Let me start off by saying, I love my husband so much! He's tall, attractive, intelligent, sweet, cares about taking care of my needs in bed, well "endowed," an excellent and involved father, and my best friend. He regularly tells me how hot, beautiful, desirable I am. Since I am a stay at home mom, I feel it is my job to take care of the house, and any attempts by him to do any house work I take as an insult. BUT, he does help by changing the baby's diaper while I'm in the middle of, say, cooking dinner, or giving our three year old a bath while I'm dressing our youngest post-bath. We are a great team!
We've been married for 9 years, together for 10, and we have four children, the youngest being 18 months old (so sleeping through the night, not as demanding as a newborn). I am not on BC or any other medication, and he had "the procedure," so no worries about surprise pregnancies in the future.
Everything is pretty much perfect.
Now, after that big background novel, my actual problem is since the birth of our last child, my "drive" has been going down hill. We used to engage in relations at least 3 times a week (I used to REALLY like sex), now it's closer to once every three weeks, about as long as I can go without feeling bad about not having sex.
I know sex is a man's way to feel close to his wife, something about oxytocin release after orgasm, and that's fine, I know I need to have sex to give this to my husband. I don't get gushy feelings about sex. For me, it's just a more time-consuming and difficult way to reach orgasm. And considering it take so much focus and energy to convince myself to get in the mood, and even greater effort and concentration to get to orgasm once we get going, it doesn't even seem worth it for me.
My solution to my lack of drive was to have sex whenever my husband wanted to, no complaints, no excuses, just do it for him, because I love him and I want him to be happy. But it's not good enough any more. He says he wants me to enjoy it and wants me to want it. He has asked me to tell him what he needs to do to get me excited. I have no idea any more, the thought of sex period makes me feel burdened, and I feel even more turned off when he tries to get me in the mood with kissing and whatnot. I think kissing is gross. I used to only have a mild aversion to it, but now, ugh. Peck on the lips, fine, full out tongue or anywhere other than lips, eww.
The usual suggestions, porn, romance novels, etc, don't do anything for me, and I have no desire to even masturbate.
Every month, in the week leading up to when we finally have sex, I find myself searching the internet for the answer to "how do I make myself want sex," losing a lot of sleep over the stress of not wanting sex, and a LOT of crying. I don't normally cry, just when I'm feeling overwhelmed with frustration over my stupid, uncooperative body, and sometimes when I'm seriously resenting that my giving it up isn't good enough. He gets his orgasm, so why can't that be good enough!?
I'm so afraid he's going to cheat on me if I can't force myself to actually like sex. He says he'll never leave, which makes me think that that will make him more likely to cheat.
So please, can anyone tell me how to force myself to like sex again?
We've been married for 9 years, together for 10, and we have four children, the youngest being 18 months old (so sleeping through the night, not as demanding as a newborn). I am not on BC or any other medication, and he had "the procedure," so no worries about surprise pregnancies in the future.
Everything is pretty much perfect.
Now, after that big background novel, my actual problem is since the birth of our last child, my "drive" has been going down hill. We used to engage in relations at least 3 times a week (I used to REALLY like sex), now it's closer to once every three weeks, about as long as I can go without feeling bad about not having sex.
I know sex is a man's way to feel close to his wife, something about oxytocin release after orgasm, and that's fine, I know I need to have sex to give this to my husband. I don't get gushy feelings about sex. For me, it's just a more time-consuming and difficult way to reach orgasm. And considering it take so much focus and energy to convince myself to get in the mood, and even greater effort and concentration to get to orgasm once we get going, it doesn't even seem worth it for me.
My solution to my lack of drive was to have sex whenever my husband wanted to, no complaints, no excuses, just do it for him, because I love him and I want him to be happy. But it's not good enough any more. He says he wants me to enjoy it and wants me to want it. He has asked me to tell him what he needs to do to get me excited. I have no idea any more, the thought of sex period makes me feel burdened, and I feel even more turned off when he tries to get me in the mood with kissing and whatnot. I think kissing is gross. I used to only have a mild aversion to it, but now, ugh. Peck on the lips, fine, full out tongue or anywhere other than lips, eww.
The usual suggestions, porn, romance novels, etc, don't do anything for me, and I have no desire to even masturbate.
Every month, in the week leading up to when we finally have sex, I find myself searching the internet for the answer to "how do I make myself want sex," losing a lot of sleep over the stress of not wanting sex, and a LOT of crying. I don't normally cry, just when I'm feeling overwhelmed with frustration over my stupid, uncooperative body, and sometimes when I'm seriously resenting that my giving it up isn't good enough. He gets his orgasm, so why can't that be good enough!?
I'm so afraid he's going to cheat on me if I can't force myself to actually like sex. He says he'll never leave, which makes me think that that will make him more likely to cheat.
So please, can anyone tell me how to force myself to like sex again?