**Following are some very jumbled thoughts:
(a little side note here: I'm a 19 yr-old, female)...So my gf and I have been together nearly a year now. I have a VERY high sex drive--like most of the time, I want sex all the time. When we first started being together, we had sex like every night and then slowly it started declining. Now, I'm lucky if we even have sex 2 times a week. I get really upset when she doesn't want to have sex with me and I get really angry and upset with her when I try something and she totally turns me down. I know that she has a very low sex drive, but, to me, she honestly does not seem like she has one at all. I know that sex isn't everything in a relationship, but--for me--it plays an important part. I don't want us to be one of those couples that slowly just become "casual friends." I love her so much. I just don't know what to do. We always have to plan out when we are going to have sex. We never just have sex spontaneously anymore and I get upset when she forgets the night we had planned it. I'm so willing to compromise with her too. Like I would even go so far as to say, "Ok Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday are our 'sex nights.'" We have a very open relationship and we have talked about this, but most of the time all she can say is, "I'm sorry I don't have a high sex drive like you do."
Anyone have any tips on how to keep our romance alive?
AND/OR
Anyone know of any really good herbs or medicine that would increase her sex drive?
**P.S.-Please do not post on here that I should just "chill out with sex" or I should "break up with her if I'm not happy" or "don't pressure her into doing things"--I love this woman with all of my heart.
(a little side note here: I'm a 19 yr-old, female)...So my gf and I have been together nearly a year now. I have a VERY high sex drive--like most of the time, I want sex all the time. When we first started being together, we had sex like every night and then slowly it started declining. Now, I'm lucky if we even have sex 2 times a week. I get really upset when she doesn't want to have sex with me and I get really angry and upset with her when I try something and she totally turns me down. I know that she has a very low sex drive, but, to me, she honestly does not seem like she has one at all. I know that sex isn't everything in a relationship, but--for me--it plays an important part. I don't want us to be one of those couples that slowly just become "casual friends." I love her so much. I just don't know what to do. We always have to plan out when we are going to have sex. We never just have sex spontaneously anymore and I get upset when she forgets the night we had planned it. I'm so willing to compromise with her too. Like I would even go so far as to say, "Ok Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday are our 'sex nights.'" We have a very open relationship and we have talked about this, but most of the time all she can say is, "I'm sorry I don't have a high sex drive like you do."
Anyone have any tips on how to keep our romance alive?
AND/OR
Anyone know of any really good herbs or medicine that would increase her sex drive?
**P.S.-Please do not post on here that I should just "chill out with sex" or I should "break up with her if I'm not happy" or "don't pressure her into doing things"--I love this woman with all of my heart.
First of all, I really, really sympathize with you. I am a 50-year-old male, married, heterosexual, and I'm going through the same thing with my wife. I love her with all my heart, but I'm seriously exploring having extramarital sex just to keep the resentment and frustration from boiling over and destroying our relationship. I've tried a lot of different things along the way, and they haven't worked for me, but that doesn't mean they aren't worth trying if you haven't done so already.
The first thing I did was to try to get her to talk to me about her sexual fantasies, so I could play along with them, no matter what they were, to get her to focus more of her creative energy on her sex life. She claims she doesn't have any. I'm still not sure if that's really true, or if she's just unwilling to be open about it, but either way, I can't do any more than encourage her. I still keep trying, but she hasn't changed her response.
At one point I asked if she would be interested in having sex with another woman, either with or without me. She said she wasn't interested in being with a woman, but she was somewhat open to the idea of a threesome. Now she seems to have gone cold on that idea too.
Next I bought her a book called Becoming Orgasmic: A Sexual and Personal Growth Program for Women, by Julia Heiman, et al. This is, in my opinion, a great book and a worthy successor to Dr. Lonnie Barbach's classic, For Yourself: The Fulfillment of Female Sexuality, which was a great book in its time, but now somewhat dated. She started reading it but lost interest. I keep begging her to finish it, and she says she will, but she hasn't picked it up in months. You know what they about horses and water. :-/
Then I went to a sex therapist to discuss the situation and see if she had any ideas. She told me everything I was doing was appropriate, and if they weren't working, she needed to see a therapist. I tried to get my wife set up an appointment with her, but she kept "forgetting," then finally said she didn't want to.
All along I have tried to find out if she is depressed or if there is anything in our relationship that is making her unhappy. As far as I can tell she isn't depressed, and other than typical marital friction, nothing in our relationship is causing her stress. The only thing that seems potentially troubling is that she frequently believes I am angry with her for no apparent reason, or that, when I am angry, I will leave her. I honestly don't know where that comes from. I've always told her that I feel lucky to have her in my life and that I would never leave her. I have never threatened to leave her or even joked about it, but she still has this fear of abandonment. I don't see anything in her background to account for this: her parents are both living and still married, she was never abandoned in any serious relationship. I have to assume it has some relationship to a general insecurity or low self-esteem, but it isn't clear if this has anything to do with her sex drive. There are a lot of women with low self-esteem who are very highly sexually motivated. This is something a sex therapist would be better qualified to unravel than I am, but, as I said, she refuses to see one.
As far has herbs or medicines are concerned, I would discourage you from pursuing this for two reasons. First, I have to question the ethical justification of chemically manipulating another person's emotions, drives or priorities for your own interests. Second, I don't think any of the products out there that are touted as being effective actually work. If any of them have shown any efficacy at all, it is only via the placebo effect, whereby a putative treatment works only because the subject wants it to work. If your partner is anything like mine, the real problem isn't just a lack of interest in sex, but an unwillingness to perceive that lack of interest as being abnormal or undesirable--a lack of interest in having an interest in sex, if you will--so there is no raw material for a placebo effect to work on.
There is, currently, one promising medication undergoing clinical trials. If it is shown to be effective, I will encourage my wife to consider taking it, but the decision will have to be hers, so I don't hold out a lot of hope. I expect her to show the same indifference to medical treatment that she has for therapy. That's how she is, and I couldn't change her if I wanted to, and I don't want to because that's not my job.
When it's all said and done, we are both very fortunate to have these women in our lives. Nothing could ever replace the love we share, and although I'm not going to stop wanting sex until they scatter my ashes, I'm not going to stop loving this woman. I hope she will change for her sake--I want, more than anything on earth, for her to derive the same joy from making love that I do, but like so many things in life, there is nothing I can do, beyond what I am already doing, to bring that about, and so I will continue to try, wait, and hope.
I hope you will find something in what I've said helpful. As I said, just because they haven't worked for me, it doesn't mean they won't work for you. If they don't, all that I can offer is my moral support, and you're welcome to that.
The first thing I did was to try to get her to talk to me about her sexual fantasies, so I could play along with them, no matter what they were, to get her to focus more of her creative energy on her sex life. She claims she doesn't have any. I'm still not sure if that's really true, or if she's just unwilling to be open about it, but either way, I can't do any more than encourage her. I still keep trying, but she hasn't changed her response.
At one point I asked if she would be interested in having sex with another woman, either with or without me. She said she wasn't interested in being with a woman, but she was somewhat open to the idea of a threesome. Now she seems to have gone cold on that idea too.
Next I bought her a book called Becoming Orgasmic: A Sexual and Personal Growth Program for Women, by Julia Heiman, et al. This is, in my opinion, a great book and a worthy successor to Dr. Lonnie Barbach's classic, For Yourself: The Fulfillment of Female Sexuality, which was a great book in its time, but now somewhat dated. She started reading it but lost interest. I keep begging her to finish it, and she says she will, but she hasn't picked it up in months. You know what they about horses and water. :-/
Then I went to a sex therapist to discuss the situation and see if she had any ideas. She told me everything I was doing was appropriate, and if they weren't working, she needed to see a therapist. I tried to get my wife set up an appointment with her, but she kept "forgetting," then finally said she didn't want to.
All along I have tried to find out if she is depressed or if there is anything in our relationship that is making her unhappy. As far as I can tell she isn't depressed, and other than typical marital friction, nothing in our relationship is causing her stress. The only thing that seems potentially troubling is that she frequently believes I am angry with her for no apparent reason, or that, when I am angry, I will leave her. I honestly don't know where that comes from. I've always told her that I feel lucky to have her in my life and that I would never leave her. I have never threatened to leave her or even joked about it, but she still has this fear of abandonment. I don't see anything in her background to account for this: her parents are both living and still married, she was never abandoned in any serious relationship. I have to assume it has some relationship to a general insecurity or low self-esteem, but it isn't clear if this has anything to do with her sex drive. There are a lot of women with low self-esteem who are very highly sexually motivated. This is something a sex therapist would be better qualified to unravel than I am, but, as I said, she refuses to see one.
As far has herbs or medicines are concerned, I would discourage you from pursuing this for two reasons. First, I have to question the ethical justification of chemically manipulating another person's emotions, drives or priorities for your own interests. Second, I don't think any of the products out there that are touted as being effective actually work. If any of them have shown any efficacy at all, it is only via the placebo effect, whereby a putative treatment works only because the subject wants it to work. If your partner is anything like mine, the real problem isn't just a lack of interest in sex, but an unwillingness to perceive that lack of interest as being abnormal or undesirable--a lack of interest in having an interest in sex, if you will--so there is no raw material for a placebo effect to work on.
There is, currently, one promising medication undergoing clinical trials. If it is shown to be effective, I will encourage my wife to consider taking it, but the decision will have to be hers, so I don't hold out a lot of hope. I expect her to show the same indifference to medical treatment that she has for therapy. That's how she is, and I couldn't change her if I wanted to, and I don't want to because that's not my job.
When it's all said and done, we are both very fortunate to have these women in our lives. Nothing could ever replace the love we share, and although I'm not going to stop wanting sex until they scatter my ashes, I'm not going to stop loving this woman. I hope she will change for her sake--I want, more than anything on earth, for her to derive the same joy from making love that I do, but like so many things in life, there is nothing I can do, beyond what I am already doing, to bring that about, and so I will continue to try, wait, and hope.
I hope you will find something in what I've said helpful. As I said, just because they haven't worked for me, it doesn't mean they won't work for you. If they don't, all that I can offer is my moral support, and you're welcome to that.
Upton O'Goode,
Thank you very much for your information. I will look into getting Becoming Orgasmic: A Sexual and Personal Growth Program for Women, by Julia Heiman, et al. My girlfriend loves reading so maybe she will read it. As far as the medications and herbs go, I realize that it is her decision, but she has told me before that if I got her something she would take it, because she realizes that the lack of sex tears us apart. It doesn't tear us apart as in we are going to break up, but it makes us argue and become cold towards each other. I appreciate your openness and willingness to help. I agree that we are both very blessed to have these wonderful women in our lives. I honestly don't know if I would be alive if I didn't have her. Before I met her, I was very suicidal...she saved me.
Thanks again,
LinZ
Thank you very much for your information. I will look into getting Becoming Orgasmic: A Sexual and Personal Growth Program for Women, by Julia Heiman, et al. My girlfriend loves reading so maybe she will read it. As far as the medications and herbs go, I realize that it is her decision, but she has told me before that if I got her something she would take it, because she realizes that the lack of sex tears us apart. It doesn't tear us apart as in we are going to break up, but it makes us argue and become cold towards each other. I appreciate your openness and willingness to help. I agree that we are both very blessed to have these wonderful women in our lives. I honestly don't know if I would be alive if I didn't have her. Before I met her, I was very suicidal...she saved me.
Thanks again,
LinZ