Relationship Expert Shelly Diprose tries to solve your intimate problems
Q: I’m a straight male, 53, my partner and I have been together for 30 years. We love each other very much and I still fancy her and she says she fancies me, but we rarely have sex anymore and when we do, it feels like she isn’t really there, she seems distracted and I get the feeling she can’t wait for it to be over.
All of our intimacy has disappeared lately, we don’t even hold hands anymore. She blames it on her menopause, but she won’t try and HRT. I never know if she’s in the mood for sex or not, so I’ve given up trying because I don’t want to upset her, I’ve always had a high sex drive and hers is low. I feel frustrated and upset and we argue much more than we used to.
I’m not sure how we make this better, but I really want to connect with her again, like we did when we were in our 20s. I miss her. Anonymous, Barnsley
A: I think this is the most common problem I hear of in my practice. Lack of sex leads to feelings of rejection and obligation and often, the more one person tries to initiates sexual activity (pursuing) or intimacy, the more the other distances themselves.
We call this the pursuer – distancer dynamic. This can often lead to all kinds of intimacy or touch to be shut down completely, due to a fear of giving the pursuer the wrong impression. However, the more one partner tries to initiate, the less room they leave in the relationship for the ‘distancer’ to come forward. And round and round it goes in a catch22 situation.
Desire is a fragile and misunderstood thing that seems like a tangible part of our DNA, but actually, we aren’t born with a libido template, libido is formed from habits and just as some people drink lots of coffee, some people like more sex than others, although hormones can have some impact on our sexual functioning during these times.
You will both have intimate feelings for one another, but perhaps she is shutting those feelings down for reasons she may not know or want to think about. Menopause and andropause affects the person going through it, and their partner/s. Accepting that our bodies are changing can be hard and we can feel less attractive than we once did and perhaps even start to feel like we aren’t allowed to be sexual anymore, but we absolutely are – if that’s what we want.
I like to set an exercise for couples to share any sexy or intimate thoughts in a non-pressured way. You can share the thought via a text with an agreed obscure emoji when you are apart or think of a secret code word or a simple touch that would be out of the ordinary for you to do that only the two of you know what it means. The rules of the game are you must not ask what the thought was or share it and it should be not be acted upon. Think of that thought simply as a gift and to share a snapshot in time of an intimate thought. Each time you have a spark or sexy thought, no matter how small share the emoji to touch.
It can be as simple as ‘my partner looks lovely today’ or ‘they smell great’ or ‘I love the way they laugh’ or you brush past them, share it to help build desire.
