Sex & Romance
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Going too long without sex
I wanted to respond to your post because I have been going through the same thing. When I read your post it was as if I was writing it myself. I did get married a little over two weeks ago.
My husband does not have any sex drive. He never has ever, even before me. We've been together for over 2 years now. I was so conflicted too on what to do. I felt like I couldn't live the rest of my life like this, yet I loved him and didn't want to break it off. With the wedding date around the corner it was even worse. I felt if I postponed the wedding it would ruin our relationship.
I did convince my husband to see a doctor. I wanted him to get his testosterone levels checked. It isn't normal for a young guy to not have a sex drive. I had to make the appointment and go with him and do all the talking. I had to deal with the doctor basically telling me that I was wrong and that their was something wrong mentally and that we should go see a therapist. But he did agree to test his testosterone levels.....and guess what...they were super low. He saw an endocrinologist and something is wrong with his pituitary which is causing the low testosterone. He never had any other signs or symptoms just no sex drive. He is starting the testosterone replacement this week.
We got the testosterone levels back in March. I don't know what I would have done if they were normal. It takes a long time to get everything else done to finally get the testosterone replacement. I don't know that the testosterone will help, I can only hope it will. In sickness and in health right?
My advice is to try and get him to the doctor to get his hormone levels checked before you make any decision. My husband was willing to go because he saw how much it was hurting our relationship. I did all the talking at the doctor because he has a hard time talking to people about it.
If there are any questions you have feel free to ask.
I know for me, I was a lot like your husband to be.
My husband decided that whatever it took for sex to seem like fun to me, he?d do.
I think its completely false that girls are the only ones who may or may not FEEL like having sex, and come on ladies we all know their egos are way more fragile than they like to let us know. Maybe if you sprang on him the idea of giving him a blow job each day, where he didn?t have to finish, but you?d just get him really excited, the pressure is off to really perform, and he?ll look forward to that moment when you two are intamate, if he really loves you as a husband should be willing to.
We have had this problem, ours is a very similar situation to you. While we were first living together & then engaged, we decided to refrain from sex because we had a pregnancy scare, he was on medication for HBP that he said was the impacted his desire/ability to have sex, and he was very stressed about pre-marital sex because his father had pounded it into his head not to do it & not to "come home" if he got someone pregnant. From my standpoint it just seemed better to wait til we were married & he was going to be off the medication (we hoped). We were busy with careers & first I said "you don't get the thing if I don't have a ring" because we had been together for 3 years and he wanted to live together but I hadn't gotten a ring yet. Once he proposed, we thought it would make our wedding night/honeymoon more special if we had waited.
MISTAKE in many ways because it turned out it wasn't the medication (at least not completly) causing the lack of interest & ability. We didn't have sex at all on our 7 day honeymoon cruise or in the super romantic hotels before & after
We had bought & packed all kinds of condoms, things to try, & sexy things for me to wear - and then he just wasn't interested. Talk about putting a damper on an otherwise wonderful vacation. It continued from there - we have now been married 3 years and it is a constant source of stress & significant enough an issue that if things don't improve we may end up divorced...we are going through marital problems right now and when there is no intimacy to provide a connection and provide some relief - well, it is basically living with a roommate & when things are this bad, as our counsler concurred, no one would stay with a roommate like this. I wanted a man I loved for being a good person so that SOMEDAY if/when our sex drives were different, we would have a friendship to fall back on. (I had had a number of relationships were the chemistry was definitely rocking, but when all was said & done we had different lives/backgrounds/etc...)What do I have? A friendship without any of the intimacy and physical connection I crave & need!
I am glad it hasn't hurt your self esteem yet, but overtime, it probably will. I realized this year how much it had broken me from the inside - constant rejection is draining,whether you know in your brain it isn't you or not, in your heart it will hurt to not have the bond with your husband.
I consider myself to have a high sex drive (I would gladly have sex 5 or more times a week) and he is the complete opposite (he, like your DF, would go a year). I can turn him on if I try, but after awhile it gets annoying to always be the aggressor. In addition, like your DF, my DH has a hard time sometimes keeping the erection --- so it ends up either being rushed or focused soley on him. Again, a disappointment and frustration that causes more issues even when we finally have sex.
DH ended up living onsite for a job 18 months ago & I thought we would either finally find a desire for each other after the distances or we would realize we love each other but have lost ourselves in this marriage and would divorce --- and then I found out I was pregnant.
I was excited as being a mommy was all I ever wanted, but it complicated the situation. So,my need for sex went to the bottom of the barrel...
He is FINALLY getting help for his medical conditions that could be impacting his sex drive and I suggested we ask his doctor to test him for low testosterone (I have been doing a lot of research and found his symptoms match those for LT which decreases sex drive). He is seeing a counsler to work on other issues, but after he has made progress we are going to see her together and one area that we will address is the intamacy & sex.
This is my long way of showing you you are not alone, but the issue won't get better with marriage. My suggestions to you:
* Suggest you see a therapist together - maybe a neutral 3rd party will help him open up.
* Talk to him openly & suggest he get a full exam - there may be underlying physical cause that can be easily treated. Offer to go with to the doctor to discuss it - my DH was embarrassed to bring it up and had an easier time with me there.
* If things don't improve immediately, I would call your venue and tell them you need to postpone the wedding and ask them to hold your deposit for a future date - TBD. Some venues will do this as opposed to losing your business altogether.
* Remember that as hard as it is to think of calling things off now, if it is an issue now, the rings won't magically make it better. Divorce or an unhappy life together isn't fair to either of you and won't be any easier - I wish I had listened to my intuition when it came to this subject (although I have an amazing son so I can no longer say I wish I had called it off)
I wish you (both) luck! This is a stressful and difficult subject and very important for a happy and healthy marriage.
Thanks so much for writing and telling me you had the same experience-- everyone usually when they hear how long it has been can't believe it, it's nice that there is someone else out there that can relate even though I wouldn't wish this problem on anyone. Was it awkward for you guys to start using those things? I can't even imagine with my fiancee really...mostly because our sex life when we did have sex wasn't really all that colorful, ha. I can't even imagine him going out and buying those things even though I think he should because I am really sick of being the initiator, that's all I did the first two years of the relationship for the most part. And I totally agree that sex isn't the only factor in a relationship...I am finding myself doubting and trying to remind myself of all the really good things and the positives. In the end though I guess I just have to decide what is more important...and that is really hard and it sucks
I'm hoping for the best...
It's true that sex isn't the most important part of a marriage, but that's because nothing is the most important part of a marriage. Love, I suppose, but with all the things that make a marriage work, there isn't something that makes up an overwhelming majority of the proverbial pie chart. And, for every marriage it's different: some people, like my parents, have to verbally communicate every single detail of most of their lives, and that works for them. Some people don't. Some couples need one person to manage finances or they go crazy, some need independence. Some people need to have sex every other day, some don't.
But when one person is on one side and one is on the other, it becomes a bigger deal. Since you think sex is important, well then the lack of sex is important, so I don't think you should mitigate it, that's like saying your hard hat isn't important when you're a construction worker. Although I do agree that figuring out testosterone is very important, (a lot of times people with low t levels are kind of ambivalent about a lot of aspects of life by the way, though not always). However, even if he does have low testosterone levels, that pretty much means he will become a different person in many ways. Even if he gets more testosterone, they doesn't mean his sex drive will be equal to yours, it will just increase an unknown amount, which could be minuscule or gargantuan.
Like someone else said, right now it seems like you have a great best friend, but sex is kind of what makes an amazing friendship different from a relationship. I think it's ultimatum time- this is how important sex is to me, and I can't be expected to go without it. Hopefully that will motivate him to get looked at, and figure out his own priority of sex. But, if he doesn't step it up, that means sex isn't a priority to him, and that's a deal breaker.
I have to respond because I've had the same problem with my DH but without the level of acuity that you are dealing with. I expected that we'd have sex about twice a week to three times a week after we got married, that was what we were doing before we were married...
We are very good with communication, love, companionship and comfort but there have been times when I have felt like I am living with a roommate and not a husband. Not just because we weren't being physical with each other but because we had settled into a very comfortable rut in our relationship and were taking the need for passion and commitment to continuing to explore each other's needs and wants for granted.
We've both been the ones to bring this discussion up and have talked frankly about the balance between comfort, intimacy and passion and what passion means to us. But honestly, if we hadn't been able to recover from these "ruts" I don't think either of us would want to continue our relationship. Yes, he's my best friend, my family, my husband and confident and those things are unique, beautiful and not replaceable but I believe that physical compatibility and sexuality are very important in a marriage, not just for you together but for each of you separately. It's important to feel desirable to your SO and if you don't, then trust me, you'll look for that elsewhere and even if you don't act on getting that need fulfilled elsewhere, it will put you in positions that you don't want to be in.
Fix this before moving forward with the wedding, take it from someone who has been married for 5 years and who has the hindsight.