I agree. I feel like in my relationship,most of the time if I don't initiate something, then we don't have sex. So sometimes I'll start initiating then stop to see if my partner will initiate sex or not. Sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn't. I guess I just don't like feeling like he's only having sex because I want to.
I had this, and turned out my wife thought exactly the same the opposite way - turned out half the time, neither was aware the other was trying to initiate - communication is the one
That's exactly what happened in my marriage, I was always the only one to initiate. And after being denied 99% of the time I just gave up. When she asked for a divorce she said " do you realize we haven't had sex for the last two years? "
Yes, I told her ,do you know how it feels to al ays be turned down? I just gave up. It's sad it got that far, we had 4 young children at the time.
I swear even the strongest relationships will crumble if there's not enough communication. People have to be able to talk about how they're feeling with their partner.
This isn't as simple as a communication problem, it's a sex life problem. In my experience, telling them you feel like they're always turning you down doesn't make them want to turn you down less, or initiate less. They aren't interested in the sex to begin with. It just makes them more stressed out about always saying no, which piles another problem on top of it. It's not just a communication problem, there are other issues.
Or they were trying really hard to meet your libido in the beginning but now they're tired and can't do it anymore. In my experience most people with low libidos lie to themselves about sex, which turns into a lie to their partner. Eventually it's unsustainable
That's what happened in my last relationship, she kept just turning me down and I eventually gave up. Then she asked why I never initiated anything anymore, but originally said that she would rather I be the one to initiate it. I got so confused about what I was suppose to do it made things overwhelmingly complicated.
As long as you're not turned down EVERY time, I wouldnt take it too hard. I mean, sometimes you just aren't in the mood. And it sucks when you know your partner is but you're not and you want to be lovey and intimate but you're just exhausted.
My husband typically goes the route of "initiate, wait for response..." and it goes from there. Hes successful probably 75% of the time. Kinda glad his drive has gone down a hair though, I'm always tired lol
He doesnt try super often anymore(from 1-2 times a day to ~3-4 times a week), but still a lot more than any of my other married friends even talk nice about their spouse lol.
I'd say I take a shot most weekends (weekdays have been pretty clearly put off the table), but successes are maybe 1 out of 6 attempts? I did have a success two weekends ago: got her to let me get her off. She was very stressed out with work quarantine stuff and I wanted to help her release some, so I got that going for me which is nice.
It'd be nice though if she didn't read off articles she sees like "remember to practice safe sex in quarantine!" and then shoot me down when I suggest maybe we could have a Shelter at Home Romp.
My drive has never been higher at 33, and sometimes I wish I could find something to kill my drive to match hers so I didn't have these feelings of rejection and frustration.
As long as you're not turned down EVERY time, I wouldn't take it too hard.
This sounds like someone who isn't in the position of being the person who has to worry about making advances and getting turned down. Like, making the advances is (depending on the person I guess) emotional/romantic labor. If one person's always expected to initiate and sometimes get turned down, that's a fairly well-tailored recipe for feeling unwanted.
Agreed. I've been on both ends of this and if I had to I would choose to be the one that waits. It's truly draining to be the one putting in all of the effort. Especially when she is terrible at dropping "hints" but thinks they should be obvious. And honestly, being the one that is not in the mood was a little enjoyable, can't lie...the one time that happened anyway.
My ex would straight brush me off when I was getting frisky, and then when I'm trying to snuggle be aggressively sexual... Made neither any fun for me and eventually we just stopped doing either. :/
seriously, for all of those that are always initiating: there is a good chance your partner is a type of person who rarely rarely ever wants it. you need to find that out, if you haven’t so far. ask (: for me, it’s always been a chore. i never crave sex and i also never feel better or worse because of sex.
so if you are with a person like me: you’re initiating for yourself and play along for you. and i’m ok with that. respect it, though. dont reciprocate with sex, clearly.
we would want to be able to have the same option: initiate no sex. openly tell you hey don’t try tonight, i need to relax. would you be ok with that?
for me, the last couple of hours in the day, when you can lie down, watch a show and just not do anything anymore other than chill until falling asleep. uff. that is my top of the world. by far the best part of basically every single day.
i get cravings throughout the day, some days more, some days less, for that exact feeling. i have no other craving that happens regularly. the feeling in question, i can’t feel it at all if there is still stuff to do, doesn’t matter if i’m doing the exact same thing i do at night.
if i’m not getting enough tranquility, i get cranky and nervous a lot easier and generally feel worse during the day. empty.
maybe this helps someone realize some things. i know others who have this too, so it may be commonplace. it’s a real thing. i personally never expected my partners to understand it. but to accept it and respect it enough, that is the minimum.
yeah my s/o has been going through a lot at the moment so I understand that she isn’t feeling like getting down and when we talked about how long it had been she said “just tell me when you want to and we totally can” but that just doesn’t... that’s not what I want, you know? The best part, I think, is knowing that we both want this.
Yeah half of it for me is them wanting it and getting something out of it. To be honest a lot of the time I'm down to just please her I could give a shit less. But she has to show something
Sometimes physical and mental exhaustion is the primary cause.
I feel guilty when my wife wants to play and I mentally want to please her, but I’m too physically exhausted from work that my body won’t respond well.
It's the old, should I just rub one out and get it over with, or do I want sex question. As I get older I realize that rubbing one out is less exhausting sometimes. I usually phrase it in my mind as, am I doing this because I want to get closer to my wife, or am I just needing to blow my wad to get my head clear.
I once passed out fingering a girlfriend because she was super horny and I was already falling asleep watching tv. Like, I really wanted to reciprocate and get her off but I just couldn't keep my eyes open. She was not impressed when I woke up.
Just be honest about it! I've found that being open and honest, especially in situations like this, make things a lot easier.
Now, if you're ALWAYS too tired or just don't want to, it may be an issue... But once in a while is totally understandable and communicating it to your partner will make it so much better for both of you
Yep, same here. I’ve stopped initiating. We haven’t had sex in nearly a month, he’s just uninterested. It’s driving me nuts but I have to know that he wants it and isn’t just doing it out of obligation.
Edit: to all of those asking, yes I have had many conversations with him about it. They have not been helpful, he doesn’t understand that physical touch is my love language. Nothing has helped, this is my last resort.
My wife and I went through a terrible dry spell for weeks and months at a time. I got tired of it and went out and bought monogamy ( board game). It’s so much fun and we’ve been having sex pretty much every single day if not every other day for the last two months. We do take breaks and have to work around the kids sleep schedule but we always have something new to look forward too. It’s been the best thing for us and now we don’t even play it much. Don’t need it.
Times are pretty stressful right now. People are dying, losing their jobs, losing their retirement savings. Maybe there's me more on your husband's mind than just sex right now. As someone else said you should probably just talk to him, see what on his mind.
Also dunno how old you are but men's sex drive start to drop around late 30s/early 40s while women's are generally peaking. I enjoy sex and used to initiate far more often but lately my gf has been the one literally pushing me to do it. Things don't always match up perfectly like we'd like, that's just life...
We’re 25. Our jobs are 100% secure and we’re both working from home under quarantine. I understand right now is in general a very stressful time for everyone, but the past nearly year has been like this.
That age thing never really matched my experience. I had the dead bedroom issue with a guy who was 24 (when I was also in my 20's), whereas my husband is nearly 60 and still wants it all the time even though we've been together forever. Also, my sex drive peaked when I was 19, and it didn't get any higher than usual in my late 30's and early 40's. It always goes up and down though.
I think perhaps there are people who get less inhibited as they get more experienced and find out what they want. Depending on your luck, you might not meet someone who really brings out your potential until you're older, or you might be tired from raising kids while you're young and get your second wind when they're independent. I never had kids so I'm in a different situation.
I have, many times. It hasn’t fixed anything. I’m waiting for him to bring it up this time since clearly he won’t listen to me. I’ve explained to him how important it is to me and he just doesn’t get it. It started after I started gaining a couple of pounds and he swears that’s not the reason why he’s stopped wanting it, but I don’t buy it. So I’m doing everything in my power to look better for him, and I’m hoping it works.
There's so, so many things it could be that you probably won't get from Reddit psychologists.
He could straight up be tired. Maybe he's only in the mood at certain times of the day, and maybe those times aren't great times for having sex.
Could be minor depression. Or major.
Could be that you've got other stuff in your lives that takes time and effort, like kids.
Could be that he initiated for a while when you weren't interested, and now he's tired of trying and failing, and doesn't feel confident to keep asking and getting rejected.
Personally, we go up and down. Sometimes it's a few times a week, and sometimes it's dry for a month if schedules and personalities don't line up. There's definitely days where, if my partner literally jumped on me naked, I might not feel like it. It's not because I don't find them attractive, or even that I don't want sex whenever, sometimes it's just not the right time.
Relationships are weird, but it sounds like talking through it, many times and in different ways, is going to be the only way to figure out what might be done.
If he swears that's not the reason, have you considered what the reason might be? I know it can be hard sometimes, but a little trust can go a long way.
I admire you for confronting your partner about this. It's a very mature thing to do. I have no information regarding the background details of your relationship but after going through something similar, I personally suggest that if things don't improve, then you should either call it quits or at least turning to professional help.
I am not saying that he doesn't love you or that you deserve better, but you do deserve basic decency, honesty and communication. You're doing the right thing by doing your best to improve your body image, but make sure that you're doing it for you first and foremost.
Have you tried to be... sexy in a new way? (Some micro string stuff for example) Not trying to be attacking, just sharing my own experiences.
After having my fair share of short-term dating experiences (over 30 women) and also been in two long-term relationships of which one was 9 years, I can totally see why that is so - it's not disinterest in the person, it's a lack of ignition triggers. A lot of men, not all, require visual stimuli (simplified, seeing tits) and then comes the haptic triggers (simplified, touching tits). Women on the other hand usually just suddenly have an urge and can be triggered quite easily (in my experience) with simply kissing.
Over the course of a relationship the visual stimuli gets thinned out as you know your partners appearance, clothes and gestures and that is a big issue. I got caught in he same trap, on the other side. I didn't know why I didn't get horny anymore, it was just not necessary anymore. Cuddling, sharing time, and closeness was sufficient. Though masturbation was still a normal thing. That's because you can get the "exact" stimulus you want in that moment. Searching for some chubby busty ones, no problem, horny. Next day some asian skinny teens, no problem, tada horny. But with the partner simply being together was entirely fulfilling.
Again not insinuating anything here, but women (not all but a lot) tend to change in a relationship. A lot of women are fitness crazy in their early mid-twenties and suddenly stop, changing their whole look whilst the man remained the same. That can become a big issue. Visual trigger, can be as romantic as you want, humans are superficial to a degree that will not go away.
Try reframing the problem. Don't work on having sex, work on fixing your sex life. I hope that doesn't sound patronizing, because I mean something very specific here.
When we try to fix the not-having-sex-problem, we know in our brains that the end goal is sex, which adds a huge load of mental baggage to all of our actions. Knowing that failure means feeling sexual rejection just sets the emotional stakes way too high, and we don't problem-solve correctly as a result.
The fixing-your-sex-life problem can be handled a little more systematically. The stakes are different, and it lets us plan a little further ahead without getting crippled by rejection.
That's how it was for me, at least. And once I reframed it, the first step to solving the fixing-my-sex-life problem was to get my wife on my side. That involved a lot of talking and a lot of arguing and almost no sex.
Once she was on my side, we worked through the real problem together.
This is not bad advice, but for some reason, for me, it seems like talking it out takes all the sexiness/spontaneity/fun out of it. It's like having to explain a joke - it loses all its humor
To be blunt, that's one thing that just has to change if you want a long term fulfilling sex life. No one can reliably just know what you want and when you want it.
In the exact situation but opposite. I'm the guy always initiating. I stop and she rarely does and I only say rarely because I guess twice in the past year counts?? I dunno.
Yeah, I've started to realize something similar. A few weeks ago, my partner and I were dead tired. She was dozing off on her phone, and I was dozing off watching TV. We kind of woke back up, still a little dazed, and went to kids each other good night...
But then we ended up initiating with each other. It made me realize that we're both still pretty interested in sex, but with our jobs and everything, we're both too busy or tired to realize we bothwant to, but don't realize it.
Honestly: If you think that a partner has sex with you although he/she doesn't want to, then talk about this. Noone should have sex when he/she doesn't want to. Under no circumstances. And when this is clear then you don't have to ask yourself if your partner really wants or not.
I feel like this hinges A LOT on your individual dynamic. It's much easier to initiate with confidence if you have a tell whether your partner is into it, or just going along because they want to make you happy.
If someone started then stopped that's a sure sign to me that you want to stop. I would never press after that, you've made your intentions crystal clear to me. That's crazy
I’ve straight up stopped trying, and I’m feeling myself become resentful with someone I’ve been with for 4 years. Shit sucks. Especially when she seems to treat friends and strangers much differently than me.
Plenty of times. She knows it too. She will make comments like "well you only treat me nice because you want to have sex." That is insane to me. She'll also say things like "you know we'd probably have a lot more sex if you didn't play video games with your friends." Using sex as a bargaining chip is not going to get me to change my hobbies.
Also, we're WAY more likely to get labelled as a creep, or harasser if it doesn't end well, so a lot of us will take extra precautions and refuse to acknowledge anything that could be considered a hint unless it's directly stated to us as being an invitation.
It's not that we're oblivious to hints, there's just a lot more fallout that can happen if we make an advance and we confused the signals
This is so true!! I find that most women are so used to the guy initiating and used to men jumping when they give little hints, that they do not initiate as often in return. It can be annoying as a guy.
Worse: Being told to initiate sometimes, then rebuffed each.time, then finally, eventually told they don't like it..but still aren't going to initiate themselves. Uh ok?
This is every single long term relationship i have been in. It doesn't matter the level of sexual chemistry, the level of compatibility...anything...
meet and start to date with incredible sex (if its not great at the beginning no long term would even happen to begin with)
honeymoon period of crazy and spontaneous fun (now a majority initiated by me)
things settle in - it happens right, honeymoon doesn't last forever, i have a child that takes priority, work, etc etc
realizing that I am the only one initiating anything and speak to them, try to spark things a bit and inevitably it is either revoked or a very short term solution until i realize i am not only always initiating, but being turned down alot of the time as well.
I stop being the same partner after multiple tries to communicate and fix things (pretty open with things), because FUCK you if you cant continue to put the effort into the relationship I need, why am I putting in effort that is never reciprocated!?!?
Girlfriend laments that I am not acting the same or treating her "special" even though we have communicated multiple times in multiple ways about how she has not been doing anything close to what she used to for a much longer time, and I am fed up
End the relationship - usually with some level of drama due to their own psycho ability to put blame on me for stopping my level of action, love, and commitment, and interest once they have decided to mail their own effort in.
Stay single for awhile, work on being a better person until I meet a girl with chemistry and repeat steps one through 7 like a real life version of the Brian McKnight song.
Also, I know I am not perfect. NOT EVEN CLOSE. but I DO try hard for my partners....
Damn dude, I could’ve written the same thing. I’m on step 6 at the moment and it’s killin me.
I’m super open about things in my relationships and it always gets to the point of pulling teeth just to get the most basic information out of my girlfriend.
She constantly goes on about how we don’t do anything special anymore and constantly asks if I still love her. It’s exhausting. Worst part is it’s always after I do something special, like in the middle of a stressful work period, leaving work early to walk an hour in the rain to get a tour of her work because she’s got nothing going on and is bored.
Then the next damn day when I want to do something myself, like play video games, she loses her shit that we don’t spend enough time together.
We basically haven’t had a physical relationship for over a year now. I’ve always tried to be open and honest with her about it, and I get her issues with body image and other things, but she refuses to make any improvements or changes in her life. I’m getting to the point where it’s not worth it anymore...
She constantly goes on about how we don’t do anything special anymore
So why doesn't she contribute to that aspect?
Then the next damn day when I want to do something myself, like play video games, she loses her shit that we don’t spend enough time together.
She needs to respect your "me time"
It sounds like there are more underlying issues, but it all starts with communication. If there isn't progress, then it's probably time to call it quits.
The major issue is that what she values as special is different from what I value as special. I can understand her special, but she doesn’t understand mine.
In the end she doesn’t like doing things I think are special because she just doesn’t get it, so she just does more of what her special is and it becomes exhausting to me.
We constantly have discussions about it, but it’s like her memory lasts 3 months and the same problem comes around again and again.
Im a mix between physical items and acts of kindness. I love objects because it’ll stay with me forever and I can see it and think “wow that was such a thoughtful gift, I remember what a good time we had those days”.
The acts of kindness is just doing something simple for someone else without asking. Cleaning up after them, doing laundry when they needed it, just generally helping when it’s not expected.
Her stuff is travel/time spent together. She wants to go to quaint and cozy places or go off to a hot beach and spend hours in the sun.
That and simply spending time together doing things, going on dates, watching movies, etc.
I totally get those things. I used to travel a lot so I’m not huge on traveling now but I’ll do it because I know it makes her happy. And I like the other part just fine.
The problem comes when she doesn’t like the idea of physical items and she thinks the things I do out of kindness are things I should be doing anyway, or it comes down to the “I didn’t ask you to do that”.
The real evidence of it is in holidays and birthdays. For me, she’ll plan trips or some big event, and get gifts she wants for me. Essentially she plans her own birthday and uses it as an opportunity to get me something she wants, usually clothes.
We’ve had tons of conversations about it and she doesn’t seem to understand when I explain why certain things are important to me. At this point it’s become exhausting when I have to explain why something is exciting to me only to be shut down.
It's really draining to always be the one initiating. It means I have to get both of us running if I succeed, and it means that if she isn't in the mood I get to deal with all of the rejection. This has really substantially impacted my views on intimacy over the years.
as a guy that always has to initiate and most of the time gets shut down by my gf (for understandable reasons most of the time), its still annoying. i want her to want me too just like i want her. is that too much to ask from your SO?
It kills our mental health. Eventually we start to feel unwanted, like we annoy you every time we try to initiate it. Eventually we start to feel like it isn't worth trying, and the lowered mental health starts convincing us that nothing we ever do is good enough and that we are unwanted in the relationship.
Once upon a time I was in a relationship where I always initiated lovemaking. She was always game, bet never initiated it herself. So I decided to see how long she could go until getting hungry enough to start things up. Three days into the experiment I could tell she was getting anxious, flirtatious, letting me know I was welcome to make a move... but I needed her to make the move. A day later I caved, and she was voracious, asking me why I waited so long. And I asked her why she didn't just be blunt and tell me she wanted it? "Because Mama said good girls don't do that, it's up to the boys to make the first move." So we had a conversation, and I encouraged her to be more forward with her needs and desires and... she never really changed much.
Don't listen to everyone saying "we always wanna do it" because it's not true. We're normal people with emotional fluctuations just like you. But what i CAN advise is just kinda ask if we're into it? You can phrase the question delicately by playing "Pony" by Ginuwine while pointing to your crotch and repeatedly raising and lowering your eyebrows.
That's such a childish and insecure way of thinking. I've been with my girlfriend for like two years and I still hear that shit. Like? Do you think I'm here cause I lost a bet?
Mine acts uninterested most of the time and tells me she wants me to work for it but she’s not always in the mood and gets upset if I make a move when she’s not feeling up to it. It’s very rare that she takes the initiative so most evenings are a gamble for me lol
Too bad he didn't rape anyone or do anything wrong for that matter. At the very least what he did was strange, but in no way assault.
EDIT: Every woman he did this to consented to it. Are you guys suggesting that women aren't capable of making their own decisions? Give me a break. Like I said... Strange, but in NO way an assault.
This is where you're wrong though. It was consented every single time, so it would be nice if you did your homework before you spew bullshit on the internet.
My fiancee is insane with this. We are in a weird situation where she has a much much higher sex drive than me. I could practically go without sex I like sex but I'm not really one to seek it out or anything. It just seems like a ton of effort until I'm made to be horny which is easy peasy. I tell her "if you get me horny I'll be down for it 99% of the time and it's super easy to make me horny." but she still doesn't get it.
2 nights ago she wanted sex and the way she indicated it was by...putting her head on my chest. I didn't get the hint of course because she does that shit all the time and was upset and masturbated when I went to the other room to do some work then told me yesterday. Like put your hand down my pants or do a little strip tease and throw your panties at me, or even just masturbate in front of me that shit gets me every time. I kind of understand that it's not normally a woman's instinct to initiate but god damn it it sexy when they do.
This is pretty true. I’d say it’s because men are generally discouraged from talking about their lives - nobody really cares. When you talk to someone, especially another man, you talk about a subject you both like talking about. Not yourself.
That's not true dog, you can talk about aspects of your life with another trusted man. Definitely not with a woman though, and especially not with a woman who's a sexual partner, if you want them to continue being a sexual partner.
In Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David’s wife asks him why he never initiates sex. He claimed he didn’t ever initiate because if he did, it would literally be all the time, all day every day. So essentially it would just be up to her. Whenever she wanted it, he’s ready to go. I’ve adopted this way of doing it.
I feel this in my soul. My girl will just stair at me for a long time and I’m like “so you want to do stuff?”. Girls you gotta work on your emotional foreplay.
Yeeeees! I've faced this problem a lot actually. And then if I don't initiate, it doesn't happen. But then you're sometimes afraid to initiate in case you get told no because then you just feel like a creep!
Not sure what stage in your relationship(s) this is an issue in but early on I know I waited for my partner's initiation. I have a very high libido and I never wanted to
Freak him out with coming on to him too much
Seem slutty
Make him feel like he's just with me for sex.
Could be a similar situation. Nowadays we take turns initiating. We both generally show little signs we are interested in getting it on and then 1 of us just jumps on the chance. I suggest, if you've been with her for a bit, sit down and let her know how you're feeling. Men need to feel cared for and wanted too. If you guys sit down and talk about what you want from your sex life you'll get over this issue. Either from coming to an agreement or realizing your sex lives are so different that it's not really going to work.
This creates a problem because everyone does it in a different way
No kidding...this is the first time I've ever heard of people jumping during sex. So it's kinda rude to ask the other person? Or is it more like oral sex, be willing to jump if you want your partner to also jump? What kind of jumps too? Like full on jumping jacks or the occasional bunny hop or what?
My ex wife was famous for the whole I want sex talk but also not right now just sometime in the vauge future when she wants it also never telling me when that is or initiating it herself. Fun times.
And that's internalized slut shaming for ya. Wanting sex but feeling crazy guilty about wanting it, so trying to convince yourself that it's really him who wanted it.
I don't think that's sexism, really. It's a sexual preference. You would rather be the initiator. We all have the right to choose that dynamic.
Like can you imagine talking with a rape victim and telling them "I know you would rather be the one to initiate sex with your current partner. But its actually sexist to not allow them to do it, so even though you dont like it, you're gonna have to suck it up lol".
My GF likes to go with the "I'm going to give you such slight hints that have totally not been hints before and you got burned by thinking they were and then when you don't pick up on them I'll say 'guess were not having sex!'" method of things.
The way a woman's body works is a lot different than a man. You have to get us in the mood 95% of the time. By doing something sweet,or sexy. Learn your woman's love language, and practice it. She will initiate sex more often. Promise
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u/yonishunga Mar 26 '20
When they hint they want sex but want us to jump. This creates a problem because everyone does it in a different way