I'm scared my paranoia is going to ruin things. My husband and I have not had sex in years but he would still request a hand job from time to time. Suddenly he started going to the gym and had an STD scare (I believed him at the time when he said he got it from the sauna because it is known for living on wet surfaces, plus we never retested so it could have been a false positive). We sorted the STD out, but directly after he developed erectile dysfunction, which he claims he always had and is surprised I never noticed (it's true he would lose his boner if I left the room, but now he can't get hard at all and doesn't want to be touched anywhere or even masturbate). I told him I still wanted to be intimate with him even without his penis, which led to multiple fights (he felt pressured) and we kind of distanced ourselves a bit (I could not understand his lack of desire for any intimacy while claiming to not be asexual). Then suddenly he had sex with me last week, and now he's being flirty again. He's started making sex jokes and responding positively when I kiss him. He's also hugging and complimenting me, repeatedly saying I'm the only person he wants and that he's thankful for me.

This should all be good, I've been mostly very happy, but I'm also confused and becoming paranoid. I'm starting to worry that the STD was from cheating, that he changed his looks (gym, cologne, new clothes) because he was getting some elsewhere, and that the comments about me being the only one are guilt related. The only thing I can think of is viagra (which I don't think he's using, only because he's weird about even basic medication like tylenol). I also don't know if I still believe the STD story. I think I might ruin a good thing by confronting him when he's trying his best. We just hit our mid thirties, maybe he's having a rough time mentally and it's causing erratic behavior...

I'm overthinking this right?

Relieved? Sad? Angry?

I am considering announcing this to my LLF partner because I am tired of being rejected (especially after she leaves me hanging by promising sex "tomorrow"), and she must be tired of feeling pressured.

Of course I am still hoping that one day she'll change her mind, but I just have to hide that hope. Very difficult because she's smoking hot lol!

Me to men my entire life: ew don't sexualize me, there's so much more to me beyond my body

Me now to the man I love: o please sir can you sexualize me just a little bit

Funny how life turns out....just a little joke/coping mechanism, no malice against my partner

My anniversary is coming up and that means sex is likely going to happen. I should be happy about that, but I'm dreading it. I guess it feels like what you would call duty sex and that doesnt excite me at all. My husband turned to me the other day and said, " We need to have sex soon". I told him that all it would take to lead us into having sex is having some time engaging with each other. He just replied we've been busy and put his ear pod back in and rolled away from me. I don't get it. Like he appears to want to have sex, but even the tiniest amount of effort to make it happen seems impossible for him. I myself have kind of given up on making all the effort and just feel like we are drifting further and further apart. Anyone else feel like this? At this point I don't know what happened first the DB or the drifting from each other. Feeling pretty defeated right now.

Been together for 6 years, sex has decreased over time and now we are down to having sex 1-3 times a month.
I have always had a high sex drive and am not satisfied. He says he wants more sex but still seems satisfied as it is.
He “blames” it on time, children, work, health, etc.
Everything else between us is fantastic so I don’t want to leave.
We have deep contact and a lot of closeness in everyday life but in my opinion too little sex.
When we have sex, it is absolutely crazy good.
But the time in between when I wait for him to have the desire destroys me.
Once we have sex, I just want more but then a long wait begins again.
I satisfy myself but it’s not the same, I love having sex with him and achieving total closeness.
So I'm thinking about stopping having sex altogether, then I won't be disappointed and sad all the time.
I understand that it sounds unreasonable but I've tried to accept and talk to my psychologist and to him (many long conversations) about the fact that we have different sex drives and to be satisfied with less and to find another closeness that works but it doesn't seem to work.

My ex partner (LLM)and I (HLF) finally broke it off. After three years of trying to work out a solution. He never even tried to go to a doctor and get it checked out. Gave me the fake promises of “I will work it out”. He expected me to give oral but never returned it back. I am so happy to be set free. Sex is such an emotional and intimate important thing to me in a relationship. He was never willing to give. You think it would get worse right? We broke it off about two weeks ago and he is now totally okay have sex with some other person. Honestly I am glad to be out of that. The emotional weight it caused me was horrible. It was a lesson to never settle for less and you deserve it.

A while back I posted about my dead bedroom situation which is about to hit the two year mark, and an honest conversation my wife and I had about it, after she found some old lingerie in the back of her drawers. I put together my own self-improvement plan, not to 'fix' the DB in and of itself, but to see if these changes might fix my relationship and make my life feel a bit better. A few people on this sub and others message me about how things are going, and it made me think about writing something akin to a progress report, which might help some people here in similar situations.

Since writing the above post, I implemented a few things, including excersising 4 days a week (for my own health and wellbeing), doing fairly detailed planning about day-to-day activities (by which i mean, having itineraries typed up every day and pinned to a notice board, which detail schedules, notes), and crucially, doing daily relationship check-ins with my wife to discuss issues like sex and intimacy. Over the past few weeks, talking about this stuff has been helpful, for me in understanding her relationship with her body (though she gave birth two years ago, she says she still feels the physical effects of pregnancy, and as a result has made her want to touch me less) and her relationship with sex and sexuality (where she finds more pleasure in cuddling than, in her words, 'the idea of penetration'). While I was disappointed, because the subtext seemed to be that she just wasn't interested in having sex anymore, or at the very least, her version of acceptable intimacy wasn't really something titillating to me, I decided to accept this, and to introduce some of that into daily life – more regular cuddles, shoulder massages, grazing hands while watching tv etc. It was pretty nice, I have to admit – better than the situation before where neither of us would really touch each other. Then, at the start of this week, she asked if I could take a day off on Wednesday, because she was feeling horny and thought we should try have sex again.

Obviously I was pretty excited, I got my hair and beard cut, cleaned the whole house more thoroughly than usual, did everything I could to make wednesday as distraction free as possible, and crucially, to make sure there was no chance of us being derailed by housework or other elements of her 'mental load'.

Wednesday comes around, and while I do my best to mute my excitement, I'm more touchy than usual, and after we have the ravioli i made and i finish cleaning the dishes, I sit back on the sofa and make my move, stroking her arms and gently kissing her face. But, shes stiff, not really reciprocating and doesn't really seem into it. I ask her what's wrong, and after a few minutes of silence she says that she doesn't think she's actually horny, and that the feeling she had from earlier in the week, while genuine, had passed. She was apologetic, but at that point it just felt embarassing. I said it was okay and that we can try again some other time, and then I cut her some fruit salad before starting on making dinner.

All in all, our relationship is in a better place. there hasn't been an argument for a while, things feel calmer and more peaceful. But I do also feel embarassed about getting my hopes up that this dry spell was over, and that all the tension, frustration and envy i hold after the two years of basically no intimacy still has to remain and I don't know how long it'll last for. I'm meant to be going to a wedding this weekend and I know im going to have to hold back my frustration and anger of watching a couple who do actually like touching each other and who actually like having sex with each other (presumably anyway) and just wondering what that must be like.

Hopefully the next update will be slightly more optimistic!

Wife and I have had sex once in three months (after managing it perhaps once a month for the last three years.

We planned to have sex last night but she was tired, I made us a dessert and put on her show and went to sleep. She said perhaps in the morning, if we're awake before the kids.

We were both up at 5.30am, I couldn't get back to sleep because my brain was fizzing. She just lay next to me. I was adjusting my position because I wasn't super comfortable.

She asked what was wrong(!), I said nothing I'm just shifting. She pushed, I said I don't want to talk about it (talking about the lack of sex NEVER goes well). She pushed again, I said you know what's up, it's fine I don't think it's helpful to talk about.

She couldn't not, cue inevitable argument. I got yelled at and told to go and have sex with someone else. I don't want to sleep with anyone else, I want her :(

We had a really good few days together, I recently got a new job and ended up dropping my old job mid way through out my two weeks because it was genuinely mentally draining and would make me a over all miserable person.
But I took a week to myself to reset myself mentally for this new job and it was great! Today was my first day back at work and it was amazing! Awkward but so much better than my last job and I came home feeling really good.
He recently just got approved for a very high paying position as well and we’re both over the moon that we made it out of the environments that hindered our over all moods all the time.
We cuddled and played a lot of video games, slept in, went out for breakfast just to come home and plop ourselves back on the couch, I felt like it was exactly what we needed and I was very hopeful for some actual, stress free and no obligation sex but it never occurred.
I talked to him about it, told him that I’ve been feeling really hot and bothered having him by my side for a whole week with nothing to bother us, but apparently he’s still been really stressed and he got really defensive. I dropped it and I basically told him I just miss having that connection because during these two years of living together we’ve had sex so little I can count the times on my fingers, I told him I missed feeling desired and how I missed feeling like I’m aloud to desire him without the fear and humiliation of rejection.
Then I rolled over and went to bed.

And tonight I sat on his lap and we kissed with tongue for a good 5 minutes, I got extremely horny and I knew he could tell, so he ended the makeout session and thanked me for the kisses.
I stood up and looked at him, feeling really disappointed and went to bed.
I just felt how we did 2 years ago when we first met, he was grabbing my hips, feeling me up and sticking his tongue in my mouth… just to push me off and send me to bed.

Me and my boyfriend have been together for around 5 years, we are long distance and recently started seeing each other in person last year around june, over the phone we were both very sexual people and it became a very large part of our relationship.

When we first met up i stayed with him for a month month and probably only have had sex 4 times in that month, two of the times being when i was upset at him and he made a move, i would go to sleep in a separate bed and wake up to him in the bed making a move on me(something we both consented to before hand) But he never ever makes moves and that was one of the only times he did that month, the same thing happened again the next time i saw him for a week in october, we fought alot that week and it was the most sexually active he's ever been in person.

Cut to this summer. i'm staying with him again, we have probably have had sex once, in two months, he does not make moves, he does not kiss me affectionately, he isn't grabby and when he is it's strictly as a joke, I like to dress provocative around him at night and he still never makes a move, i am always the one initiating intercourse and 90 percent of the time it does not happen.
Also when we used a toy on the both of us at the same time one night he only got loud when i became overstimulated and started crying out and moving away from it, he practically "finished" in seconds after we had been going at it for around 20-30 minutes before that..
A couple days ago we had an argument in the car, and he pulled me into his lap and made out with me, using his tongue, something i've been begging him to do for literally TWO YEARS, he refuses to use tongue while making out because the feeling freaks him out but as soon as we argue he's eager to do it, i don't understand it, i've gotten ontop of him and licked and kissed his neck and he will awkwardly laugh, i'm genuinely beginning to think he just isn't attracted to me but i need an outside perspective!! please help

My wife and I have been married for 5 years. We genuinely love each other, and in many ways we have a good relationship. The problem is our lack of intimacy.

This isn't something that suddenly happened—it has been an issue for a long time. Before we got married, I had reasons to believe things would improve once we were married. They didn't.

We do have sex, but it feels more like duty sex than something we both genuinely want. It's infrequent, and when it does happen it feels mechanical and uninspired. I leave feeling more lonely than fulfilled.

To be fair, she's also dealt with some medical issues over the past year, and I know that has made things even more difficult. I don't want to minimize that or make it sound like I expect her to just "get over it."

We've talked about this several times. The conversations have generally been calm and honest. She tells me she understands how I feel and says she'll try to be better about intimacy, but nothing really changes. We end up back in the same pattern.

At this point, I'm frustrated, sad, and honestly don't know what to do. I don't want to pressure her or make her feel guilty, but I also don't want to spend the rest of my marriage feeling unwanted and disconnected.

I've reached a point where I've started wondering if an affair is the only way to have my emotional and physical needs met. I don't want to betray my wife or destroy our marriage, but I'm ashamed that the thought has even crossed my mind. Has anyone else reached this point? If so, what did you do instead—and is there any path forward that doesn't end in an affair or divorce?

So, context...

My partner [40m] and I [38f] typically have had a great sex life where our libidos are in sync, but things have been lacking lately in terms of frequency. He is dealing with a series of mental health issues that have left him LL, and we are actively dealing with those problems, individually and as a team.

I need help coping with the DB situation, mainly how I can possibly down regulate my libido. It really needs to be down regulated because not being able to properly alleviate the issue causes anxiety and, sometimes, physical pain.

Suggestions that are non-starters:

- Leaving the relationship. I want to be here, with him, and we are dealing with the extenuating circumstances that are currently driving the issue.

- Opening up the relationship. He is the only one I want, full stop.

- Praying/Jesus/some other religion. Not gonna happen.

- Masturbation. I have some sexual trauma stuff going on that means that I have to shut off certain sectors of my brain to do it, and the sexual nonconcordance that results is not fulfilling in any way.

- Working out. Already do it. It is not enough.

- Therapy/talking to partner. We already do all of this.

How do you cope as the HL person when your wonderful life partner is struggling?

So jumping off my previous post about finding a silver lining with losing some sexual function due to the mild emotional and physical trauma of birthing my child recently I've had a lot of time to mull things over.

Weirdly knowing that nothing sexual is on the cards because even if he wanted it I don't has freed me up emotionally to process this without being concerned that whatever I dig up from within myself and discuss will hurt any chances of sex happening.

So where I've come to is that although being more even with my husband is nice, being glad in any way about the loss of my sexual function actually kinda sucks and hurts? Like I feel like if things were normal I'd be distressed and quite upset about it because sex is super important to me but I'm not.

So along with that I've just been thinking about how we were both virgins when we met, I came from a religious background that did not allow sex prior to marriage and even after that didn't allow anything but vanilla sex so from the outset of my sex life I was excited to experiment and have fun without the religious restrictions. And we did for a while but it ceased too quickly before we were even halfway through our 20s we were having sexual mismatch issues.

He also said some stuff about his issues with sex that stuck with me and I internalised.

There's a whole lot more but basically I said I wanted to start talking more because I'm exhausted by keeping things to myself so I don't upset him or make things worse. He's open to it and welcomed the discussion, but that brings me to the next issue.

How can I put into words the way this has felt for me and what do I want out of it? He's seeing a psych already but from last night's discussion and the one we had after the last attempt at having sex failed because I freaked out he's offering more doing non-penetrative activities (I get the impression it'll be more focused on me receiving which I'm a bit iffy on), limiting porn use (I think he's trying to do a dry spell of it currently), finding opportunities to like surprise me with random bits of intimacy or whatever, and just letting me talk about it all without holding back. Also he said sorry for how he made me feel a bunch.

I find I don't really know what it is I want him to do or say now? I said as much but how do I figure out what it is I want out of these discussions so I can explain it to him?

Super DB, probably 3-4 times per year. Wife (LLF) tells me she’s going to start initiating more to nurture our intimate relationship. Does it once then nothing for 6 weeks. FML. What do I do - let it go or confront her about it?

Wife and I both 40 with kids. Probably have sex once a month on average. Since the start of the year the youngest moved into her own room and the wife has basically been sleeping in there and only in our bed when she wants to have sex. I give hints that I’m interested but they get playfully fobbed off or she’ll tease but then never comes through.

Sometimes we’re just not in sync. When I’m super horny and she’s not interested I get really frustrated and just shut down which doesn’t help. I’m also not the person to ask for sex - I’m not interested in it if it’s not something she wants.

What do I need to do to increase the sex rate? Even once a week would be nice. I work full time, she works 2 days and looks after the kids. I help around the house so I’m not a complete dead shit. I struggle with giving affection (not a touchy feely person) but I do get feely when I’m in the mood, giving signals and what not.

Any advice would be great.

What do you do when the mental spiral starts? It comes in waves but especially when you're alone. It makes sleeping difficult, it makes the thoughts race, all of the points you practice to yourself, but never make it to the conversation, and becoming unreasonably upset when you should, in fact, be going to sleep.

Personally, I have to scroll until my eyes get heavy, but as I'm getting older, I realize it's probably not healthy. I've considered hobbies but like a part-time job, I have to have full availability. Someone, somewhere, always requires attention. So of course the only time my mind finally gets to be quiet is when everyone has gone to sleep. and then, all internal hell breaks loose. What do you do to distract yourself?

My husband and I have only been married for a year. Both young under 30. In the beginning of our relationship we were very active. Long distance came and ruined everything. I was constantly complaining about effort and a lack of intimate life. We were long distance for 10 months and we were rarely intimate during that time and my libido has crashed. It’s very rare that I want to have sex with my husband now. Before it was the libido crash but now it’s just overall dissatisfaction. I feel disgusted at the thought of having sex with my husband. When having PIV he lasts like 5 minutes tops. And it’s so boring. Not romantic at all. All he wants to do is quickies I get nothing from that.

Yesterday I tried to initiate and basically asked like three times. He knew I wanted to, ignored me, and went to sleep.

I recently finished a cycle and I don’t think we were intimate that entire 26-28 days.

I’m new to this so it’s been frustrating. I’ve never experienced a libido crash like this before. Ive kinda been dealing with it through reading romance novels or celebrity crushes, I guess.

I moved away from all my friends and family to a place I don’t like for this. I’ve had to ask my husband to interact with me in the house cause he’s so looped on work and study. I’m starting to think it wasn’t worth and and I should stayed single where I was at.

I'm new to this subreddit, just thought I'd share my story. Maybe there are people who experienced something similar? I'd really appreciate your thoughts or advice.

TL;DR

My husband and I have never been sexually compatible, but we've become really close friends. We've had absolutely no sex for a year and a half and it's hard to accept that sexual chemistry might never be present in the future. We're still young and have no kids.

I've been with my husband for about three years (two years in a relationship plus one year married). I'm 32 and he's 36. No kids. We've become really close friends over the years. We support each other, can be vulnerable and enjoy doing things together. He cares about my feelings and wellbeing. We have our ups and downs, but on the whole there are no major issues. However, we've never been sexually compatible, but it took me a long time to realize this.

Even in the beginning of our relationship there were issues with sexual intimacy. He couldn't reach orgasm during the first 2-2.5 months, and then we finally made it happen. Early on he told me about things he didn't find attractive about me. He tried to be considerate about it, but it still hurt. When we had sex, I always had to wear clothes and hairstyle of his choice (never fully naked), and it always had to be in the same position with me on top. I suggested other positions, but he wasn't willing to try them. We only had sex when he was aroused, so I eventually stopped initiating. After the first four-five months sex became a rare thing, and after about nine months stopped altogether. He didn't feel attracted to me anymore. We had sex only once after a six month period of no sex, and it's been a year and a half since that. These days we have no sex and absolutely no kind of sexual intimacy at all. He no longer desires me, and I him. All his hugs and kisses feel like those of a friend.

He doesn't have a low libido and he doesn't watch porn. He masturbates every day and he admits that he finds other women sexually attractive. He'd never really had real PIV sex with a woman before me. He says his attraction fades when he gets to know a person better or something like that, and natural things like saliva, body hair or moisture down there repulse him, and he can't be attracted to a person the way they are - they need to look or act in a certain way. And it seems like in the beginning he wasn't really attracted to me, but a certain fantasy in his mind. Or at least this is the impression I get.

I thought that good things we'd built in our relationship were worth more than sexual intimacy, and I also had hopes that we would work on our issues. But it's been a year since our marriage and things aren't likely to improve. We've talked about it a lot, read books, I suggested going to therapy, and he knows that we should, but it's too uncomfortable for him to discuss this with a person, and also we haven't found a therapist whom he could trust.

I value our friendship and I know that relationship and marriage are not only about sex and there are other important things, but there's a difference between rare sexual intimacy, which I could accept, and no intimacy at all. I miss being desired by my partner, and it's not only about how often we have sex - it's about other things like flirting, touching in a sexual way, making out and so on. I don't feel ready to give up this part of me. And it's hard to accept that attraction is not something you can make happen even if you're close in other ways.

I suspect my wife has vaginismus, everything I've read so far sounds exactly like my wife, but she's a very private person and doesn't even like discussing things with me.

I found an article from someone about vaginismus and what has helped them, I want to show her, but I worry she may take it badly, like I'm complaining and trying to fix her, rather than I'm trying to help.

Any advice on when or how to approach this? Thanks in advance

DB for 3 years, together 8, in an open relationship, he is LL - those are important context to this story

Last night I thought I was going to meet a friend for a casual booty call but circumstances meant it got cancelled last minute

I asked my partner if he would consider cuddling me while I got myself off, and he said yes, so I was VERY excited because I've not even had him in the same room while masturbating for years

He stayed in the room all right. Even the bed. He even touched me!

By which I mean, he stroked my nearest knee while scrolling through imgur

While I watched hardcore high quality porn with the audio on and got myself off 3 times. And wasn't shy or quiet about it

I'm not even mad, it's just funny at this point that even what should be an incredibly erotic situation, he's like "that's nice, I'll hang out and look at memes while you cum"

I messed up, but I just realized the extent of which I messed up and destroyed my marriage.

To explain, I need to take you back to the year of 2015. I was in a relationship with my now-wife for a year. In the year 2015, my now-wife had a mental health breakdown that lasted for 6 months. She was awful, really awful and I thought about leaving her many times that year. She almost died, but when she did that, she went into a coma and it snapped her out of it. Suddenly, she was back to the person I loved.

It was scary, and this was the first time I had ever been with someone so severely mentally ill. She didn't beg me to stay. She told me she was going to move out of state to get some help, and she asked if we could just be friends. I insisted that we stayed together. I thought I could fix her.

For a year, she moved out of state and got some treatment. That year, we were apart, only talking through text. I started drinking more and hanging around my friends. My friends didn't like her because they saw what I went through, and I didn't really understand the whole mental health stuff. She told me she couldn't remember what happened during the time we lived together. I didn't understand it at the time, but now I know that she truly doesn't remember a thing about what happened during her breakdown and her last memory was of being assaulted by a guy before waking up months later from a coma. That happened 8 months before the coma. She doesn't remember getting engaged to me. She doesn't remember switching her major. She doesn't remember much at all from the time we lived together.

As I said, I drank a lot and listened a lot to my friends who did not like her. I was also dealing with my own pain from how she treated me. And I took it out on her.

When she came back in 2017, she was a little numb but I thought things would get better. She was on medication. I was focused on working and hanging out with my friends.

When we did see each other, I wanted to have sex. She was less enthused and rejected me for a year. I understand now that the medication she was on made her libido non-existent. I get it now. But I was dumb. And I was hurt. And my friends encouraged me to just stop trying. So I did.

2018, we moved in together and bought a house. She was still on medication. They kept upping the dose everytime she had outbursts of emotion and she eventually could not function to work from the side effects. So I was supporting us both. I wanted that. I wanted to marry her.

She threw herself into trying to make our relationship better. She tried to talk to me about what happened, but I wasn't ready to talk. She initiated dates for every 2 weeks. She initiated having sex once a week. She created a calendar to remember all these things. All she did was apologize.

I was stuck in my own pain. So I didn't see she was trying. I wasn't good. I called her names. I rejected her. I made her do all the work in our relationship. I was focused on getting high, drinking, and hanging out with my friends.

She had her own problems. She had outbursts, but then she would go numb. I didn't realize it was some severe side effects of the medication. I thought that if she had issues she would tell me, but she wasn't able to vocalize what was happening because she just stopped caring about what was happening to her.

The dead bedroom started with her, but I kept it going until 2024.

In 2021, we had our first child, mainly because of luck. In 2022, my wife got the correct diagnosis and became more herself again, with emotions, libido and all. And when she came off her old medication, I found out how much I hurt her. She felt rejected. She cried. She stopped planning dates. She gave up initiating sex. She gave up on us.

2023 - I fought with her more than anything. She was coming off medications and was dealing with a lot of family stuff, and I was a jerk. I wasn't supportive. I messed up.

2024 - She was done. She decided to move states without me. She told me that she couldn't keep being the only one who cared about the marriage and she was tired. I begged her to give me one last chance. I sold the house, moved with her. Things slowly got better. She wanted another child, so she initiated having sex.

2025 - She stopped initiating having sex because she got pregnant. We had our second child.

2026 - We haven't had sex since conceiving our second child. We are in marriage counseling. She says it's been 8 years of a dead bedroom. She says that unless we are trying for a kid, she doesn't want to have sex dangling over her head because I take it away so easily. I admit I am inconsistent with having sex. I admit that I fail at showing up for her when I am stressed. But I didn't realize the extent of her hurt.

I don't know how to fix this. I don't know how to show her I am sorry. And I don't know how to get this back as a part of our relationship. Even when our marriage is doing well, she says she doesn't want to have sex. She says that the hurt runs too deep and unless she wants another kid, it will never happen again because I wasted her 20s. I can't figure out what to do to fix things when she doesn't want the intimacy anymore.

Help?

My husband and I have been together for a few years, and we've reached a point where we've taken all sexual activity off the table. We still cuddle, kiss, hug, and are affectionate with each other, but I have absolutely no desire for anything sexual anymore.

This isn't because I don't love him or find him attractive. It's because I've lived with vulvar pain since I was a child. Penetration has always been painful, and after years of trying to push through it, I just can't mentally do it anymore. Even thinking about sexual activity fills me with anxiety because I associate it with pain.

I've been through years of doctor appointments and was recently evaluated by a specialist who believes my pain is nerve-related. I have tried many, many different creams and medications and I recently completed pelvic floor physical therapy, but unfortunately none of it has Improved my symptoms. At this point, surgery may be the next option if my doctors ultimately determine I'm a good candidate. The problem is that surgery isn't something we can realistically do anytime soon. My husband and I are both working two jobs, and we need several years to save enough money and for me to be able to afford taking about six weeks off work for recovery. Realistically, we're probably looking at another 3–4 years before that's even possible.

My husband has a much higher libido than I do. He has told me multiple times that he misses intercourse. I completely understand why he feels that way. The difficult part is that he also doesn't like masturbating because it makes him uncomfortable, so that isn't really a solution for him either. I feel guilty because I know this isn't the marriage either of us pictured. At the same time, I can't force myself to have sexual experiences when my body experiences it as pain.

Has anyone else been in a relationship where one partner has a long-term medical condition that completely took sex off the table?

How did you both cope with the years of waiting and uncertainty without resentment building?

I'm especially interested in hearing from couples who stayed emotionally close even when sexual intimacy wasn't possible.

Disclaimer:
I want to be clear: I fully respect consent, I never pressure or take advantage of her, and I stop immediately the moment something feels off or she says she’s not into it.

Together 3 years. I love her a lot, and she’s wonderful in almost every other way. She’s not cheating, I know that for sure. But our sex life has become a persistent problem, and I don’t know if I’m overreacting by considering ending things over it.

Timeline: things were good for about the first 1.5 years, then started declining. Went from a few times a week, to once a week, to once every two weeks, to now once a month or even once every two months.

Frequency is low, and she almost never initiates. When we do have sex, it often feels like she’s doing it to make me happy or because she feels obligated, rather than because she actually wants it (which I don’t like). About a month ago I told her directly that it feels like she has sex with me out of obligation, not desire. She got defensive and pointed to a recent time she initiated as proof that wasn’t true. But even that time, it still felt emotionally distant during, not mutual — that’s actually the same example I would have brought up, just for the opposite reason.

More recently, on our 3-year anniversary, we’d been drinking a bit and she initiated. She seemed genuinely enthusiastic in the moment. We started fooling around, I was taking it slow with foreplay to make it last and feel good for both of us. Partway in, her face suddenly showed discomfort — I was already being gentle, so it caught me off guard. I stopped right away and asked if she was okay and wanted to take a break. She said yes, so we stopped completely, and I just held her until we fell asleep. The next day I brought it up, and she didn’t remember any of it — not initiating, not any of the moments — even though she’d seemed fully coherent and present at the time. That stung, because in the moment it had genuinely felt like we were connected and both enjoying it. She brushed off the memory gap and just seemed surprised she wasn’t hungover. I suggested we could pick up where we left off later — she said “maybe later.” I asked again after a relaxing day together, and she said, a little sheepishly, “I’m not really feeling it.” That’s the answer I usually get when I initiate.

She originally said her lack of interest was tied to not feeling confident about her body. She’s since lost weight, looks great by her own admission, and has even asked me to take pictures of her because she feels more confident. The sex hasn’t changed.

One thing that might be relevant: her libido was actually higher when she was on SSRIs, and has been lower since she went off them. That’s the opposite of what SSRIs usually do to libido, so I don’t know if that’s a clue about something else going on for her.

She’s also about to start a master’s degree, and I went through my own program not long ago and know how much that can drain someone’s bandwidth for intimacy — so I expect this to get harder before it gets easier, if it gets easier at all.

I feel guilty, like leaving over “just sex” is shallow when everything else between us is good. But I also know I need to feel wanted, not tolerated.

Has anyone been through something like this? Did it get better, or was this a sign?

HLM here. I’m seriously considering getting one after 3 years of DB with no end in sight.