Sounds like your W is both psychologically and physiologically healthy and that you two just have different SD's. Her libido is just lower than yours. The way her SD operates is just different from yours. She is engaging in sex with you and does get aroused after things get started. Both you and she are within normal parameters. The need for something more than intercourse to achieve O is not abnormal. The need for more external lubrication as she gets older (even if she's in her 30's) is not abnormal. The arousal after things get going is a normal variation in SD. It taking longer, as she gets older, is not abnormal. (Getting older DOES cause changes as much as we might like for it not to ) She isn't denying you sex. She is enjoying sex (?). She hasn't discounted or invalidated your need for sex (?). She's willing to look for medical issues, which may be nonexistent, to try to change her SD to be more like yours. HDsocal, could it be time to say "We're just different. Let's relax and enjoy the sex, however it happens...as long as it keeps happening."

It's even possible that trying to figure out why she's different from you and how she can change to be more like you could be something of a constriction on her already lower libido, in and of itself. Her SD is under a microscope being analyzed and critiqued.

Keep the sex happening in your M, but maybe loosen up on trying to change how her SD operates. That seems like courting frustration and dissatisfaction. If SHE wants to look for ways to change her SD, let her. Your part might be to work on getting okay within yourself with how her SD actually does work. It's just the way her body works. As long as there is sex!

I think Michelle tries to make this point in SSM as well when she describes the different but normal ways that SD's work. And how sex means different things to different people...all normal. The difficulty often seems in accepting these differences, finding loving ways to work things out while accepting the differences.

Hey, you may even have a better situation than mine in keeping the sex going! Both my SO and I are desire after arousal types. Which doesn't necessarily mean less desire for sex, just a whole different dynamic in how it all happens!