I [F32] am not feeling sexually heard by husband [M35]. Unsure how to proceed.
Little bit of background. My husband [M35] and I [F32] have been married almost 15 years, together for just over 17. We have a very loving and affectionate relationship. We are always touching eachother [non-sexually], we cuddle and kiss often, and we hardly ever fight. We always have a ton of fun together and are best friends. But the sex sucks.
When we were younger we had amazing sex. Anal, BDSM, voyeurism, group sex, toys. You get the idea. I think we both felt completely sexually satisfied. As we grew older, obviously things cooled down. That's expected. Except, now, it's at a stand still and it has been for many years.
Our sex has twindled from 2-3 times a week to maybe twice a month. As of right now it's been three weeks since we've had sex. And, when we do have sex, it's exactly the same. Every. Single. Time. I could give you an exact blow by blow of our last 100 sexual encounters we've had because it's all the same. The same moves, the same, singular, position. And my frustration. It's all always the same.
Over the last few years I've attempted to incorporate new stuff into the bedroom. All stuff we have done in the past - mainly toys, porn, or light BDSM. My pleas always fall on deaf ears. A few months ago I blew up a bit on my husband. Told him how dissatisfied I was with our sex life. He asked how to improve. I told him I wanted to see a sex therapist (we've seen marriage counselors in the past to great success), I wanted more morning sex, and I explained a (fairly vanilla) fantasy I had that I wanted to try. He said ok.
It's been about three months since then. We've had morning sex twice. And he indulged me in my fantasy once - and even then not completely. We've been seeing a sex therapist and discussed a lot of this.
My husband says he's always tired. He says he has a super low sex drive (he's always had a pretty high one before). He says I should advocate for myself in the moment. But I don't want to beg to be sexually satisfied, and honestly begging would be counter productive to my fantasy.
During therapy he has also brought up some barriers he was having regarding our sex life. Completely valid. So I listened to him and attempted to make some changes. He said he felt like I was never present (I work a very demanding job and am also a grad student). So I started putting down my phone if we were even in the same vicinity. He asked for more romance. So, every day from Feb 1st to valentines day I left him a card, with a heartfelt message inside. Our anniversary was February 8th. While he was at work I wrote 250 heart shaped post it notes listing everything I loved and valued about him, them stuck them all around our house. He says he needs more together time. Literally every single day I ask him to play video games with me, go on a date with me, build Legos together.
And I think here is why I'm pissed. I am doing literally everything I can think of to fulfill the needs he expressed to me. And I'm not really seeing anything in return. I'm so so frustrated.
So....where do I go from here?
Tl;dr - Sex has waned in marriage. Doing everything I can think of to remedy and not seeing results or effort on husband's side.
Posted Mar 3, 2024, 5:46 AM UTC