Here’s the issue: You’re married, and over the years, your sex life has fallen off a cliff. It seems like your spouse has little to no interest in sex. What do you do?
First off, this can happen for a variety of reasons. One size fits all solutions to this problem are NOT appropriate. Maybe it’s because you’ve been an abusive jerk. Maybe there are physical problems that are killing her libido. Maybe she’s just super-stressed out and burdened by other things outside your relationship that is killing her desire. If these things are happening, obviously fixing them is what needs to happen.
But it’s ALSO true that wives lose interest in having sex with their husbands for reasons that aren’t so simple or easily “fixable.” Maybe she was NEVER all that interested in sex with you in the first place. Maybe she did it because she knew that you wanted it, and was able to manufacture some amount
of desire in the early part of your relationship. Now that you’ve been married for a little while, there’s no longer the need to pretend.
That would be really sad and bad. Thankfully, it's not all that common, and even if it’s happening, it’s still fixable.
What’s MORE common is that, as time goes on, she simply loses her desire, particularly her desire for YOU. And she may not even understand -- or admit to herself -- why this is so.
She’s not turned on by you the way she used to be. Maybe she’s lost respect for you. Maybe you’ve let yourself go physically. Maybe all the “water under the bridge” in your relationship has caused her to “love you but not be IN love with you” the way she used to be.
Here’s what most people suggest — and it seems common sense — but it’s also guaranteed
to fail:
“If she’s not sexually interested, then you need to
TALK more about it. You need to complain about
it.
You need to beg her more for it.”
If that has been your strategy, let’s ask the Dr. Phil question: “How’s that working out for
you?”
It will NOT work because of the principle that author Rollo Tomassi (who I don't always agree with, but do so here) reminds us of:
YOU CANNOT NEGOTIATE DESIRE
Here’s how he puts it:
This is a very simple
principle that most men and the vast majority of women are willfully ignorant of. One the most common personal problems I’ve been asked advice for in the past 10 years is some variation of “how do I get her back?” Usually this breaks down into men seeking some methodology to return his relationship to an earlier state where a previously passionate woman couldn’t keep her hands off of him. Six months -- or years -- into a comfortable familiarity and the thrill is gone, but in truth it’s the
genuine desire that is gone.
It’s often at this stage that a man will resort to negotiation. Sometimes this can be as subtle as him progressively doing things for her in the hopes that she’ll reciprocate with the same sexual fervor they used to have.
Other times a married couple may go to marriage counseling to “resolve their sex issues” and negotiate terms for her sexual compliance. He’ll promise to do the dishes and a load of laundry more often in exchange for her feigned sexual interest in him.
Yet, no matter what terms are offered, no matter how great an external effort he makes so deserving of reward, the genuine desire is not there from her. In fact, she feels worse for not having the desire after such efforts were made for her compliance.
Negotiated desire only ever leads to obligated compliance.
This is why her post-negotiation sexual response is often so lackluster and the source of even further frustration on his part. She may be more sexually available to him, but the halfhearted experience
is never the same as when they first met when there was no negotiation, just spontaneous desire for each other.
From a male perspective, negotiation of desire seems a rational solution to the problem. Men tend to innately rely on deductive reasoning; otherwise known as an “if then” logic stream. The code is often
something like this:
I need sex + she has the sex I want + I ask her for this sex + she loves me and is my wife so she needs to comply = the sex I want.
Makes sense right? It’s simple economics.
But here’s the problem: The genuine desire women used to experience at the outset of their relationship was predicated upon a completely unknown set of variables. Overtly communicating a desire for
reciprocal desire creates obligation, and sometimes even ultimatums.
Genuine desire is something a person must come to – or be led to – on their own volition. You can force a woman by threat to comply with behaving in a desired manner, but you cannot make her want to behave that
way.
Strive for genuine desire in your relationships. Half of the battle is knowing you want to be with a woman who wants to please you, not one who feels obligated to.
