So, you haven’t had much sex with your spouse lately, huh? How much sex is normal? Well, one in five couples are living in “sexless” marriages, sex experts say, meaning having sex fewer than 10 times a year. And one-third of married couples struggle with the problem of mismatched sexual desire. It’s the main reason couples seek counseling. And in Silicon Valley, [California] where couples are working long hours to pay high mortgages or are desperately searching for jobs during a recession, fatigue and stress only make matters worse.
“I’ve been married 10 years. There were times when once in three months was a good thing,” said a 33-year-old Santa Clara County employee who didn’t want her name used. “It’s feeding the kids, getting them to bed, all after putting in a full day and commuting. I have a ‘no-sex-after-8 o’clock’ rule. When I crawl into bed, I want to go to sleep.”
Low Sex Drive
Low sex drive is such a problem,” said Al Cooper of the San Jose Marital and Sexuality Centre. It’s considered the “common cold of sexual issues of the new millennium.”
Whether sex drives are lower in general now than in years past is uncertain. But one thing is sure, Cooper said: “Women are complaining more.” When it comes to seeking counseling, it’s the women who are dragging the men into sex therapy offices. And in these instances, contrary to popular belief, it’s the husbands with low desire. “In our society, it’s more culturally acceptable for the woman to have no sex drive,” Cooper said. “When the man has no sex drive, it’s more upsetting to both of them.”
Sexless marriages seem to be the constant talk these days. You hear it from Oprah and Dr. Phil (who calls it an “undeniable epidemic”) to numerous books climbing the bestseller charts, including “The Sex-Starved Marriage” by Michele Weiner Davis. New York Magazine wrote a recent story about “Generation Sexless.” Young New Yorkers are so busy with their careers and demanding toddlers they have little time or desire for sex.
How Much is Normal?
So, how much sex is “normal?” Sex experts are reluctant to quantify how much sex is enough sex. (It could make some couples feel wholly inadequate, and some couples get along just fine without much sex.) But while fewer than 10 times a year is considered sexless, having sex once or twice a week is considered average.
“Unlike vitamins, there are no daily minimum requirements,” said Weiner Davis, who wrote The Sex-Starved Marriage. “If both spouses are satisfied with having a sex-lite marriage, that’s great. However, it’s much more often the case that couples are polarized. It’s normal that one person is unhappy with the quality and quantity of their sex life and the other is saying, ‘What’s the big deal? Get a life.'”
Only 40% of married couples say they’re very satisfied with their sex lives, Weiner Davis said. While medical problems and some medications can cause loss of desire —including some antidepressants and some birth control pills —most problems revolve around differing and unfulfilled expectations.
Heather and Jarad, who have been married for 5 years and have a 6-month-old daughter, say it’s hard to squeeze in time for sex, or to even work up the desire, in their hectic lives. The couple, who commute to San Jose from Hollister each day, say they’re lucky to have sex twice, maybe three times, a month. “It’s the game of trying to slip it in when the baby’s sleeping,” Jarad said. “It’s a fight for time.” “There are times when I may want to. Perhaps he may not want to,” Heather added. “It’s important for me to have that time to remember I’m not just a mother, I’m his wife.”
Changes in What is Normal
Dramatic changes in men’s and women’s roles over the past decades also have altered expectations of marriage —and corresponding feelings about sex.
“I look back to my parents’ generation. They had it a little easier. Their roles were carved out,” Weiner Davis said. “Now in relationships, although we have a lot more freedom, it’s hard, because everything is up for grabs. Who takes the garbage out? Who gets up with the baby? In a sense we have to invent our marriages. And with that freedom comes conflict.”
In addition to stress and exhaustion, experts say, anger and resentment can build to the point where sex stops. Other factors in sexless marriages include subverting one’s sex drive to, say, pornographic Internet sites or affairs with other people. “I saw a doctor last week who wasn’t having sex with his wife but was looking at pictures of big-breasted women on the Internet,” Cooper said. “We see this a lot in the valley.”
Negotiate the Times
In general, however, a couple’s problems are often less about sex, per se, than getting to the sex, Cooper said. No couple’s willingness for sex at any given time lines up perfectly, he said. The key is how well a couple negotiates the times when one initiates and the other refuses.
“If it becomes a major battle every time, the person with the lower sex drive feels constantly barraged and harassed about sex. The one with the high sex drive feels constantly deprived, and the fights get more intense each time,” Cooper said. “We see there that the sex just drops away.” And when the sex stops, often the casual affection stops. The hand-holding, the laughing at each other’s jokes, the sitting next to each other on the couch all stop. When relationships become that icy, they risk infidelity and, ultimately, divorce.
About half the population needs to make a real effort to feel desire, Weiner Davis said. A reluctant spouse must make a “decision for desire,” she said. “If you wait for the feeling to sort of wash over you, when the dogs are out of the house, the phones are not ringing, the kids are in bed, you’re never going to have sex.”
Couples need to put as much energy into their sex lives as their job and children, she said. Set the mood early in the day with simple flirtations around the house, a patting on the rear end, complimenting the spouse’s appearance. And of course, avoid bickering before bedtime. Couples with more deep-seated problems should seek counseling.
Is it Normal for you Not to Be in the Mood?
“I wish I had a dollar for everyone who said ‘I wasn’t in the mood when I started, but I really got into it,'” she said. “One of the best ways to make it happen is to be receptive to your spouse’s advances.”
It’s advice that the 33-year-old woman with the “no-sex-after-8” rule didn’t take. She and her husband are separating. “The world is just very busy,” she said. “You need to have a two-income household. You pay a price for it.”
This article came from The Mercury News— Feb. 14, 2003. It was titled, Is it the New Epidemic? written by Julia Prodis Sulek. It’s not written from a Christ-follower’s view point but we think it’s very sound advice.
We, at Marriage Missions, don’t feel that God would have us “pay the price” of sacrificing our marriages because we’re too “busy” to have sex. Scripturally we feel that God wants us to work with each other. That is as long as it doesn’t go against scriptural grounds, to accommodate each other’s sexual needs.
Scriptures Concerning Sex
The scriptural basis we see for this can be found in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 where it says,
“The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone, but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
Below is an additional article on what is normal in how often you and your spouse make love. It also addresses some of the issues mentioned above, and gives suggestions to help you in the ways you may need it:
• Sexual Frequency in Marriage: 3 Common Questions
You can also read about other specifics on this matter in the SEXUAL ISSUES topic. Just take your pick of what you want to read.
Filed under: Sexual Issues
(CANADA) I’ve been so mad at God lately. We have been married for 21 years and have 4 wonderful children. For us to even qualify as a “sexless” marriage would mean having sex 6 more times before the end of the year. Hurray! She has no interest in me. I sleep in the basement. She says that I keep her awake with my snoring. I am wearing a mouthguard to help with that but doubt I will ever be welcomed back into my own bedroom. She shares the bed with my 11 year old daughter and I don’t think that’s healthy for anyone, but she just calls me jealous if I say anything.
Why does God command monogamy then put us in impossible situations like this one? Whenever we talk about this she gets all stressed out and angry. Women always say they want to communicate. I don’t think that’s true. The sad part is that I don’t even think she would care if I left her. She has told me numerous times that she would get along fine without me. I almost committed suicide two weeks ago. I was thinking of jumping off a bridge one night, then prayed my way out of that. I didn’t want to hurt our kids or my parents. I know it would have been a sad and desperate attempt at getting her attention. I was even imagining what she would be thinking when they found me. One of my friends committed suicide a few months ago and I think I’m smart enough to know how much he hurt everyone else and what a selfish act it was.
I want to believe that prayer and belief will carry my through, but after this last year it’s getting harder. I want my wife back.
(USA) I am the one in the marriage who could go her whole life never having sex again and be the happier for it. We’ve been married 8 years. I love my husband. He is attractive. We have a great family, and finances are (mostly…) in order. We’re both healthy. However, I just hate sex. Nobody disclosed to me years ago that it is a messy, disgusting process. My husband isn’t doing anything wrong, but I have never felt pleasure from it and just can’t understand all the hype. It seems like he thinks about sex all the time. I’m tired about being badgered about sex. He thinks he can act like a jerk all day, but then I’m supposed to forget the entire day just because sex is on his mind? I’m lucky if he pauses the TiVo to listen to me speak!
Conflict: How is it that people are complaining about how long they can go without sex? How long is it for my husband? I constantly worry that he is engaging in other activities because I don’t want to have sex. Here I read that a man is considering divorce because his wife doesn’t want to have sex with him as much as he would like. Ridiculous! If my husband’s “love” for me is based on how frequently we have sex, then he could just as easily be in love with a prostitute or anyone else. Our marriage would, in effect, be worthless if it were based on the frequency or quality of sex!
Nevertheless, these are the conflicts we face because we differ in our opinion as to frequency and quality. He feels unloved or undervalued. I think his ego is way out of whack that he needs sex to feel appreciated. I think he is perverted for being so focused on sex. He thinks I am a failure as a wife and constantly tells me something is wrong with me because I don’t want sex. I hear this, and it makes me more even adverse to having sex with him, if that were possible. He has mentioned dozens of times that I have no libido and need to see a doctor for testosterone (which I have done, and it does not change anything!!). This just reiterates his disappointment. He feels like he drew the “short stick” and wishes he would have lucked out by getting a wife who loves sex. I feel total worthless. But why should my worth be based on how well I can have sex? Am I a prostitute that my value is based on this? Yes, I think in some ways, to my husband at least, I am.
(CANADA) Renee, I don’t think it’s just sex that your husband wants. It’s likely also the bond that comes from engaging in that kind of intimate activity. Sex is the one thing that sets apart your marriage from any other relationship.
You say that he doesn’t listen to you and I think that’s wrong as well. A complete marriage will have both the intellectual intimacy as well as the physical intimacy.
(ENGLAND) Intimacy… not sex… kissing and cuddling… OK, you don’t like the messy side – but snuggle close and kiss him…
(US) Barry, What a sweet thing to say. Very nice to hear from a man. Thanks…
(USA) My Husband feels like I want to have sex with him too much. He works nights and I work days. When I get home he walks out the door so the only time we are together is really Friday night and Saturday night. I want sex and he doesn’t. He makes me feel bad about asking him for sex. I am now questioning if I really want sex too much because if he’s up when I go to work I sometimes want to have sex before I leave for work. I am 25 years old and he is 30. Am I really a sex addict? I love my husband but he never really shows interest in sex with me and I try to set a mood and he tells me I stress him out about having sex and it’s not fun for him anymore. Any ideas as to what is wrong?
(USA) My husband and I have been married 17 years. 15 years ago, he decided he no longer wanted sex and asked me not to leave him. We do nothing together and are discussing divorcing. I have had it.
(INDIA) I’m married for last 4 years. My husband is in love with some other girl. We did not have sex for past 10 months. He doesn’t touch me at all. Is there any way to save my marriage?
(CANADA) Oh how I feel for everyone commenting here. I am in the extact same boat. I am living with a roomate instead of a husband. We haven’t slept together in nearly a year. I never thought that was possible. We’ve gone to counseling, I’ve cried etc. I usually am able to stay busy enough so that it doesn’t bother me but it really hits me hard on vacations and days when I’m not busy. It hurts and I know my self-esteem has suffered for it. I’ve thought of divorce several times…..I just don’t know what to do and hope that it gets better. He keeps telling me that he’s just not interested and that I don’t turn him on. That’s really hard to take.
(USA) I really thought I was one of very few women who had issues with not getting sex from their husband! We have been together for 7 years, married for 4 and I’m just so tired of it, almost. I can get sex from him about once a month, and even then I feel like he is being forced to do it to show me any kind of affection. All the times I bring it up he is always too tired, or he says it’s too late and he has to get up early for work. I get up 2 hours earlier than him!!
If I bring up these issues he gets upset and responds with, “Fine, lets do what YOU want.” His other response when I talk about it is that I can give him oral to even get him started. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind doing that for him, and do enjoy it. But I get tired of having that brought up to me every time! It’s as if that is the only thing that can get him going…. what about me??
I don’t ever want to cheat, but the thought of it is beginning to sound better and better. But I don’t want to end my marriage, I want it to get better. He doesn’t even sleep with me anymore, he sleeps on the couch, which makes me feel even more distant from him. I feel very unattractive, ugly, and like a freak for wanting sex so much. I even told him that I masturbate quite often, and he was surprised, but doesn’t do anything about it! I love him very much and don’t want to hurt him, but we are basically just roommates, and I need more.
(CANADA) I’m just starting my second year of a sexless marriage, and also have the same intimacy issues as so many spouses on here. There are obviously huge problems in my marriage and it is very scary because our relationship is so young.
I’ve tried being the perfect housewife and career wife to meet his expectations. I’ve tried sexy clothes and different fun approaches with little or no success. I know I’m beautiful, or used to know, I guess. I too love my husband more than anything in the world but I am dying inside… My first question is for any men that may be reading this who are not feeling attracted to their wives… Is there anything more I can do that you wish your wives were doing?
My second question is to those women out there with the same problems I’m experiencing… My marriage is young as am I (27) and we have no children. I left my whole life career, everything, and moved to Europe for my husband to this loveless relationship and miss my family dearly. If you could go back in time and be in my shoes would you leave now and try for love again? He also has a drinking problem, not an abusive one towards me but he struggles with it everyday.
We have been to the point of buying my plane ticket home twice now but have both broken down in tears trying to press the confirm ticket button. There are no English speaking marriage counselors in our town, not that we could afford it anyway. My mother has passed away and I have no marriage guidance from my family at all as I’m the only one married and don’t feel comfortable talking to my extended family about my sex life. I’m really afraid that I’m doomed to never be loved again if I stay with him but he’s so wonderful in every other way.
My hair started falling out about a month ago in huge handfuls and is now about 1/3 gone. I just chanced upon this site and read so many spouse’s stories about going through this for years and years and the thought of that is so scary. After two years of this I’ve gone from being a beautiful, confident, goal-driven woman to an insecure, scared little girl. I feel shame for seriously wanting to give up so early on this marriage, but worry that I’m throwing away everything if I don’t. I need help. I don’t speak the language here yet and feel so isolated. Are there any moms out there who can maybe substitute for mine and offer some advice?
Hi Kathleen, I’m so sad for you that you are dealing with such a difficult problem in your marriage — especially when you don’t have a good support system to help you through this. My heart goes out to you. It’s tough trying to work through these issues, especially when you feel so alone.
I’m hoping that some other men and women will address your questions, besides me, but I’d like to ask you a few questions first that might help us to give you more intelligent answers. These are tough questions for you to think of answering, but I encourage you to truly consider them and answer as best as you can. You can’t work on changing something that isn’t being acknowledged.
The first: You say your husband has a “drinking problem”… even though it’s not “abusive” toward you (which is something to indeed be thankful for), is his drinking “problem” very involved? In other words, does it effect other areas of his life… like possibly being able to get and maintain an erection? That’s one of the problems that happens to many men who have a type of love affair with the bottle. This is not a “put down” concerning your husband, it’s a matter of coming to terms with that which could be causing problems.
Another question: Is there a possibility that he could be investing his sexual energy in computer or printed or even live images and has nothing left for you? It’s a fact that we’re “experiencing an epidemic of people becoming addicted to sex on their computers.” I need you to consider if this could be a possibility. And if it’s not on the computer, another difficult question I need to ask is, could he be getting sex somewhere else, including “pleasuring himself” or such? Sadly, this is not as unusual as one might think.
Also, one last question, are you and/or your husband spiritual people? This will also affect the way that I and/or anyone else would address your questions. Above all, please know that we care and truly hope the best for you and your husband and your lives (hopefully) together.
(CANADA) Hi Cindy, thank you for responding to me. Things have a bit farther downhill since my last post. I think I’m just through with this whole thing. We have had a series of arguments over the last two weeks over this and a few other pretty serious problems in our relationship. The first being, that he had quit drinking for six months prior to me agreeing to marry him. I told him that I could not marry and have children with a drinker. He started drinking again at our wedding reception and has drank everyday since.
Two, we moved from Canada (there’s nothing wrong with Turkey) but I am a very driven woman and cannot do anything here with the language barrier and the fact that 99.9% of women are usually housewives after marriage. Not to mention the school system here doesn’t even compare to Canada’s unless you’re rich and can send your kids to private schools. We have been here for nearly two years now and are nowhere even close to moving to Canada.
And three, he has an ex-girlfriend who he swears up and down is just a friend now, but who he never ever calls when I’m around, yet he’ll gab to all his other friends in front of me and make me say hello to them. I honestly don’t think he’s having a physical affair with her but I am positive he’s having an emotional one.
Four, he didn’t work for the first year after we got married and barely even looked for a job while I had to work in this awful under the table job thousands of miles from home to support us both.
And last but not least, I have always told him how important it was for me to have children. The whole time he was courting me he told me he couldn’t wait for us to get pregnant. A week after we got married he announces he doesn’t even want to have children.
He is supposed to be Muslim, but obviously doesn’t follow it very well, while I believe in God definitely, but have not yet found a religion that suits my beliefs perfectly. I’m positive he isn’t obsessed with porn or anything and he would have to be pretty slick to be having an affair. I don’t even know if I care what his problem is anymore, I’ve moved all the way across the world for this garbage? I’m going home.
(USA) I’m 52, my wife is 56 and post-menopausal. We’ve been married five years and I guess we’ve gone sexless. We started out at twice a week like the stated “normal”, but quickly fell off. We’re now down to maybe once a month but have gone as long as three months. We don’t have regular intercourse anymore because she can’t due to to dryness. That doesn’t leave many alternatives but I’ll just leave that to the imagination. I very much love her and will stay with her but have had building resentment about the lack of sex. As a Christian, I was feeling guilty about using porn and self-gratifying, but I don’t after reading this thread. The scripture quoted above imply’s that spouses have a duty, but my wife doesn’t have a sense of duty about sex. I think that notion has pretty much gone out the window in this modern time and reading this forum completely confirmed that. Thank You.
(USA) “All that glitters is not gold.” I have read down through these posts and the reality of Jesus’ parables of the wheat and the tares, the sheep and the goats, dwelling together grips me. Folks, we embrace anyone who calls themselves Christian. We accept them in in every facet of life including marriage. I remember thinking as a teenager that the high school for the most part was off limits as ground to search for a significant other. Frankly, the sad truth is that many of the females in my church were biblically off limits.
Remember, only the shepherd can separate the sheep from the goats and Jesus said to be careful not to pull out the tares for we may inadvertantly tear out the wheat. What does this have to do with the topic at hand. Well, first we have to dispell another myth. The myth that unbelievers can live the Christian life in their own power. Perhaps, those like my wife, just don’t care about what the Bible says… well about anything.
See, I took most of Paul’s advice. I knew my own body so I married when I could because I could not withstand under sexual temptation. I just didn’t do my homework or maybe you could say that I set the bar to low in “Christendom.” The truth probably is that I didn’t marry a sheep, or wheat grain, but a goat or shaff. How could this happen? I hunted in the right hunting ground …but set the wrong criterea. Sure, I know what the criteria is now. Alas, we have to make the most important decisions of our life when we are the dumbest …and most hormonally imbalanced too.
Any single people reading this ….be sure that your perspective spouse really gets it! Make sure that they have had the experiance of coming to the realization that this “Christianity stuff” is really true! If as you talk about it, they have the deer in the headlight look, run as fast as you can. You can’t help them, for the Spirit reveals this truth to mankind …you can’t and you can’t change them! I tell any young person who will listen to go do some sacrificial work for God ….and pick up your man on the way (told this to my 16 year old who I have encouraged not to date). There it is, the once of prevention worth a ton of cure.
Now to the topic at hand. What are we to do. Since day one my wife feels nothing during sex so for the first 7 or 8 years I dutifully and artfully manually manipulated her to that point. A friend of mine had been married for 2 years and had numerous sexual encounters when the subject came up one day in which he expressed his confoundedness as to why his wife didn’t act like the porn actors.
Fellas, if you are relieving yourself in her and rolling over, how long is she going to stay interested in sex? Would you like to be treated like a toilet? But this is not my problem. My problem is that as of late, allowing herself to come to orgasm is too much work. My wife now wants to be a sack of potatoes … go figure. Be sure, she knows I need it so a get some mercy sex once a month. I sat down and explained how that doesn’t work for me and that I want her to participate and that it needs to occur more than once a month and that she needs to want to do it and instigate it once in a while. I might as well talk to myself.
I spent a lot of time away and have battled Porn succesfully. I believe that God is more interested in our holiness then our happiness. But I struggle with the cruelty of it all as I struggle for personal holiness I read about David and Saul and Solomon. They didn’t go without, you can bet there were fist fights in those harems some evenings! Yet here I sit. I feel like I would if I didn’t eat. I am convinced that the problem is that I am a Christian.
I work in a lot of well to do areas and the wives of these men wouldn’t dare gain 50% of their body weight or cut off their locks of hair or bath once a week or go out in sweat suits in uncombed hair and unmatching cloths or be a “withholder”. No, these women know darn well their husband will just find some other, younger “model”. Paul speaks of the devils trap. I am in it.
I have prayed that God would take me away. I would be happy to go, I know where I am going …take me Lord. Why should two people live in misery …death do us part … bring it on. Or God, please just flip the switch, kill the desire. I don’t need to have the desire …but it burns within me. All the while, Job’s life and God’s “wager” with the devil play out in my mind.
A long week in hotel rooms hearing better sex in the next room than I know I have had my entire married life looking at every great looking maiden from every far corner of God’s green earth … I can’t even keep my thought life pure. I walk in the door and there is no respect for the commitment, the purity in face of temptation. I am taken for granted. I have accomplished one goal, I truly hate this life. (We are supposed to hate this life but I never imagined coming to this path this way.) I look forward to the promised rest. I would gladly suffer for Christ’s name …no issue there. But this meaningless, pointless misery all the while being in God’s “vehicle” for sexual outlet is maddening. So, no, I don’t have any answers. But I keep looking while the best years of my life go flying by. I often think, I never needed a beauty queen but a decent human being, a Christian, would have been a great start.
(ENGLAND) Since the birth of our second son, 8 years ago, things have been “dry.” She is too tired, too cold, too hot, wrong time etc… I counted my self lucky if we got rude once every couple of months. This year, nothing. Nada. I have wined and dined, candles, favourite food (with no pressure) etc…
Six months now. It’s my fault. I won’t ask… as I’m hacked off at being told no. I asked about this earlier this month – to bw told “it’s my attitude.” Well, that helps… I love her, and I love our boys, but at 45, I’m not sure I’m willing to call it quits.
(UNITED STATES) My fiance and I are very compatible in the sex dept. We have sex every day. And at least two to three times a day. I was married for 24 yrs the first time and we had sex once every 3 months. Now I’m super happy in this and we talk and comunicate and have a great sex life.
(USA) WoW! Thank goodness for the internet because I do not know a person out there who I could discuss this face to face with. It’s embarrassing. My mind races as I try to come up with a solution to what looks like so many other people are facing-sexual fustration. My husband says He is too tired at work when He has sex the night before. I am not a guy so obviously I need to respect that.
So that leaves two nights a week and they get cluttered with various events, so we are below normal if that is once or twice a week (thanks to the published info. because again, I don’t know who I would ever ask!!!!!) I talk to my husband about it and usually then it initiates sex, and this goes in a cycle-about every two weeks when I break down. It feels so humiliating, because I thought guys were the sex monsters. I tell him I feel unattractive if you don’t persue me, but he assures me that I am hot and he wants me. Great! but then a couple weeks go by and nothing. And he is not affectionate either so I am going a good 10 days with a small “goodby” kiss or peck, hugs only if I initiate.
I find lately that I cry almost every day, and the tears come from feelings of low-self esteem and guilt from trying to cope with dreams and fantasies of romance that flood my head. I am a good Christian woman and I have only slept with one person, my husband, but I am also scared as I am fighting against my needs and desires that I am fighting the devil himself.
(AUSTRALIA) Women either are sexual or they’re not. Some have very low drives to the point of being asexual and never initiate, while others can’t get enough of it. It’s as simple as that, and I have found that matching up with someone who has a similar drive and is engaged into it at the same level as you are is so important during the dating/hooking up process.
If there is one thing I am 100% certain about, is that you cannot ‘change’ a low drive woman into a high drive one. If you are with someone that has a lot lower drive than yourself, it is something that you are never going to be happy about in the relationship and just eats away at your insides, bit by bit.
(USA) My husband and I have only been married for one year and two months. We knew each other for 3 months before we got married. Before him, I was engaged to someone else and that man and I had equally high sex drives. We never had to “work” at sex. With my husband, it’s so mechanical. I tried my hardest to make it fun and interesting. It was great for about 3 months, and then he deployed to Afghanistan.
When he came back I was already 7/8 months pregnant with our baby. We didn’t have sex much. Now the baby is 3 months old, and she goes to sleep on time and we still don’t have sex. We fight about this often. Whenever I bring it up he yells “what do you want me to do? Get energy out of nowhere?!” And turns around to go to sleep. There is hardly any cuddling, we never hold hands anymore, we never hug anymore, our kisses are pecks, we don’t sit on the same couch… I used to be the kind of wife that NEVER said “no” to sex with him.
Now it’s at the point where I’ve been rejected so much that I don’t initiate it anymore, and quite frankly have lost interest. I’m lucky if we have sex once a week. It’s more like once every 2-3 weeks, and he only does it because his “other head” is saying “time for sex”… I’m so angry, and he doesn’t care. I need to know what to do. We have only been married one year!! What is going on?!
(USA) I’m not sure if it will help but you may want to delve more into his deployment time. Is he going through PTSD? He probably won’t admit it or even consider that an option. My hubby came home a little different too and it did affect our relationship. With counseling, a marriage seminar and lots of talking and listening (parroting), we’re back, even better than before. Try it, before one of you does something you’ll regret.