1. Do you remember the first time your body failed you? I don’t but I remember the last time and I feel done. Sex feels like just more work than pleasure and it’s not work I’m willing to do any more
I’ll be having the talk with my wife this week she can leave if she wants I’m not going to be mad I love her but I can’t do it any more. If sex is all I’mgood for then that’s fine I don’t want that in a life partner anyway.
I wanted to grow old together and make sure we both felt accepted and secure and loved. Sex does not do that for me. I’m just so tired and I think after working all my life I’ve earned enough scars to retire. I’m sure she already knows how little interest I have. I’m not watching p-rn or jerkin it I just do not care now. I’ve lost all interest in sex it feels boring and frivolous to me now. I no longer want to live a sex-centric life.
I’m not really sure if I’m asking for advice or just acceptance. Acknowledgement that I’m allowed to choose what I want to do with my body. We do such a good job teaching our daughters about their rights I work to normalize that for my sons too. Tests are all well above normal its not hormones or medical like that. Afterwards, exhausted emotionally and physically feeling it’s a chore. I get nothing from it. She’s not even enjoying herself so it’s not as if there’s even the satisfaction of pleasing her which carried me for a number of the last years. I’m not overweight I run half marathons I’m in shape for my age. I just can’t be bothered.
Do you know how many other things in my life are worth my time? Hundreds. Hundreds of things are more interesting, exciting, intense. There’s so much I want to do and none of it involves the bedroom. I don’t want other people I don’t want to try to build excitement I just want to do other things! I’m accepting early retirement at the end of this year due to global events. I want to enjoy my retirement! I worked for this family for 25 years and they are all safe and well-provided for. I want to use my time to learn and create and do things that bring me pleasure not just foment dread.
2. I know I should just distance myself from it, but it’s hard when you’re trying to figure yourself out and all.
I’ve just so often been made to feel like I’m 100% of the time wrong and my feelings mean nothing because sex is so important and I’m some terrible person for not wanting it.
I’ve been accused of so many things that never even crossed my mind. Bait and switch, manipulation, I never tried to do those things but yet I can’t even defend myself without seemingly everyone jumping in and saying how horrible I am.
Sometimes I just want to scream. Like, do HL people really think it’s so easy being LL? Do they really think we all just go out looking for people to trick into relationships thinking, “mwahaha, can’t wait to deny sex to this person!” Can’t anyone understand that I don’t want to be this way? That I didn’t ask to be this way? And that changing is HARD? No one asks the HL person to change. They always get to be right and I always have to be wrong. If I’m not changing fast enough, I’m not worth the time. If I don’t want to change, I’m treating my partner terribly, even though I’m not forcing them to stay. If I’ve made any steps, it’s barely acknowledged unless that step is suddenly wanting sex all the time.
I see HL posts that are barely even descriptive of their LL partners and others are calling the LL a bitch, not a real man, terrible things when they have not even a clue what’s really going on in the relationship.
If I try to even express a feeling as a feeling, not as a fact, I’m still somehow wrong. Like I’m not allowed to feel any differently than they do or I’m a bad person.
I’m so tired. None of it helps. It makes me want to retreat further into myself and not even try. It makes me dread being with anyone with even a remote amount of libido.
3. I don’t get it. To me sex is just a physical act. Repeated thrusting followed by a burst of dopamine and seratonin. That’s it….to him (HLM) sex is the ultimate expression of love – but how ? It’s literally just physical pleasure.
I’m LL and I’ve never thought sex was very important at all. After I had my child almost 6 months ago and during the pregnancy libido has been non existent. I’ve probably got the random urge maybe twice since the entire pregnancy and birth.
I honestly feel broken. not to mention plain out right ugly. I don’t masturbate and I never have. my bf is so needy when it comes to sex too. Like why does he need it everyday ? There are so many ways to express love that isn’t having sex. not to mentions it’s LITERALLY repeated thrusting. ugh it’s frustrating bc I usually feel like I have to otherwise he won’t be happy. So I just lay there and he’s unhappy. I don’t understand- once he cums isn’t that enough ? why do i also have to be engaged ? I’d just rather not and now he wants me to try and come home today and wow him. Who does he think I am ? I’m just a mom not some sexy goddess
4. This is off the cuff because it just happened, but my partner just pulled the whole “I have biological needs that aren’t being met” card, and this may be obvious to most people, but it just hit me that I have needs too. Maybe my needs are more psychological, but the psychological still has to be in order for the physical/sexual to happen.
I have the need to not worry about my partner getting angry. I have the need to take the time to adjust to a really big life change that happened recently. I have the need to not be told that my depression from this life change is irrational. I have the need to not feel pressured to do anything sexual. I have needs, too.
5. Saying no to sex is the most stressful/worst part of my life
My job is stressful. I have depression. I have physical injuries that have taken me out of my favorite hobbies. And yet, denying sex with my partner is the worst part if my life.
The stress is overwhelming. I have started to check out/ dissociate when it is happening. This morning I just dug my nails into the back of my neck to distract myself instead of saying something when I didnt want our cuddling to turn sexual. I just got through it.
Just now, I actually said no and then sat there for a few minutes scraping my knuckles with the teeth of my hair clip. Why is something so simple so difficult? Any other feeling is better.
6. I’m sick of sex being a need
I don’t know how to phrase this but I will try. My husband feels unloved and undesired and he says it’s not about sex. He also says I hide behind my children. He also finds it offensive I even want to hang out with friends when we are together. Although we have date nights once a week. I also try and have sex once a week. It feels like his need for connection is self sabotaging. He’s mean in a funny play it off way, he’s moody, he refuses to help me with the kids to get back at me, he’s selfish in bed.
It reminds me of when you are having a good day with a friend-it’s hot it’s sunny and you see an ice cream shop so you decide to stop for a treat. It’s good. Then the next day that friend calls you and is like are we getting Ice cream and you’re like I didn’t plan it no. Then they barely talk to you and you’re like sorry I was busy and they’re like sounds like an excuse. Then they’re like you must not like me and you weren’t thinking that but now you feel maybe you don’t like them. They’re needy and whiny. So you take them for ice cream but they become selfish and start eating your ice cream too. One day you decide to get ice cream alone and they freak out saying oh I see it must be because you hate me. Honestly you considered asking them to come along but it’s a hassle.
I feel slight empathy for people with high sex drives but it also feels like an itch they need to scratch. They claim it’s how they feel loved but It feels like they need hole to come into and someone to tell them their hot. They also don’t want it to be a task on their partners list but how can it not be? If it was about their partner and them then they wouldn’t seek out other people or leave because of sex. My husbands latest tantrum came directly after I was interrupted giving him a hand job because the kids needed me. So I had to go in with the baby and put her to sleep that’s when the text message started. And it angers me because it’s like he didn’t get his stupid orgasms and he’s been throwing a fit for over a week. And has the audacity to say I’m hiding behind the kids and it’s not about sex. The internet has made me increasingly more bitter about men and their sex drive. I see way too many men throwing tantrums and treating their wives shitty than should be the standard.
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.