Partner
has no more sexual desire
I've been in
a new relationship for over a year. For the first month, everything went
well. We made love frequently and sometimes several times a day, three or
four days a week. Then my partner found a new job and his libido started
to decline. Our love making dropped to two days a week and I was always the one who took the initiative. He attributed his declining interest to
his new job and to fatigue. After six months of seeing each other, we
moved in together. Our lovemaking suffered more decline and was reduced
to once a week and again, it came about because of my initiative. I
understand that he's tired, but we have every second weekend to ourselves when
the kids are not there. The weekends could be a wonderful opportunity for
us to enjoy making love. But the answer is usually no. He says he's
too tired or he has to do this or that. I get the impression that he
wriggles out of it. He says he loves me but doesn't show it much. He's not
attentive, he's not affectionate and he doesn't try very hard to please me.
He's not too kind to me and he rarely talks about our future. He
doesn't make me feel desirable and I miss making love. In the past two
months, we've made love only once a month and I have been the one to insist on
it. He tells me that sex is not very important to him. Do you think
a therapist can help us?
A important stress, such as the one that may be experienced toward a new job, can lead to a lessening of sexual desire. For men, work is often linked to feelings of masculinity and job-related worries can have a negative influence on these feelings. These worries may, at their turn, bring a man to become anxious about his capacities to perform sexually and, by consequence, his sexual desire will diminish.
However, the lessening of sexual desire in your partner seems to be
rather associated with the natural tendencies that develop when a man and woman decide
to live as a couple. As your life together becomes more concrete, sexual
desire (at least in your partner's case) seems to dwindle in comparison to
earlier stages of your relationship as a couple.
For some men, the explanation for diminished sexual desire is found in a fear of intimacy and bonding, (a fear which is often as great as the desire to share intimacy and experience moments of bonding). At the outset of a relationship, these men can more easily feel free to express their desire for intimacy and bonding because the relationship is still in the stages of being only a project.
But as the couple grows as a unit, the man's fear of suffocating within the relationship becomes greater than the desire for intimacy. These men unconsciously grow away from the partner, which results in reduced desire for sexual intimacy with her.
Sexual desire is easily felt at the start of a relationship because the man has not yet established a loving bond with the new partner and he can allow himself to be sexual with her. But, as the love feeling intensifies, the woman is seen as a pure and asexual "mother" in the man's mind. This cuts the man's sexual desire for her.
Sex counseling could
actually be helpful in overcoming these difficulties. It is, however, essential
that your partner acknowledges that there is a problem and that he wishes to
find a solution for it. Without his participation, there is very little hope
that you will find a satisfying solution to the problem.