We are married ~15 years with preteen kids, mid 30's. Early on and for many years, sex was awesome and frequent (every day on average) and we both were HD. She would often even initiate by waking me in the night or early morning. This was in spite of raising small kids at the time, sometimes little sleep, less than mature communication, me working a lot and helping very little around the house.
About 2-3 years ago, the resentments in both directions had slowly built up enough that we began to grow apart and have sex somewhat less. A couple years before that she had been diagnosed with low thyroid, PCOS and insulin resistance, which required very low carb diet and frequent exercise to not gain weight. Coming into this year sex had dropped to about half. This spring we were very busy with kids and I traveled several times. She later admitted that she looked forward to me travelling at the time (no affairs involved here - already went down that road on another forum) just to not have to deal with each other. She also saw a nutritionist this spring and lost all remaining weight thru a strict diet and exercise. But around May, I decided I'd had enough and wanted to really fix things with us. I read His Needs/Her Needs and LoveBusters. Began practicing really listening to her, began spending all kinds of time with her, asking what needs she has, and being more involved wi th kids - and intentionally making our schedule less "busy".
This helped a lot, she simultaneously decided to not refuse sex, and she can always O, and almost always enjoys it, but will only initiate it 0-1 times per month (as opposed to frequently several years ago).
Due to misunderstandings and other issues, we finally decided to go thru some marriage coaching with older Christian friends, which started in August. We feel like we have made a ton of progress this summer, but her desire for sex has not increased, in fact it might it getting even less. When she thinks about it, she feels nothing. She can't come up with anything that I'm doing to kill her drive, and we truly love each other and show it, and take a lot of time to communicate and try to have fun every week. But thru the counseling, the coaches think she might have depression. She is already on Synthroid, Metformin, Iron. She was on 5HTP a few months ago and just re-started it and St Johns Wort for the first time last night.
She also exercises frequently - we take walks, talk, she goes to 3-5 or more cardio/strength classes at the gym each week, eat very healthy meat protein and vegetable focused diets, near 0 sugar or processed foods, get lots of sunlight during the summer, etc, etc. She is fully functional - getting up in the am, taking kids to school, exercising most of the time (although some weeks she just "doesn't feel like it").
Still her symptoms include :
constant tiredness in spite of lots of coffee,
very low to non-existent sex drive,
irritability at me and the kids,
blowing up over very small things, then later not knowing why,
and often an inability to focus on sex, or at least on the intimate part of it (physically she can nearly always get off but will sometimes discuss the inlaws or grandparents or birthday parties during the act). Also she doesn't appreciate much foreplay currently.
We used to be able to lie in bed and just cuddle or talk for a long time before we fell asleep, but lately she will often snap and yell at me if I make a noise or move wrong in bed and it wakes her up while she is falling asleep. Its an angry sleep. This can even occur if we get to bed at 10:15. She has tried melatonin but it makes her even more drowsy during the day so she quit taking that.
She is happy to see friends and it energizes her a bit, but just hanging with the family/daily life makes her often very tired and eventually grouchy.She also says that her mind will constantly go to sad things, like a friend with a severely autistic child, or another friend who has cancer.
She wants to have a sex drive again - and like I said above, she CAN enjoy it once we start, but she wants to get back to where she could anticipate it, desire it, plan it. I want her to as well. That and to make the angry moments stop.
Any ideas/experience with hopefully a happy ending? If I eventually realize that I'm going to be the brunt of her frustrations for the rest of our lives despite trying to do the best I possibly can to support and meet her needs, I'm not sure I can endure the hurt forever.
Also, any anti-depressant that kills libido and/or ability to O is a non-starter for us. I'll also add that we have made an appt with her nutritionist team - the wife is a DO but specializes in natural medicine - for this Thursday. We also made an appt with her GP (MD who prescribed the Metformin and Synthroid) but the earliest opening was Oct 6.
About 2-3 years ago, the resentments in both directions had slowly built up enough that we began to grow apart and have sex somewhat less. A couple years before that she had been diagnosed with low thyroid, PCOS and insulin resistance, which required very low carb diet and frequent exercise to not gain weight. Coming into this year sex had dropped to about half. This spring we were very busy with kids and I traveled several times. She later admitted that she looked forward to me travelling at the time (no affairs involved here - already went down that road on another forum) just to not have to deal with each other. She also saw a nutritionist this spring and lost all remaining weight thru a strict diet and exercise. But around May, I decided I'd had enough and wanted to really fix things with us. I read His Needs/Her Needs and LoveBusters. Began practicing really listening to her, began spending all kinds of time with her, asking what needs she has, and being more involved wi th kids - and intentionally making our schedule less "busy".
This helped a lot, she simultaneously decided to not refuse sex, and she can always O, and almost always enjoys it, but will only initiate it 0-1 times per month (as opposed to frequently several years ago).
Due to misunderstandings and other issues, we finally decided to go thru some marriage coaching with older Christian friends, which started in August. We feel like we have made a ton of progress this summer, but her desire for sex has not increased, in fact it might it getting even less. When she thinks about it, she feels nothing. She can't come up with anything that I'm doing to kill her drive, and we truly love each other and show it, and take a lot of time to communicate and try to have fun every week. But thru the counseling, the coaches think she might have depression. She is already on Synthroid, Metformin, Iron. She was on 5HTP a few months ago and just re-started it and St Johns Wort for the first time last night.
She also exercises frequently - we take walks, talk, she goes to 3-5 or more cardio/strength classes at the gym each week, eat very healthy meat protein and vegetable focused diets, near 0 sugar or processed foods, get lots of sunlight during the summer, etc, etc. She is fully functional - getting up in the am, taking kids to school, exercising most of the time (although some weeks she just "doesn't feel like it").
Still her symptoms include :
constant tiredness in spite of lots of coffee,
very low to non-existent sex drive,
irritability at me and the kids,
blowing up over very small things, then later not knowing why,
and often an inability to focus on sex, or at least on the intimate part of it (physically she can nearly always get off but will sometimes discuss the inlaws or grandparents or birthday parties during the act). Also she doesn't appreciate much foreplay currently.
We used to be able to lie in bed and just cuddle or talk for a long time before we fell asleep, but lately she will often snap and yell at me if I make a noise or move wrong in bed and it wakes her up while she is falling asleep. Its an angry sleep. This can even occur if we get to bed at 10:15. She has tried melatonin but it makes her even more drowsy during the day so she quit taking that.
She is happy to see friends and it energizes her a bit, but just hanging with the family/daily life makes her often very tired and eventually grouchy.She also says that her mind will constantly go to sad things, like a friend with a severely autistic child, or another friend who has cancer.
She wants to have a sex drive again - and like I said above, she CAN enjoy it once we start, but she wants to get back to where she could anticipate it, desire it, plan it. I want her to as well. That and to make the angry moments stop.
Any ideas/experience with hopefully a happy ending? If I eventually realize that I'm going to be the brunt of her frustrations for the rest of our lives despite trying to do the best I possibly can to support and meet her needs, I'm not sure I can endure the hurt forever.
Also, any anti-depressant that kills libido and/or ability to O is a non-starter for us. I'll also add that we have made an appt with her nutritionist team - the wife is a DO but specializes in natural medicine - for this Thursday. We also made an appt with her GP (MD who prescribed the Metformin and Synthroid) but the earliest opening was Oct 6.
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