[Acesup]

I apologize for sounding like a creeper being a guy asking women a question about perimenopause and sex online. But my wife won’t talk about the situation or do anything about it and to be honest she has never been willing to have much open communication with me about sex which makes it hard for me. I’m trying to be patient understanding husband but the situation and most importantly her attitude towards it is killing me, destroying my self esteem and killing the connection in our marriage. So I’m hoping other women can help me understand and maybe learn what to do to save our marriage and sex life.

My wife has always been VERY sexually repressed and uptight. Not being mean but she is the only woman I’ve ever met who claims to not like receiving oral so she never lets me go down on her. And she claims to not like foreplay and that all she likes is straight to penetration intercourse with no warmup. So yeah she is super restrictive with her limits. I try my best to respect them but as you might guess it makes it hard to get her to orgasm with what she lets me do with her which is super frustrating and humiliating for me. Want to satisfy her and get her off so much.

She is 45 and my main concern now is that she has been saying she is perimenopausal since she was about 38. That has been her reason for her constantly declining and constantly getting more restrictive sex drive towards me. I have no reason to doubt she is peri now at 45 she has some symptoms, irregular periods etc. But she refuses to get blood test to actually measure her hormones so she hasn’t been like officially diagnosed. And she refuses to talk to any doctor about HRT or anything else she could try to help her with symptoms and help her recover some libido and help her enjoy our sex life again. Doctor gave her progesterone cream once to try she wouldn’t try it.

Basically her reason for refusing to do anything about it is her attitude is “it is what it is” that she’s peri and her sex drive is gone for rest of her life and there is nothing anybody can do about it nothing that can help so why bother trying and I should just shut up and accept an increasingly sexless passionless marriage.

I think it’s her attitude that hurts me more than anything. She acts like she doesn’t miss it and doesn’t even care enough to try or fight to keep something alive between us. That attitude that our physical intimacy doesn’t even mean enough to her to make any effort to save even a little bit of it, that attitude is destroying me inside.

I understand the physiology of hormones and menopause but I just have a hard time believing it’s just a death sentence for all women and that no woman over 45 likes having sex with her husband anymore and there is just nothing medicine or therapy or anybody can do to even make it a little better. They just doesn’t seem true. I know plenty of women way older than my wife and they still want to have sex with their partner. If she made the effort to fight for it and even if it didn’t help much but she was able to recover a little sex drive towards me I think I would be so thankful for her at least trying I’d be able to meet her wherever she ended up on the sex drive spectrum. But that attitude that she doesn’t care and won’t even make the effort to try anything, I am really struggling to live with that attitude.

So I guess to all the women out there help me understand better please. Am I being unreasonable? Is there really nothing that can help and no point in even trying? Is peri just a death sentence for our sex life and no matter how good a husband I try to be to her we are now doomed to an increasingly sexless passionless marriage until she totally shuts down and we become roommates. Is there something I can suggest, something I can do to help her and be more supportive without just totally giving up any hope of getting to satisfy my wife again.

I am really lost in all this so any help is appreciated.

[Wednesday L.F.]

Wow, that is rough. I feel your pain. For a long time my husband had a low libido, which I interpreted as him already being bored of me. My self-esteem nose-dived, especially since my relationship was the best thing I had going in life at the time. But I digress.

It does sound like being pre-menopausal is contributing to her lack of interest. She might unknowingly be gay or asexual which may lead her to see sex as a chore rather than a joy.

Among the things couples often try are watching porn together, seeking counseling, or opening up the marriage to include outside partners. It sounds like your wife may be uncomfortable with her body and sex in general. Or there may be a health or medication-related issue that impedes her interest in sex.

Do you and she have any regular physical contact outside of sex? If she doesn’t like foreplay, it may be that she’s feeling pressured. I know that if I can’t have an orgasm with my husband, I feel like I’m disappointing him too. I suggest non-sexual physical affection like back rubs or foot massages with as little sexual overtone as possible. Becoming comfortable with physical affection separately from sex can help. That may also clarify what’s causing her lack of interest (while many couples compromise when interests are incompatible, not all couples can) and whether or not the problem is fixable.

I hope that you’ve impressed on your wife how important this is to you, and how a lack of fulfilling sex impacts you emotionally. A loving partner should care about that and work with you to find solutions. I wish you the best of luck.

[Acesup]

Thanks Wednesday. Appreciate your help. Good to know I am not being totally crazy and unreasonable for being hurt and having a problem with this.

She is definitely not gay. Even lesbian scenes on Netflix make her uncomfortable and since thought of anybody going down on her disgusts her for whatever reason I can’t fathom she’d be a terrible lesbian if she was gay. Asexual you might have a point. But there is still a sexual being in there. Every now and then when she’s a little drunk or for whatever reason gets out of her own freaking head and gives herself permission to enjoy sex I can usually make her cum hard multiple times even despite her limits. It’s just so hard and few and far between when she gets like that but when she does she’s the hottest woman I’ve ever met and our sexual chemistry is fire.

yes most of the time she treats sex as a chore which really hurts me. I’ve told her I’ll do anything she likes sexually except for other people being involved. Other than that she can have anything and I’ve worked hard to find her buttons, she just usually stops me from pushing them or has the attitude that her enjoying sex is gross and it’s just about getting me off. I can’t reach her when she won’t let herself be reached. But when she does I can get her off hard. Thats what crazy she knows we can have good sex and we do but she like forces me to be boring and unsatisfying most of the time and then complains it doesn’t feel good. Yeah no kidding if you don’t let me do any foreplay and want me to just stick it in. That’s not going to feel good. She forces me to be what so many women complain their husbands are like, boring unsatisfying and just all abbot getting themselves off and pounding like a piece of meat. I don’t want to be like that. I’m forced to.

Yeah our non sexual physical touch has gone to hell too. She doesn’t like being massaged at all even foot rubs. What woman doesn’t want a massage for gods sake. She got mad at me for putting my arm around her at a concert says she basically doesn’t like to be touched anymore. Wasn’t like this until the peri.

She has struggled with weight and body image issues but I’ve always been supportive of all efforts and always love her body, hell she’s lost 40 lbs so what will it take for her to like her body. I’m struggling to be patient with no hope of improvement on her attitude and seeing no effort to change on her part. I actually gave up our marriage counselor so she could use her as her individual therapist to hopefully work on her intimacy issues. Feels like it’s all just gotten worse since then so doesn’t seem like she’s working on anything.

trying to be understanding but it’s so frustrating and crushing, I’m staring down never knowing what it feels like to turn my wife on or feel her be horny for me ever again for rest of my life, never knowing what it feels like to give a woman an orgasm again. Thats the greatest feeling on earth for me and I may never feel it again. Already had to accept I’ll never get to experience going down on a woman again ever in my life. Only other option is get divorced ruin my kids lives be dead broke and pay her bills while she dates somebody else. That seems like a fate worse than death too.