Misery in the Bedroom: Ask the Man Shrink

Dear Man Shrink,

My husband and I have been married for over ten years. Sex with him has always been boring. I’d had many partners in my lifetime and he’d only had a few. I guess I was hoping that his bedroom “skills” would improve with practice. For the first few years of our marriage, it was all about how many times a week we had sex. A phone call to his brother would confirm that our sex life wasn’t as good as theirs. He started quoting statistics he knew nothing about, and basically said he has “needs.” Sex was never about being close; it was about him getting his rocks off. Many times I would lay there, tears streaming down my face just waiting for him to finish. My instinct tells me he knew, that he looked a few times and decided to keep going.

I’ve recently told him I don’t have any desire for a physical relationship with him. This is the second time in a year I’ve told him that. The first time, I wanted a divorce. He talked me into staying for our son, and he’s the only reason I’ve stayed this long. Now we’re back to square one, having the same arguments, making the same promises, all over again. It’s like with every new day, a new argument can be “presented” that may make the prior argument moot. Suffice to say, I should have gone to law school; I’m getting very good at this. It’s a miserable existence.

Any advice or insights you might have? Thank you for listening. This was cathartic.—L.

Dear L.,

Great sex is not about frequency, skills, experience, or statistics. And it certainly never results from winning arguments based on the latest data, much less comparison to the sex life of one’s siblings. The foundation for a healthy sex life over the long haul is intimacy. Obviously your marriage doesn’t have very much of that, if any.

Explaining what’s wrong with your husband’s behavior is easy. I could rant for hours about how putting pressure on someone to have sex ruins intimacy. I’d be glad to tell him that the most loquacious, logical arguments are worthless when it comes to making love.

That’s the easy part. The hard part is figuring out why you’ve tolerated it for so long and how you’re going to change things.

You’ve gone for over ten yeas without having your intimacy needs met, and I’m not just talking about sex. In fact, I doubt this problem has little to do with your husband’s lack of experience or skills in the bedroom. Stuff like that is easy to fix if the rest of the relationship has intimacy, but you’ve been willing to go through life without it. You need to ask yourself why. What are you afraid of? Why don’t you expect more for yourself? What is so difficult about setting boundaries with your husband? These are not rhetorical questions. I suspect that you’ve tolerated this situation for so long due to long-standing, deep-seated reasons. Your husband obviously has some problems with intimacy, but you might have to address a few issues of your own if you want things to change. Let’s see what we can do to get you started.