[powe789]

I’m not quite sure how to start, but this is a problem that has been present for a few years, but very recently it seems to have gotten the better of me. In the past I’ve been able to rationalize the problem, make myself feel bad for being frustrated, or in general bottle the feelings up… but for the last month or so I feel like its been on my mind constantly, weighing me down. I apologize if this gets a bit long; I want to give as clear a picture as possible.

My wife and I are both 30 years old and have been married for close to 10 years (and been together for 13 years.. since right after high school), and we have no children.

For the first few years of our relationship our sex was fine, even if it was a bit vanilla. I was young, and just happy to be there! As time went on our sex stayed the same, and I even felt like it backslid a bit. It happened less frequently, and often without the same gusto as before (I have always chalked it up to a normal thing to happen in long term relationships if allowed to go unchecked). This trend continued all the way until the present. Sex has become extremely predictable: kissing (and no other foreplay) leads to undressing ourselves and getting into our bed (always), intercourse, and by the time I’m done cleaning up she is asleep (just about every time).

Over the years I’ve done a bit of research on how to help get over humps like this, and it always comes back to the idea that communication is key. Since this is completely reasonable I attempted it… several times. My tactics have ranged from being relatively blunt about the situation, to being quite gentle, to asking her how she would like to improve our sex life or if she had any fantasies she would like to indulge in. Responses ranged from me waking up in the middle of the night with her crying because she felt like a bad lover (which is and never has been my intention), to her saying that she is completely fine with out sex life and has no fantasies or would want to change a thing. This is not to say that I have been completely unhappy with my sexual relationship for years. For the most part I still do enjoy the sex with my wife, even if have just felt woefully unsatisfied at the same time. Recently this feeling of dissatisfaction has grown to the point it spoils what enjoyment I have previously been able to have, and I can’t seem to shake it.

Biology has made the matters a bit more frustrating. Starting a few years ago her menstrual cycle has not acting as it should (I apologize, I’m not a doctor to give medical terms or diagnosis). Her menstrual flow began lasting longer than a typical 5-7 days. The past year it has gotten particularly worse, typically lasting between 2 and 3 weeks at a time. She has been to doctors and had several tests done to reveal it is a hormone imbalance (there appears to be no larger, more critical health implications), that can be easily remedied by taking a birth control pill. When the doctor suggested birth control as a way to fix the problem she tried it and it worked; however, quickly my wife decided to no longer take the prescription. This was not due to any religious or moral objections, simply she does not enjoy taking medicine (all the way down to aspirin for headaches). She believed that after 2 months of having a proper cycle her body would naturally right itself… within 2 months the problem was as bad as it had ever been. I feel guilty, but this has really frustrated me. Not just because it severely limits the time I can be intimate with my wife (because I realize not having sex is an inconsequential problem compared to the discomfort and general hassle she must feel on a daily basis), but because she knows of a way to fix the problem, but refuses to do so (and I know that it is not my body and I have no right to tell her what she should or should not do with it).

This brings me to where I am today. My approach to the problem has changed over the years. As I’ve gotten older, and hopefully wiser, I have come to realize its not a problem that resides with just her or me. Its simply how we are wired sexually, but it is still a problem that I need to overcome (and I feel no where closer to solving the problem as I did when I first began looking). I absolutely don’t want to ask (or even worse expect) my wife to do anything she doesn’t want to do, so it makes me feel like i’ve driven into a dead end street when she says she is satisfied and wouldn’t change a thing. This leads me to believe that my only course of action is to change my own thinking on the subject; I should accept that which I cannot change, and be happy with what I have. I have tried this approach heartily, and it never seems to be permanent. For stretches of time I can push the feelings of frustration away, but they always seem to come back. I feel like I live with opposite views on the same subject… Sometimes I feel like I should be able to be completely sexually satisfied, other times I feel guilty when I try to wrap my head around the fact that if I were completely satisfied, my wife probably would not.

Is there an approach to the subject I have not tried? Will I just have to achieve Buddhist like Zen to master my feelings of dissatisfaction? Any Advice would be much appreciated, thank you.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

You are not alone in this problem. Many couples over the years, find that they need help in reigniting the spark in the bedroom. It sounds like you’ve been in that situation for some time, now. The solution requires changing your own behavior — I’m not sure I hear you saying that you’ve done that. More often, you’re looking to your wife to solve the problem, and that’s not working, so I think you have to take on the responsibility for reigniting the spark — and this should work. 🙂

Try seducing her — remembering that sex starts way before either one of you are in the bedroom. Try new places, new flirtation techniques, and new ways of showing her that you care. Try next positions, new gifts in the bedroom — from lingerie and candles to your sexy clothing and dinner, massages, weekends away. Try different sexual positions, and sexy flirting that starts days before the sex acts. You can take her to see the movie Fifty Shades of Grey, or just buy her the book — or both, and try some of those soft core behaviors or purchase some of the toys from the movie to try out at home. And last, but certainly not least, you can buy the book I wrote for couples who want to put the X back in their sex lives, [url]https://askapril.com/relationship-dating-advice/romantic-date-ideas.html[/url].

Hope that helps!

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