babysquash
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- Oct 16, 2014
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We have the same problem. My husband has a very low sex drive. He didn't when we first met but he has been slowly becoming less and less interested in sex over the years. He has issues with low testosterone and has a bad back so sex can be painful for him. He's also very overweight because of his back. It's been very hard for me to accept this and to separate his feelings for me from his desire to have sex. I still struggle with it especially when I hear from friends that their husbands and boyfriends can't keep their hands off them. We haven't started TTC yet but we know this will be a struggle and we've spent some time talking about it and know we need to do more. I don't have advice for anyone else but here is what we are doing:
-We're talking about it all the time and not treating it like it's the white elephant in the room. But at the same time we aren't talking about it like it's some failing on his part. He also has ADHD and when we talk about that, we refer to it as "Andy" as in, it's not my husband that is causing a problem, it's his disorder. It helps us to separate the two so that he doesn't feel terrible about not wanting to have sex and I feel less like it's not my fault if I remember it's his low testosterone and not his feelings for me. We are also otherwise happily married.
-We have gone to counseling for other things too and we'd both be open to it again if necessary. I know not everyone is open to this but I've been astounded at how many things came out during counseling that we had no idea was going on. So even though, nothing was wrong with our relationship, having someone else to mediate made us better communicators.
-Since our issues are partially health related, we are both working on our diets and I'm exercising more. He is going to see an endocrinologist to talk about his testosterone and see if there is anything they can do.
So that's us. Sometimes it's really hard to be the one in the relationship who has the higher sex drive but I try to remember why (and that it's not about me) and I try to initiate when I can and try to be patient with him. We will sometimes just plan nights where we cuddle with no tv and usually that naturally progresses toward sex.
-We're talking about it all the time and not treating it like it's the white elephant in the room. But at the same time we aren't talking about it like it's some failing on his part. He also has ADHD and when we talk about that, we refer to it as "Andy" as in, it's not my husband that is causing a problem, it's his disorder. It helps us to separate the two so that he doesn't feel terrible about not wanting to have sex and I feel less like it's not my fault if I remember it's his low testosterone and not his feelings for me. We are also otherwise happily married.
-We have gone to counseling for other things too and we'd both be open to it again if necessary. I know not everyone is open to this but I've been astounded at how many things came out during counseling that we had no idea was going on. So even though, nothing was wrong with our relationship, having someone else to mediate made us better communicators.
-Since our issues are partially health related, we are both working on our diets and I'm exercising more. He is going to see an endocrinologist to talk about his testosterone and see if there is anything they can do.
So that's us. Sometimes it's really hard to be the one in the relationship who has the higher sex drive but I try to remember why (and that it's not about me) and I try to initiate when I can and try to be patient with him. We will sometimes just plan nights where we cuddle with no tv and usually that naturally progresses toward sex.
