Let me start by saying that my wife is great. Pretty much everything is good with us but there’s one thing missing. She never comes on to me sexually. We’re both 44 and have been married 17 years.

I would love to feel desired and have her come on to me. I thought that’s how it would work in our marriage. I dated enough before marriage to expect both parties would be interested and involved. We talked about in pre marital counseling and we both felt it was important. We’ve had plenty of discussions about it so I know her side now. I’ll try to explain it all and I’m looking to see if this is normal and/or I’m out of line anywhere.

We follow a site called Bare Marriage and it describes most women as responders in sex. Here’s a link to the main article. https://baremarriage.com/2020/07/understanding-sex-from-a-womans-perspective/

She says this describes her very well. Over the years I would encourage her to initiate in sex once in a while and she would always say that’s just not who she was even though I said it was important to me. That’s the part that always hurt the most. I feel like I’m not worth it to her for her to come out of her comfort zone once in a while and show she cares about what would speak to my heart.

In our early years and when I didn’t know what was going on and how to respond, I would get upset about this and get moody towards her. This started a bad downward spiral that got really bad in about year seven. It was close to divorce bad but neither of us wanted it. We felt neither of us loved the other but we were just confused.

We went to counseling and read some books that actually made things worse for the next few years. Love and Respect being the main one. It wasn’t until we found the Bare Marriage site and some different teaching on sexual wiring that things started to change but it’s been slow. That started about four years ago.

I held on to the idea that if I did everything right she would come on to me. It just never happened. Over time I didn’t get as upset but I still wanted this and put more importance on this than I should and it would pop up from time to time and hurt her.

From the second year on she started to feel sex was more important than her. She felt I wanted the act more than I cared for her. At times I can see where I sent those messages. I just wanted to feel desired. This all started to create trauma around sex for her. Around year seven she was feeling alone, unloved and hurting bad. This is when we turned to counseling. I am in debt to her for staying with me because I fully see how much she was feeling unloved by me now and I’ve been working to repair that and respect who she is and how’s she wired.

Let me give this one final story that illustrates it all. We celebrated our 17th anniversary this summer out of town at a fun party city. We spent three nights and had a blast together. I made a move the first morning for sex and it was great. (We’re old, we crashed at night.) I did the same the second morning and she was up for it but it wasn’t as great as day one, still good vacation sex. We were on the same page that it was good though.

(On a side note, in the last year or so I’ve bought a few bedroom toys and she’s been pretty much up for them all. But it’s been 100% me leading the way, all the way down to which one I try some nights. She just goes with it and it usually ends with her very happy.)

The third day I had multiple romantic plans for our actual anniversary day. It was a dream day for us together. We got back to the hotel early with energy left. I didn’t want to make a move because I already did twice and I didn’t want to be a pushy jerk. Plus I wanted to give her the opportunity to respond to the day I planned. We chatted a bit and she said she was going to read her book before going to sleep. I’ll be honest, I was a little hurt but I’ve worked on myself over the years to not let it get to me too much.

I went to bed but was woken up at 6:00 in the morning with racing thoughts. Basically it was, “that was the best I could deliver and if there was anything that would get her to make a move on me, it’d be that day but she chose her book over making a move one me on our anniversary.” I felt rejected. I tried to calm myself down and get back to sleep but my thoughts kept spiraling out of control.

Then I basically couldn’t think straight the next day and she could tell. I felt horrible and I knew I was slowly wrecking the great time we had. After all the airport travel back, I was able to share my thoughts and struggles with her. She was hurt and angry because she felt it was still all about sex. I felt horrible. It wasn’t intentional. I went to bed without showing any poor attitude but some thoughts were still in my subconscious and I was hurt by it.

After she calmed down, we were able to get to what each of us were thinking in that moment. She said sex didn’t cross her mind. Making a move was not even in her head. She said I should not take it as rejection. She even said that if I had made a move, she would have most likely been up for it but since we had sex that morning she thought we were good.

I’ve been angry all these years because I felt it was rejection. It’s not rejection. She shows love to me in virtually every other way she can in our life. She’s really good at all that too. I’m very blessed to be with her. She says making a move basically never crosses her mind though. She says she doesn’t sit and think about sex like I do but she likes it when I am loving to her and then make a move.

I shared how I want things to be mutual and good for both us. I want to make love to her when we are both into it and I don’t want to force anything on her. I don’t want half assed sex. I wanted us to share the initiation and enjoyment of it all to though.

Her best line in all of this was this, “You won’t get the real sex you are hoping for until I feel loved first.” There’s a lot wrapped up in there. She also said the best thing I could do would be to love her unconditionally and if sex doesn’t happen or go as planned that it’s not rejection and I shouldn’t treat her differently. There’s a reason she may not want sex but she stills loves me and we should talk about it so I know what’s going on in her head.

I already know my plan. I plan to give her that love and drop this dumb way of thinking I’ve held onto for years. It’s created so many issues for us in what was an awesome marriage otherwise.

Maybe my story helps others and maybe someone wants to share thoughts they think would help me. Thanks for reading.