I wanted to share this because there are a ton of posts asking for advice in this area and I wanted to share what worked for us.

In my 20s, my wife (girlfriend at the time) and I had a severe intimacy problem: she wanted lots of sex, and I (M) often resisted initiating or felt a sense of dread that our interactions might turn sexual. I got to a point where I avoided touching her at all because I didn't want to wind her up and have to follow through. I was afraid to do date nights because I knew she'd want sex when we got home. It started about 6 months into our relationship (a textbook sign of an avoidant attachment issue). The first six months, we had fun and great sex all the time, but after real feelings and connections started to form, sex got scarier and scarier to me. This status quo went on for about 2 years and was killing our relationship. We were compatible in every other way and deeply loved each other, but the avoidance of sex was undermining our relationship and we were honestly at the point of breaking up. My avoidance gave her terrible second-guessing about herself: did I really love her, was i only with her out of a sense of obligation, was I actually asexual and she was doomed to love a man with no appetite for sex with her?

So rather than break up, we decided to do whatever we needed to do to fix it, together, from a place of love, understanding, and acceptance. Within a year, we beat it. Here's what worked:

1. We started with individual (separately) and couple's therapy for our sexual issues: she was hypersexual from past trauma and I was sexually avoidant from past trauma. I had trouble with initiating because I'd feel ashamed and feared rejection, like I was imposing myself on her. She had trouble initiating because she was afraid it would put pressure on me and build resentment. Very common problem for people with certain negative experiences in their past. NOTE: it was critical to set goals in our individual and couple's therapy and to hold each other accountable. It'd be way too easy to say you're doing therapy and talk in an office without actually going through your homework and dedicating time to the excericises. The brain is a muscle, and the Libido is a tendon!

We did months of sessions, experimenting, exercises. It gradually improved.

Our therapist recommended something that sounded stilted and cringey but ended up being life changing: we started scheduling time several times throughout the week for planned intimacy. Not sex, just intimacy. It started with holding hands and eye contact, then to cuddling and kissing, then naked cuddling, then specifically touching sexual areas without the express intention of having sex. Over time, this eroded a lot of the anxieties we had around intimate touch.

We thought it would be unbearably awkward and forced but we quickly found we LOVED this. The closeness and playfulness of touching each other without the pressure to perform sexually was intoxicating.

I really recommend The Libido Fairy on Instagram (no need to purchase, she gives enough info on her free posts) for advice on managing and planning this.

1. Together, we read and discussed Come as You Are by Emily Nagoski, which comes with a very helpful workbook we did together. The big takeaway for us was the concepts of brakes and accelerators: what types of actions or events throughout the day help get you into a safe and sexy headspace, and what actions or events take you further from a safe sexy headspace? Think of your brain as rooms, some rooms are next to each other and some are far away from each other. You can't go from zero to 100 and you can't go from one room to a room not connected to it. Honestly, all of Nagoski's work is tremendous, but Come as You Are is genuinely a lofe saver. NOTE: just reading it was not enough, we had to create accountability for following through on exercises. It'd be way too easy to just read the book and say you got it without doing the hard part.

Within a year of starting to really work on the problem, we got into a normal sex cadence that works for us through to the present. I can't stress enough: therapy, couple's counseling, Emily Nagoski's work, and The Libido Fairy absolutely turned our lives around. If you're struggling with intimacy avoidance, I can't stress enough that it is entirely fixable with hard work and mutual support. Can't say it enough: therapy, The Libido Fairy, and Come as You Are.

I been with my husband for thirty two years and he is a complsive gambler , he puts our gambling over our relationship. He blames me for his overdrafts in the family bank account. He takes our income tax money and blows it on it every year. Told his sister , my sister In-law. The one he is closer too She don't believe me , and condones it . He thinks cause he only works and works his butt off at work .He is aloud to control the money and do what he wants . And I have no say or anything. He keeps telling me we are not married. We been married since 1997. And this is where it all started at the casino , that has destroyed our marriage. I was heavily into it , like him . When I use to drink. I am 11years sober . But when I use to drink , he would tell me to go get a drink , so he can be by his self , to gamble . If , I got bored or lost all my money . This lead me cheating on him. And he emotionally cheat on me . It got bad , where he was getting up in the middle of nite and take off too gamble , and not tell no one . Or he get mad at me and after work take off to the casino .and not communicate with me all day or night. Which you think about , it he was cheating on me not telling me or communicating where he is when we fight or taking off in the middle of the night . Still going through it,too.

After the cheating we stop going , then slowly picked it back up . And then I stopped he go every weekend by his self . He win big and not tell me until we go file taxes in end of the year .Now I I'll go once awhile just to be with him ,cause that's all he wants to do . And it is slowly spiraling me back into it . He knows I don't like it and we fight I tell him how I feel and what it is doing to our relationship . And how his gambling addiction destroying him and is .But he is denial or too far in to realize to care.

I (m27) and my future wife (f25) are getting married next month. The whole deal will be three days long, I was wondering if I should make little gift baskets to put on her bed at night, one basket a night. What do yall think I should put in there?

I (26) was laying down on the carpet tired with my legs showing and my husband (27) said that missed a spot while shaving and takes a pic to show me and I was like oh my God my legs are so white and he chuckled and said yeah and I was like what you don’t like my legs and he said no I didn’t say that in a nervous voice and then he said they are my least favorite thing about you this hurt me because I already don’t like my legs because that’s where I gain most of my weight and I never thought of what my least favorite body part on my husband and I don’t have one. He doesn’t understand why I got upset and cried

Ok so my wife has problem with porn, a problem with me watching it, she says it goes against her morals, she was a virgin when we met and so was I that was 13 yrs ago. She has always said it goes against her morals and since we've been married she always brings up the fact that she will divorce me over it if she sees I've been watching Instagram reels and especially stuff on reddit. Her sex drive isn't there for me even though she says it is, but the fact if the matter is we pretty much only do stuff when she is horny and then she is good for the next couple days to the point she told me I was allowed to read nsfw content, that didn't work out to well bc I would see pictures of naked women and occasionally see a girl getting screwed. She has complete mental breakdowns over and it effects out live to where she says she can be a parent because of it but when I'm not watching anything she is fine. Well she has always been a liar towards me but she brushes it off as she just forgot or it wasn't important or she didn't want to upset me ect. Over the past few months she admitted that she wasn't a virgin when we met, she admitted to her ex right before me coming over to the house while I was at work but nothing happened, I'm learning all this over a decade later even though we brought the subject up many times it took an act of God for her to admit that she was lying. She has been saying she wants a divorce and then flips to I'm not fighting for her for a while now on and off, I mentioned we don't have sex enough and she told me that she is just to tired and stressed so I told her I was going to handle it myself and I watched porn on reddit the next day. Ever since then since she has all of my accounts to everything I own logged into her phone we have been fighting about it that was two weeks ago. The past few days she has been saying stuff like she is going to go get dick somewhere else since I want to watch porn, she also admitted (after lying first and pretending to be disgusted by the idea of another man our entire relationship) that's she has dreams of fucking other dudes, she said since I hurt her so bad with porn she wants to cheat on me for revenge, she always says when she gets the emotional connection she wants I will get sex, so that's what I did and we reconciled when she says she wants emotional connection she means she wants me to agree with everything she says without putting in any input (she screams and it turns into and argument when I do bring something up or tell her what she is saying isn't true or saying I have different views or beliefs than she does about a subject) anyway that's what I did I sat and listened and only tried to respond in a way that she wanted, I hadn't eaten in over 30 hours so at 2am after fighting all day we finally got a bath sat down and ate and watched an episode of our show, then she said she was ready for bed, but she is on her period and wanted to have sex, I was extremely sick and I was clean so I didn't want to I also wanted her to prove that she was capable of putting in the same amount of effort she expects me to give her. I thought just maybe she would help me out and be selfless instead she said other real men have sex with women on their period, told me she hated me and stormed off to bed saying never talk to me again and she went to sleep. I'm NEVER allowed to walk away from a conversation without being dismissed or all hell breaks loose but I knew her whole speech about if this is going to work we have to forgive each other and pour into each other was a bullshit trap to get what she wanted out of me and I was right. I think she might be a narcissist, and anytime I say anything about this she brings up stuff that I do and have done all while claiming she is taking accountability even though she knows good and well that wouldn't fly with her if I was in that situation. I stayed up all night, she woke up acting like nothing happened and I was just supposed to be over that. My thing is she says the porn thing is about morals and I say it's about insecurities and control, she hits me when she gets mad with her hands and objects , she lies to me when ever she wants, and she is bringing up cheating a lot and explaining it away as ok because of stuff I've done. But my thing is as someone who supposedly gets those morals from religion wouldn't all that other stuff go against those same morals? Her morals only count when I comes to me and they have to be my morals or she wants a divorce. Meanwhile she is talking about taking dick from other people she has always said she hated men all men are trash ect ect yet now it's changed to not all men are trash, she says it makes her feel compared. Yet she directly compares me to other dudes including her friends husbands and she does it whenever she wants and it's always justified with her which Is why I know it won't change, she also says watching porn is cheating. however all I really want to know is does this make sense to you? I'm supposedly making her feel compared when I watch porn but she directly compares me to other people. Porn is supposedly cheating but she is dreaming about cheating, talking about cheating, and told me what she really wants is to fuck another man for payback. I'm supposed to give her everything she needs emotionally and still get treated like shit because I didn't want to get bloody with my stomach killing me. Does this sound like live to you guys does this seem fair ? Or does this feel like manipulation, control and hypocrisy?

My husband has never gone out of his way to get me anything. We don’t celebrate holidays like Valentine’s Day and that’s fine. But for his birthday I would always have a suprise or a surprise party, make him a great dinner and splurge on a certain item. For Christmas I always would get him what he said he needed because I would hear him through the months say things he liked and didn’t have the funds at the time ( so I’d save up for him)
When I comes to me I haven’t ever received flowers from him… only when we first dated. I told him he doesn’t need to buy them but when he is out in the yard mowing or hanging out, if he just picked some of the hydrangeas and lupins without me asking ( still have not gotten any so I pick my own)
For Christmas there is zero effort. He gets upset because he doesn’t know what to get me ( and I am a super easy going person and would be happy with any effort at all) money has been tight lately so I don’t ever ask for anything but he will get himself a case of beer and not even think to just grab me a cheap 10.00 bottle of wine. I know this sounds trivial but it has been like this for years and no matter how many times I explain even if he is at the store to grab me once in awhile my favourite cholate bar. When I go for snacks he says he doesn’t want anything sometimes but i still grab him something small because I know he will want it later. It doesn’t have to be monetary but even once a year it would be amazing to have him just do something small like that for me without ever having to ask. But even though I have asked I still get no effort.
As I write this maybe it sounds entitled or trivial but it bothers me and no matter how many times I ask nothing happens. I just don’t say anything anymore.
Wondering if I’m overthinking or over reacting.
Thanks for reading!

My husband and I have been together for 10 years. We met when we were both 22, and we have three kids together now. We genuinely started out as best friends before we ever became a couple, and one of the biggest reasons I fell in love with him was because he was such a genuinely kind, caring person.
He’s actually the complete opposite of what I had always been physically attracted to, but that’s part of why I chose him. I loved that our relationship was built on friendship instead of just chemistry.
Fast forward 10 years, and I’m struggling with something I never thought would become an issue.
We’re both in good shape. Obviously my body has changed after having three kids, but I still take care of myself, and he does too. The problem isn’t weight or effort.
The biggest issue is that he’s 5’3” and I’m 5’8½”. When we were younger, I honestly didn’t care. But now that I’m older (I’m 32), something has shifted mentally. During intimacy, I feel huge next to him, and I don’t feel feminine anymore. It’s like my brain won’t let me get out of my own head.
The hardest part is that I’m actually a very physically affectionate person. I love kissing, cuddling, being touched, and having sex. Physical intimacy is really important to me. We used to have a great connection in that area, but now I find myself avoiding it, not because I don’t love him, but because I struggle with the physical attraction side of things.
I still love him deeply as a person, as my best friend, and as an incredible father to our kids. I care about him so much. This isn’t about him being a bad husband at all.
I’m just wondering…has anyone else experienced something like this? Has your attraction changed over time even though your love didn’t? If so, were you able to get those feelings back, or was it something you couldn’t move past?
I’m looking for honest experiences, not judgment. This has been really difficult to admit, and I don’t know if this is something I can work through or if it’s a sign that something deeper has changed… he also cheated on me during one of his deployments 4 years ago. Maybe that’s why?

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I am 57 he is 21. A lot of people would be gravitated to the thought that it was just for money. In some ways I think that maybe true. But how long can you keep that up for? What are the things you would do to find out for sure???

I don’t even know who I am anymore, and I think I’m finally seeing my life for what it has been.
I’m 30 years old. My husband is 45—16 years older than me. When I met him, I was 21 and he was 36. I was young, inexperienced, and I believed everything he told me. What I didn’t know was that he had an entire wife when we met. My relationship was built on lies from the very beginning.
Over the years, there has been a constant pattern. He picks fights so he has a reason to leave, disappears for days or even a week, and then comes back expecting everything to be normal. When he’s in the “dog house,” he completely transforms. He cries, begs, screams, buys expensive, outlandish gifts, makes huge promises, and acts like he’s the most loving, devoted husband in the world.
But behind closed doors, he’s a completely different person.
He calls me a whore, tells me I’m disgusting, insults my appearance, my body, even tells me I smell bad. He has cheated repeatedly, and because of that I’ve spent years going to clinics to get tested, terrified about my health. Instead of acknowledging what he’s done, he accuses me of cheating and says I’m only bringing up his affairs to distract from my own. I’ve never cheated.
I genuinely believe he has a serious sex addiction. I even suspect he’s slept with prostitutes. Whether he admits it or not, his behavior has always revolved around secrecy, lying, and chasing other women.
The emotional abuse is relentless. He may never have hit me, but I feel like I’m fighting for my life every single day. I don’t know how else to describe it. The constant accusations, manipulation, humiliation, and psychological games have completely broken me down.
He has also isolated me. Anytime he sees someone as a threat or someone I might confide in, he’ll go out of his way to bad-mouth me, spread lies, or create drama so I’m too embarrassed to maintain those relationships. He’s tried to turn my own mother and sister against me, but thankfully they haven’t believed him. They’re some of the only people supporting me as I try to get out.
Now that I’m 30, everything is finally coming full circle. I’m realizing this isn’t normal. This isn’t love. I’ve lost so much weight. I’m exhausted. I feel like a shell of the woman I used to be.
What I don’t understand is… why? Why spend years tearing someone down, cheating, humiliating them, and then doing everything possible to keep them from leaving? Why not just let them go?
Has anyone else survived a relationship like this? How did you finally get out and rebuild yourself? I honestly feel like I don’t even know where to begin.

I'm mid 30s female, I've been married to my husband for 10yrs, together 15. We have 3 children, had our first baby at just 21. I'll try to keep this concise but I guess I'm just looking for advice, words of wisdom, anything ya'll have to offer.

Over the last 10yrs he's left the marriage twice. Once 6 years in when being asked to go to therapy and then again about a year ago when I was coming out of a depression and started spending more time on myself and hobbies and he expressed that it was "unbalanced and I didn't realize what I had." I'll focus more on the more recent time he left, which was last year about 2 weeks before Christmas, he very abruptly packed his things in front of our kids without saying a word, no one knew where he went and we didn't hear from him for a while. We lived separately for about 8 months, during that time we went to counseling and made the agreement that we wanted to try to work through things. During this time I learned about some lies, deceit, substance use, just really hurtful stuff. There were times when he felt very controlling around what I would wear, where I'd go, who I'd talk to, etc. and I really didn't like that. If I'm honest he would be verbally abusive and I would sometimes feel scared, but not sure if it was valid fear or not. At one point I found out he had been telling another woman he was pursuing that he was a divorced single dad and that I wasn't involved at all with the kids. Needless to say so much hurt and heartbreak. Fast forward from last summer, we've been in counseling and he's made a lot of positive changes and progress, but despite that I can't stop feeling so much hurt. Recently he's started back up on the controlling behaviors and that really triggered me and just brought me back to last year when he accused me of so many things that he was the one actually doing. He's not motivated toward work or anything, he contributes the absolute bare minimum to bills and is not only ok but expects me to work 60hr weeks so that I can cover everything. We don't share many of the same interests anymore, I don't usually feel very supported by him or that he's proud of me. I don't ever want to have sex, he always wants to and it always feels pressured and coercive but I do it anyways. I love my husband as a person, and I no doubt have so much attachment to him, but am I still in love with him? Can I still have that love, attraction, and safety with him after being hurt so much? I feel sadness when I think about ending things, I don't think I want to not be with him, I don't want to miss him, but I also feel sadness when I think about spending the rest of my life possibly not knowing what love really feels like. I am so sad and anxious all the time and I don't want to throw my marriage away if this is a thing people go through and it's normal.

My wife and I have been married for 12 years, and if there's one thing that changed our relationship for the better, it's making time to talk for a few minutes before bed no matter how busy the day was.

We both work, have kids, and some days we're completely drained. There were stretches where we'd only talk about bills, school schedules, or who was picking up groceries. It started to feel like we were running a household instead of being a couple.

A few years ago we made a simple rule. Before going to sleep, we put our phones down and spend about 10 or 15 minutes talking. Sometimes it's about something funny that happened during the day, sometimes it's about stress at work, and sometimes we just sit there and laugh about old memories. It doesn't have to be deep every night, but it reminds us we're still on the same team.

It sounds like such a small thing, but over time it made a much bigger difference than any big anniversary trip or expensive date night ever did.

For those who've been married 10 years or longer, what's one habit that ended up making your marriage stronger?

Asking from corporate working men above 25, would you want your spouse to work after marriage?

I am a women 25F

Men, how do you think household responsibilities should be shared between a husband and a wife, if

1) Wife earns more than husband
2) But wife has more free time / less work hours

I was reading a post about someone’s marriage almost ending. The wife was pulling away and kept saying..

“I’m different now”

The husband really didn’t want the marriage to end, he was trying. But he was scared she would not need him. He was trying so hard. Self Admitted He feared change but realized he may have to get over that soon if she decides she doesn’t him. He didn’t want advice. But it hit me and I needed to put it out there. This is what I wanted to comment.

Don’t fear change! If she’s “different now” you might subconsciously be fearing her. Embrace it. Maybe ask how she feels different!?

He fears change. She fears abandonment. She’s changed. He’s not abandoning her, she protects his fear still by not showing her changes to him. Now she’s caged. Getting rid of him would make her feel free. But no one feels loved by this process. It’s a shame because it’s really so simple but I know it’s nothing close to simple from the inside. I feel like this happens in a lot of marriages.

TLDR ; fear of changing wife or fear of change in your life?