Dear Dr. Love:My husband and I have been married for almost 7 years, together for 10 years. We have a great relationship and really good sex. The problem is, he complains because we don’t have sex frequently enough. We have sex on average about once a week, sometimes more or less. We argue about this quite a bit; I just can’t seem to want sex as often as he does. Advice? Thanks.
It is not uncommon for partners to have different levels of desire.The reason why you are fighting is because, bottom line (no pun intended), sex is a loaded subject–it has a symbolic meaning that has deep unconscious roots. To many people, sex means love. And, if a husband or wife refuses sex, the other partner feels unloved, unwanted or abandoned. Usually the pain of not being wanted sexually brings us back to the our earliest hurts of childhood. This is why our feelings are so raw, intense and heated when our sexual needs aren’t being met.Talk to your husband and ask him how he feels inside when you don’t want to have sex. If he’s honest, he will tell you that beneath his anger is hurt over feeling unloved. If you help him to be honest, he will get beneath his anger, admit that he’s hurt, and you will break the cycle of fighting.Next, we need to make sure that your not wanting sex isn’t a loaded issue on your part. For some women, lack of sexual desire conceals all kinds of feelings that aren’t being addressed. Some women are angry and lose their sex drive as a result, some women punish their men by more or less consciously refusing sex, and some women use sex to exert power over their mates. In such cases, undisclosed anger is the culprit.So, make sure that your lack of desire isn’t due to unrecognized feelings. One way to find out is to examine whether your drive has changed. In other words, did you formerly desire sex more often? If so, when did your level of desire diminish? If you find out that you lost your desire at a certain in your relationship, then find out what was going wrong for you in the relationship at that time.In other words, you too must make sure to resolve and remove all the emotional obstacles that may be cutting your drive. Unless you do, you will never break the fighting cycle you’re in.If you find that your desire has always been pretty much as it is, you can check my Wellness Dictionary for natural ways to boost your sex drive.Finally, once we have resolved all the emotional and physical obstacles, then you must work together as a team to find an accommodation that works for both of you.Your husband needs to get the feeling from you that you want him to be happy and fulfilled, not frustrated. Conveying this feeling will do much to end the war. Giving him the right feeling is crucial.You may also need to stretch yourself a bit and satisfy him sexually even when you aren’t in the mood. Be creative, and think of ways to give him pleasure even if you don’t need pleasure at that time. When he has desire and you don’t, you might try giving him oral sex or manual stimulation, if you are comfortable.So, explore and discuss all the feelings on his end. Make sure that your lack of desire isn’t due to other issues and feelings that aren’t being addressed. Then make an accommodation.Good luck.
