Free from the pill

Well, it’s been a month since I wrote this post about stopping the pill for a while to see if that helped.

The last month has been awful.

As I said in my previous post, when I’ve stopped taking the pill before, within days everything has improved. This time, I stopped before the depression and anxiety really kicked in, so the jump in mood was less noticeable, but overall positive. The downside however was that I had real withdrawal symptoms from stopping the pill. [Gianvi, a Yaz generic, which for those of you outside the US is a progesterone and estrogen combination pill.] I had hot flushes, I felt faint, I woke with a headache everyday, I felt nauseous, my sleep is still disturbed, and I had huge mood swings. Honestly, if I didn’t know better I would have thought I was pregnant. Overall, it was a fun few weeks for all involved. After the first week things slowly improved. I had my period this weekend and I’m finally returning to normal.

All of that had put sex even further off the table than before. My husband, as ever, has been incredibly tolerant and supportive through all this turmoil. And finally, I can report a bit of positive news: at the weekend, I wanted to give him oral sex. Woohoo! For the first time in probably eight weeks I actually had a positive thought about sex. Ok, so it wasn’t penetrative sex, but as we’ve discussed before some sexual intimacy is better than none.

This week I should be pretty busy with lots of social stuff, and things to do in the day to. Maybe when I’m less bored, and free from hormonal carnage, we’ll progress some more. Fingers crossed!

~ Her

Bad advice on differing sex drives

I want to try something new. This article was posted on the Guardian newspaper this week. A boyfriend writes in:

I’m 32 and considering proposing to my girlfriend, but we don’t have sex as much as I’d like. She is often receptive, but it is always an effort rather than natural. I’d like her to initiate sex occasionally, and make me feel as if she wants sex with me, rather than doing it because I want it. I’ve been happy in past relationships having sex every day or two, but now it is every week or two. I worry about committing myself to lifelong sexual frustration.

This a problem we can all relate to here. The question itself is fairly innocuous, and as we’ve discussed several times it tackles several of the feelings that the high-sex partner can have feeling unattractive and frustrated. It’s the advice itself I wanted to discuss. The first paragraph:

There must be important reasons why you are considering marrying someone who does not fulfill you sexually but, before you propose, learn more about the sexual connection between you – or lack of it. Unless you tell your girlfriend you’d like her to initiate sex occasionally, she may think you prefer to make the first move. Have a non-blaming talk about your needs and concerns, and request feedback. If she lacks libido, that is worth investigating, because many treatable things can reduce desire – including overwork, stress, depression, health problems and certain medications.

At first this is great, Pamela Stephenson Connelly is advising the writer to have a big chat about sex within in their relationship. I love that she emphasises the need to not attribute blame. As the low-sex partner, no matter how wonderful and careful your spouse is, you can always feel guilt for not giving them what they want. And I totally agree that sometimes libido can magically re-appear with a few small changes in your life. It’s the second paragraph that worries me:

Since a couple’s sexuality is a metaphor for their entire relationship, the sporadic and tentative nature of your sex life together may hold clues about something fundamental that needs to be fixed. It would be wise to gain a full understanding of your joint and individual sexual truths before committing to longevity.

Do you agree that your sexuality is a metaphor for your entire relationship? I don’t. I think it is very simplistic and in fact, a little insulting as the low sex partner.

I cannot emphasise enough how much this sentence concerns me. The sweeping generalisation is awful. Do people that enjoy BDSM want to emotionally hurt eachother? No, of course not. Do people that enjoy role-play and dressing up actually want different a partner that’s a nun? No, that would be stupid. Do military couples that do not have the opportunity to have sex very often not love each other? Again, that’s stupid. By the article’s logic, as the low-sex partner, I’m cold and withholding from my husband. In fact, I go out of my way to be more loving and affectionate when I’m in a low-libido slump. We both make extra effort to be demonstrative with our love, and to spend quality time together. But maybe that’s the point. Many people with this problem don’t communicate their feelings properly.

The sort of advice provided here, and the utter rubbish stated in the comments below the article, is the very reason we started this blog. So many people out there assume that your relationship is doomed as soon as you encounter the slightest difference in sex drives. If you talk about it properly with each other, if you understand each other’s feelings you can work through it.

~ Her

Unhappiness and guilt

The nature of my job means my wife and I live a long way from our home, and it’s hard. I’m on a short contract, and this job is great for my career, but neither of us really like the location. It’s tough, and it’s really taking a toll. From first glance, I’m sure this looks like I’m the one who is pushing to stay put, but that really isn’t the case. We both know it makes sense to hold nerve and see out this contract. The trouble is I think about quitting about three times per week. Staying is the right thing to do, but I just want us to up and leave.

I’m sure all of this is feeding back in our sex issues. Both of us are bored with our everyday lives, and I feel like we’re in some sort of stasis until we can move and start our lives up again properly. We’re not sexual around each other at all right now, and haven’t been for over six weeks. Much of this is likely due to my wife coming off the pill (she did this a couple of weeks ago). Things have been a bit of a roller-coaster. Neither of us have been sleeping well, as my wife tosses and turns in the night as she goes from feeling hot to feeling cold. I’ve never been so grateful for my simple male-type endocrine system! Still, we are both hopeful this will improve things (see last post).

That’s the end of my ramblings for tonight.

~ Him

The role of the pill

As my husband most recently posted, things have gone down hill in the last few weeks. This led to us discussing another potential change: stopping the pill.

I’ve had trouble with the pill in the past. I’ve stopped a few before, but usually when they’ve led to full on depression. Thankfully, I’m not there right now. Aside from the ongoing sex problems, I’m pretty good.

I, like many women, have a love-hate relationship with the pill. I love the freedom from pregnancy worries, and diaries full of coded circles. I hate, that after 6 months to a year, I usually end up giving up for one reason or another. We have the added down side that as I’m allergic to latex, condoms are absurdly expensive. That only adds yet more pressure to the situation.

Sadly, there isn’t a pill on the market that doesn’t lower libido. So, we’ll try going it alone for a while.

~ Her

Back to normal

So, things were pretty amazing recently (see previous post). We were having wonderful, regular sex – the “just do it” approach was really working for us. Unfortunately, we’ve now slid back into our normal routine. Counter-intuitively, I think being busy improves our sex life a lot – when there’s a lot going on, my wife wants sex more. At Christmas and New Year, we were very busy having fun, and so had a lot of great sex. Now, everyday boring life has resumed, and even though we have more time, we aren’t really having sex.

~ Him

Just do it!

Happy New Year everyone!

I’m sorry we’ve been so quiet on here for a few weeks now. Like many of you, we’ve had a very busy holiday period. I hope that yours, like ours, was full of good times with your loved ones.

So, this brings me to my new years resolution. Well, two: firstly to eat more fish, and secondly to have sex everyday.

The whole “Just do it’ approach is one we’ve never tried before. I’ve read about it, in a few books (more on those later) but we’ve never been a place where I felt like giving it a go before. The logic is that once you’re naked in bed, cuddling and kissing, that those feelings will just take over. Intimacy fosters more intimacy. I certainly agree that I need to feel intimate emotionally before physically, this is something we’ve discussed before.

One thing I want to be crystal clear about. If you decide to do this you need to talk about it with your partner, and establish what you do and don’t want to do. Pressure is not OK. It’s a personal target, not a rule that you need to follow.

I think the main reason we’ve never tried this before is because when our problem first arose I was in the depths of some deep depression. And so I appreciate this approach isn’t for everybody. We’ve got so much better at communicating and understanding each other’s feelings. Trying the “Just do it” approach is a testament to how far we’ve come.

For us sex encompasses any intimate activity. Often, if I’m not in the mood, that’ll be just helping my husband masturbate: kissing him, lying naked with him, whispering sexy thoughts to him. While I think this doesn’t truly match-up to sex for him, it does help us feel closer, and alleviates some of the negative feelings our sex-drive discrepancy causes. Plus, it’s good to find ways that pleasure your high-sex partner, which the low-sex partner is comfortable with. Making him happy makes me feel good about myself.

So far, so good. We’ve missed two days, but that’s not the point. What’s more remarkable is the eight days we’ve had sex. Eight days in ten! That’s truly fantastic. Long may it last.

~ Her

Orgasms

We’ve both said in this blog that when we do have sex, it’s amazing. And that’s something we’ve always been really grateful for. However, last week we had a bit of a blip. I wanted to write about it because it’s a repeat of something we experienced before, and successfully worked through. I also think it could be a common issue for others in our shoes.

The “blip” was that I was finding it difficult to orgasm. This is very odd for me. Usually, I’ll orgasm every minute or so when I’m receiving any sort of stimulation to my genitals, and frequently when we’re just kissing, or fooling around without any direct genital stimulation. This puts me in an unusual group for many women, in that I’m not used to experiencing sex without regular, whole-body, exhausting orgasms. My husband loves this aspect of our sex life. He loves that I can come so much with him that I can’t speak or move for a good ten minutes afterwards. So, having sex without coming is very unusual for me.

The first few times this happened (years ago) we didn’t deal with it very well. My coming regularly and hard during foreplay and penetrative sex is really key for both of us. We both got so anxious when I wasn’t orgasming like that, it that we ruined any attempts for a while. It got worse: then I became worried about my ability to come before it we even started kissing, and that made me avoid and ignore any sexual urges I was experiencing. Rather like (I’m told) men becoming concerned about achieving and maintaining an erection: as soon as you think about it, it’s gone. This was not good.

Now, over time, we’ve got better at swiftly communicating with each other, that there’s a head-body issue, that I want to continue, and then trying to relax and enjoy it. Now, we both recognise that when I’m not coming, sex is a different experience, but still worthwhile. I still get that delicious closeness with my husband afterwards. It even has a side-benefit in that, I don’t become oversensitive too fast, and we can go for longer in positions I often find too intense.

Returning then to the present. On Tuesday we turned it around. I finished a big project at work so we went out to celebrate. I was feeling hopeful that I’d want to have sex that night, so I dressed up a little. All the usual factors that work for me kicked in: I felt really good about myself, both in terms of my appearance and intellectually. We had an amazing date, we chatted all night, and laughed, we drank a bit too much and ate incredible food we’re still talking about. Then, we had awesome, phenonmenal sex, and I was back to normal. We cracked it.

~ Her

Sex, compromise and feeling unattractive

In most aspects of any relationship, there is compromise: compromise over where to go and what to do. The trouble with sexual interactions is that one cannot compromise. If one partner wants less sex, then that’s how it is how much sex there is in the relationship. One partner gets what they need to be fulfilled and the other doesn’t. This can make it feel like the one who wants more sex is the one with the problem, when actually, it is still a joint problem.

As I wrote before, with my wife and I, there was a shift in libido. We both went from wanting the same amounts and the same variety of sex to wanting different things. Now, it’s not like we’re in a sexless marriage – we’re really not (I feel desperately sorry for couples that are), but we have very different needs. When sex is on the cards, I feel grateful, grateful for whatever I can get, and this has altered the dynamic in the relationship. Our general intimacy has also been affected, as there’s always the fear I’m going to try it on when she’s really not in the mood. I feel like a fifteen year-old all over again – which can’t be very attractive, can it?

This again leads to feedback loops. I’m aware that my feeling unattractive makes me less attractive, and one of the key traits that made us initially drew us to each other was confidence. Recently, I worked out that my main issue wasn’t so much the decline in sex, but the fact my wife didn’t want to sleep with my so much. These things are subtly different. It’s not that I feel generally unattractive, I just don’t feel as attractive to my wife anymore.

This has led me to consider two things:

1. What caused our sexual needs to diverge;  and

2. How do I learn to live with less sex?

Hopefully, a better understanding of these two things will help increase her sex drive and decrease mine!

~ Him

Closeness and sex

This another of those feedback cycles.

I need to feel close to him before feeling sexy, but he feels closer after sex.

Now, if sex is regular enough, then this isn’t a problem. We’ve found some ways to get around this. Doing new things together helps a lot. Whether it’s the cinema, sharing books, museums or a new restaurant, experiencing something new together engenders a closeness we both enjoy.

I realised this on our way back from a holiday, when I was trying to put my finger on what is was about holiday that made me want more sex. Of course, being relaxed is a huge part of it, but I really think that spending quality time together in a new place is very good for us.

More broadly, it can’t be bad for the non-sex component of our marriage. We’re really lucky in that we have a lot of fun together, and outside the bedroom our relationship is amazing. That’s what makes it easier to battle our different sex drives head on.

~ Her

Talking about it

I think one of the hardest things about this for me, are the various forms of feedback cycles we get stuck in.

I know that only way we’ll work through this is talking about it. It’s just that when we talk about it, it immediately sets me back a few days. I start worrying about it again, and as all the lower-libido partners will know, worrying about it is the worst possible thing.

This hits me hardest when I think we’ve had a good week. But that’s it in a nutshell isn’t it? From my point of view, an increase in frequency is a triumph and everything is getting better. But for him, it’ll never be enough. For him to be satisfied it needs to be varied, exciting and 4-5 times a day. Even on holiday we don’t manage that.

With time, I’m finding it easier to let go a little and try to make these conversations about how he’s feeling, and not how I feel. That way I recover faster and worry about it less.

~ Her