My Dead Bedroom Story

I am glad I found this subreddit. Talking about the fact that my marriage has only seen sex a handful of times in the last few years is difficult and there's a certain humiliation factor that prevents me from bringing this topic up with my friends.

I have been married for 5 years, and our bedroom has seen little to no action in the last 3.5 years. The first year we were married we had sex at least 3 or 4 times a week. I read stories around here with people complaining about only having sex once a month. Let me just say that I would be a very happy person if me and my husband had sex that often. I would like to have it more (i.e. I could have it every day!), but I could settle for once a month for the rest of the my life and be mostly fulfilled. In the last 3.5 years we have had sex only a few times.

Let me preface this by saying that I am not an unattractive person at all. There is room for improvement, I'm sure, but that's the case with everyone. I haven't let myself go since we got married. People wanted me before I was married and I know that if I were on the market today I would have no trouble getting action if I wanted it. I don't feel my physical appearance is really the issue.

I feel stuck between a rock and hard place in this situation because I love my husband very much. I don't want an open marriage, I have no desire to have sex with anyone aside from my husband. My sex drive and my love for him are very much interconnected and it's him who I want to have sex with. It's him who I want to touch and him who I want to make love to.

I ask for sex often and am rejected 99% of the time. He gets agitated if I ask too frequently, and he gets agitated if I try to pry and figure out reasons why he doesn't want to have sex. I know he looks at porn and presumably masturbates with some regularity, which I have no problem with at all, half because I'm glad he's getting some sexual release when he needs it and half because it gives me some sign that his libido isn't completely dead.

I am good to him. I do my best to take care of him and do my best to try and create "sparks" in our marriage by going on dates and stuff. I bought some massage oil the other day so that I could give him a massage or two, now and then, to ease his stress. When I brought it home he told me that he "didn't like massages" because they made him sore. Made me feel kind of defeated.

On the rare occasion I will get him to agree to have sex on a future day (i.e. in a few days). This actually ends up being more painful for me than an outright rejection because in the day leading up to our planned sex, he begins his performance of, "Wow, I'm not feeling that great today." or, "Oh boy, am I ever tired." and I know when he starts rolling out those statements that we won't be having sex that night. On some sex date occasions he'll mention his tiredness so often I'll tell him, "Ok, I get it. We're not having sex!" ... which is kind of funny, if only it weren't so sad. It's almost as if when my sex drive is high he is living in a constant state of fear that I will be asking for sex and he knows that he cannot or does not want to engage in it with me.

It definitely comes and goes in cycles. Some weeks my sex drive is kind of low, so I don't bug him about it at all and am not feeling my usual disappointment about not having sex. But other times, like now, my sex drive is insane. I feel like I could have sex 24x7. This is obviously when it is hardest for me to deal with and when the rejection hurts my self esteem the most. I almost wish I didn't have a sex drive so that we were both on the same page in not wanting it.

Outside of the fact that we have a dead bedroom, we make each other surprisingly happy. We don't fight much, we talk a lot (just not about sex), spend most of our time together when we aren't working, and have a lot in common. I guess that's the thing. Since we otherwise get along and make each other happy, not having sex is not enough of a reason for me to leave the marriage.

I am going to keep on figuring out ways to create that "spark" that I am looking for in our marriage:

• I'm working on keeping myself healthy and attractive.

• I'm supporting him in his efforts to be healthy and attractive. I know that he often feels like a bit of a "slob", though I think he's gorgeous. When I tell him that he says, "Yeah, but we're married so you're supposed to say that." and I usually reply with, "Maybe, but the fact that I want to have sex with you every day is probably proof enough that I think you're hot"

• I'm trying to communicate to him that I am open to "anything". Maybe this guy wants something in the bedroom and just can't bring himself to ask me.

• We don't watch porn together but I think it's something that I'm going to encourage. I'm not totally confident that he'll want to do that, but maybe it will make for a "sexy" mood in the bedroom.

And if none of that works...

I guess I'll have little choice but to settle for the sexless marriage thing. Like I said, we're otherwise happy and I love the guy and want to spend the rest of my life with him, sex or no sex.

It's a "price of admission" that I am willing to pay.