I know this is a long one, and I really appreciate any advice on this. I have several quotes from the book, which makes up a lot of the text in this post. TLDR at bottom.
My (34f) husband (35m) have been together since we were 17 and are deeply in love. For the first 5 years or so, our sex life was amazing, but then health issues started to make it harder abd harder. I have a history of CSA that I started to really work through it with EMDR back in 2019 and that caused me to stop disassociating through life and realize that I was just going through the motions of our sex life. Not that I was coerced or anything, just that I kind of kept track of the days and made sure we had sex at least once a week and that was fine. Post EMDR, I want to be present and enthusiastic, not just on autopilot. (Note: when I say sex, I mean any sexual activity that ends with him having an orgasm. Oral, hand jobs, or actual sex, I enjoy all of these when I’m in the mood and emotional connection is way more important to me than my physical pleasure)
During EMDR, I couldn’t handle sex for nearly a full year. I would have extreme panic attacks and it was just not possible. I know this time was really hard on my husband. Coming out of that, we had a period of great sex, then we both got sucked into wildly stressful jobs and I ended up with chronic pain and fatigue from exposure to black mold that killed my libido, sometimes going weeks or months without doing anything sexual. He is very supportive of my healing journey, but has only recently started seeing a therapist himself to work on his own stuff.
My husband, on the other hand, needs to get off once a day or it starts to bother him. He mastubates a lot and I have no issue with that, but because his sex drive is so incredibly high, I know that any sort of intimate physical touch (kisses, caresses, all of what feels like non-sexual physical affection to me), or seeing me in any sort of revealing clothes or me changing, leaves him wanting more. It breaks my heart and makes me feel so ashamed to feel like I can’t give him the sex he desires. What this means is that I constantly feel the pressure and sexual tension in the house, and it makes me withdraw further and further from him so I don’t accidenally lead him on or disappoint him. He doesn’t pressure me for sex, and considers guilting or pushing someone into sex that isn’t fully and enthusiastically consensual to be unacceptable, but I know it feels like a need for him, like hunger, and the fact that I can’t reciprocate feels awful. I also don’t want him to know the full extent of how I was just going through the motions before because I know that would be devastating to him to realize I wasn’t fully present and enthusiastic at the time…
I have also over the last few months wondered if he has a porn addiction because of how often he needs that release, but he doesn’t have any other signs. He consumes a lot of sexual content, but always prefers real life intimacy, and his use of porn isn’t getting worse and worse. It just truly seems like a means to the end, and if I was able to have sex with him once a day, he’d never watch porn again with no issue.
So we had a big talk last week and I pried the explaination out of him that the lack of regular sex has been really hurting him, and that he feels unloved and unimportant to me. I want very much to work on that, because I WANT a healthy sex life, and I was horrified to hear how deeply he was hurting that he has been hiding from me for a long time to try to prevent me from feeling pressured. He said some things that really put his physical needs into perspective, like, “It feels like having sex with you is like swimming, mastubating every day is like treading water, and not doing either of those things feel like drowning.” And telling me that he is always turned on, even when he is upset, stressed, hurt, sad, etc, and he still feels the physical need to get off at least once every day or he feels agitated or frustrated or other negative emotions.
We have always treated my low libido like it was my issue and that I should be the one driving that healing. I have read books and done sex therapy during my EMDR to work on childhood trauma, and he has always been open and receptive. But because his sex drive is so high and I would LOVE to have a high sex drive, it literally never occurred to me before two days ago that he might also need to heal his libido and work on meeting me half way. I know it has also never occurred to him to try to lower his sex drive, he just feels like he has been like this since an adolescent and it’s just how he’s wired. However, reading this book suddenly opened my eyes to the unhealthy nature of using release to handle daily life. It’s the first time I’ve been able to put my finger on why his relationship with getting off feels so unhealthy to me.
I am going to give him this book for him to read, but I am worried he will be in denial about this being an important mental health issue for him to address. However, mostly I also am just not sure what next steps to address this look like. His therapist is not a sex therapist. We are seeing a couple’s counselor and I’m sure we will talk about it there, but… is the way to fix this to treat it like an additiction? Is there anything I can plan or have ready to support him? Does anyone have any experience with working on this issue/ their partner working on this issue? What can I expect? Does anyone have experience as a partner with this? How did you support your or be supported by your partner? Any potential advice on this is welcome.
A few quotes from the book:
“Do you need sexual release daily, or several times a day? If your partner won’t have sex when you need it, do you find the sexual tension intolerable? The Dependent libido type needs sex and finds it difficult to cope without regular sex or masturbation.”
“In its stronger form, Dependent libido types experience sexual desire as an agitated feeling, persistent and urgent: They may say they can’t sleep at night without sex or can’t concentrate on work, and in more extreme cases, they may have to masturbate just to get through the demands of the day. Typically, Dependent lovers do not make the connection between their bad feelings and needing sex; in fact, it’s likely that the Dependent lover interprets his own bad feelings as the result of his partner rejecting him sexually.”
“There are two layers to the meaning of sex for the Dependent libido type. The first is that regular sexual release is necessary to maintain a sense of calmness and basic well-being, and without that, other aspects of your relationship or life in general are put under pressure. If that need is met often enough, you then feel free to experience sex with your partner as an expression of mutual love and shared enjoyment. However, if your partner is unwilling to maintain the sexual relationship at the frequency you require, you interpret this to mean that you are unloved or unimportant in your partner’s priorities regardless of anything else she might do to reassure you.”
“The major sensual cue for Dependent libido types is likely to be their own internal physical frustration, particularly as it builds to bodily unease and agitation. Given that this physical need is present most days, you are sensitive to any sensual cue from your partner; for example, cuddling or seeing your partner naked will quickly enhance your sexual desire, and sometimes physical proximity alone is enough for you to see that as an opportunity to try for sex. While some form of physical discomfort may suppress the Dependent lover’s desire, generally once there is a strong need for sexual release, the only way to end it is with orgasm.”
“If you are a Dependent libido type, your need for regular sex in order to feel loved and reassured, or to deal with bad feelings, can have a place in your sexual relationship, provided you acknowledge that this is your issue and you do not put that responsibility on your partner. You tend to interpret any unwillingness on your partner’s part to have sex or be as affectionate as you want as your partner not loving or caring for you.”
TLDR: My husband had an incredibly high sex drive and, due to stress and illness, mine is very low. I read a book and realized for the first time that his relationship with getting off is an unhealthy coping mechanism, kind of like an additiction, that is putting a bunch of pressure on me that makes me avoid intimacy. Has anyone else experienced this or had a partner who experienced this? Do you have any advice?
EDIT: The book does not paint the Dependent Libido style as an illness or a thing that must be “fixed”, but it does give a framework for how other libido types can connect with that libido
submitted by /u/Catsinova
[link] [comments]
r/sex I know this is a long one, and I really appreciate any advice on this. I have several quotes from the book, which makes up a lot of the text in this post. TLDR at bottom. My (34f) husband (35m) have been together since we were 17 and are deeply in love. For the first 5 years or so, our sex life was amazing, but then health issues started to make it harder abd harder. I have a history of CSA that I started to really work through it with EMDR back in 2019 and that caused me to stop disassociating through life and realize that I was just going through the motions of our sex life. Not that I was coerced or anything, just that I kind of kept track of the days and made sure we had sex at least once a week and that was fine. Post EMDR, I want to be present and enthusiastic, not just on autopilot. (Note: when I say sex, I mean any sexual activity that ends with him having an orgasm. Oral, hand jobs, or actual sex, I enjoy all of these when I’m in the mood and emotional connection is way more important to me than my physical pleasure) During EMDR, I couldn’t handle sex for nearly a full year. I would have extreme panic attacks and it was just not possible. I know this time was really hard on my husband. Coming out of that, we had a period of great sex, then we both got sucked into wildly stressful jobs and I ended up with chronic pain and fatigue from exposure to black mold that killed my libido, sometimes going weeks or months without doing anything sexual. He is very supportive of my healing journey, but has only recently started seeing a therapist himself to work on his own stuff. My husband, on the other hand, needs to get off once a day or it starts to bother him. He mastubates a lot and I have no issue with that, but because his sex drive is so incredibly high, I know that any sort of intimate physical touch (kisses, caresses, all of what feels like non-sexual physical affection to me), or seeing me in any sort of revealing clothes or me changing, leaves him wanting more. It breaks my heart and makes me feel so ashamed to feel like I can’t give him the sex he desires. What this means is that I constantly feel the pressure and sexual tension in the house, and it makes me withdraw further and further from him so I don’t accidenally lead him on or disappoint him. He doesn’t pressure me for sex, and considers guilting or pushing someone into sex that isn’t fully and enthusiastically consensual to be unacceptable, but I know it feels like a need for him, like hunger, and the fact that I can’t reciprocate feels awful. I also don’t want him to know the full extent of how I was just going through the motions before because I know that would be devastating to him to realize I wasn’t fully present and enthusiastic at the time… I have also over the last few months wondered if he has a porn addiction because of how often he needs that release, but he doesn’t have any other signs. He consumes a lot of sexual content, but always prefers real life intimacy, and his use of porn isn’t getting worse and worse. It just truly seems like a means to the end, and if I was able to have sex with him once a day, he’d never watch porn again with no issue. So we had a big talk last week and I pried the explaination out of him that the lack of regular sex has been really hurting him, and that he feels unloved and unimportant to me. I want very much to work on that, because I WANT a healthy sex life, and I was horrified to hear how deeply he was hurting that he has been hiding from me for a long time to try to prevent me from feeling pressured. He said some things that really put his physical needs into perspective, like, “It feels like having sex with you is like swimming, mastubating every day is like treading water, and not doing either of those things feel like drowning.” And telling me that he is always turned on, even when he is upset, stressed, hurt, sad, etc, and he still feels the physical need to get off at least once every day or he feels agitated or frustrated or other negative emotions. We have always treated my low libido like it was my issue and that I should be the one driving that healing. I have read books and done sex therapy during my EMDR to work on childhood trauma, and he has always been open and receptive. But because his sex drive is so high and I would LOVE to have a high sex drive, it literally never occurred to me before two days ago that he might also need to heal his libido and work on meeting me half way. I know it has also never occurred to him to try to lower his sex drive, he just feels like he has been like this since an adolescent and it’s just how he’s wired. However, reading this book suddenly opened my eyes to the unhealthy nature of using release to handle daily life. It’s the first time I’ve been able to put my finger on why his relationship with getting off feels so unhealthy to me. I am going to give him this book for him to read, but I am worried he will be in denial about this being an important mental health issue for him to address. However, mostly I also am just not sure what next steps to address this look like. His therapist is not a sex therapist. We are seeing a couple’s counselor and I’m sure we will talk about it there, but… is the way to fix this to treat it like an additiction? Is there anything I can plan or have ready to support him? Does anyone have any experience with working on this issue/ their partner working on this issue? What can I expect? Does anyone have experience as a partner with this? How did you support your or be supported by your partner? Any potential advice on this is welcome. A few quotes from the book: “Do you need sexual release daily, or several times a day? If your partner won’t have sex when you need it, do you find the sexual tension intolerable? The Dependent libido type needs sex and finds it difficult to cope without regular sex or masturbation.” “In its stronger form, Dependent libido types experience sexual desire as an agitated feeling, persistent and urgent: They may say they can’t sleep at night without sex or can’t concentrate on work, and in more extreme cases, they may have to masturbate just to get through the demands of the day. Typically, Dependent lovers do not make the connection between their bad feelings and needing sex; in fact, it’s likely that the Dependent lover interprets his own bad feelings as the result of his partner rejecting him sexually.” “There are two layers to the meaning of sex for the Dependent libido type. The first is that regular sexual release is necessary to maintain a sense of calmness and basic well-being, and without that, other aspects of your relationship or life in general are put under pressure. If that need is met often enough, you then feel free to experience sex with your partner as an expression of mutual love and shared enjoyment. However, if your partner is unwilling to maintain the sexual relationship at the frequency you require, you interpret this to mean that you are unloved or unimportant in your partner’s priorities regardless of anything else she might do to reassure you.” “The major sensual cue for Dependent libido types is likely to be their own internal physical frustration, particularly as it builds to bodily unease and agitation. Given that this physical need is present most days, you are sensitive to any sensual cue from your partner; for example, cuddling or seeing your partner naked will quickly enhance your sexual desire, and sometimes physical proximity alone is enough for you to see that as an opportunity to try for sex. While some form of physical discomfort may suppress the Dependent lover’s desire, generally once there is a strong need for sexual release, the only way to end it is with orgasm.” “If you are a Dependent libido type, your need for regular sex in order to feel loved and reassured, or to deal with bad feelings, can have a place in your sexual relationship, provided you acknowledge that this is your issue and you do not put that responsibility on your partner. You tend to interpret any unwillingness on your partner’s part to have sex or be as affectionate as you want as your partner not loving or caring for you.” TLDR: My husband had an incredibly high sex drive and, due to stress and illness, mine is very low. I read a book and realized for the first time that his relationship with getting off is an unhealthy coping mechanism, kind of like an additiction, that is putting a bunch of pressure on me that makes me avoid intimacy. Has anyone else experienced this or had a partner who experienced this? Do you have any advice? EDIT: The book does not paint the Dependent Libido style as an illness or a thing that must be “fixed”, but it does give a framework for how other libido types can connect with that libido submitted by /u/Catsinova [link] [comments]
I know this is a long one, and I really appreciate any advice on this. I have several quotes from the book, which makes up a lot of the text in this post. TLDR at bottom.
My (34f) husband (35m) have been together since we were 17 and are deeply in love. For the first 5 years or so, our sex life was amazing, but then health issues started to make it harder abd harder. I have a history of CSA that I started to really work through it with EMDR back in 2019 and that caused me to stop disassociating through life and realize that I was just going through the motions of our sex life. Not that I was coerced or anything, just that I kind of kept track of the days and made sure we had sex at least once a week and that was fine. Post EMDR, I want to be present and enthusiastic, not just on autopilot. (Note: when I say sex, I mean any sexual activity that ends with him having an orgasm. Oral, hand jobs, or actual sex, I enjoy all of these when I’m in the mood and emotional connection is way more important to me than my physical pleasure)
During EMDR, I couldn’t handle sex for nearly a full year. I would have extreme panic attacks and it was just not possible. I know this time was really hard on my husband. Coming out of that, we had a period of great sex, then we both got sucked into wildly stressful jobs and I ended up with chronic pain and fatigue from exposure to black mold that killed my libido, sometimes going weeks or months without doing anything sexual. He is very supportive of my healing journey, but has only recently started seeing a therapist himself to work on his own stuff.
My husband, on the other hand, needs to get off once a day or it starts to bother him. He mastubates a lot and I have no issue with that, but because his sex drive is so incredibly high, I know that any sort of intimate physical touch (kisses, caresses, all of what feels like non-sexual physical affection to me), or seeing me in any sort of revealing clothes or me changing, leaves him wanting more. It breaks my heart and makes me feel so ashamed to feel like I can’t give him the sex he desires. What this means is that I constantly feel the pressure and sexual tension in the house, and it makes me withdraw further and further from him so I don’t accidenally lead him on or disappoint him. He doesn’t pressure me for sex, and considers guilting or pushing someone into sex that isn’t fully and enthusiastically consensual to be unacceptable, but I know it feels like a need for him, like hunger, and the fact that I can’t reciprocate feels awful. I also don’t want him to know the full extent of how I was just going through the motions before because I know that would be devastating to him to realize I wasn’t fully present and enthusiastic at the time…
I have also over the last few months wondered if he has a porn addiction because of how often he needs that release, but he doesn’t have any other signs. He consumes a lot of sexual content, but always prefers real life intimacy, and his use of porn isn’t getting worse and worse. It just truly seems like a means to the end, and if I was able to have sex with him once a day, he’d never watch porn again with no issue.
So we had a big talk last week and I pried the explaination out of him that the lack of regular sex has been really hurting him, and that he feels unloved and unimportant to me. I want very much to work on that, because I WANT a healthy sex life, and I was horrified to hear how deeply he was hurting that he has been hiding from me for a long time to try to prevent me from feeling pressured. He said some things that really put his physical needs into perspective, like, “It feels like having sex with you is like swimming, mastubating every day is like treading water, and not doing either of those things feel like drowning.” And telling me that he is always turned on, even when he is upset, stressed, hurt, sad, etc, and he still feels the physical need to get off at least once every day or he feels agitated or frustrated or other negative emotions.
We have always treated my low libido like it was my issue and that I should be the one driving that healing. I have read books and done sex therapy during my EMDR to work on childhood trauma, and he has always been open and receptive. But because his sex drive is so high and I would LOVE to have a high sex drive, it literally never occurred to me before two days ago that he might also need to heal his libido and work on meeting me half way. I know it has also never occurred to him to try to lower his sex drive, he just feels like he has been like this since an adolescent and it’s just how he’s wired. However, reading this book suddenly opened my eyes to the unhealthy nature of using release to handle daily life. It’s the first time I’ve been able to put my finger on why his relationship with getting off feels so unhealthy to me.
I am going to give him this book for him to read, but I am worried he will be in denial about this being an important mental health issue for him to address. However, mostly I also am just not sure what next steps to address this look like. His therapist is not a sex therapist. We are seeing a couple’s counselor and I’m sure we will talk about it there, but… is the way to fix this to treat it like an additiction? Is there anything I can plan or have ready to support him? Does anyone have any experience with working on this issue/ their partner working on this issue? What can I expect? Does anyone have experience as a partner with this? How did you support your or be supported by your partner? Any potential advice on this is welcome.
A few quotes from the book:
“Do you need sexual release daily, or several times a day? If your partner won’t have sex when you need it, do you find the sexual tension intolerable? The Dependent libido type needs sex and finds it difficult to cope without regular sex or masturbation.”
“In its stronger form, Dependent libido types experience sexual desire as an agitated feeling, persistent and urgent: They may say they can’t sleep at night without sex or can’t concentrate on work, and in more extreme cases, they may have to masturbate just to get through the demands of the day. Typically, Dependent lovers do not make the connection between their bad feelings and needing sex; in fact, it’s likely that the Dependent lover interprets his own bad feelings as the result of his partner rejecting him sexually.”
“There are two layers to the meaning of sex for the Dependent libido type. The first is that regular sexual release is necessary to maintain a sense of calmness and basic well-being, and without that, other aspects of your relationship or life in general are put under pressure. If that need is met often enough, you then feel free to experience sex with your partner as an expression of mutual love and shared enjoyment. However, if your partner is unwilling to maintain the sexual relationship at the frequency you require, you interpret this to mean that you are unloved or unimportant in your partner’s priorities regardless of anything else she might do to reassure you.”
“The major sensual cue for Dependent libido types is likely to be their own internal physical frustration, particularly as it builds to bodily unease and agitation. Given that this physical need is present most days, you are sensitive to any sensual cue from your partner; for example, cuddling or seeing your partner naked will quickly enhance your sexual desire, and sometimes physical proximity alone is enough for you to see that as an opportunity to try for sex. While some form of physical discomfort may suppress the Dependent lover’s desire, generally once there is a strong need for sexual release, the only way to end it is with orgasm.”
“If you are a Dependent libido type, your need for regular sex in order to feel loved and reassured, or to deal with bad feelings, can have a place in your sexual relationship, provided you acknowledge that this is your issue and you do not put that responsibility on your partner. You tend to interpret any unwillingness on your partner’s part to have sex or be as affectionate as you want as your partner not loving or caring for you.”
TLDR: My husband had an incredibly high sex drive and, due to stress and illness, mine is very low. I read a book and realized for the first time that his relationship with getting off is an unhealthy coping mechanism, kind of like an additiction, that is putting a bunch of pressure on me that makes me avoid intimacy. Has anyone else experienced this or had a partner who experienced this? Do you have any advice?
EDIT: The book does not paint the Dependent Libido style as an illness or a thing that must be “fixed”, but it does give a framework for how other libido types can connect with that libido
submitted by /u/Catsinova
[link] [comments]