Ever notice that there’s no “Why your GIRLFRIEND Won’t Have Sex With You” site? Ever wonder why that is? Perhaps because women are very careful about picking their time to decide they have Deep Emotional Issues that simply MUST be worked out and you’ll just have to wait until they are, Buster. And that time, of course, is always some point after a man is legally obligated to have sex with her and only her and will potentially face serious legal and financial consequences if he strays. After all, if a girlfriend decides she doesn’t want sex any more, she’ll most likely be told “take your toothbrush and your DVDs, go back to your own apartment and find somebody else to not have sex with.”

You went through a hard time. I get it. I do. But it seems to me that you are not listening to what other people are telling you. They are asking you questions, trying to get you to consider other situations, and it seems that you simply come back and repeat that you had a hard time. You were hurt, dammit, and we all need to acknowledge that sufficiently.

Well, I do acknowledge that: you were hurt. And so was your wife. But frankly, I am irritated, a little bit, by your insistence that unwillingness to have sex amounts to a personally-meant withholding of something a partner is entitled to in order to inflict some sort of insult or injury. Here’s why.

For several years, and for reasons I won’t get into, my then-partner (now husband) was not very sexual. I (a woman) was the partner who was desiring sex, and he was the partner who was not interested. And it was really difficult for us both. And feeling rejected (though I would differentiate that from necessarily *being* rejected) was difficult, especially since it’s so easy to internalize the paradigm that “men are always interested in sex, so if they are not interested in sex with you, it’s something horrible about you.” So I felt bad, and blamed myself, and we went through rough times.

But even with all that self-recrimination here is what I did not do: I did not get angry at him for *withholding* anything from me, as though I had some sort of entitlement to the use of his body. I certainly did not accuse him of deliberate mistreatment of me. And I tried really hard (we both did) to treat each other *better*, not worse– we both made a conscious effort to show love in any way we possibly could, since it wasn’t possible in the bedroom at that time. And I did things to express my love for him not as some sort of quid-pro-quo… ie, “well, I was nice to you all day and *still* no sex?” but because at base *I loved him* and *I knew he loved me* and so we found ways to care for each other.

I guess that’s where you have been losing me. I get that it is difficult and painful… believe me, I really do. But the fact remains that people are not entitled to each others’ bodies, and getting angry about being ‘denied’ what is ‘rightfully yours’ is really rather creepy when applied to sex. Sex, and relationships generally, operate best as a gift economy, not as a contract-based system.

I think we are talking about two entirely different dynamics…one where the marriage has already deteriorated to just shy of retaining legal counsel…and another that is floundering, but not yet totally characterized by anger, martyrdom, stonewalling and profound distance.

Tom, I’m so glad neither of us got to indifference. So very glad.

If both sides are so dug in as to be unwilling to remove a single battlement, then the war of attrition is the only alternative. Here is where Hugo’s advice is good–the HD spouse should leave his or her comfort zone and try to fix things. However, if the LD spouse does not want to patch things up, this approach alone will not do the trick and if anything will create more resentment.

My second assumption is that holding out intimacies for an extended period makes things worse, not better. Does the denial of sex really have the desired effect on the “recalcitrant” spouse? The net result of this approach is either a sexless marriage or a henpecked husband who begs, pleads, and is manipulated like a mouse in a maze searching for his cheese? Or, in many cases, a husband who will go outside the marriage to address the situation. None of these scenarios increase the self-respect of either of the spouses , nor do they make things better.

If everything is not OK, withholding sex from the HD partners will not fix things. It is self righteous to justify not wanting to have sex with him or her to avoid sending the wrong message. First, decide what the “right message” is and then talk about it. The passive-aggressive use of withholding sex hoping that he or she changes and addresses “unaddressed issues” is as “recalcitrant” as anything the disappointing spouse is doing, but he or she is powerless and has no control over the decision every night while going to bed.

Envision the scenario where one partner has made the decision to stick it out until the kids have graduated, and has informed the spouse to start making other arrangements…because the war of attrition will end the day the youngest flies the coop.

The point I’m trying to make is that LD may not be LD at all…but rather, both the lack of interest in sex with the spouse because you really, honestly do not like the spouse right now AND the unwillingness to participate in intimacies that permit a recalcitrant spouse to believe that it is really allll okay, and that unaddressed issues will simply blow away.

Had Harrison Ford strolled my way in the bad old days, and I’d been willing to toss everything I value and believe into the trash…please trust me that the question of LD could have been resolved right quick.

I get what you are saying, Tom. But you need to know that far too often, “the lie back and think of England” response allows for the assumption that…really, everything is okay, when really, everything is not okay.

I like the approach of “getting my head into the game.” And yes, this entails more “work” on my part…and keeping it somewhat subtle…but also putting myself first. Looking back…so much of my LSD was related to “time” issues, and subsequent resentment, and when we began consciously carving out blocks of time that belonged only to me, life “perked up.”

As most folks here appear to acknowledge…all kinds of issues can impact on the sex life…but along the lines of another blogger from way back…

No, it is not fair that some women view the morning woody with dread…do you want to complain about the unfairness of it all or to you want to have sex?

(Altoids and Britta water on the nightstand helped us considerably…)

No it is not fair that many men wake up ready for action. “Do you…of it all,” or would you rather realize the advantages of starting your day with a nice climax?

(Get to bed before midnight, whenever you can…worked wonders for us.)

No, it is not fair that some folks do not consider sex “an apology.” Do you want to complain about the unfairness of it all, or would you rather have sex? (heavy on the sarcasm here)

(Verbalizing the sincere apology before putting on the moves is a good idea.)

And so on…

Lisa…what I’m trying to get at here is that I do believe that the LSD party does have the responsibility to address issues negatively impacting a mutually satisfying sex life, and that sometimes, when issues are addressed, the LSD turns out not to be so low after all.

I can not identify with four attempts at making a marriage work. I have been married for almost twenty years to the same lovely woman. With four children, my options are significantly lowered and, since I intend to stay with my spouse, we had no choice but to find a way to work things out. That said, if was only through mutual effort, prayer, and rebuilding of trust that we were able to get through a tough time in terms of our disparate sex drives and frustrating years.

It only happened through mutual effort. While I understand and agree with the proactive element of your recommendation–to rebuild yourself out of a comfort zone in an effort to improve the situation–I don’t think this recommendation alone is adequate. Without a willing spouse who is making an equal effort, the higher libido partner’s effort will begin to quickly look like fruitless windmill-tilting rather than dragon slaying.

Hugo, given you are a fitness nut, let me attempt an analogy. Before other readers get bent out of shape, let me say up front that I know my analogy is imperfect (yet hopefully better than the rhetorically boneheaded “taking out the garbage” analogy that kicked up this issue). Let’s assume that a couple are both runners. They met on a trail run and things just clicked. They trained together and entered races together. Their mutual commitment to fitness created a wonderful bond–a common thread on which the relationship was built. At their wedding, people give them gift certificates for Brooks shoes and their cake was adorned with two figures holding hands as they break the tape together.

Flash forward ten years. She is still in excellent shape, but her husband has really let himself go. It started years ago–one morning he was uncharacteristically lazy and felt like sleeping in rather than do the regular 5-miler that they do on Thursdays. Months go by and the husband’s discipline–his ability to “just do it” which was so admirable during the courtship–continues to dwindle proportionally to his interest in ice cream. Before long, he is out of shape, overweight, and his interest in runs has diminished almost completely. Worst yet, he has taken up smoking and leads a generally unhealthy lifestyle. While she would love to run regularly, he will reciprocate only occassionally for a walk, and it does not really seem to interest him.

At this point, your advice is akin to telling her to emulate Jack Lalanne or Richard Simmons. Her job is not to become an excellent personal trainer–to make him WANT to get back into shape. Get out the megaphone and the Jane Fonda tapes. Enter him in the Bay to Breakers and your favorite races from the past so he has to resume training. Be as positive and proactive as possible in persuading him to get back into shape.

An excellent, proactive step and ameliorating the situation. But what if it does not work? What if he lacks either the motivation or the desire to get back in shape. No injuries or obvious reasons to avoid the exercise, but a constant “I don’t feel like going to the gym… I am too tired… I don’t have time”. In his mind, I am out of shape and I am NOT going to exercise unless there is a “damned good reason”.

Since my wife isn’t going anywhere, he ponders, I can get as out of shape as I want. I have known smokers who live to 100 and runners who have heart attacks, so the fitness angle does not seem so compelling to me anymore. So, barring extraordinary circumstances, I do not see a “damned good reason” to resume exercise.

By your rationale, the problem lies not in his changed commitment to exercise but in her inability to motivate him to start exercising again. It is “his body” and you do not have the “absolute right” to expect him to run with you.

The “why did he stop running” question is interesting, but not crucial. Is there really such a thing as a good reason? Perhaps if she is ridiculing his gait, or hitting him over the head with a dumbell, he can be excused from the runs. But more likely his ego was bruised because his wife was getting faster than him, so better just to quit. Or perhaps she was flatulent during the runs, or sang off key to her iPod. Perhaps every time he runs he can’t help but recall the time in junior high school when he lost in the mile run and his disappointed girlfriend dumped him–a painful recollection he would rather avoid. At the end of the day, regardless of the reason, he still deliberately exercised his free will and decided not to run anymore. And the more out of shape he got, the easier it was to say no.

Is this what she expected when she married him? Sure, there were other things she loved and still love about him, but running was so important. It was a fabulous bonding experience, a mutual commitment that now is gone. There was no guarantee that he would continue to value fitness and your runs together. He does not anymore, and she can not force him to run, even though he knows how much it means to her, because he does not want to put forth the effort.

Of course, she can always run alone, which accomplishes the fitness goals that she retained but with no bonding, no friendship, no laughs. She can find another running partner, but there are circumstances that make this hard as well (such as the double running stroller which slows her down).

I would ask you two things, Hugo. If this happened to you, would you not be deeply, profoundly disappointed? Would you not feel that the now overweight spouse that changed his values has some culpability in the matter? I think most people with emotions would feel this, and few would be so philosophical as to say “well, it is his life and he can do what he wants” without feeling some pain.

Yes, the BEST thing to do is try to come up with novel ways to inveigle your spouse back into the running lifestyle. But would you really feel as though you had no right to expect that things would have turned out differently?

I realize that running and having sex are two different things, but the points that I make about expectations, commitment, and the mutual effect of a unilateral action apply in both cases.

Personally, I have a hard time seeing exclusive blame in the in-shape spouse for her inability to motivate when it is the out-of-shape spouse who, through his own adult decisions, let himself go. The only way the relationship will approach the original expectations is if the out of shape spouse decides to take action, not the fitness nut.

All I am trying to say is that the “why SHOULD they?” argument could be applied to plenty of aspects of a couples relationship and not just sex.