Is it possible to tell a significant other that you are profoundly unsatisfied in your sex life without hurting their feelings? If so…how? /u/thrwwyccnt0001 Sex

For context, I’m deeply in love with my SO. Love her to death. We’ve been together for 12+ years. We get along really well. And I’m more attracted to her now than I ever have been. I enjoy our sex…when we have it. She says she enjoys it too and says she’s satisfied in our sex life.

But she’s one of these responsive desire types (look it up if to don’t know what this means, its talked about at length in the book Come As You Are) which unfortunately means that unless we are literally having sex, she couldn’t be less interested. It goes completely out of her head. I asked her once how much she thinks about sex during the day. She doesn’t. She doesn’t think about sex during the day. She also has…I don’t want to call them rules, but times she doesn’t want to have sex. No morning sex, she’s too tired and needs her coffee. No sex on days when she works. She’s too tired. No sex right after we put the kids down. They might still be awake. She might be convinced to have sex during the day, but doesn’t like to. She basically restricts us to sex after 8PM. I’m usually dead tired by this point, but if it’s tired sex or no sex, the answer is obvious. But it’s not a particularly great way to experience these infrequent interactions.

In any case I feel completely cast aside, unwanted, unappreciated, unsexy. I feel like there is an entire side of me (an extremely important side) that is being completely ignored. She initiates once for every 10 times i initiate. I’m starting to be scared to feel sexual attraction to her because I know it’s just going to lead to intense sexual frustration. I feel exhausted, like I’m carrying the entire weight of our sexual relationship on my own 24/7 and need to do ALL the work to make something happen. I just want to feel like she has the tiniest fraction of a neutrino of sexual attraction towards me.

I can’t go on like this. So I need to talk to her. But how do you tell a long term SO that you’re extremely disappointed and unsatisfied in your sex life without hurting her feelings and breaking her spirit? I feel like if it isn’t handled correctly it has the potential to make things much worse. We’ve had these kind of talks before but since things haven’t really changed (perhaps she was more involved for a week or so after we’d talk, but quickly falls back into her old ways) I think I need to be more clear, direct, candid and unambiguous about what I need because she’s a very caring person and I think she would want to know and would try to improve.

So, how? Any thoughts? Is it even possible?

For context, I’m deeply in love with my SO. Love her to death. We’ve been together for 12+ years. We get along really well. And I’m more attracted to her now than I ever have been. I enjoy our sex…when we have it. She says she enjoys it too and says she’s satisfied in our sex life.

But she’s one of these responsive desire types (look it up if to don’t know what this means, its talked about at length in the book Come As You Are) which unfortunately means that unless we are literally having sex, she couldn’t be less interested. It goes completely out of her head. I asked her once how much she thinks about sex during the day. She doesn’t. She doesn’t think about sex during the day. She also has…I don’t want to call them rules, but times she doesn’t want to have sex. No morning sex, she’s too tired and needs her coffee. No sex on days when she works. She’s too tired. No sex right after we put the kids down. They might still be awake. She might be convinced to have sex during the day, but doesn’t like to. She basically restricts us to sex after 8PM. I’m usually dead tired by this point, but if it’s tired sex or no sex, the answer is obvious. But it’s not a particularly great way to experience these infrequent interactions.

In any case I feel completely cast aside, unwanted, unappreciated, unsexy. I feel like there is an entire side of me (an extremely important side) that is being completely ignored. She initiates once for every 10 times i initiate. I’m starting to be scared to feel sexual attraction to her because I know it’s just going to lead to intense sexual frustration. I feel exhausted, like I’m carrying the entire weight of our sexual relationship on my own 24/7 and need to do ALL the work to make something happen. I just want to feel like she has the tiniest fraction of a neutrino of sexual attraction towards me.

I can’t go on like this. So I need to talk to her. But how do you tell a long term SO that you’re extremely disappointed and unsatisfied in your sex life without hurting her feelings and breaking her spirit? I feel like if it isn’t handled correctly it has the potential to make things much worse. We’ve had these kind of talks before but since things haven’t really changed (perhaps she was more involved for a week or so after we’d talk, but quickly falls back into her old ways) I think I need to be more clear, direct, candid and unambiguous about what I need because she’s a very caring person and I think she would want to know and would try to improve.

So, how? Any thoughts? Is it even possible?