Seriosuly mixmatched sex drives diving me crazy

LegacyUser

I’ve been with my girlfriend for nearly 9 months and it’s a near perfect relationship. We adore eachother, we never fight and get on so so well, love seeing eachother every time we can, every weekend and maybe once during the week. Now a problem has arisen and it’s becoming a big issue for me. Turns out I have a significantly higher sex drive than she does. At the start of the relationship it was never a problem – we had fantastic sex – a good few times each weekend. A few months in and it lessened but now it’s getting a lot worse. She’s very beautiful and sexy and like any man would I want to have sex a lot – I’m not talking rabbits but in a fri/sat/sun weekend, is 2-3 times unreasonable? She seems to be content with once a week right now, and does not particularly have a desire for any more.

Sometimes she’ll be all over me kissing and cuddleing (we’re very affectionate) getting hot and heavy, but when I want to progress to the bedroom etc she doesn’t. I really don’t like being tempted with it and then having it taken away from me, it can put me into a bad mood, and this does not help. She also drives me nuts as she absolutely will not have sex if there is another person in the house, either hers or mine, despite there being almost no chance another person would hear us. I think this is a bit silly and it’s very frustrating for me.

We had a chat about it this weekend and she got upset as she feels bad about essentially denying me of a normal sex life. I love her dearly but I am a very sexual person and long term this is going to cause serious problems for me. I don’t know if I can commit myself to a lifelong relationship with someone who has little interest in sex. So I have to fix this, I need to try to get her back to normal levels.

I’ve tried to see if there is anything I can do but she assures me I’m not the problem – I do everything right and she loves the sex when she is in the mood etc. I think it stems from a past relationship which she was not treated very well. She said he would demand sex after arguments etc – or go partying for 3 days with no contact and then come back and expect sex. She hated this and did not trust him and would just close up. Towards the end they only had sex once a month. She’s reluctant to open up about it, but I’m a very eay and open person and I want her to be totally honest with me

I think I need to get her professional help on this, someone to talk to properly and see if she can get rid of some fo these issues.
Has anyone else ever had this problem and can you fix it? What would you suggest I do? If I am to get professional help how do I go about it?

Thanks for reading. Advice appreciated.

LegacyUser

The not wanting to have sex when someone else is in the house is understandable. Some people are very private about their sex lives.

If she gets all hot and heavy then stops, it could be something you are doing. She gets all romantic and you start pushing for sex. She could see it as you more wanting sex rather than her.

I wouldn't be so quick to suggest professional help. Maybe more tact and romance on your part would be the best idea.

S23

sbf222 wrote: »

We had a chat about it this weekend and she got upset as she feels bad about essentially denying me of a normal sex life. I love her dearly but I am a very sexual person and long term this is going to cause serious problems for me. I don’t know if I can commit myself to a lifelong relationship with someone who has little interest in sex. So I have to fix this, I need to try to get her back to normal levels.

Whether her issues are real or imagined you need to get over the bit I have in bold there. You're going to 'fix' her and get her back to 'normal levels'. I hate to break it to you but there is absolutely no such thing as a 'normal level'. Different people have different sex drives.

For her only wanting sex once a week could well be perfectly normal. She may always have felt this way after the intial burst of passion at the start of a relationship passes. So there is every chance thats just the way she is. It's not about fixing her or making her 'normal' again. It may be just who she is.

Now, that said, maybe she does have some issue from past relationship(s). However, I wouldn't be trying to drag her off to seek professional help right away. Its not the answer to everything. Yep this lad she was with sounds like an p*ick but that doesn't nessicarily mean she'd be good to go for sex all the time if she could get over the emotional scars of being so badly treated. She may still not have as high a sex drive as you regardless.

An one other thing. You say you see her at the weekends and maybe once during the week and you've been going out 9 months. To be honest, and this is just my own opinion/experience, only seeing each other at weekends is what couples who are just messing about do at the beginning of a relationship. Its easy to see someone at the weekend when its all partying and fun and its your down time. However, usually as the relationship develops people spend more 'standard' (for the want of a better description) time together.

Maybe the problem for her is her lower sex drive coupled with the fact that everytime you see her you seem to want sex? I mean you are saying 3 times a weekend should be a normal figure. So lets say you are only seeing her Fri/Sat/Sun of a particular week. That pretty much means you are trying to engage in sex with her every day of the weekend.

Maybe, be it subconscious or whatever, she feels like after 9 months of a relationship your main focus is just seeing her and 'having some fun' rather than the relationship progressing. She might be thinking all you want to do is meet her at the weekends, have some fun and have get down to shagging. And while sex is obviously a big part of any relationship she may view yours as just being about messing around.

Its just an idea, though, and as I don't really know your circumstances I could be miles off. All I will say is that while your girlfriend may actually have some underlying issues with her p*ick of an ex it certainly doesn't sound to me like she's in desperate need of councelling.

And I find it worrying that you are in such a rush to get her to see someone so your problem (and it is only your problem) of not getting enough sex can be 'fixed' and your girlfriend can be made 'normal' as far as sex goes.

LegacyUser

Thanks for the replies. S23 as you say its hard to advise when you don't know the whole picture, I did not want to write pages but I'll try to expand a bit to be more clear...

I love her very much, she is the one for me and I want to spend the rest of my life with her - and she knows that I've told her many times before. Yes I have a high sex drive but its probably higher because of just how into her I am - I really do fancy the pants off her and its a perfectly natural thing to want to be intimate often. I'm not all over her all the time - its not like I expect it as soon as I see her or anything, but when the time is appropriate I cannot help myself. We live quite far from eachother so we can't see eachother as much as we'd like. We talk every day and we spend the entire weekend together generally, and I try to make the journey to see her one night a week - she does not drive so its as good as we can do for now.

The reason I mentioned professional help - is actually because she suggested it the other day when we had the chat about it. I get the impression that she herself feels she should want more sex than she actually does - and would like to be at my level but does not for whatever reason. A while back she stopped about 1/4 way into having sex and said she did not want to, for no aparent reason. She promised it was nothing to do with me, but for some reason sometimes she just didn't want to anymore. She said "I don't know what's wrong with me, this happens sometimes, I don't know why, I'm sorry to do this to you". To me this spells bigger problems than we can resolve just by talking to eachother, so if professional help is the way to go then we are both open to it.

In relation to 'fixing her' and 'normal levels' - 'fixing' was a bad choice of words. I want to help her with this issue in any way I can, it affects both of us and is quite literally the only problem we've ever had in our relationship, we have never had a single fight or argument or issue, bar this. It affects me and my attitude towards the relationship so I'm not just going to sweep it under the carpet. She would also like to have a higher sex drive to match mine, it's not just me.

"Normal Levels" though, I will disagree. The majority of young fit healthy twentysomethings would generally have a lot more sex than this, once a week would be considered not very much/normal for young hot virile people. I've discussed this with a few friends and all of them have way way more sex than this. Disregarding that, the problem is there is a big difference between our levels of desire and that leaves me frustrated - but also her feeling bad - I do not want her to feel this way - but I don't think it's reasonable to expect me to be happy with once a week. The cliche says this happens after 5-10 years with kids, definitely not this soon.

For now I will make a bigger effort with Romance etc and talk to her more regularily about it, try to see if there is anything I can do. But if anyone has any other suggestions I'd be most appreciative.

Ickle Magoo

I'm not sure you can do anything apart from let your gf know how your feeling and why and to ask that she does the same. It could be that you do have a mis-matched sex drive and you need to get inventive and find ways around that, it could be that not having the privacy of your own place is inhibiting your gfs desires.

There really aren't any "normal" sex drives. They vary enormously and wanting sex every day or at every meeting could definitely be off-putting as an unsaid expectation. Perhaps agree to stop the sex side of things, try concentrating on other aspects of your relationship, take the pressure of her and see if she starts to initiate?

LegacyUser

sbf222 wrote: »

"Normal Levels" though, I will disagree. The majority of young fit healthy twentysomethings would generally have a lot more sex than this, once a week would be considered not very much/normal for young hot virile people. I've discussed this with a few friends and all of them have way way more sex than this. Disregarding that, the problem is there is a big difference between our levels of desire and that leaves me frustrated - but also her feeling bad - I do not want her to feel this way - but I don't think it's reasonable to expect me to be happy with once a week. The cliche says this happens after 5-10 years with kids, definitely not this soon.

For now I will make a bigger effort with Romance etc and talk to her more regularily about it, try to see if there is anything I can do. But if anyone has any other suggestions I'd be most appreciative.

Hey OP, im afraid i have to disagree with the above, it's a well known fact that people of any age all have different sex drives. TBH it sounds like you're pushing the issue with her too much. I'm a girl of the same age and if my BF kept making an issue out of me not wanting sex it would start to annoy me and i would find it off-putting (much as i love him). As you say, you only meet at weekends so in actual fact you are expecting sex everyday you meet, which as someone said above is maybe putting a bit too much pressure on her. Not everyone is in the mood all the time and while it mat be frustrating for you, there isn't a lot you can do about it. Why don't you try just the romance side of things the next weekend you meet and let HER initiate sex if she wants to.
Do the kissing/ cudding thing without pressuring her for sex, it can be just as nice sometimes! You getting annoyed after kissing and cuddling does not show you in a good light.

InTheTrees

Does anyone remember that Woody Allen movie Banannas?

There's a scene where he and diane keaton are talking to their therapists seperatly.

He's saying: "She's frigid, there's something wrong with her, she hates sex, i'm lucky if we have it three times a week."

And she's saying: "He's a maniac, he's obsessed, there's something wrong with him, we're doing it three times a week".

The very nature of men and women means its very common for their to be a discrepancy.

The solution is frequent gift giving and failing that on-your-knees groveling.

StillWaters

sbf222 wrote: »

Sometimes she’ll be all over me kissing and cuddleing (we’re very affectionate) getting hot and heavy, but when I want to progress to the bedroom etc she doesn’t. I really don’t like being tempted with it and then having it taken away from me, it can put me into a bad mood, and this does not help.

This is the part that struck me OP. Sometimes women just want physical affection, the kisses, hugs and kisses without it leading to sex. Its not her 'tempting' you. Its just her being affectionate. If you then get in a 'bad mood', grumpy, angry, whatever, I can understand how this leads to her not wanting sex with you.

WesternNight

StillWaters wrote: »

This is the part that struck me OP. Sometimes women just want physical affection, the kisses, hugs and kisses without it leading to sex. Its not her 'tempting' you. Its just her being affectionate. If you then get in a 'bad mood', grumpy, angry, whatever, I can understand how this leads to her not wanting sex with you.

Indeed. Sometimes we want to mess around without it leading to actual sex. For a number of reasons. If she feels that she can't kiss you without you expecting more then she's probably not even going to bother doing that anymore. And eventually sex just becomes less appealing in general because it can become unintentionally pressurising.

Shelga

"Women need to feel loved to have sex, and men need to have sex to feel loved!"

Dunno how true that is in general, but seems to apply in this case.