Practically newly-weds, and I'm ready to give up

[Bagheera]

Near to the End wrote:

I suppose the root question here, and the one potato needs to consider is to what degree and to what acceptable level their sex drives can be reconciled. It is a far shot from a 2-3 per day and 1 per month or less standard. That is an incrdible amount of ground to cover.

I think that a compromise level CAN be reached, provided that the couple fix all (or most) of the other problems in the marriage. As Michael J. Bader (author of Arousal) writes: Sexual arousal -- or more often, its decline -- is the first sign of problems in a relationship, the proverbial "canary in a coal mine."

In my own case, our sex-starved marriage was primarily a reflection of a basic gender difference: that most women need to feel a strong, loving, emotional connection before they feel the desire for a physical connection (i.e. an emotional connection is the pathway to sex). Take away that emotional connection for some reason, and the desire for physical intimacy is the first thing to go. She may even continue to masturbate when you aren't around to satisfy herself, but without that emotional connection, and especially if your relationship is strained, your touch may repulse her. At one point, my connection to my wife had deteriorated to the point that she claimed she could go the rest of her life without sex.

As a male, your wiring is, in general, completely the opposite: most men need to have an intimate physical connection before they feel the desire for a strong emotional connection (i.e. sex is the pathway to an emotional connection). It took more than 20 years, but my wife now fully understands that I don't really feel loved, nor can I fully express my love for her without that physical connection.

Even when we are feeling angry and distant from our wives (avoiding an emotional connection), men can feel the desire for sex, sometimes to an even higher degree than previously, because we are yearning to repair that connection to our wives and reestablish our loving feelings. At the same time, our wives are completely befuddled by this physical desire of ours, because they are reacting in quite the opposite fashion to the strained marital relationship: no emotional connection, no desire for sex. So the lack of sex gets added to the list of grievances, and things spiral even further downhill.

Now, I'm speaking pretty generically here, and to my own case in particular, but I've witnessed that a woman's desire for sex can undergo a dramatic upswing IF the other aspects of the marriage relationship begin to get fixed. Trust has to be rebuilt, old grievances addressed, and a strong emotional connection reestablished, BUT it can be done -- my wife and are in the process of doing it. It's not easy (at all), and it takes time, patience, and a lot of love and understanding on the part of both partners, but, as I've said before, if both partners share the responsibility for the damage, and then set about repairing it, there are good chances for success.

Best regards,

Bagheera