Question:
I am 21 years old and I married my husband 5 months ago. When we first started having sex, we would have sex daily, and it was great. The last few months leading up to the wedding, my sex drive started diminishing. Now it is nonexistant. My husband is wonderful. He cooks, cleans, listens, works hard, is romantic, affectionate, caring, smart, etc. However, this problem I’m having with my sex drive is making him suffer. He tries to do everything he can think of to get me in the mood, but I just can’t. I just feel like sex is another chore on the list to do. He doesn’t deserve this because he is so good to me, but I just don’t know what to do. Even when I suck it up and have sex with him, I don’t really enjoy it and I can wait until its over. Help?
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Answer:
I want to point out to you that your husband is not the only one who is suffering and who is losing out on enjoying sex. You are too and do not leave yourself out. The question is why is this happening?
You report that sex is something you and he enjoyed on a regular basis. In other words, you are able to have and enjoy sex and making love to your husband. It is not that you are incapable, rather, it is that something is wrong. Lets see what the possibilities might be.
You report that sex has become one more chore on the list of things to do. Most certainly, stress interferes with men and women being able to enjoy sexual relations. Every couple has different sources of stress, such as, money problems, dealing with inlaws, long working hours, depression and anxiety, and some sexual issues not being discussed. Any or all of these can be the basis for your problems. That would not be unusual. It might be that the two of you are not discussing any or all of these problems.
While couples will engage in the most intimate of acts, sexual relations, it is common for them to be reluctant to discuss it, often out of fear that they will hurt their partner’s feelings. Young couples often avoid discussing such issues as, how long is foreplay, is it enough, do you like this thing or that thing, are you talking too much, not enough, etc, etc. It is not that these and other sexual issues come up for couples, it is that they go undiscussed and that becomes a problem. This is true for the other problems mentioned above. In fact, money is equal in difficulty for couples to talk about.
Inlaws can be a real menace to young couples. Well meaning mother and fathers can interfere in the marriage by ignoring boundaries and “poking their noses” where they don’t belong. It is important that boundaries be set. This means that a young husband and wife must talk about and agree on a strategy to deal with parents. The couple must establish the fact that they are a new families with boundary lines that must not be crossed by anyone, particularly family.
It is also important for a young couple to establish the activities they enjoy engaging in together. Whether its bicyce riding, camping, going to movies, reading books, etc, they need to do things that they can enjoy jointly.
In this work a day world, it is also important for couples to put time aside to reduce stress and enjoy life. For yourself, its important to find time during the day when you can engage in some stress and anxiety reducing activies: Yoga, Meditation, Exercise, etc, its important for each of you to have stress reducing time so that you can be more available to one another.
Finally, it is possible that the two of you could benefit from some marriage psychotherapy. Perhaps you want psychotherapy for yourself but I can’t help but imagine marriage therapy could help, especially if some of the things mentioned above do not help.
Do not despair. Marriage is not easy and requires lots of adjustments. This is an ongoing process because marriage is dynamic and is always changing as two people go on life’s journey together.
Best of Luck to both of you.
