TLDR: My wife and I have been together 26 years. We began with a vibrant, active sex life the first decade of our marriage that dwindled down to a “nearly dead bedroom” the last five years until hormone changes at age 44 lead to her libido returning! We’ve gone from once a month sex to several times a month for the last four. There are more conversations about sex, intimacy outside the bedroom, sharing fantasies and even experimenting that was adamantly rejected earlier in our marriage.

At the onset this is my experience and I am in no way implying that it is some sort of universal truth that applies to every relationship. There are some of you, dear readers, that are facing systemic and or irreconcilable issues that will not be solved by time and my heart breaks for you as your options are limited and most will be painful. I know this struggle, after 19 years of marriage and five children, I was making moves to separate from my wife two years ago. We were arguing, there was very little affection let alone sex, we would have conversations about issues that would go nowhere, no follow up with no objective change and no resolutions. About the same time a classmate from high school died of a brain tumor. I became Facebook friends with his sister-in-law through the posts about his death, we had all graduated together. Catching up with her revealed she had separated from her husband of 33 years and they were beginning the process of divorce. Our conversations lined up with where I was at with my wife, she had hit the same point with her husband 10 years earlier. In contrast to my own, their relationship had unresolved issues back to the beginning when they were married at 19 and 21, perpetual disinterest in sex, fights, arguments and lies. Then she began menopause at 44 and her sexual desire returned. Her husband was not receptive and she ended up cheating on him multiple times leading to their divorce. She was a de facto marriage counselor based on her own experiences, encouraging me to have more conversations than just “the sex one” and I think that was key to my reconciliation with my wife. My friend could encourage me and give me insight based on her relatable experience, allowing me to express my frustrations to someone outside my relationship. I also recognize the dangerous nature of that relationship and, again, I am not advocating one thing or another just giving my side of the story. I told my wife about my conversations with this other woman and would regularly encourage the two of them to talk, although they never have. I will keep this short and follow up in the comment section. I will end with this: my dead bedroom started more than 10 years ago with the birth of our third child, after that my wife went into full mom mode. While she has never ceased to be attractive to me, she would often speak of her negative self image and lack of confidence in her roles as a wife and mother. In the last two years I have made a concerted effort to be complementary and encouraging that she was my person I was hers and I wanted us to work.