Quote: I noticed that when when you talk about the solution to this problem, you talk about schedules. There is no mention of fixing desire. How do you plan to fix the desire issue or is that not an issue?
Cemar, having a schedule and a goal to heal the relationship provides a fertile ground for sexual desire to grow.
NOP has described the process we went through. From one of his posts in 2004 entitled Return to Passion":
"Hi, folks.
I am revisiting this thread because of all the questions past and present regarding desire. I think that I am beginning to understand it a wee bit better now.
In my early posts, I like many others here, decried the lack of desire and passion in my marriage. I thought up all kinds of scenario that would encompass impassioned lovemaking and desire. I just couldn't understand why my wife could so ignore desire in her life. I couldn't fathom a life devoid of desire and passion.
As it turns out. My wife did have passion and desire about a lot of things in life - just not about sex with me. The reasons are as I suspected, simple, but couldn't wrap my mind around them.
My wife's passion toward life is not like mine. She loves her flower garden, but she doesn't want to wander naked through it while gazing soulfully into a crystal. That just isn't her. She loves her garden, and is passionate about it's contents, but if a few weeds spring up, she will get them out - in a day or four.
If I were an impassioned gardener, I would do all the normal things, water, plant, fertilize, tend the soil, but I would also, study religiously about each plant, sit up late at night and worry about insects or try to watch the plants grow.
Obviously, there are different levels of passion. The same thing is true of desire.
MrsNOP and I were talking about passion and desire just yesterday. I told her that I thought I had begun to understood the difference between the two in our relationship since we now have evidence of both in our lovemaking.
For us, passion is humping like bunnies because I got particularly turned on because of her intense orgasm, or laughing hard because of a 'router' comment due to us losing 'sync' while going at it (tech guys might appreciate that one).
Desire, the other thing I so longed for in my life was right in front of me in the form of my naked wife. I just hadn't seen it. It wasn't because she was being passionate during our lovemaking, it was because for the last year or better, she has consistently WANTED to be there naked with me. The desire to be there keeps growing stronger in her.
Technique, or even raw passion, does not equal desire in a relationship. Both spouses have to want to be there.
Since my wife and I have been working on our relationship, we continue to enjoy a close relationship, and a close emotional connection. The longer we have maintained that connection, the more obvious desire has become. After all the searching and the anger, the lost pride and the tears, I finally find that I am indeed wanted, and in the way I so needed to be wanted.
My wife desires me sexually, and I desire to be with her in places that are as important to her as my need for sex. Her desire may not be as strong as mine, but I have no doubt whatsoever that it is as deep as mine. That is why I am becoming more sure that the delineation between HD/LD becomes blurred in a properly functioning relationship.
So far, the most interesting thing about the nature of desire is that it becomes a "you feed me/I feed you loop" when properly functioning.
I am sorry if this post is a bit murky. I am still working to fully understand the workings of passion and desire in our relationship. I am posting this in a preliminary attempt to help others.
