Quick facts Me: HLF age 29 Husband: LLM age 37

In the bad times, we were having sex every three months. When it got really bad… I said no sex at all until we figured our shit out. He struggled with shame mostly and just not feeling the need to have sex, but also that shame was wrapped around learning that he just… wasn’t doing things that pleasured me. So he chose no sex as apposed to actually working on sex. That obviously didn’t work very well.

We fought so many times… until it finally cracked. I hit rock bottom. I told him he had to try or I was leaving. Try didn’t mean get in bed with me, it meant HEAL our sexual relationship.

This was the deal I set up. First, sex once a week is normal and average and so that would be our “schedule”. This didn’t mean I expected sex every week, but that I expected him to TALK to me about sex at least once a week, whether that was discussing feelings/wants/intimacy, or just planning to do something as simple as a back rub in a few days. He also couldn’t turn me down when just talking about sex, he had to engage in the conversation or plan to have a more intimate one later at the very least. Obviously physical sex was not required or expected, but TALKING always was. There was also the requirement that he had to hold the majority of the responsibility of bringing things up, since we both acknowledged that it had been on me completely for so long and it ruined all of my trust in him.

Doing this, we got to the point that we could talk more comfortably about it… just from practice. We hit some bumps, he stumbled and wouldn’t bring things up even though it was passed the “schedule”, and had to be reminded the stakes we were dealing with, but would quickly get back on track. We then got to where we were actually having sex regularly, once a week about… which like I said is average so it was good, big improvement.

And you wanna know what did it? He FINALLY learned to be honest with me… and told me what he wanted to do in the bedroom that wasn’t PIV. He wanted to eat my ass. That’s it. It turns him on. Why didn’t he say anything about it before? Shame. He thought it wouldn’t do anything for me and didn’t want to be made fun of for bringing it up. But I love it. It’s a staple now.

We recently hit a slump, just about three weeks with no actual sex due to stress and health issues and I was the one bringing things up instead of him so even the talking requirement wasn’t being met. Thankfully that was discussed and we came back with him giving me 2 Os in a row completely on accident. He tried to explain over and over again that he didn’t even realize I had gotten the first and that’s why he kept going, so I had to remind him that it wasn’t a bad thing and to just take the win… then he just grinned and shut up.

TLDR What worked for us: 1. Talking and scheduling talking until we were comfortable with it before being physical. 2. Keeping that schedule for actual sex as well. 3. Instead of saying “no”, plan to revisit the topic and STICK TO THAT PLAN. 4. Being honest and vulnerable. 5. We always say at least one thing we liked afterwards, helps with his confidence AND his acknowledgement of my wants/needs. 6. Sex is NOT just PIV, its touches that feel good and possibly lead to orgasm if desired.

This isn’t going to work with everyone, but for my husband whose biggest issue was shame… this is what did it. For anyone with a LLM, maybe his issue is shame and he just doesn’t want to talk about it? It took us YEARS to even acknowledge that was his issue.