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I have a higher sex drive than my wife. How do we get our libidos in sync?
My wife feels sex is chore she must perform to keep me happy, and refuses to discuss the issue further
I am 50 and my wife is a few years younger. We have been together for more than a decade and have three wonderful and noisy children. I believe we are in one of the sweetest phases of our relationship: we don’t often fight, we sleep without interruption most nights, we care about each other deeply and we share our feelings. The issue is that our sex drives are unsynchronised. I would like to have sex more often (once a week) and she prefers to wait a couple of weeks (or a month). Lately, she feels our sex moments are a toll she needs to pay to keep me satisfied or happy. And I feel she has sex just for me. We tried some sex toys and it worked well when we used them, but this doesn’t give her a desire to have sex more often. I tried to talk to her, but she refused to continue talking, arguing that I make her feel that sex is an obligation not an optional pleasure inside the marriage. What can I do to gain sex appeal?
It will be important to find a way to discuss this with your wife without her feeling blamed, or that you have marital expectations. Try to truly understand how she feels. She may have physical, psychological or medical reasons for lowered desire, or it may just be that you two – understandably – cannot manage to find enough privacy. Bear in mind that many people are experiencing depression as a result of Covid fears and restrictions, and depression can lower desire. Focusing on children can really affect a couple’s ability to kindle erotic contact, and this has been even more true during the confinement of the past two years. Be creative – individually and in partnership with your wife – in finding strategies for greater relaxation, more private time, and a prioritisation of love-making.
Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders.
If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions: see gu.com/letters-terms.
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