Family Forum / Marriage / Marriage / March 2007

There are a couple of things that could be the problem: maybe she is
suffering from depression which will decrease your sex drive, Was she
a virgin before you? Maybe guilt is stopping her or its simply some
women dont like sex and feel its degrating. In any case it may not
hurt to suggest viagra for women. I have suffered from depression for
a long time and Im not happy with my husband so the thought of sex
makes me ill. Prozac has helped a little for me but I just started
taking them.

My guess is that there's a lot more going on here than meets the eye.
For one thing, she's pregnant, and you don't say whether this started
before or after the pregnancy, but it's always possible that it's
related.

More likely to me is that either there's something going on with her,
or there's something that happened during your illness that changed
something fundamental about the way that she feels about you/relates
to you, and that she can't or doesn't want to get past it.

Did this start when she became pregnant or before?

If, as you imply here, it started a few years ago and as a result of
your mental issues, then you to need to get it sorted out, I am guessing
in therapy together. She hasn't forgiven you, or is scared to trust you
or something.

This alone can cause real physiological issues for a woman.

Very long --- not:)  "very" long is not visiting my girlfriends house
for 8 months until our relationship appeared to have permanency, so as
not to affect her 6yr old son; then dating for another year, never
staying at her home until after marriage.

I only suspect your emotional issues had a derogatory effect on her and
how she viewed the relationship.  You better have a sit down with her.

You realized? or you were formally diagnosed by a highly qualified
psychologist or psychiatrist, and on med's?  There's a big difference

How did having sex with her make you feel better?  {shaking head}

I don't think sex is the issue - the cause is deeply rooted elsewhere,
lacking interest in sex is only the effect.

<snip>

It sounds on the surface of things there are several different issues going
on, some of which appear to contradict your claims in your opening sentences
of how happy you are together. Also, in your title, you call your problem a
"little" one...but your new bride not liking sex anymore doesn't sound like
a "little" problem to me.

I'll give you an example of a "little problem" in a marriage. Yesterday, I
did a big load of laundry. Some of it got put away fairly soon, but I
couldn't finish folding all of it right away, so I put off the rest until
later. I had the clothes on the bed I share with my husband--it's a queen
size. My husband was very nice to come in and begin helping me work on
folding, w/o me even asking. Anyway, I needed to use the bathroom first and
went in for a few minutes. When I came out, my husband was attempting to
fold one of our queen-size sheets by himself. When I fold the sheets, I
always get him or someone else to help me because I find the sheet doesn't
fold well when one person does it. My husband knows this as we've been
folding sheets together for more than two decades.

Anyway, I re-enter the bedroom to find my husband having spread the sheet
out completely on the floor at the foot of the bed. He did this so he could
fold it by himself. Now the bedroom floor is relatively clean--I vacuumed it
the day before I did the laundry. Still, it's the floor and this is a sheet
that's going to go on the bed I sleep on, eventually, and it was just
freshly laundered a few hours before. There were still many clothes piled on
the bed yet to be folded, so it's not like he couldn't have worked on those
things until I returned from the bathroom, when he could then enlist my help
in folding the sheets properly.

I didn't yell...not a bit. But there was irritation and surprise in my
voice, no doubt, when I questioned him as to why he was doing this. But I
never raised my voice, and I can imagine a great many wives who would over
this. I could see right away he was really put out that I would imply any
criticism of his actions. I asked him why he didn't wait until I came out of
the bathroom to work on the sheet folding, so that we could do it together,
properly, rather than lay a freshly laundered sheet on the floor so he could
fold it by himself. I could barely believe my ears when he replied, "Well, I
didn't know what you were doing exactly, so I didn't know how long you'd
be."

So I said, "But did you think it was possible I'd be in the bathroom
permanently? That I'd never come out and there would never be anyone to fold
the sheet with you? You couldn't work on folding the other clothes first
while I was in the bathroom?" Instead of attempting to explain himself
further--because he couldn't, because he must've realized how little sense
what he did made--he got all bent out of shape and indignant and dropped
what he had in his hand on the bed, saying, "Fine. Fold your own laundry!"
and he stalked off all huffy, leaving me to finish folding laundry
completely by myself. He really acted like I had no right to question his
choice of laying a clean sheet out on the floor to fold it alone rather than
wait a couple of minutes for me to return from the bathroom. I would like to
add here that my husband took some logic tests in college for different
disciplines and he scored 100% on all. He got every question right. Yet his
logic went completely out the window and down the street for a beer when it
came to something as simple and ordinary as folding laundry.

Now some people might say I'm lucky to have a husband who even helps with
folding laundry, and w/o me having to ask. So their position woiuld be I
have no problem. But how helpful is it to have this kind of "help"? My
problem is, my husband is somewhat weird. He does some weird things. This is
just one example, but I have lots of these. And if I ever call him on any of
these weird things he does, he can't hear it. Probably it embarrasses him
because when I call it to his attention, he must realize it's weird. But he
won't admit it. Rather he acts hurt and offended and wronged and stalks off,
indignant. And I end up folding my laundry alone anyway. And I had to get
someone else to help me finish folding the sheets. In most other ways, I
have no complaints. He's a good guy, he's good tempered. He rarely raises
his voice to me or says anything hurtful. He works hard and makes a good
living. He pays the bills on time and he never gives me a hard time about
what I spend on myself. He's a good father. He's got a great sense of humor.
He helps around the house. He doesn't drink or smoke. He doesn't look at
pornography or leer at women. He doesn't hang out in bars. He's nice to my
family and my friends. There are many pluses, I know---probably more than
the average woman's husband has. But he is kind of weird. And does he weird
things. And I have to live with that because I don't see any possibility
that he'll change.

So that's what I'd call a "little problem" in a marriage. Sex is a big
problem though. So let's get back to you.

First, it's fairly common for women to lose interest in sex during
pregnancy. Lots of husbands complain about this. Her body is going through a
lot of changes, she may be tired or not always feeling well. Sex might even
be uncomfortable for a while. As a pregnancy progresses, most couples find
alternative ways to gratify each other besides intercourse. You don't say
when your wife's aversion to sex began. Is it very recent? Since the
pregnancy? If so, it's a good bet her issues with sex right now are related
to the pregnancy. The bad news is, it's probably not going to get a lot
better very soon after the baby is born. In fact, it will probably get worse
before it gets better. A new baby demands a huge amount of time and
attention from its parents, especially the mother. Her body will be
recovering from childbirth, and if she's nursing, this will put a lot of
extra demands on her body as well. You will be sleep-deprived for some time.
It's going to take quite a while before you and she adjust to the rhythm of
having this new, very demanding little person in your life.

You say something about you had sex with her while you were going through
this rough period before you were married and that this "scared her". I
don't understand. Why did the sex scare her? When you say you had sex with
her to "feel better" does this mean you didn't have sex otherwise? If so,
what "good times" are you comparing your present, lean times to? From other
things you say, though, it sounds like you and she did have active sexual
relations before marriage. It would be important, I think, to pinpoint when
you became aware things had changed with the two of you, sexually. If the
change feels to you since the pregnancy, my guess is, her decline in desire
and interest is probably related to the pregnancy, which is, as I said,
pretty common. I would say be patient and try to be understanding, loving
and supportive. Don't push things, but try to create romantic moments when
you can, doing little romantic, sweet things for her. Hopefully, this may
help her feel good about you, and both of you together, which may increase
her interest in the physical side of the relationship.

But if this loss of interest you describe dates back to before the
pregnancy, or even before the marriage, then I'd say you have a much bigger
problem. It sounds like much bigger, more complicated issues are going on.
If the "bloom is off the rose", so to speak, this soon into the marriage,
that's a serious warning sign. If her loss in interest has been going on
longer than the pregnancy, I think you need more than "insights" from
well-meaning (usually, anyway) strangers in an internet forum. I think you
may need the guidance of a competent professional--a marriage counselor, w/
preferrably a specialization in sexual dysfunction--to help you and your
wife sort through the various, complex issues here.

When a person is going to have only one sex partner the rest of his or her
life, sexual compatability is a paramount concern--meaning, it's importance
can't be over-emphasized. What you're describing is not a small difference
in appetite and interest. It's like the two of you are night and day. If the
cause of this is more than the pregnancy, you two need to get that sorted
out, and soon. You've got a baby on the way now, so the stakes are a lot
higher. You don't want your child to grow up with divorced parents, if it
can be helped. Neither do you want a child growing up in a home where the
mother and father live together but are making each other miserable, and the
child eventually figures out mom and dad are suffering each other mostly for
me (the kid), so I won't be in a broken home. That's no favor to a kid
either.

I wish you the best. It's tough having problems like this so early in a
marriage. This should be a happy time for both of you.

Kimmy