When Your Sex Drives Don't Match

Michele Weiner-Davis

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As a marriage therapist for two decades, I've seen what happens to marriages when one spouse has little or no desire for sex and the other yearns for it desperately. Take a look at this recent letter I received.

Dear Michele:

Please help me. I'm 28, married with a 3-year-old daughter. For the past three years, my wife has avoided being sexual with me. We've gone from having sex twice a week to now, if I'm lucky, once a month. I'm miserable and I can't keep living like this.

One out of every three couples struggle with problems associated with low sexual desire. One study found that 20 percent of married couples have sex fewer than 10 times a year! And low sexual desire isn't only "a woman's thing." Many sex experts believe that low sexual desire in men is America's best-kept secret.

It would be one thing if these lustless men and women were married to each other; they could agree to go off into the sunset, basking in platonic bliss. But it rarely works that way. People with low sexual desire are generally married to partners who want more sexuality, intimacy, physical closeness, and connection.

Sex is an extremely important part of marriage. When it's good, it offers couples opportunities to give and receive physical pleasure, to connect emotionally and spiritually. It builds closeness, intimacy, and a sense of partnership.

If you're the spouse whose libido is lacking, remember that your most powerful sexual organ is your brain; in order to feel more sexual, you first have to decide that a loving, satisfying sex life and marriage are important. Then commit to finding your untapped sexuality within.

If you're the spouse with greater sexual energy, you'll need to approach your partner with greater understanding and compassion, which will improve communication, compromise, and acceptance.

Here are tips for both types of spouses in your search for solutions:

Tips for the low-desire spouse

Everyone, even highly sexed people, experiences occasional lows in their sex drive. But what if your libido is nowhere to be found?

Two conditions should prompt you to take your sexual relationship off the back burner: when you think your sexual desire is a problem, or when your spouse is unhappy sexually.

Your low desire affects you and your spouse. If you think there's a problem, there's a problem. If your spouse is unhappy, there's a problem.

It's easy to believe that decisions about sexuality are so personal they should be based strictly on your own feelings and needs. If you're not in the mood, you're not in the mood. Right?

Not exactly. There are many reasons to stretch yourself if you're the person with lower desire. The main one is that unsatisfying sexual relationships often cause alienation, infidelity, and divorce. In most relationships, the spouse with the lower desire sets the pace for the sexual relationship, controlling when and how it happens.

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Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 2003, Fall

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