I have been together with my partner for 2 years. He is it for me. We have a respectful, loving, balanced and fun relationship. However I am starting to crack under the pressure (self inflicted) to have sex.
I have depression and have been on 4 different meds since we met. None of them have worked. Some SSRI, some SNRI which have fucked with my libido.
I know it’s not a fair comparison but in my early 20s I wanted to have sex maybe 2-3 times a week. Now I don’t. I want to have sex maybe two days a month when I’m ovulating. I don’t know if the libido will ever come back. Hopefully? Since I am still pretty sick and definitely very depressed. It’s just been so long that I can’t imagine ever not feeling like this.
Hormonally everything is fine. Sex is nice. It could be better so there is definitely an aspect of feeling like it’s not always worth it to even begin. But I don’t think that’s what this is about.
I try to have sex with him once a week. Some kind. He does not pressure me. He goes out of his way to make sure I know there is no pressure. But of course there still is. I know he wants it.
We’ve talked about this a bunch. He feels rejected but understands. I feel pressured and hopeless and tired. This is an extra weight I am carrying, trying to live up to his expectations. But lately I feel like it’s getting to be too much, like an obligation. We often have non-penetrative sex where I get him off and that’s it because that’s all I want to do. There is no envy there, I do not feel like I am missing out on something.
I know this is an age old issue but I don’t know what to do. I plan on talking about this in therapy myself. I have to talk to him too to make sure he really knows how awful this is for me. But how can I do that without damaging our relationship beyond repair? I’ve been on the other side of the no libido convo and it fucking sucked. I guess the upside here is that this is most likely temporary? But I don’t know anymore. I am growing tired.
I’ve read Come As You Are. I know I have responsive desire. It’s just that I don’t even have that know. Sex feels like a chore and I find it hard to focus on it even when it’s happening.
Any advice or words of wisdom is welcome.
Thanks for reading.
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If I were your partner and I wanted sex as part of the relationship and you don’t make that possible it would be hard for me to continue feelings for you if that was an expectation going in. I don’t know your situation but if it were me I would break up with them because I can’t provide something they need in a relationship. That’s the only advice I can give I’m afraid.
Have you looked into seeing a sex therapist? And when you mean hormonally everything is fine, can you define that? Like full panel? My wife turned into the sahara desert on birth control pills (also has BPD and is medicated for that, but it was them plus BC pills in specific that caused the issue) years back. Then her thyroid was an asshole and it happened again.
You need a full physical and psychological review to determine the cause of your lack of libido, also you need to be open with your partner and explain to him you are going through changes in your body that sometimes you don’t want to have sex, nevertheless, you need to find the cause soon because it is not fair for your partner to live a sexless life, humans are sexual beings. Good luck!
I don’t know man, it’s okay to not want sex but it’s also okay to want sex. It will hurt the relationship even if he pretends it doesn’t
Focusing on the positive, you’re doing great getting help for your depression and it sounds like your boyfriend is caring and respectful of your struggles. And even though you’re struggling with it, you’re really trying to maintain closeness and intimacy with your boyfriend, to give your partner what he needs. That’s so hard to do when you’re depressed.
An out of the box idea that may help with your libido is to try and read or listen to some smut. Books can be a great distraction from the world and are a hell of a lot more healthy than doomscrolling. If your libido came back, it may just solve these feelings of obligation.
Added: You can also try adding in some non-sexual but still intimate activities that can help him feel loved, until you’re ready for sexy times.
SSRIs have known, common, side effects of causing a loss of libido and anorgasmia, and unless your depression is classed as severe, the medication is less helpful than exercise or any other non-medical intervention tested. Whether your current medication is similar is a matter for you to check but in any event, if you don’t find the medication helpful, you don’t have to stay on it. Obviously, talk to your doctor as you will need to taper.
Taking sex off the table for a fixed period of time e.g. a month, two, three (pick a time period) will help, and allow you to focus on, and enjoy, non-sexual touch without feeling the pressure for it to end in sex.
Use that time to tackle your depression as if it is an emergency. Are you repressing something, or denying some part of yourself? Is there anything you can think of that might give you a sense of purpose or excitement etc? What do you think might help? And then do it and see if that helps. Plodding along and waiting for it to lift clearly hasn’t worked, so try other things.
The obvious thing to me is that you should worry less about sex and keep working on your depression. Your mental health is way more important than the frequency of him getting his dick wet. Like, let’s say you had high libido and he broke his leg. Would you be upset that he can’t bang you like a screen door in a hurricane and ruin the relationship because of that, or would you be supporting him in recovering from the broken leg and be fine with taking things as slow as he needs while he gets PT and slowly builds back muscle and strength that have atrophied? That’s how he feels, he wants to have an active sex life with you, but he understands that you are suffering and doesn’t want you to have sex you don’t want to have, he just wants you to get better and have sex that you that you want to have with him.
Honestly, I think it’s the depression that is feeding these thoughts, and it’s becoming a negative feedback mechanism for your depression. Yes, if you broke up with him, then your lack of libido wouldn’t be a big issue, but your depression would just latch onto something else to obsess about being the bane of your life.
Probably not the answer you’re looking for, but I think this plan would actually work:
If you get pregnant and have a child (with him), then you’ll probably get a long grace period of not feeling as much pressure to have sex, both from him and from yourself.
Then once the baby arrives, men are more likely to expect and accept less sex, because they know having a baby is hard work and you will be tired.
Once pressure ramps up because baby is bigger, you can get pregnant again and reset the cycle. This should buy you 5-6 years.
After 2 kids, he’ll be much more ‘locked in’, so you can have a lot less sex and his likelihood of leaving will be lower. And you’ll still have 2 young kids that make sex difficult. Although expectations for sex will eventually ramp back up, it will probably be to a lower level.
Problem solved!
The solution is to break up. Mismatched sex drives are a relationship killer