{"id":9959,"date":"2011-09-02T13:21:21","date_gmt":"2011-09-02T20:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=9959"},"modified":"2024-01-09T15:41:41","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T20:41:41","slug":"women-committed-relationships-lose-sexual-desire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/women-committed-relationships-lose-sexual-desire\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Do Women in Committed Relationships Lose Sexual Desire?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"How often do you want sex? And is that enough? Not wanting enough sex is the big problem for most women who consult me as a clinical sexologist. And most sex therapists will agree that having a low level of sexual desire<\/a> is a problem.\u00c2\u00a0 But the majority of these women are heterosexual with male partners who are \u00e2\u20ac\u201c you guessed it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c complaining.\u00c2\u00a0Lesbian couples don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t usually present with similar problems.\u00c2\u00a0So I guess I should say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153relatively low levels of sexual desire!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Over and over again I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve found that moving in together does create a drop in the frequency of sexual activity for all couples regardless of gender. Long distance romance remains exciting because it provides space and distance interspersed with sexy weekend liaisons. But which is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153normal\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the level of desire we experience early in a relationship or what unfolds later on?<\/p>\n

Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desire levels are generally lower to start with.\u00c2\u00a0And we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need decades of research to know that men usually think more about sex, fantasize more about it, work harder to get it, place more importance on it, initiate it more often, and masturbate more. What seems to ignite desire for women is the excitement and novelty of a budding new romance.<\/p>\n

This is why couples therapist Esther Perel points out that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good intimacy doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always guarantee good sex.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0Her book Mating in Domesticity<\/em> is a classic that I recommend to couples struggling with these issues. In it she points out that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the very elements that nurture love \u00e2\u20ac\u201c reciprocity, mutuality, protection, closeness, emotional security, predictability \u00e2\u20ac\u201c are sometimes the very things that stifle desire.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Because we tend to be caregivers, women take care of our menfolk in committed relationships, much as we take care of children and pets.\u00c2\u00a0So these guys start to feel like a brother or worse yet a child, and sex with family members is a definite no-no in our culture.\u00c2\u00a0Children and pets need caregiving, which we provide as an act of love.\u00c2\u00a0Sexual desire requires that our lover does not need us.<\/p>\n

Researcher Marta Meana\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recent study documents a severe decline in sexual desire among 19 married women. For some, formalizing their relationship as marriage made sex so available and so sanctioned that it lost the forbidden and erotic quality that had formerly ignited passion.\u00c2\u00a0For other women, overfamiliarity with their husband led to a decline in romance and in sexual experimentation, as well as a loss of\u00c2\u00a0 motivation to care for their appearance now that they had \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hooked their man.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

A third group of women reported that holding down a job, being mom, and being a wife was overwhelming and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153highly desexualizing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d making it extremely difficult to shift into romantic mode after changing diapers and fulfilling their professional roles.\u00c2\u00a0Many of the participants in all three groups specifically noted that while they were committed to their marriage, they thought desire would return if someone new came along who desired them.<\/p>\n

As Meara puts it, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Women want a commitment because it signals they are uniquely desired. But once a commitment has been made, your guy is stuck and the meaning of commitment changes. In women, desire may be driven to the same extent as it is in men by novelty and excitement and a stranger thinking they are hot.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Over and above anyone else, we are our own point of reference for how sexy we are.\u00c2\u00a0Feeling good about ourselves emotionally and physically appears to be a bigger mediator of female desire than men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s.\u00c2\u00a0This certainly bears out in my conversations with female clients.<\/p>\n

Recently, for example, a woman told me that she no longer wanted to have sex \u00e2\u20ac\u0153on top\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of or astride her mate, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153because my stomach sticks out and it would look terrible to him from that angle!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 He shook his head, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Honey, I probably don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even have my eyes open \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 that used to be your favorite position because it felt best to you \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 what else could possibly matter?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

What do the rest of you think about all this?<\/p>\n

Reach out to one of our qualified therapists.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How often do you want sex? And is that enough? Not wanting enough sex is the big problem for most women who consult me as a clinical sexologist. And most sex therapists will agree that having a low level of sexual desire is a problem.\u00c2\u00a0 But the majority of these women are heterosexual with male […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1044,"featured_media":42690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[389,387,25,41,139,244],"class_list":["post-9959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adjusting-to-change","tag-communication-problems","tag-psychotherapy-issues","tag-marriage-counseling-relationships","tag-sex-therapy","tag-womens-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1044"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}