Low libido - really struggling

Peter said:

it’s not even a question of whether or not it’s causing her clinically significant distress the term the ICD 11 uses. Because it’s causing her relationship to breakdown which is causing her clinically significant distress.

Not true. Because again that is only based on 3rd party hear-say, the partner isn't here to tell us in person if they feel the issue is the medication or the OPs pestering, which we need to be prepared to accept that it is just as likely the OPs pressuring which is the cause of the issue since the OP themself has said the partner said they don't want to go to the Dr with it and hasn't went to the Dr about it (which is a factual relay of information not speculative), so it (the lack of libido itself) may not be that big of a deal in the partners eyes. And it is up to the partner to say whether they feel they are under distress and from what specifically, and they are not here to tell us firsthand. So no we can't attribute secondhand say-so to sexual dysfunction, because to do so relies purely on presumptions of emotive interpretation (the only emotion the OP can truly know is their own).
Also lack of sexual drive on it's own isn't a disorder. Lots of Asexual+ people live perfectly happy lives without experiencing sexual attraction.

No it’s just because it thiss so one specific issue people seem to think that it’s not acceptable for him to have an opinion about his partners health.

if he was pestering his partner to go to the doctor about a lump, or even depression no one would have a problem with it. No one would say ‘oh well he doesn’t get to say if it’s a condition or not.’ You tend to know when there’s something not right with someone you love. When their body and brain is slightly off-balance.

if it were any other kind of medical problem unrelated to sex that he was pestering his partner about no one would have an issue with this. No one would question if he was really right about there being a issue to be investigated.

anyway it’s a moot point. his partner has identified this side-effect as being a lack of interest in sex hence sexual dysfunction. it’s his own partners opinion that this is caused by medication. side-effects are more or less by definition a dysfunction. especially if they’re causing you to no longer find enjoyment in something you use to enjoy.

based on what the OP has said there is no disagreement between them that the meds are causing her to be less interested in sex. That this is a side-effect. 

it’s not even a question of whether or not it’s causing her clinically significant distress the term the ICD 11 uses. Because it’s causing her relationship to breakdown which is causing her clinically significant distress.

No, sorry Peter but I don't think it our place, or even the OPs place to say that their partner is experiencing sexual dysfunction, we are not them nor their Dr, and we should respect their wishes to be left alone and not be sex pestered. I wouldn't want to attempt to diagnose the OPs partner any more than I would you with anything you yourself did not tell me you suspected in-of yourself as a matter of respect to you either. And If your partner came on here looking for advice about you I would likewise advise them to treat your issues in the least obtrusive and most respectful way also.
And besides not hearing it "from the horses mouth" the information we are being given here is, mere hear-say at best.

Sure, I agree that things were being overly accusatory at times. But victims of coercive behaviour are going to struggle not to react strongly to what they might see as that kind of behaviour. Some of what the OP responded with made me a little uncomfortable but then I remember how intense I can be when Im frustrated. How I overstate things and struggle to get my point across to people. And so I give the benefit of the doubt that that is all it is. I think maybe in your attempt to present the other side here you were coming across a little uncaring about concerns for the partner and that riled a few people up. Not saying you were wrong or right but it may have caused others to be more entrenched in their views and more hostile. Again I hope OP and their partner are ok and that the community can respect each others feelings and the background that might lead to them. Because otherwise everyone seems really supportive.

Of course it’s one thing to have an opinion that something is a bad idea, that it’s insensitive, that it’s a bad way to handle relationship issues.

My concern is particularly people saying it’s a sex crime or predatory behaviour or In someway illegal or abusive. That’s quite a different character from just saying this behaviour is a bad idea or unhelpful or even unfair.

It's a complicated topic. I hope the OP is okay and I hope his/her partner is too. We are all here because we are autistic and autistic people struggle to communicate a lot and maybe that is what is happening here too. We are also all traumatized individuals for the most part.

I know you feel strongly for the OP because I think you can identify with some of his struggles. It is the same for the people who feel strongly for the OPs partner. As someone who has struggled with the dysfunctional sexual problems brought on by antidepressant medication I can understand the OPs frustration. I can also understand that maybe their communication could come across a little tangled and we need to be understanding of that. But as someone who was also forced to do things I didn't want to by a partner who didn't understand the struggles I was having I can also understand the fierce desire to protect the OPs partner from harm. At the end of the day everyone here wanted what was best for someone else and maybe that got a little skewed. 

To the OP: I hope you are ok and that you and your partner can communicate about your problems. That seems the key issue here. I think therapy with you both together would be really helpful so you can talk things through. If your relationship doesn't survive, it's ok to be sad. When you are ready, there will be other people out there that you might find more compatibility with. It's a difficult place to be in and I hope everyone involved can take care of themselves as best they can.

I don’t know if there’s anything more to be gained for further posting in this thread. It seems the OP has left and isn’t going to be responding anymore and frankly I don’t blame him. He said he came here to ask difficult questions about how best to approach his partner and I am going to assume that it is him until he says otherwise, about how best to approach his Neurotypical partner about the very sensitive and difficult issue of her sexual dysfunction (and I’m going to assume it’s her until I’m told otherwise). And instead of helpful and sympathetic advice he has been basically accused of being a sex criminal. “Man accused of being sex criminal for asking partner about when they might have sex again” sounds like a headline in the onion or private eye. Have no doubt what has taken place here is effectively bullying.l

Without any reasonable basis a small group of individuals have chosen to accuse someone coming looking for help here of being a sex criminal. If that’s not bullying I don’t know what is. And while he may not feel able to stand up and complain about it I certainly do. Is this the kind of welcoming forum we want where people who open up about extremely difficult and sensitive issues in their relationships with Neurotypical partners Will be accused of being sexual predators without rational basis? Never mind us being nice and respectful to each other how has the OP been treated? who was nice to him? Has he been treated respectfully?

Have no doubt what happened here was not social justice, it was not feminism, it was bullying. It should not be allowed to happen again.

respectfully people misconstruing innocent things like wanting your partner to get their sexual disfunction treated as 'coercion' is a textbook example why you have to be so careful wording laws and why a lot of these anti misogyny / homophobia laws that sound good on paper can end up being problematic in practice when people have to interpret vaguely worded legal definitions.

Please can we remove posts that encourage sexual coercion, given that it's a criminal offence? Rule 12 applies here. This discussion has crossed the line into dodgy legal territory with the suggestion of trying to medicate a mentally ill person into submitting to sex.

You are a sexual predator who has given countless examples of situations in which you've committed sexual harassment, and encouraged others to coerce or drug their partners into sex. You've also shared a huge amount of personal information including your name, location and job title. If I were you I would not be posting here any more.

It seems like you get a lot of your self esteem from sex and that is the issue, not your partner's libido at the moment. Feeling devastated because you haven't had sex for a while is quite an extreme reaction. Do you tend to feel things intensely? I'm asking because this is a key feature of my autism. If I'm not careful I can get in a loop of thinking about something intensely which continues to feed in to feelings of anxiety. Sex can be nice but you need to be ok if you can't have sex with someone else for a while. Navigating differing sex drives is part of being in a relationship. At the beginning it's not unusual to have matching desires, then things slow down, life events can change things, illness, etc. If you care about someone enough to stick around then learning how to handle this is part of it. Getting your self esteem by feeling sexually desired is not sustainable or particularly healthy. It's not anyone else's responsibility to make you feel ok about yourself, and do you want that anyway? Why you feel terrible right now is because you rely on your partner wanting sex to be able to feel ok, something that is out of her control because she is ill and on medication for it. If you had more robust self esteem your partner's current lack of desire would not be affecting you so badly and you wouldn't be feeling so desperate. 

Well you're going to have to rely on yourself though if that's your only sensible alternative, aside from the ethical and moral issues you can't coerce or force yourself upon your partner against their will because it's illegal, you will just have to do the done thing and sort yourself out until the drought passes.
If you are just looking for empathy, sorry I can't relate, sympathy, sure sorry to hear you are having a rough time that must suck, but for practical advice that is it, if the chatting about it doesn't work like you said it doesn't and your partner needs you to leave it be then just leave it be.

A) you contradicted yourself you said you believe it will be made illegal and then said it is a crime. B) if you believe asking her to take a pill to increase her sex drive is conversion therapy does it also follow that the doctor giving her pills that lower it is also conversion therapy?

In short your position is not logically consistent.

Hello everyone - I'm glad to see so much discussion but I wanted to remind you all to be kind and respectful to each other

Thanks,

SarahMod

Conversion therapy is literally in the process of being made illegal, so yes, it is a crime.

Not negative just an alternate point of view. I’m not saying this fellow has reached it yet, but they may come a point when this affects his mental health so badly that he’s the one in need of support. And I’m thinking that if they do  split up because they can’t communicate and compromise on this issue they will both end up more depressed not less. 

social isolation is very bad for depression and splitting up from a partner in the middle of a depressive episode is one of the worst things for depression. And yet if they’re not more communicative and open about meeting each other’s needs I think that’s a real possibility.

it seems really stupid not to go for the easy fix to the problem because you’re worried it might make your depression worse. Particularly when the entire process is managed by a professional and it’s entirely possible to wind back that change very easily if it doesn’t work out.

I get frustrated that life seems to always come back to sex. Connection is so much more than sexual intimacy.

I'm sorry you enjoy sex with your partner but now miss it. But as someone else said, it isn't ever a guarantee in a relationship, so what you have gotten used to getting from your partner they can't give atm. But your role for them shouldn't be diminished because you aren't getting what you want.

I think you need to spend more time working on your spiritual and empathic self.

Let the negative comments commence...

Gender doesn’t matter. The advice I’ve given is pretty much still good regardless of the gender of either  party

Peter said:

Basically my response to all of the people having a go at this man for wanting to try and fix his wife’s lack of a sex drive is:

I’m sorry but where exactly did the OP disclose their or their partner’s gender identity? You are making a lot of assumptions, other people are trying to give a more open minded answer because we don’t know this information as far as I can see on the replies 

Basically my response to all of the people having a go at this man for wanting to try and fix his wife’s lack of a sex drive is:

it is not a crime to want to fix someone you love. It’s not like she wanted her sex drive to go away it’s not like she was faking having a sex drive when they first got together. It’s not as if he isn’t as equally concerned about fixing her depression. As the old wedding vows go in sickness and in health but that doesn’t mean you have to be okay with your loved one being ill and that goes for depression but it also goes for sexual dysfunction. It’s called dysfunction for a reason.

I know over a lot of women who are upset because men want to fix things instead of just support them through the situation. Well tough, if you love someone and something is getting in the way of your relationship with them you will want to fix it.

he isn’t trying to brainwash her into wanting sex she didn’t used to want, nor  is he trying to compromise her therapy by asking her to go to the doctor and ask if it’s possible to improve the situation. She may fear that the doctor may just take her off the medication or put her on medication that doesn’t work, but believe me a good doctor is not going to be willing to take her off medication that works and put her on medication that doesn’t work just to improve her sex drive. That doesn’t mean that you can’t investigate whether or not it’s possible to get an improvement.

ultimately it sounding more and more like this depression is long-term and it’s causing a real strain upon this relationship. which leads me to ask a question whether or not something doesn’t need to shift anyway. maybe things have become too comfortable in the status quo maybe her treatment is stuck in a rut. it happens with depression quite a lot. it’s a lot easier for a doctor to keep giving you pills then arrange for the therapy that might potentially improve your mental state. She may feel with the antidepressants she’s got to an equilibrium where life is survivable, but surviving is not living. And so it’s quite legitimate for her other half to ask when she can get away from surviving to living again. Maybe it would be a good thing to put some pressure on her doctors to come up with a solution which is a long-term one rather than just keeping her in survival mode.

you know what at the end of the day a load of randoms on the Internet are not the best people to be asking for advice on this. go make yourself an appointment with a sex therapist just you on your own. if a sex therapist says as I think it’s quite plausible that your wife should probably come in with you and be seen by them as well, then at least you can say to your wife and to anyone else who  has a go at you on the Internet that this is what an expert recommended.