My wife is not sexually attracted to me, what can I do?

I have been married for 7 years now and we have never had a sexual connection, she said she just didnt get horny so I took the high road and for the most part never complained about it. I though it was had to do with her hormones and that is what she told me so I was very compassionate and supportive. I am a really sensitive person and a lot of the times when we argue or discuss our marital issues it cannot hold back my emotions and I cry. To me its a self esteem issue, she tells me that when I get down and depressed it kills the physical attraction and she does not see me as the type of man she wants to be intimate with. We do not have a sexual connection and when we do have sex it never lasts for more than a few minutes before I finish and it leaves me so hurt that I cannot show her the type of intimacy that she needs. I am destroyed over it because it comes off as selfish and that is not what I am trying to be. I dont know what to do anymore, she says she loves me and wants to stay married to me and that is the only thing keeping me going. I have my doubts that she hasnt looked into some sort of escort or craigslist, we had a few issues with that as well that has lead me to not trust her but as always I blame myself. Its hard to initiate sex with her when she is not attracted to me so it usually ends up her being frustrated because she doesnt feel it and there is no opportunity to explore more options. I feel frustrated because I have always remained faithful and committed but it seems like I am paying the price for my sexual inadequacies even though she is the one who had an online affair with someone and I found out about it. If anyone can give me some honest advice that would be great. I dont want a divorce because I think its an easy way out and as a society we have forgotten what it means to fight for what you love and stick together to work it out so that our children do not get affected by our selfish actions. Thank you kindy

You do not have any sexual inadequacies, per your post.

She simply is not attracted to you - this is not a reflection of you.

What was the point in marrying somebody who was not attracted to you?

I didn't recognize the signs maybe I was too in love but after a few years of marriage she told me she didn't feel horny and she thought something was wrong with her instead of telling me she wasn't attracted to me until this past November. We have been seeing a therapist and it has helped a little but she still does not have the sexual desire and attraction. She did mention that she has always been this way even with her ex boyfriends which is why she was cheated on a lot but I have always remained faithful and feel unappreciated because its easier to just go out and cheat but I cannot be that kind of man. It's not like she doesn't want it to be different it's that I feel like she is pinning it all on me to fix things.

I can see how you were compassionate.

I cannot see how you were supportive - supportive of what? Of having troubles with her hormones? If you both blamed hormones, you should have sought medical help for her. Within no more than 7 months - not 7 years, for sure.

I do not think that you need a divorce.

What you need, in truth, is some sort of an annulment, since the marriage has never been properly consummated.

That said, you won't prove it after 7 years and with children in tow, so technically speaking, yes, you need a divorce. Think of it as a divorce for practical purposes but as an annulment in your mind.

Regarding "an easy way out" - your problem is that you should not have gotten IN. But you did get IN. So now you need OUT. If you like unsurmountable challenges, then, of course, you do not need to settle for an "easy" way out, but you still need to find some sort of a way out.

I do not understand what actions or proposed actions you consider "selfish". It seems to me that anything that is not 100% extreme martyrdom is "selfish" for you. This is not the standard view of what "selfish" is. So if you
can explain with more detail and depth what would be "selfish", that would definitely help to gain insight into your frame of mind.

In any event, an amicable divorce and an equitable custody arrangement will be fine in terms of how your children will fare.

And you will become available for someone who might actually become attracted to you! And your children will be happier if you see that you are happy.

Regarding "sticking together to work it out" - you can stick together to work out a fair arrangement on how the chores are split. You cannot really "work it out" when the woman has never been sexually attracted to you and continues being uninterested in you. Yet, she says that she loves you. How does she express her love? Usually, people express love in a variety of ways, sexual being one of them.

And, there is always lottery, if you like doing things that have (almost) zero likelihood of success.

Oh and that... you wrote that from time to time you have short sex sessions with her.

Please use condoms, because the possibility of Craiglist hookups, combined with the fact that she has never bothered to try to solve the alleged problem with the hormones during the whole time - 7 years! - does not show good judgment on her part. So, you never know - take protective steps, please.

This is really a sad situation, most people get married or used to, so that they could have sex with the consent of their religious beliefs. I think there are many saying etc in religious books too that contain such subjects about the woman pleasing her man or visa versa. If you're not getting any at all, what a shame to have missed some beautiful moments and the loss of not even knowing what you've lost. If I were you I would get a divorce, unless you think someday she'll come around and be with you. Sex also helps us grow and express our true feelings such as trust etc.. and pure true love. That is just my opinion.

Hello Joel

Am sorry to read about your marriage. Apart from sex, how is your marriage otherwise? Is it a happy one?
The reason that I ask is perhaps there are some other underlining issues here. I also noticed that you seem to blame yourself for everything which I do not think is fair.

It is OK to be sensitive and cry when upset you know, and you shouldn't feel bad about it. It's not ok to blame yourself and say that you have sexual inadequacies for her lack of attraction. I agree with Hamster, it's not an inadequacy. But if you do have self-esteem issues that are making things worse, have you ever considered therapy? I can almost understand that she is turned off when you are down, but to be fair, she should also support you through it and encourage you to get some help and not have an online affair. Work more as a team.

You say you want to work at your marriage and not give up. That's great, and I hope you have your wife on board with this kind of thinking too. The best advice I can think of is to put sex on a back burner for now, let go of the pressure it creates. Then I would think of going to therapy for your self-esteem and then suggest to your wife about couples therapy. Perhaps in the mean time you could get a baby sitter in and start 'dating' again. Perhaps you both may connect, just enjoy each other's company without pressure and then things like sexual attraction may come naturally.

Hugs

I suggest couples counseling.

I wonder if something in her past has made her uninterested in physical intimacy.

How is her self-esteem?

Would she consider individual therapy (including check of medical issues as mentioned by hamster)? Perhaps both of you could benefit from individual therapy before trying couples work.

If you still love her, and she loves you, her sexual attraction or lack thereof seems more to do with her than with you. She mentions she was this way with her ex boyfriend as well....she is not opposed to random sex with Craigslist people though? (Yikes, by the way)

This isn't you. This is her. She has some kind of commitment and intimacy issue. I don't think it's hopeless. I think you guys need to go to counseling....and address this. She is going to go through this with any man she has a relationship with, probably. I feel bad for both of you.

She shouldn't have married before this issue was resolved, but everyone messes up, she probably thought it would fix it. I'm sure she feels guilty.

Just because she thinks she isn't "sexually attracted" and her panties don't catch fire every time you look at her doesn't mean she can't get turned on by you, and is physically incapable of it.

If you both wanna work it out I think go to counseling asap. Hubby and I went to counseling, it was helpful.

I can imagine the sex isn't to good for you and leaves you empty and hurt, if she is trying to watch TV the whole time, or filing her nails.

If you can get her to make out with you first and rub up all on her, you can probably get her pretty horny. That is sexy, for a woman, or at least I think so, because I can go from quit it I'm watching TV to omg give it to me now....in fifteen or twenty minutes. Lol.

Does she want you to be forceful and "macho" with her? Well here, since I don't know any of you, I will share a female fantasy lol.

I'm home baking pie. (Never happens). I am also wearing a vintage 1950s style dress, complete with ruffly apron, heels, and an appropriate June Cleaverish hair style. (Not likely). My entire kitchen looks like something off a 1950s sitcom. My husband arrives home from work, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase a la Ward Cleaver. This would be also very uncharacteristic, but apparently we are sort of the Cleavers now. He walks into the kitchen....our eyes meet. He comes over and starts making out with me furiously, and then having wild crazy sex with me all over the kitchen....table, countertops, etc. We finish this business up against a wall, actually knocking stuff down. As I am catching my breath, he grabs me, kisses me, grins at me, and wipes off my lipstick that is now all over him, and says, "Honey, I'm home." Then he smacks me on the butt, and goes in the other room.

Lmao...my friends and I were trying to think up fantasy sex encounters one time and everyone loved this idea.

She needs to stop saying, I give up, you just don't turn me on. Love is a choice, and it is work. It doesn't just happen. If I left my husband every time he didn't turn me on or annoyed me, the ink wouldn't have dried on our marriage license, much less twenty years!

That makes no sense at all.

OK, so for a few years she was not telling you anything, but, a woman who is into you expresses it well in actions, so a woman who is into you does not really need to say that she is into you - there are plenty of non-verbal ways to communicate that. Since you were not receiving any signs of her being into you for several years, you should have been able to recognize that things were amiss. Elephant in the room, no?

This is a tough situation. I think you are taking too much of the blame. Since your wife has said that she had this sort of problem in the past with others, I think you have to see that a lot of the breakdown in intimacy is coming from her side of the marriage. It sounds like this might have happened with anyone she might have married.

If you just look around, even a little bit, you can find lots of examples of people - men and women - who are nothing special to look at, or be around, who have mates that love them physically. Also, the sexual chemistry that people have when they are new to each other wears off eventually for everyone. Then the bond has to be based on something deeper. People who expect that initial excitement to last forever are the ones who keep going from partner to partner. That's what happens in Hollywood. It's all about the initial magic. Then that can't be sustained.

You have a confidence problem, but your wife has every bit as serious a problem as you do - more so, I think. It takes work to keep seeing the beauty in another human being after the initial novelty wears off and the ton of faults becomes known. You wife seems to just not know how to do that work. I, too, recommend couples counseling. If she won't go, maybe you could just go yourself, in the beginning, to get moral support.

I think that per the husband, there has never been any chemistry, novelty, initial excitement, or initial magic.

I was supportive in the sense that she had a problem that I didn't fully understand and instead of leaving or cheating I didn't pressure her to have sex. She did do some research and bought some creams but I don't think it was ever a hormone issue to be quite honest. In any case I never threatened to leave her even to this day. I don't think there are many men that can be in a marriage like this. That is how I believe I was supportive. What do you think?

I have been in this situation but from the other side. I married someone that I did not feel physically attracted towards, but did love, really like a brother. Essentially I initially decided to get married to him because he was attracted to me and I thought that in time my feelings for him would change. I had very low self-esteem when we met and was influenced by others to go ahead with the relationship and I later really regretted beginning a relationship on this basis for the hurt it caused.

In our case, it was not resolved before we got divorced. But I found the divorce incredibly difficult and painful because I did grow to have a strong bond even though there had been conflict, and we saw a lot of each other for a long time and we are still in touch because we had a child together - although he has remarried.

Some years after we separated we talked about the issue, and I admitted that I had found the sexual side of things problematic. He felt angry because he wished that I had spoken about it at the time, but by the time I did it was really too late to go back.

I think with hindsight that some kind of therapy would have been beneficial both as a couple to look at issues around building intimacy and trust and communication as well as hopes and wishes, but also a series of sessions just for me because of issues I'd had from childhood. I didn't feel able to effectively communicate what I did want and would like and there was a lot of hurt and frustration as well as underlying anger on both sides. Even if the therapy hadn't resulted in us staying together, it would have been opportunity for us each to get more support individually with what had happened and enable us to self-care better.

Something I've become aware of only very recently which is an issue which I wish I had had a greater awareness of and which might be helpful to know about is 'invalidation'.

When we were first dating we had sex as much as we could, I worked out of state so usually weekends and it was good, nothing mind blowing but good. When we started living together our work schedules were opposite, she worked nights and I worked days so we didn't see each other and whe we did we made time for intimacy and what not.
Before we got married we were going to but a home together but I was going to lose my condo and I didn't tell her so that was the start, according to her where she started to lose attraction towards me bar uses she saw me as a different person. She said she almost called off the wedding but decided to go through it because she loved me, she still loves me and I do believe her.
When we started to have less and less sex she said and led me to believe that she was going through the hormone issues and she didn't feel like having sex so all along whe we did have it I wasn't thinking of her needs becuase I thought she wasn't into it, that is the selfish part I was referring to. I would get my pleasure and leave her without it and I should have communicated with her about it at an early stage. Does that make sense?

Hahaha! I feel like I won the lotto with my wife already. She is not a bad person, she is NICU nurse so she is very caring and a great mother and wife. I do not need sex everyday but I do need intimacy meaning I will take a night of cuddling and watching a movie than just sex. To me if you have intimacy the sex will come naturally. I may be wrong becuase you seem to always write something that makes me think different. Hahaha

Thank you for your advice. I am a the type of person who thinks divorce is a trend rather than a necessity. I don't think believe if you have strode before god and promised to stay together through the good and the bad then one should fight and find solutions to stay together and become stronger. I don't want to set a trend for our children to tell them it's ok to give up on someone you love and want to be with. My parents have been together for over 34 years and have gone through some really difficult times but they always remembered that as long as they love each other they can overcome any obsticles. I want the same becuase I don't want my wife to just give up, she has said she still loves me and wants to be married to me but she is not physically attracted to me. Can this be worked out? She wants to make it work becuase it benefits her as well. I always make sure she is taken care of no matter what. I put her 1st everyday and every moment even without sex and I am still here. As long as she loves me and believes it, I have a reason to fight.

Yes you are correct but my question is, if we both love eachother and want to continue to be married, can this be fixed?

If the problem is strictly with sex and otherwise the marriage is fine, you could consider talking to a sex therapist.

I am going through the same with mū husband. Wē no longer sleep together. Its like he cant Stand to be around me.

This is what I am thinking too.

I haven't read the whole thread just bits of it but have you sat down with your wife and asked her why she is like this? From personal experience it could be something seriously going on with her.