I’m a mid-30’s man in a long-term (10 years) relationship with a similar-age woman. I’m looking for advice on how to make our sex life exciting again.

These days, we’re intimate probably ~2x per month. I am always the initiator. When we do have sex, I practically have to scrape her off the couch to come to bed. Sex has gotten very formulaic. Everyone cums, but it’s always the same: she sucks a bit, I lick her until she cums, then we do some penetration, but she’s always asking me to cum ASAP so that we can go to sleep. Sometimes she even yawns during the sex (!), which is quite a put-off.

She’s not very kinky, either, so I don’t think some sort of unexplored kink is the recipe here. If anything, I’m the kinky one in the relationship.

Otherwise, we have a great, supportive relationship. We respect one another. There have been no serious emotional injuries during the relationship and no infidelity. We do have kids, which admittedly does take the focus off one another.

And we have talked about this before. She seems very sensitive to my concern, always promises to make more of an effort to bring excitement to our intimate time, but it’s clearly a chore for her. All I really want is to see her very turned on—that’s the hottest thing to me.

We’re open to seeing a therapist, but have both been in very busy jobs for the last 2.5 years, and so we haven’t had time (this will be changing in 2025). If your suggestion is to see a therapist, and you’ve already had a positive experience with one in your own life, I’d love to hear an anecdote or two!