huffingtonpost - 6 hours ago

Family Beef is our family and relationship advice column at HuffPost Family. Have a beef you want us to weigh in on? Submit it here.Dear Family Beef,My wife (43) and I (44) have been together for 11 years, married for three. We’ve always had a pretty consistent sex life, with a few slower or less active periods over the years: when our kids (6 and 9) were always sleeping in our bed, when my mother got sick, when my wife had a fracture. But they always felt like understandable circumstances where sex wasn’t the priority. I had my it was fine. Outside that, we’ve stuck with once a week or more pretty consistently. In this past year, we’ve had sex maybe four or five times. I am the one to initiate most of the time, and it feels like it wouldn’t happen if I didn’t. She says she’s tired or “isn’t feeling it” and asks for a rain check most of the time. I love my wife so much, and she’s my dream woman in every way and the best mother to our kids, but lately I feel like I’m annoying her by trying to show her how attracted I am to her.I did some Googling and ended up finding a Reddit dedicated to “dead bedrooms,” and it made me feel sick with how familiar it all sounded. Reading more, I decided to have a conversation with her and tried to emphasise how important our relationship is without sex but that our sex life is also important to me and how I want to figure out how to get us back on track. She said she didn’t think it was that big of a deal or that we were even off track, said the summer was busy and that small dry spells happen. She wasn’t unkind and told me that we’d find some time when the kids were at a sleepover. The weekend and sleepover came, and she said she was really tired and just wanted to watch a movie and relax, which we did instead. I was disappointed, but I don’t want to be that guy badgering his wife for sex. I guess I’m concerned that we won’t be able to solve the problem if she doesn’t admit we have one, and I can’t imagine living the rest of our marriage like this. How can we get out of this dry spell? Rising From The DeadDear Rising from the Dead, First, we’re glad you found r/deadbedrooms. When you have a seemingly niche personal problem, it’s reassuring to know that the issue is so widespread, there’s a whole subreddit dedicated to dealing with it.“Sexless marriage” was actually the top-searched marriage complaint on Google a few years back, according to data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. That subreddit you mentioned averages a whopping 161K visitors a week. No one is in the wrong when a couple’s sex life takes a nosedive. Life – kids, work, the general hellscape that is living in America – can get in the way of getting intimate at the end of a long day.  Give yourself some credit, though. It’s not at all easy to broach a subject like this – it puts you in a vulnerable position – but it sounds like you’ve mostly done it with tact and thoughtfulness, said Vanessa Marin, a sex therapist and author of Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life.“It sounds like you’re in a tough spot where your needs for intimacy aren’t being met, and you’re also feeling like your wife doesn’t see the same level of concern that you do,” she said. “That disconnect can be really painful, especially when you’re trying to communicate how much this matters to you.”Even if it didn’t lead to immediate change, it has opened the door for more dialogue, which is obviously key.“Your wife might genuinely not see this as a problem because her experience of intimacy or connection might feel different from yours,” Marin said. “That doesn’t mean your feelings aren’t valid, but it does mean that you’ll need to find a way to meet in the middle.”Cyndi Darnell, a sex therapist in New York, noticed one flaw in your approach, though. “I noticed that there’s not a whole lot of curiosity toward your wife in your letter,” Darnell said. “It’s: I love her so much. She’s my dream woman. She’s the best mother. But I feel like I’m annoying her. How do I show her I’m attracted ― that entire sentence is about you.”As the higher-libido spouse, it might be helpful to flip the script a bit and become curious about her. “Ask yourself: What’s going on for her, because for a lot of women, being a wife and a mother is an anti-aphrodisiac straight out of the box,” Darnell said. “This is really common when a woman is overworked, over touched, over needed and handling most of the emotional and mental labor of the household.” Ask yourself: What’s going on for her, because for a lot of women, being a wife and a mother is an anti-aphrodisiac straight out of the box,  said Cyndi Darnell, a sex therapist in New York.If this is where your wife’s head is at, look for opportunities to unburden her life so she’s got more time to relax, to feel herself. That doesn’t mean a weekend away with the girls having cocktails, either. “It means an actual change in how your domestic situation is structured, so she has more time to just be an adult human, to be a woman, to be a person like she used to be before she became a wife and a mother,” she said. “I think that this is really critical.”It might help to remind your wife that for you, this is about more than just getting off. It’s the closeness you crave, not just the orgasm. “Many women feel like their husbands want them ‘just for sex,’ but most men tell me they also highly value the closeness, affection, and emotional intimacy that comes from sex as well,” offered Kimberly Resnick Anderson, a sex therapist in Los Angeles. “If you fit into this category, it might be helpful to tell your wife that.” It may be something else entirely that’s impacting your wife’s sex drive, though, and you’ll have to have a second difficult conversation ― maybe even a series of them ― to find out what that is. It will feel less like badgering for you (and possibly for her) if you try to focus less on the “problem” and more on what you’re longing for, Marin said. “For example, instead of saying, ‘I feel like we’re in a dry spell,’ you could say, ‘I miss feeling close to you in that way, and I’d love for us to find ways to reconnect,’” she explained. Framing it as a desire for missed connection rather than a critique of what’s missing for you may help her feel less defensive and more open to exploring solutions collaboratively. Finally, remember that intimacy doesn’t have to start with sex.“Sometimes, focusing on non-sexual touch, quality time, or even just flirting can help rebuild that sense of closeness without the pressure of jumping straight back into a full-on sex life,” Marin said. “It’s about creating a foundation where you both feel seen, valued, and desired.”Related...Here s What Sex Therapists Want Couples In Sexless Marriages To Know10 Common Reasons For A Sexless Marriage, According To Sex TherapistsVanilla Sex Can Be Great, But These 5 Things Will Make It Steamier

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