Seriously mismatched sex drives & interests

[MrCoffee]

Hi,

First time poster here, so be gentle!

We're both married and in our late thirties having been together since our early twenties. Originally my wife had seriously problems with the physical aspects of intimacy, although our emotional relationship has been fantastic since day one. We ultimately got the problems with physicallity resolved by going through therapy; the issue didn't have any basis in prior trauma, upbringing or any of the stock causes of the issue we had. Through all of this we contended ourselves with mutual masturbation as opposed to full on sex, which was never a possibilty. In retrospect I believed that once our physical problem was resolved and we left therapy then we'd go on to have a 'normal' sex life.

This hasn't happened. What we have discovered is that we have radically different libidos and interests. My libido has always been fairly high, whereas hers is relatively speaking much, much lower. Ordinarily I could work around this by 'taking matters in hand' and have done many times: I've no intention of going off the reservation and doing anything extra-marital, nor have I done. The biggest issue though is that I've always been quite imaginative and said imagination has extended into my sexual longings. Up until recently I've felt that there was sufficient time ahead in my life to realise some of these fantasies. Now I'm tending towards the age that if I were another man I'd be eyeing up the sporty red car, I'm acutely away that time is not on my side and that if I were to try out any of my fantasies for real then the clock is ticking.

My wife on the other hand feels differently. She's never really wanted to take any of her fantasies and try them out for real, although she does understand my own feelings towards my own fantasies. Fantasies for her are a pleasant enough read in a magazine or novel, but nothing to be fostered for their own intrigue and enjoyment. Recently we both wound up in a situation where we were able to try out a threesome fantasy we've both admitted to having, consenting on my wife's part although reluctantly. Whilst I enjoyed the limited things we did with the third person before my wife & I both withdrew from the situation, she did not. She has no serious regrets about doing what we did but has no interest in trying again and would strongly prefer that we didn't try again, which is fair enough. Discussing the experience at length it has become clear that a great many of my sexual longings will remain just that as she has no interest in trying them out, which in turn is making both of us feel bad. Her because she feels both pressured and unable to meet my 'demands' (theyre not demands but I know what she means) and that whatever she does I always want something more, me because I feel sexually unfulfilled and have several unrealised fantasies I want to try which conflicts directly with my knowing that she feels pressured & unhappy.

At the moment I'm not seeing a workable way forward. We love each other to bits and in every other respect our marriage is perfect & fulfilling. Doing it her way would mean having to suppress an aspect of myself that isn't going to go away. Doing it my way would involve her feeling compelled to do things that although she might consent to, she wouldn't be happy with and in some cases acutely uncomfortable and unhappy. I don't want to leave her or suggest my going extra-curricular as an option. This isn't something that is going to go away though and by turns the status quo is making us both unhappy.

I'm hoping that someone else might be able to offer any suggestions as to how they coped with having a seriously mismatched libido relative to their partner (and not simply a case of misery loving company!)

[girl68]

So you never have sex?

Or you have sex it's just not as often nor as kinky as you'd like?

[MrCoffee]

So you never have sex?

Or you have sex it's just not as often nor as kinky as you'd like?

The latter. Sex is good, partially on account of it being so hard won through therapy, but ultimately nowhere near as frequent as I'd like nor even close to the kinks I enjoy and would like to try. For her it's probably a little more frequent than she would ordinarily like, but wholly satisfying.

[girl68]

Well I think you're already compramised then. She's giving in more and you're getting it less. Time to decide if you can live like that.

[MrCoffee]

Well I think you're already compramised then. She's giving in more and you're getting it less. Time to decide if you can live like that.

I think you're right and truthfully I don't think I can without being unhappy and unfulfilled. So it follows that the next move is going to involve further comprramising and heartache for one or both of us. I guess I posted here in the hope that if others have been through similar, what way did they choose and how did it pan out?

[VincenzoG91]

Most men are more interested in sex than most women. If you're at least getting laid on a semi-regular basis, you're doing okay for a guy who has been married for so long. You could leave her and end up being even more disappointed later.

[Radarsonar]

Looks like you're in a sticky situation here. It doesn't seem like you can live with the situation, for god's sake don't live the next forty years with regrets because you'll just end up being soured by the lack of change in your wife's preferences.

Easy solution imo: tell her what you want and if you're not satisfied a) find it elsewhere or b) get a divorce.

[Gratedwasabi]

You knew what you were getting into when you married her. Buck up.

I'm assuming we're talking some pretty serious kinks here, which the threesome thing tends to confirm, but try to slowly work in some of the lesser ones and build up. I'm not exactly sure what you expect your sex life to be in your late-30s after having been together for 10+ years, but real life ain't the movies.

But look, bottom line.. you knew her deal with sex when you married her. You accepted it. Sounds like she's made compromises she didn't really want to to try and make you happier. Get over it, it's just sex.

[ammi00]

Uhm... why do I have the feeling that something is and always was "wrong" in your relationship? I believe you both started off with some misconceptions related to what sex & intimacy should mean in a couple. It's good that you went through therapy - admitting that you have a problem and being willing to solve it, is always a good thing. But how much did this therapy help you? What were your wife's problems initially (as in: she didn't want to have sex because: she was unhappy with her looks/ she simply didn't consider sex important/ she thought physical intimacy is gross & so on)? And what do you know about her previous sex life? This issue is much deeper than just a difference between libidos.
Sex and intimacy are healthy and very important in a couple (at least from my point of view). In what concerns ONLY the libido (I'm excluding all the other problems right now) - it might be affected by all kind of factors: aging, hormonal problems, some diseases, drug abuse, alcohol, stress, depression, frustration BUT it can also be influenced by some disorders. I suggest you to read about sexual desire disorders and about asexual persons. Everyone's libido is different - personaly, as a woman, my sex drive was always higher than my partners'. Some couples that have been together for a long while might experience those times when her sex drive is lower, and his libido is higher and vice-versa - so, through therapy they somehow learn how to match their libidos.
What could you do now? Talk to her and see if you can find a solution together (including going through therapy again)/ accept to live like this (though, I wouldn't reccomend you this... seems unhealthy) or get a divorce and move on.

[MrCoffee]

Uhm... why do I have the feeling that something is and always was "wrong" in your relationship? I believe you both started off with some misconceptions related to what sex & intimacy should mean in a couple. It's good that you went through therapy - admitting that you have a problem and being willing to solve it, is always a good thing. But how much did this therapy help you? What were your wife's problems initially (as in: she didn't want to have sex because: she was unhappy with her looks/ she simply didn't consider sex important/ she thought physical intimacy is gross & so on)? And what do you know about her previous sex life? This issue is much deeper than just a difference between libidos.

The issue was ultimately identified as vaginismus,. In most cases there is a cause that can be pinpointed; abuse earlier in life, conditioning whilst growing up (being told that sex is dirty etc). In our case there was no underlying cause, it was just a mental block. Through therapy and all of the associated exercises we got the physical problem resolved. It took several years to get to that point however, during which time we simply did other things sexually.

With hindsight I was that focused on getting the physical problem itself resolved that I simply assumed that when it was sorted then it would all be plain sailing afterwards. This turned out not to be the case. Whilst I was happy to go through the therapy and to do whatever it took to get the physical problem resolved, I've been unhappy to a greater or lesser extent since as everything hasn't just fallen into place and I'm not sure I had the resolved to dig in to 'fix another problem'.

The dam burst on this latter problem a few months back and after an uncomfortable but honest conversation between us, she realised just how unhappy all of this was making me.

Sex and intimacy are healthy and very important in a couple (at least from my point of view). In what concerns ONLY the libido (I'm excluding all the other problems right now) - it might be affected by all kind of factors: aging, hormonal problems, some diseases, drug abuse, alcohol, stress, depression, frustration BUT it can also be influenced by some disorders. I suggest you to read about sexual desire disorders and about asexual persons. Everyone's libido is different - personaly, as a woman, my sex drive was always higher than my partners'. Some couples that have been together for a long while might experience those times when her sex drive is lower, and his libido is higher and vice-versa - so, through therapy they somehow learn how to match their libidos.
What could you do now? Talk to her and see if you can find a solution together (including going through therapy again)/ accept to live like this (though, I wouldn't reccomend you this... seems unhealthy) or get a divorce and move on.

We've started doing the former (talking about it all and trying to find a solution). The sort'of-threesome situation we wound up in was ultimately to satisfy my curiosity, although she has had a mild curiosity about it herself. The situation itself only lasted a few mins and involved nothing over and above mutual handrelief (we'd both agreed on this and other groundrules beforehand) before we both withdrew and continued the matter between the two of us in private. I'm acutely aware that this was my idea, for my benefit and was her 'gift' to me. Damned grateful I am too!

It has however accentuated that she is happily fulfilled by infrequent, 'vanilla' sexual activity - same foreplay routines, same position, always the same location, no need for anything over and above that, and that I'm almost the opposite - frequent activity with a burning desire to explore what might be termed kink. As you put it I know that she doesn't consider sex to be anywhere near as important as I do. Neither of us drink barring the very odd glass of something, don't smoke, do drugs or have any significant worries (employment, financial) that might affect libido. That this has ultimately been going on since we met, although was masked for a number of years by the problem/resolution described above suggests that our current lifestyle is not a significant factor.

She has said that she'll consider trying some of them, which I'm simultaneously grateful for and feeling bad/conflicted for feeling that I've pressured her into this. One the one hand the correct, right thing to d would be to not ask for anything involving kink and do what makes her happy. On the other hand doing that would and has made me miserable for reasons I'm beginning to understand much better. Being a matre might be a noble thing to do but in the long run it has and will cause me to be unhappy.

if there is any way of squaring this particular circle without us splitting up then I'll take it: she's my wife, soulmate, best friend, partnet, confidant and mother of my child in every other respect.

Thanks for taking the time to write such a considered post, it's appreciated.

[MrCoffee]

Looks like you're in a sticky situation here. It doesn't seem like you can live with the situation, for god's sake don't live the next forty years with regrets because you'll just end up being soured by the lack of change in your wife's preferences.

Easy solution imo: tell her what you want and if you're not satisfied a) find it elsewhere or b) get a divorce.

Have told her. We're discussing it all. No intention of living with regrets - I know fine well that if the situaton goes on unchecked then I will regret it and I'll become a thoroughly unlikeable person in the process.

[MrCoffee]

You knew what you were getting into when you married her. Buck up.

I'm assuming we're talking some pretty serious kinks here, which the threesome thing tends to confirm, but try to slowly work in some of the lesser ones and build up. I'm not exactly sure what you expect your sex life to be in your late-30s after having been together for 10+ years, but real life ain't the movies. .

Reasonably serious kinks yes, although nothing extreme - I know it;s all relative though. One persons mild kink is anothers unacceptably extreme one.

[ammi00]

Please note that I'm not trying to be mean, but I still believe something's wrong in this equation. I think it's respectable that you were there for her, that you didn't abandon her and ran away from her problems. The thing is, some problems can be solved, others can't be (and others can be solved, but only by getting help from a specialist). From how you're presenting the situation, I believe she's just simply not interested into sex. It appears as if she's doing it mechanically, without feeling any desire and without getting emotionally involved. Probably that's why she accepted that threesome, even if you two as a couple didn't have much of an experience together.
In a couple, partners should be sexually compatible as well - if they're both asexual and they're fine with it, it's okay for them; if they're both into BDSM, fine for them; if they're both romantic, fine for them & so on. It's not like you came to her and said: "Oh wifey, let's have sex with a donkey tonight!" - in that case I would have understood her reluctance. It's normal that you want to explore your sexuality...
What's she saying about everything? What are her opinions?
I've been thinking about something - if she's not into it, if she's really not interested into sex, don't force her to do anything. What if you'd have sex with someone else, but with her consent? Tell her that you don't want to split with her, that you don't want her to do anything that's unconfortable for her (or anything that she doesn't find pleasurable) but that in the same time you'd like to have the opportunity to explore some sexual thingies.
I would also ask you to check if the underlying cause for her "disposition" isn't somehow a hormonal/ endocrine one. You can never know what kind of surprises you might discover...

[MrCoffee]

Ammi00 - It's ok, I understand you're not trying to be mean

You're right in that she's not that into sex; she enjoys it when we do do something but without my own desire to do something I suspect she might not do anything often of her own volition. The doing it 'mechanically', as you put it, bothers me a great deal as I want her to want it as much as I do, not merely to comply with my own desires. The threesome experience as it was was mindblowing for me, a delicious combination of nerves, terror and of being touched by another woman whilst my wife was there. For her part I think she found it intruiging but not enough to want to really join in or watch in a voyeuristic manner. Merely a mechanical going through with it. I did ask afterwards if she wanted to touch the other woman (she's expressed a mild interest in this before) but had a failure of nerve, or whether she really wasn't interested when it came to the crunch. She suggests the former; my own instinct says that I don' think this is true.

I think she's accepted my confessed interest in trying out different kinks as being a facet of me she's never known before, and has offered to try some of them out with me, As above though I guess I know this might be a go through with it for a quiet life thing, rather than a genuine curiosity. I really don't want her to be trying this stuff if she'd really rather not.

Your suggestion that her lack of interest in sex might be a hormonal one is interesting, although not one I'm sure can be remedied. I feel it would be the equivalent of someone offering me a pill/injection that would restore my interest in cricket. Trouble is I'm not interested enough in cricket to want to take the pill/injection. If her lack of interest did have a hormonal cause is there a means of dealing with it/adjusting it safely?

The asking consent to try my interests out outside of our marriage might ultimately the solution, although I know she'll feel terribly hurt that I ask. For my part it'd be a gut wrenching thing to have to do as I really do want to explore all of this with her, even though the hard truth might be it's not going to happen.

Thanks again by the way. Talking all of this through is really helping me, even if I'm coming to a conclusion I'd really rather not have to accept.

[ammi00]

Just in case it is something hormonal (which is one of the possibilities) - you'd be surprised how many things can be found out and how many can be solved. Solved as in healed forever. It's not just about "restoring her interest with a pill", but restoring her brain's & hormones connections. There are special medical analyses that can identify if she's having a hormonal problem (or not), and according to the results, a specialist will know what to "adjust".