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You’re laying in bed bumping up against that body next to you, seething with hurt and anger. You haven’t been touched or reached for in more months than you care to count. You’ve gone through the typical exercises of seduction, friendship, and caring, only to have been rejected and thwarted again and again. Your mind has assessed all of the possibilities: someone else, a lack of desire, or loss of love. Emotionally bruised and wounded, you withdraw, and the situation now becomes filled with distance and loneliness.
You are not alone! This story repeats itself in many bedrooms all across America. Your natural impulse is to blame yourself. “What am I doing wrong?” “What can I do right?” But just as we can never make anyone love us, we can’t make someone want to have sex with us, either.
So what can you do?
The root of the problem
First, you have to find out the cause. What are the reasons your partner has stopped having sex with you? Don’t play the blame game. If you find yourself rejected and in a sexless marriage or in a relationship without touching, hugging, or kissing, without the comfort of the words “I love you,” it may not have anything to do with you. There are over 20 million marriages in the United States just like yours.
The first thing you need to do when you find yourself in such a situation is to go with your mate to a medical doctor and have a medical workup. You may find one of these medical issues to be true:
He may be experiencing low testosterone, which is a normal result of aging. It can cause a loss of libido.
He may be depressed or under undue stress at work, which may prompt him to overreach for alcohol, caffeine, or drugs, all of which can affect sexual drive and performance.
He may be physically ill or on antidepressants, as well as on prostate medicine, all of which can affect erectile function.
He may have developed a sexual disorder related to a traumatic sexual event in his past that is now surfacing in intimate situations.
Excessive exercise may be the culprit, a syndrome that can mirror anorexia and bulimia and may affect sexual desire.
And finally, sleep deprivation can be a problem. For instance, you may be getting little sleep because you and your mate are experiencing emotional difficulties, or you are the parents of a new baby.
However, after talking openly with your partner, you may discover that your sexual issues are more emotional:
Your mate may be angry with you over some perceived event or experience. Perhaps you’ve gained weight and your partner believes you no longer care about being attractive to them.
Your partner may feel that you are over-controlling and hypercritical and has shut down in an effort to push back.
Your spouse may be bored by a sex routine that hasn't developed in years.
Finally, husbands and lovers who have problems with intimacy often put space and distance between them and you when they find themselves in a committed relationship, which can make them feel vulnerable.
If you can relate to any of the above problems, what can you do about it?
The first thing you must do is acknowledge that you have a problem and recognize what that problem really is.
Communication is key, and though you may find it embarrassing and even humiliating, it is important to speak your truth to your mate.
Counseling, including seeing a sex therapist, can help you get to the root of your problem and reconnect with your mate.
Sometimes you can improve your sex life simply through sensate focus. By learning how to touch your partner in a pleasing way, you can revitalize the romance of foreplay, which, by the way, begins way before the bedroom and has everything to do with the small kindnesses you show to your mate.
And though sex therapy is usually short in duration, approximately eight or nine sessions, you can benefit greatly from it by learning to communicate your sexual interests, desires, and fantasies while hearing your mate’s.
Counseling can also help teach you and your mate how to communicate about sex initiation, including feelings of resentment from the felt rejection of sexual avoidance.
Another simple benefit of sex therapy is help in prioritizing sex, rather than letting exercise, children, and social encounters override intimacy and romance.
Personal hygiene can also be addressed in professional counseling sessions and is the easiest problem for you and your mate to solve. Paying attention to your appearance, breath, and body odor can express to your partner that they count and you care.
And a medical professional can identify whether erectile dysfunction is your mate’s problem. If it is, a doctor can prescribe any number of drugs that can improve erectile function.
Remember, relationships are messy and complicated. So when you discuss tender issues with your mate, it is important to follow an empathic process that allows you to listen to your partner’s story without defense. Nothing happens in a vacuum, and by staying engaged rather than retreating and pulling away, you have your best chance to really experience emotional intimacy with your partner.
