Question: “I’m a 30 year old LDS mother of three (4,3,1)and have been married to my husband(35 year-old) for 10 years. From when we got married and we started being intimate I got the feeling that my sex drive was a lot higher than my husband’s. I wanted to be intimate with him all the time and he didn’t seem as interested as me. I’m always the one asking my husband to be with me and sometimes I’m in luck but the other times I end up feeling rejected and feeling bad about myself. I’ve tried not to focus on that too much so I’ve been more focused on my kids, work and home. We have gone as long as 10 months without intimacy just because I didn’t say anything. He also very rarely kisses me on the lips. He thinks he only needs to kiss me when we actually get intimate, but sometimes all I want is a kiss and nothing else. I’m silently desperate for intimacy and romance from my husband. Is there something wrong with me or him. I’ve tried talking to him about it and he changes the conversation and says I’m being silly. Help!!”
Answer: I appreciate your writing in. It is normal for couples when they first marry to be semi-unaware of the physical and emotional needs connected to sexual intimacy. Many couples marry and engage in a disproportionate amount of sexual intimacy due to the newness and excitement found in sexual connection. In time, most couples have a slow down, or period in which things become stable and consistent pattern of frequency come into play for how they connect sexually.
From your post it sounds like you are more sexually cued up that he is. I mean that your sexual energy and libido as it is called, is larger than his. This is not abnormal as I have worked with scores and scores of couples and no two partners typically have the exact same sexual frequency. In the literature they call it high-desire or low-desire. Again, neither is bad nor good as it is not a moral issue but it just is. The catch for couples, is that they learn to get into a pattern of what works for both partners and leaves the couple feeling enriched and bonded following the sexual connecting. It sounds as if you are approaching him for connection and he is less interested, which I’d frame as lower-desire. You may be interpreting it as less interested as in he is not ‘into’ you. I’d caution you on that. It may be that he is, but more than likely his sexual frequency is lower and thus his needs are different. Have you spoken to him about your feeling rejected or hurt when you’ve felt he is not interested in you sexually? I’d highly suggest speaking about it, or writing him a letter about it and then following it up with a conversation. He can’t understand you if you want him to simply figure out what you want by guessing. Most couples on average have sexual interaction at least weekly. According to research, couples that have sex 3x per week or more are considered high-desire and couples that are 1x every other week are low desire. Marriages with sex less than 1x in three months, are considered non-sexual marriages.
Intimacy is something that runs far deeper than sexual intercourse. Intimacy is clearly about union, closeness, and passion in the heat of a relationship. I feel your husband needs to re-evaluate his desires or lack thereof for intimacy and I don’t mean sex either. I am talking about his connection to you. For you, I’d recommend speaking to him about your needs and hopes from your heart. You mentioned talking to him about it and him responding you’re silly. I’d instead look deeper at how you are presenting yourself. You will teach him how to treat you by what you tolerate and put up with. I’d suggest approaching him in a different way in a way that will help him hear your heart not merely the words that he can avoid and minimize as silly. Also, affection and closeness with hugs, touch, and small kisses are part of a healthy marriage not just precursors and foreplay before sexual connection.
Clearly your talking about it together will provide the solutions for frequency and preferences. Good luck in your journey.
Question: “Am I glad I found you! There is a gray area that I need some guidance in, and that gray area has to do with being married and being able to “spice things up” in the bedroom. My wife and I have been married one year, and prior to our marriage, we were pretty obedient lds kids; especially when it came to sex. Obedient, meaning, we followed counsel to stay away from pornography and not read about the details of all that sex can entail. Then, when we got married, we got counsel from our bishop in relation to sex (which I believe is the right counsel), he said, “After you are married, when it comes to sex, what you two decide to do (given you both consent) is up to you.” So now we go from not knowing much about sex, but getting a pretty good idea from all sorts of media outlets growing up about the possibilities, to now being married and suddenly having the “green light” to do whatever we both “consent to”. But I am aware of Satan and his power and I don’t want to test him, but we do want to know if there is a source (book or something) that will be healthy as to helping us to learn and explore each other’s bodies in a way that is pleasing and uplifting. I know there are different touches and techniques one can learn that we would like to apply, but we need instruction, and me personally, I would like to see pictures on how to do such. I write because learning about these things is not something I want to do through “trial and error”, cause I feel the error would provide great destruction to my soul. I’ll tell you what we have done so far. We took a trip into a store called the “fun zone”. Not a good feeling when we stopped in there and we haven’t gone back, no shall we. Then, the other night, at a more “wholesome” store, there was a book titled, “The Joy of Sex.” This book does provide instruction with pictures of an actual couple demonstrating things to try. We haven’t given this book much attention because we are stuck between, is it pornography and “bad”, or is it alright because we are married and it’s up to us? Any help on solving this dilemma; would this book be appropriate or not? And if not, do you have any suggestions to help our desires? Any time you could put toward helping us would be of tremendous value………Thanks for your time………”
