way, shape or form. I found myself turning down my partner more often and even when I try to push through, I can’t feel anything, no arousal, excitement anything. It’s like it’s all gone numb there.

Me and my partner spoke about it several times and his become frustrated but I’m at a point where I feel at my lowest, I’m anxious all the time and its made worse with knowing that I keep turning him down. I don’t want him to feel that I’m completely rejecting him but I’m not sure how I can come around from whatever is wrong with me now. How do I get through this?

NOTE: I’m aware the ‘no condom’ part must paint him poorly but he is a good man. I don’t believe for a second that he had done it intentionally.

We’ve been together for 20 years and since I can remember I have always been the initiator and still continue to be. It really upsets me because I have always been the one. I ask why she doesn’t initiate it and says that’s not her thing.

I feel like I’m begging to be touched and it’s been happening for years. I have a heart and it stops me from being just another guy and doing what we do. I just don’t know what to do

I’m curious if anyone can share their experience of couples counselling for DB? How did you bring it up to your partner? What was your experience of the sessions or “assignments”? Did any big “a-ha” moments come from it that led to an improvement in the relationship?

So, okay, ive been dating my girl for a bit over a year and due to both of us having non permanent living situations at the time, are now moved in together. She doesnt initiate or show much interest much.

Her ex from a couple years before me is a dog of a guy, who didnt take no for an answer when told my gf wasnt in the mood. So i understand shes got hangups with sex. But i also understand that ive been able to help her with some of that, as she tells me. So my entire thought here i feel is scummy and hard to bring up because i dont wanna feel like im forcing my wants/needs on her. Anyways.

Our sex was never frequent from the start, we only ever did it like once a month. We move in together, and nothing has changed. Granted i didnt exactly expect to be banging in every room when the house is free, but considering the privacy pur room allows, i at least thought the chances of sex would go up. But it has not. I hardly ever see her when im home, as shes made a nest in our big closet as a sort of reading nook. Shes great though, very caring and supportive, although she doesnt use her words much for those aspects, i feel those things.

Now, our sex is 110% one sided, which is a massive problem for me else i wouod be in this sub. I mean, i love going down on her, and ive gotten incredibly good at it to the point where i can just put her to sleep and she enjoys it. She doesnt do that to me due to her having this insanely active gag reflex right? That sucks, but surely theres other ways she could maybe compensate right? I thought so, but she doesnt seem to want to do that. Im sure its got smth to do with her ex and how she views sex considering her ex was her first. But in the here and now, where she confirms i make her feel safe and wanted, i dont get any touch below my waist and id be lucky if she puts her hands on my back during sex

Now to her credit, when i briught thia up to her i framed it as our sex being boring which wasnt the right wording i see that now. But she did make the effort to at least try a new position for the first time like 2 months ago, and she enjoys it to the point where she prefers it, which kinda sucks for me since the position is doggy and i dont like just looking around the room while having sex cause its not stimulating to me.

What do i do? I mean, we only have sex when she texts me something along the lines of "hey btw im having thoughts" and tells me we may have sex later. But while im usually able to get in the mood, this constant little voice in my head telling me this isnt satisfying me is getting louder and i dont wanna leave her due to sex which is what her ex did to her albeit he did so by cheating and pressuring her into duty sex.

But, i mean there's nothing here. No wandering hand, no playful tease, no foreplay, no effort towards anything other than a kiss. Shes never touched me this whole time we've been together, not even a brush over my pants. Then i feel weird when she comes over to me and actually initiates a kiss even though its only ever a peck, because i feel like im overthinking myself into feeling sorta gaslit here. But she enjoys our sex and isnt experienced in it, which im not very experienced either but ive had more partners than her and frankly theyve all been girls who just lay there but my gf feels worse in that regard. Id say therapy of course, but we cant afford that and she sorta wrote off therapy all the way around due to one instance in high school. What can i do?

Curious if anyone here is handling both career problems and a DB?

I know exactly why we have a DB and it's not worth getting into here. I should have left her a while ago but didnt. I'm struggling to find a job a the moment (DB came first so that's not the problem). It basically been years since we've had a physical relationship (I can't even remember the last time). Its not even necessarily about sex (I mean, it is but it isn't) but not getting any action or any sort of affection is really messing with my head and therefore directly affecting my confidence --> shitty interviews, lack of creativity when it comes to new directions. It's also really distracting and annoying- like I'm excited to go to the grocery store because there might be attractive women in the produce isle but then I reminded myself that I dont have a job and they wouldn't be interested in me anyway.

Am I putting too much importance on physical connection? or am I just making myself feel better about staying in a shitty situation? I think I hurt my knee trying to exercise my way out of this problem.

Hi all,
I (25F) was the LL partner in my last relationship. Im talking maybe 2-3 times a month. My relationship with my ex was turbulent. We got together when I was 17 and he was 19, and we quickly got pregnant (had a loss) and had a healthy child a year later. After I had my child I had no desire for sex anymore. I saw it as a chore, and the more he pushed and we argued about it, the less I wanted it, if that was even possible. I questioned if I was asexual. I felt broken physically. I wondered why I didn’t work right. I finally ended things with him due to the emotional abuse I couldn’t take anymore, and I instantly wanted to hookup. I didn’t go all out and overindulge but I had way more sex than I had in a long time.
I am now with my current boyfriend of 5 months and things are going amazingly. The sex is great, the chemistry is there, and he is so kind and gentle to me.
However, I am always worried. Because I was hypersexual starting out at the beginning of my relationship with my ex (I think due to past trauma). So now I am worried that this is just a phase and somehow I’ll go right back to my LL issues the second we have any issues. He’s not abusive to me in any way so I do have hope that any potential issues in our relationship in the future won’t affect my libido like my last relationship did. Has anyone experienced this fear before? I don’t ever want to lose this. I don’t want to lose this relationship and I certainly don’t want to lose the sex as, like I said, it has been amazing. It’s so intimate and loving and makes me feel so connected with my boyfriend which is so much more than I could ever say for my ex.

We had a level 7/10 blow up fight tonight.

We haven’t been having much sex since we got engaged almost 2 years ago. Maybe once every other month on average. Healthy sex life prior to engagement.

Last month about 6 weeks ago I asked why, since we took a couples marriage quiz and for one question, she answered that she prefers sex 2x a week.

I was shocked. So I asked her about it.

Turns out, she said she just realized in that moment that she has trauma from when we got into a fight that lasted on and off for days after the engagement. Almost. 2. Years. Ago.

I understand her having trauma. I did angrily yell for a while, more about how frustrated I was with whatever stupid situation caused the fight than anything else. I’m not going to minimize it for a second.

However…Her PTSD response of not having sex with me during these two years…I was never pushy or coercing, she just said she wasn’t in the mood. A lot. I chalked it up to low libido or lack of self confidence, and just silently took care of my sexual needs in private, or at least tried to be private as best I could.

Well about 3-4 weeks ago, she finds out I masturbated in the bathroom while she was home. I’ve been finishing into latex gloves instead of condoms for months because she kinda shames me for masturbating by asking if I did while she wasn’t home. I can’t recall exactly what she says, but she’s not happy when I do it when she’s not home, and doing it privately while she IS home is “crossing a boundary”.

Back to present moment: we’ve been trying to rebuild trust since she found out she had this PTSD response relatively recently.

She said my bipolar episode in March-April (it’s now basically September) also didn’t help the ptsd because it was more frequent fighting.

Anyway so tonight I’m laying in bed, horny, and I want to talk about my feelings. I was feeling frisky but said fuck it I’ll just tell her I’m feeling in the mood and check in how she’s doing. If you can’t talk about your feelings with your partner then what’s the point? I guess I should’ve kept my mouth shut because

This blows up. Shocker.

I’ve lost sight of why I’m in this relationship.

I want to postpone the wedding or get out.

I, 37yo F have essentially been in a dead bedroom with my 44 yo M husband for our entire relationship. Other than the first 3 months of our relationship, we’ve had issues with sexual intimacy. In hindsight, I’m not really sure why I married him. I think I was just hopeful that the issues might resolve and get better, and I always desperately wanted a husband and a family (and he said he wanted kids of his own too). Anyway, we got married in June 2023 and since then we’ve been sexually intimate 7 times (2 of which were on the honeymoon). I stopped trying to initiate because I got sick of constantly being rejected. Every time I suggest we at least try to make something happen he says okay, but then retreats to his man cave and ends up falling asleep. The few times we have been intimate he HAS to take a pill…but I dont even think he has ED, I think mentally he just has no interest in sex and it seems very obligatory when we do do it. We barely sleep in the same bed anymore (he usually falls asleep on the couch). I’ve told him on many, many occasions how I feel and how this affects me and I feel like it falls on deaf ears. He’s told me he doesn’t feel sexy, because he’s gained a little weight around the mid section but, I actually think he might be asexual because he’s also told me he doesn’t really desire sex and it’s not something that he thinks about regularly.

To top it all off I’ve been doing fertility treatment for the past year because i really, really want to be a mom. I think on top of all of the stress from the fertility treatment, and just the lack of intimacy (not just sex but the actual feeling of being wanted and desired) is really affecting my mental health. I’ve always wanted to be a wife and a mom, but I truly don’t know if I can deal with this sexless marriage anymore. Also IVF is a lot on mentally, physically, emotionally and I’m not sure if it’s the right thing anymore to bring a child into this marriage. I want to give him an ultimatum of sorts, but I don’t want it to come off harsh or insensitive. We’ve tried therapy but I got tired of paying for sessions and we weren’t making any progress in the area of intimacy. I was thinking of writing him a letter….im just not sure what to do anymore 😔.

I was curious if anyone else switched between causing the DB to suffering from DB?

I’m bi but mostly into men. I got married to a woman when I was 20. I enjoyed sex with her a lot (not as much as with men but trust me, I definitely still loved it). But when I got on an SSRI for anxiety my sex drive plummeted. We had a semi-DB that drove her crazy and she asked me to stop taking my meds. I reluctantly agreed, my libido skyrocketed and so did my anxiety 🤣

We eventually got divorced. I started dating a man. He lost his libido and I was in a devastating DB. I remember thinking “ok…now I get why my ex-wife was so miserable when I was on my meds”.

I posted two days ago complaining about my once a month robotic sex ritual and the lack of intimacy in my relationship. The thought’s been lingering on my mind so it’s hard to not want to have a conversation about it. Yesterday morning when we were in bed I reached for his morning wood just for him to turn away. I said out of the blue: “I wish to have more sex, spontaneous sex, and I want to have more intimacy with you that isn’t a peck on the forehead.” He looked at me and said “sure” before heading to the shower.

We drove off to the beach. On the way there I brought up my best friend’s failing marriage, he gave some advice and I brought up how their sex life is a big issue. We discussed it then I said “I really want to improve our sex life, I think it would really improve our relationship, I love you a lot and I would hate if anything similar would happen to us one day.” And he said “I know, I’ve been thinking about what you said this morning. I’m sorry that I’ve grown kind of selfish.” I’m shocked that he received the message so well this time, because in the past it constantly led to arguments.

We talked more and he disclosed to me that after his last marriage, he was no longer in “relationship mode” after being single for so long and getting into one with me was not anticipated. That the foundation of the beginning of our relationship he was in a very selfish space and he wanted to take advantage of the fact that I’m young and attractive so that’s why the sex was so frequent in that time. Then, he grew to love me and started to have this weird love for me and he described it as “almost like a daughter”seeing me work hard for my career etc, that he wanted to help me with everything and take care of me. That thought was constantly turning him off and our age gap was repulsing him and making him feel like a bad person to objectify me once again. And last year we had constantly argued about other things so every-time I brought up sex was in a nagging way and it had reminded him of his ex and that’s why he didn’t receive it well. Now that we are in a better place he feels more comfortable communicating.

I was kind of dumbfounded and hurt but I did see the merit in his honesty. I told him that I’d not want him to see me as a child and if it was to work we have to see and respect each other as adults and have romantic attraction to each other. He said that he is very attracted to me but just very stuck in his head. And he explained the routine like sex is because I used to not orgasm often at the beginning of our relationship, so now we have it only once a month he’d want all stars to be aligned and for it to be perfect each time. That he feels old and useless when he doesn’t make me come. I explained the lack of correlation between my capacity to orgasm to his “performance” and rather is the technique but he knows how already.

We had a good day at the beach. Came home and he kissed me long and hard and grabbed my butt in the kitchen. We’ll see how it goes from here.