Hello. I am new to this forum, but not new to The Sex-Starved Marriage book. I read this book last year, and had hopes that my husband would read it and hopefully try to improve our sex life, but that didn't happen. He and I still have a very unfulfilling sex life. My answers to the questions are below:
How did it start? When did you notice it?
Honestly, even when my husband and I were dating, we didn't have an active sex life. It took us 7 months after we began dating to have our first sexual encounter. While waiting wasn't so bad, as during that time, we got to know each other quite well on a friendship level, initially the sex was really bad. I had to basically let him know that oral sex was the best way to satisfy me sexually and kind of teach him how to go about it. He wasn't open to it, but eventually, he started doing it, and the sex between us began to improve a bit. After we got married, the sex actually got better! I mean, REAAALLLL GOOD for both of us; however, we still weren't having sex but a few times a year.
What sorts of problems does it create in your marriage...in your life?
I've noticed that there's a lot of tension and restlessness in our lives, and I think this could be resolved if we had sex more often. Last year was the worst year between us. I lost my job, became depressed, and gained a HUGE amount of weight, and I am still struggling with my weight. As a matter of fact, my husband claimed that my weight was part of the reason we weren't having sex as often. I think that he was sort of truthful about that, but not 100%. He's overweight, too, and I don't have an issue with it. I still think he's very sexy, and I am still sexually attracted to him. We are both working on losing weight, now, though, but still no sex. We almost separated, but I guess we weren't ready to do that yet. We did have one session with a marriage counselor, but never went back due to lack of insurance and finance issues.
Also, my husband has type II diabetes, and the illness got pretty bad last year, and this may be part the issue why our sex life pretty much came to a halt last year. The couple of times we did try to attempt sex last year, he was unable to "keep it up." On a side note, we are not having children. We simply don't want any. I am sterilized with Essure, and he finally went to a urologist to talk not only about getting a vasectomy, but also about his ED problem. The urologist gave him a sample of "the blue pill," but he doesn't want to take it, and honestly, I don't want him to, either, but something has to change. Maybe he can take half of one and see what happens. At any rate, while he and I do a lot of touching, kissing, hugging and all of that, but this does not replace sex. Not by a long shot. When we do have sex, as I wrote above, it really is great, so I don't understand why we just can't get going here more often than I would like. More than likely, we need to return to marital counseling, too, but that has to come when we can afford it.
I feel that I am at my sexual peak, and I am highly sexually frustrated and partake in a lot of "self-pleasure" activities. He knows I am sexually frustrated, but now, because of the ED issue, we haven't even bothered attempting having sex. I don't know how he deals with it - maybe by not thinking about it or just channeling the feelings into something else.
I have had the feeling that he should love me no matter what my weight, but I did weigh a lot less when we met, and I know he was attracted to me then and we may have had a little more sex then. Oh, well, I am hoping that his seeing that I am working on losing weight as well as an upcoming getaway weekend next month will help jump-start our sex life again.
ETA: Not only does our lack of sex make me feel restless, I feel very unattractive, I have become rather untrustworthy of my husband because I am often wondering if he's not getting sex from me, is he trying to get it from another woman, and also I have wondered if he is secretly gay or bisexual. It's sad, but true. Good sex can sometimes cover over or even help get rid of a mountain of bad feelings, and when it doesn't happen, the feelings just sit there in your gut and get worse.
