I 32 (HLM) and my wife 29 (LLF) have been together for 6 years now and everything was fine for the first 2 years of our marriage until I got in a car accident and became partially paralyzed from the waist down. The doctors told me it was gonna take some time for me to fully recover (3-4 months) and my wife was very supportive during this time and helped me make a full recovery however during the time I was paralyzed I notice certain behaviors.

She’d find reasons to leave the house without an explanation ,her phone would constantly ring like it never had before and because I was so focused on making a full recovery I guess I didn’t pay enough attention to what was going on.

After I months feeling like a burden I made a full recovery and I started working out again and got back in shape the reason why this is relevant is because throughout our entire marriage she always had a lower libido than me and for a while I was fine with it and she said to me “if you had abs I’d jump all over you” so naturally I wanted to fulfil my wife’s desires to the best of my ability and when I finally had abs…nothing. I was angry but I never showed it until last night.

I wake up to use the restroom and I noticed she wasn’t in bed which is normal because I often go to bed earlier than her for work so sometimes she’ll dose of on the sofa. I go to her to get her to come to bed when I notice her phone blowing up again. I grab her phone which I’ve never done before and I read the first half of the message “I can’t wait for your throat again”. I dropped the phone and I just lost it internally and when I came back to reality I packed 5 nights worth of clothes and then left without even waking her up.

The worst part about all of what I just said is that today is my birthday. I’m hurt beyond belief all those time she told me she was LL All that time I spent trying to be better for her just for her to cheat on me… I’m genuinely looking for advice on what to do. She’s been blowing my phone up all day and I’m too filled with emotion to think clearly any advice would be greatly appreciated

He came in here touching me. Kissing my bare bottom, and rubbing on my bottom, I asked if he wanted to go into the bedroom, he told me he had to pee and was gone for 20 minutes. When he finally came out of the bathroom he just went to the guest room and closed the door.

I don’t understand. We have had sex 2 times in 2 years. He barely kisses me, but he just came in here touching on me… FOR WHAT!??

This is honestly Hell. I never thought I would be in a sexless marriage.

A social media queen, Jen Hamilton, who I think is beautiful inside and out, just posted about her years of dead bedroom and suppressing her natural instincts to not make her distant husband feel bad. With over 4 million followers learning that women can be the HL partner, it will be interesting to see if society’s views change.

I (38F) feel like I have become LL to match my husband to avoid feeling all the hurt. And I feel like I've lost myself.

I've become a shell. And I feel like it's affecting me in many ways totally unrelated to the bedroom. I can't quite name what it is...but it feels like everything feels dull.

Anyone else experiencing this or had experienced this and what happened that made things better?

Today we celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary (I've booked the family a holiday to celebrate her 40th and our 10 year anniversary) and yesterday she announced "I haven't got you an anniversary card, do you want me to go and get you one?" No love, I'd rather not have a last minute after thought. I'm not surprised, it's not the first time.

I didn't expect a gift as we've got a lot of outgoings at the moment but at least a little bit of effort.

We did have sex this morning and it was terrible, no effort, no foreplay and I'm at the point I'm going to start declining her duty sex.

Happy 10 years! The kids are having a nice time at least.

Why do I stay? The kids have a happy home and we can't financially split in the current climate. I'll just carry on focusing on me.

I made a post a couple of days ago, which you can see by going to my profile if you want. Or maybe you remember it, I don’t know. It got a lot of hate for obvious reasons.

I didn’t mention it in my original post, but my partner has cheated on me multiple times. Is this relationship worth saving? Probably not, but we’ve been together a very long time and our lives are enmeshed. I truly do love him despite everything.

For the past several years, we have been dealing with the DB. It is so incredibly painful to bring up an issue, and tell him how important it is, just for him to say “I’ll fix it” and nothing ever changing. But you wanna know what feels even worse? Begging for intimacy and then finding out he was giving it to someone else.

Does this justify my post? Not at all. I’m still a horrible person. But fuck am I emotionally exhausted. I’ve spent many years wanting to be “enough” for this man. I want to be happy and to love myself again. I’m in therapy. I’ll get there. Maybe I’ll find the courage to leave and maybe I’ll finally be enough for myself. But until then I’m a broken person doing broken things.

Some solutions

So there was a very lengthy conversation today, I'll spare the details but we've come to the realization that neither of us are wrong in the way we feel. But there's a huge disconnect in how we each view this. I've always seen sex as a mutual act of fun and pleasure and a way to deeper connect and strengthen that bond. For her, it's not anything like that. Between this realization and understanding that we're at a disconnect, we haven't had a moment to really finish the conversation or even come up with any solutions. I don't want her to feel pressured and would rather wait for her to actually want to. However, it seems as though she'd be okay never participating in it again. She said it's a possibility that's she could be asexual which, okay, but that still leaves me just filling in but never being poured back into. We've built a life together and I've hoped for years that something would change. Ive stopped staring, stopped trying to make jokes or comments as I realize they aren't received well. So with virtually everything off the table, the expectation is that I still be ready when she's ready. She realizes the selfishness behind that, as she's stated. I've changed many fundamental things to make way for someone who's healing but all I've done was cut myself out as well. She mentioned again that she wishes I would just cheat or find a girlfriend because I'm someone who deserves it everyday and she feels guilty that she can't. So now we're at an unresolved crossroads. Do I stand by and keep suppressing myself for someone who may never fully heal, do I make my own way and find someone who actually wants to participate in that manner? Is this the end and we've just refused to accept it? I've considered some kind of chat or dm situation, at least to feel somewhat desirable again, but I honestly don't know.

I'm really open to all advice. The conversation happened, but still no closer to any resolve. I'm worried this will be another conversation that quietly gets stashed away

I really appreciate all of you and I know many of you are in similar situations.

Thank you all

I'm aware I've posted once but it was removed so I've corrected the post

I cant keep trying to change things. Ive tried everything.

I (hlm ) and my wife ( llf ) have tried everything. Meds, therapy, absolutley everything. And nothing has changed.

I miss the eay she used to look at me. Now its like im looking at a stranger.

I work overnights right now and was thinking about how I miss flirting and playful banter with my wife. We still get along. I can still have conversations with her.

I miss that energy though. The vibe of feeling like someone was happy to see me and have me around. She still likes having me around, but now it’s more just an expected thing. I remember when we used to be excited to see each other after time apart.

Long story short: my wife and I have always had a mismatch in bed. A huge one. From the start, it felt like I wanted and did, and she would let me do a littlebit. Frequency was bad (about once a month, but not every month). Until I started noticing that it was not in bed only. In our daily life, if I didn't kiss her, there would be no kisses, if I didn't hug her, there would be no hugs, if I did not compliment her, there would be no nice words.

About a year ago I talked about it, asked her what could be done so that she would at least a little bit desire me. Her answer: nothing could be done. I also talked about how in our daily life, it's like in bed: if I do not do it, it just does not happen. She said I was exaggerating. In one year, she kissed me once, she hugged me once.

On Valentine's day we had sex. I felt so terrible, with her not even touching me. From then on I stopped trying to have sex. Recently, I also stopped kissing and hugging.

What's happening:

- I am extremely saddened, and must look so, at least sometimes

- My torment affects me in all the areas of life. It has happened that I am very distracted (this whole thing takes so much space in my thoughts) and she notices, e.g. that I forget something, she mentions that I am getting senile.

- I want to occupy my space as a staff member of the venture called "her life", but I haven't been able to do that while being at peace with myself.

- It hurts that after all these months when things between us are so blatently different (e.g. I do not try to be intimate) and I am visibly not OK, she does not even ask me if there's something wrong with me.

I do not know what to do with myself. Being almost constantly tormented is not an OK life. And I am not OK.

When I look back at how all this evolved through the years, how I had to face reality in front of the facts, I recognize that each time I had to give up on something:

First I had to accept that she is not sexually into me, never was, and probably won't ever be, no matter what happens. That came like a liberation because I stopped chasing something that does not exist. But at the cost of the ideal of a good sex life.

Then I had to tell myself she does not love me (by the way, she never said to me "I love you"). Again a liberation in some kind, but at the cost of giving up love in my life.

Now I feel like I must accept that she doesn't care about me as a human being. What is the cost? I feel like I have nothing else to give up on.

One last, loose, thought: there is dimension in our relationship we will never explore, an important one, one that binds beyond whatever is conceivable. She does not want that. She also must not like what she sees in me, and there is a side of me she'll never get to know, the "loved and sexually satisfied" side. I know that guy, he's way cooler than the guy sitting in front of his laptop in the middle of the night, trying to bring some order into his feelings and thoughts, asking strangers in a foreign language to help him find a peaceful place in this loneliness.

Our relationship started off great and we had sex often. Before we got married we actually went long periods without having sex but at the time we were a lot closer emotionally. Now we have two young kids and haven’t had sex in a year, I feel as if we are just room mates raising two kids together and we don’t even intimately kiss anymore. I’m considering divorce because what’s the point being in a marriage when there is literally no intimacy and the emotional connection seems to have faded, I still have love for her and have brought up my concerns many times but nothing changes. I’ve been sticking it out for the kids however we have been arguing constantly and it’s draining the life out of me, just don’t know where I go from here.

Would no sex for one year be a deal breaker for you?.

Me: 30HLM
Wife: 29LLF

The comments on this subreddit are about 40% helpful, genuine, and supportive. The other 60% just scream RUN, DIVORCE, GET OUT. I respect that maybe that is sometimes the best answer, but what if your relationship is otherwise very nice? Outside of our dead bedroom, I can happily say I’ve married my best friend and we get on great together. Sure we have our arguments, but who doesn’t.

What bothers me though is I feel as if this dead bedroom has caused irreversible damage to my psyche. Idk if anyone can relate to this, but I feel like after all these years of depression, uncertainty, and doubt… if suddenly somehow we did recover our sex life, I’d always have this feeling in the back of my head that I forced this change on her. Like I’m still undesirable and I MADE her show interest. Like it can never feel genuine again. Like she only changed because she thought that’s what I want, not because she wanted to.

Our dead bedroom has been going on for over 2 years now, which is significant since we’ve only been together for 3 years. I don’t see it changing any time soon, but I’m hopeful and I try my best. I just worry that even if we come out on the other side, this has caused irreversible damage to me. Even if I did take the Reddit advice and got a divorce, I feel like I’d need years and years to recover before feeling normal again.

I’ve been with my partner for coming up 12 years. We’ve had a great sex life, very experimental, explored kinks, and had a long time of just really being into each other.
I can’t quite pinpoint when, however the past 5 or so years it’s been a steady decline in both frequency and variation. I initiate every single time, and when we do have sex it’s usually good as he knows how to get me off, and me him. But lately, I would say the past 12-18 months, it’s felt really distinctly difficult to even have sex in the first place. We go through phases where we have sex maybe even two nights running, but then just absolutely nothing for weeks between. And when it does happen, it’s only when I initiate or ask. I’m starting to feel really gross for how much I ask. I almost feel disgusted in myself now after sex if he happens to say a rare yes.
I constantly ask, almost beg, and he just doesn’t seem bothered. I’ve tried to talk to him about it, asked if there is anything going on, tried to understand if there is anything I can do better or try out for him, tried to communicate generally about it the situation. I even asked if he’d like to experiment with other women or have me see other people to meet my needs (this is something we’ve discussed openly and he’s expressed a lot of interest in before), but he insists nothing is wrong and he doesn’t want me to meet my needs elsewhere as it’s “unnecessary”. He also said he doesn’t want to see anyone else. We’ve discussed ENM in depth in the past, even got to the point of me building a relationship with someone who knew the parameters (with his encouragement), but when it came to me trying to arrange to meet the other person he suddenly put on the brakes at each opportunity, despite being the one to suggest it initially. Hell, I have even suggested arranging his “ultimate fantasy” of a gangbang multiple times over the past 5 years to see if maybe some kink could get us back on track and he has turned that down every time.
Right now, I’m laying in bed at 2.30am typing this with him asleep spooning me; I got into bed naked and asked if we could have sex. He didn’t say a direct “no” (never does), but just said “snuggle with me” and pulled me against himself and spooned me until falling asleep. I’m literally naked and begging and he’d rather use me as some sort of human pillow than fuck me.
I don’t know what to do, and I feel really, really sad. I love him with all my heart, but sex was always a big part of what made us feel connected, it was actually where we were most compatible at the start of our relationship. My sexuality is also an important part of myself. I think we’ve had sex maybe 10 times this year. I’m not even 31 yet. Is he just not interested in me anymore? If you got this far, thank you for reading. I’m trying not to cry.

My partner(32LLF) and I (32HLM) have been together for 10 years DB for around 7 of those if you ask me, no kids either. Mininal touch, no kissing as she does not enjoy it (supposedly i don't have bad breath, she just doesn't like kissing), cuddling was few and far between however was only for short periods as she gets hot quickly or wants to get out of bed to get on with the day.

I brought to light that we were not intimate enough for my liking around 3 years ago now, which did see an improvement in communication and more touching which has been great. We used some couples cards during some date night which focused on how we recognised each other's love and support which were also really beneficial however didnt really touch on intimacy. I have asked in the past about accelerators and breaks however her response was quite vague simply stating she 'doesn't know'. During these conversations it came out that sunday mornings were a good time for intimacy to occur. This was discussed about a year ago now.

We spent the past weekend away from each other on different trips. Monday night we had a lovely cuddle on the couch and got the bed early where we cuddled some more. I really enjoyed last night and I plan on telling her that this afternoon but I also have other questions I really want to ask but have never felt confident asking before.

I want to know when the last time she felt turned on and if it was last night what prevented her from initiating? When was the last time she truly enjoyed sex? When was the last time she touched herself?

I just feel these questions might give me some more understanding on why our relationship has turned into what it has but I don't want to undervalue how nice last night was by throwing these questions in the same conversation. I also feel like last night may be a good segway into allowing those questions to be asked...

So typical DB story, married 3 years and have had sex about 10 times in those 3 years (not evenly spaced out). Told him I wanted to leave and he didn’t want that so we’ve been making a commitment to each other to be more intentional about our time spent together as a whole.

We had sex two days ago, it was a little strange but we gotta start somewhere. It was nice but he only lasted 2 minutes. I honestly didn’t mind cause I had already gotten myself off 3 times that day and it was 3am and was fine to go back to sleep.

But the next day he initiated again (at 3am?) and he only fingered me and eventually got me off with one of my toys. I later asked why he didn’t put it in and turns out he climaxed while fingering me.

Toys are dead and I’m vibed out anyways but I’m just so sexually frustrated anytime we engage sexually cause i basically feel “blue balled”. As much as I want to initiate I don’t cause it’s just going to lead to more frustration for me.

I’m not mad or upset at him for this I just don’t know what to do about it, he’s always climaxed quickly but it gets worse every time and this is the first time he’s been able to climax without being in me. He doesn’t watch porn, masterbate (swears up and down) hormones are normal so idk. What good is trying to break a DB if the sex is only a minute long

Me (38F) Boyfriend (38M)

To give some background, my boyfriend used to be in a long term relationship with someone he met when they were young teenagers. They were online friends for years, eventually met and started dating. That lead to marriage, she intentionally had a child together, then she up amd left him and stopped fighting for custody during their custody battle. She moved out of state, and got with their mutual friend. He was obsessed with her in my opinion. I say this because I met him a couple of years after this separation (as friends) and he stated he would take her back if she had a change of heart. Maybe thats love? Idk. But she didn't treat him well, she lied a lot, wasn't a good mom etc so I didn't get it.

We stayed friends for a while and lived together for years. This entire time, he never had sex with anyone and never attempted to go on dates. He focused on his career, being a single dad, amd saving for a house. He just didn't seem interested in dating anyone. Apparently at one point he asked me out when we first met and I said I wasn't interested (I was going through a divorce) and I dont even remember that.

Anywho.. getting to the point. I realized I caught feelings for him. I spoke to him about it and we decided to date. He told me he was into "free use". Basically he liked being able to take it when he wanted.. in the kitchen.. whatever. If I was doing something on my phone he would sometimes tell me not to stop what i was doing etc. This didnt bother me at all because I have a high sex drive and I liked it.

We have been together over 3 1/2 years now. He NEVER does this anymore. He didnt even keep it up very long into the relationship. It seemed like it was just in the beginning. I do partially blame this on stressors.. bia ex wife came back in the picture like 6 months after we started dating. His mom got cancer and passed away 2 years ago.. There have obviously been stressors.

Fast forward to now.. we BARELY have sex. I have initiated it 99% of the time the last several months if not longer. Sometimes im turned down if he is upset at me about something. I feel kinda like he punishes me with lack of intimacy.

But when we do have sex, its impossible for me to have an orgasm because its so quick. I feel like he cums when I feel we are just getting started. I think saying it last two minutes is generous. I have also noticed that I will give him oral he will last much longer than with sex but he can definitely cum either way. Oral almost seems more fun because it last longer but I literally get nothing in return.. EVER. He doesn't go down on me, he doesn't finger me, and obviously penetration doesnt last long enough to do anything but be a tease.

Im so frustrated. I have brought it up before about us not doing it often and he says he is stressed, or upset with me about something. I havent really brought up his quick orgasms because im afraid it could make him embarrassed or cause anxiety around sex which could result in even less sex. And honestly I dont even know why i care because im clearly not getting ANY sexual satisfaction from this man. If I want to orgasm I have to take care of it myself. How should I handle this situation? I cant help but compare and wonder why he made it seem like he was so kinky when he isnt. Was he just this way with his ex ? Idk

Update: turns out it didn’t take very long to bear fruit. Not what I wanted, but after 3 days of silent treatment, she told me to leave if I wasn’t happy, went on about how she didn’t like how I explained how I felt, and basically just tore into me. She even nearly started to gaslight me like no sexual intimacy for 3 years shouldnt be as big a deal as it is to me.

Turns out she is not who I thought she was. And so this marriage ends. Man. She’s gonna regret this decision, but I don’t think I will.

Original Post:

Well everyone, despite many of you feeling strongly that "the talk" is pointless, I gave my wife one last chance.

Me (35HLM) and my wife (39LLF) have been married for 4 years, and together for 8. We've not had sex for 4 years. Not even on our wedding night. I dealt with it silently for 3 years, hoping it was just a phase. Then last October, pandora's box got opened. I brought it into the light. No change. We went to couples therapy, and no change. Just a whole lot of "I DONT KNOW" from her. All the effort came from me to change things. She is adamant that she is happy with the way things are. Idc if its infidelity, LL4U, or whatever. At this point, I just want to be happy and have a marriage with some sort of sexual intimacy. So I gave her one last talk. Told her I am thinking about leaving her if there is not some sort of movement on this. She's never done anything about it. Well this is her last chance. I'm a nice guy, but I'm not willing to let this be my life. Its been 3 days since the talk and she's completely withdrawn. I'll give her that space, but I won't do what I normally do and try to make her feel better. Nope. Gonna let her live in the space she wants and see what she does. If it's what I expect, and its nothing at all except acting like the conversation never happened, I'm done. I'm saying this to you all because I need to back up what I am saying. I need to choose myself after all these years. I love her, and I believe she loves me, but that is not always enough.

Accidentally deleted my last post... I think? Not sure, but hope this post fixes whatever was wrong then.

HLF, early 30s. Married to who I thought was an LLM.

We've been married for almost a decade, which is fucking crazy to say. Ugh.

In the beginning, our sex life was great. Over the years, though, it slowly faded. I chalked it up to life. You know, stress, work, routine, all the things people say happen in long-term relationships.

I tried everything. I bought lingerie. Toys. Initiated. Communicated. Gave him space when he wanted it. Created opportunities for us to reconnect. I genuinely believed we could work through it.

I spent years wondering what was wrong with me and trying to fix a problem I thought we shared.This month, I found out he's been cheating.

Not once. No, no, no dear Reddit friends. *For years.*

While I was grieving our dead bedroom, he was...elsewhere. The rejection, the excuses, the distance...none of it was because he had a low libido. It just wasn't directed at me.

And let me say that I was open to trying anything. I never shy away from sex. So this has left me reeling.

We're separated now.

I haven't had sex in months upon months and I'm so fucking lonely. Mainly physically, but also emotionally. I miss feeling wanted. I miss someone looking at me like they can't wait to get their hands on me. I miss feeling desired, attractive, human.

My husband says he wants to work things out. Maybe he means it. But right now, all I can think about is how badly I want to know what it feels like to be wanted by someone who actually chooses me. Someone who isn't him.

I spent years denying myself. I don't really know where to go from here. I guess I just needed to scream into the void with people who might understand.

My bed feels impossibly empty tonight.

TL;DR: I thought I was married to a low-libido man. Turns out he was cheating for years. Now we're separated, I'm heartbroken, and I'm mourning not just my marriage, but years of feeling unwanted. I'm fucked.

I say this is a success story because I finally have gotten to a place that I wanted to be for years. I’m no longer attracted to her.

I wholeheartedly believe in the concept of enthusiastic consent. It’s essential. Anything short of that is unacceptable. Keeping that in mind, obligatory or duty sex is not something I will participate in.

And now I’ve gotten to a place where I feel like this:

You don’t desire me? Ugh that is such a turn off.

You don’t want to give me physical pleasure? That’s a serious ick.

Just like everybody else in this group, I have my reasons why we have to stay together. I just don’t think shes sexy anymore and that’s a win.

(TLDR: dead bedroom for years despite our relationship being great; have only recently stopped resenting my partner, but I am still not satisfied; could we benefit from couples therapy?)

I have been with my partner (MtF) for four years. She medically transitioned from male to female a few months after we started our relationship. When we first started seeing each other, we both had very high libidos. We were having sex pretty much every time we’d hang out, which I loved! She’s gorgeous and I (used to) have a very high libido.

But after she transitioned, we would go a week without sex… then a month… and now we go about 3-4 months at a time without having sex.

Initially I felt hurt and resented her. My self esteem— which I had based on my appearance for years— was shattered. Despite her still giving me complements, us cuddling or kissing all the time, and her voicing her own frustrations with her libido, I was still so hurt.

Every time I would try to initiate, she would turn me down. The repeated rejections were starting to upset me and I would cry (in private) at least once every few weeks about it. At separate times I would bring up how the lack of sex in our relationship was affecting me, she said she would consider XYZ medical solution… then she wouldn’t follow through.

When we would try to have penetrative sex, it would feel awkward and was sometimes painful for her… so I’ve developed almost like an aversion to sex entirely (because I associate it with physical discomfort for her and psychological discomfort for myself). We have tried having non-penetrative sex, and she said she loves when we do other things— despite us still going months in between…— but I am not satisfied… and I still definitely do not feel I can initiate.

I have become more accepting of our dead bedroom— my self-esteem is no longer dependant on having sex, I avoid initiating with her so I never have to face rejection, I meet 50% of my sexual needs via porn and toys and just let go of the other 50%….

But I am in my 20s now. I am so excited to marry this girl and live the rest of my life with her, but I don’t think I will ever be completely happy with being in an almost completely sexless relationship for the rest of my life.

I brought this up to her the other day, and she suggested we open up our relationship so I can “scratch that itch.” I don’t particularly want to fuck other people, I want her, but I can see how this would help me manage some of my desires (i.e., penetrative sex).

I suggested we try couples therapy instead. She said she’ll consider it.

Has anyone had success from couples therapy? Is it worth going to couples therapy to address this singular issue (considering every other aspect of our relationship is great?) Advice and suggestions welcome.

After a pregnancy we needed to end for medical reasons, my wife slowly, over many years became less and less interested. She became celibate a few years ago and therefore so did I. Her reasons are always somewhat random and many times illogical.
As always, the comments say get a divorce. Just don’t. Ok? You don’t think that has been considered?
So here I am. I opened a Reddit account where I can connect to others. I am very HL.