Published on 12, July, 2020
I am a middle-aged male and have recently learnt that it is highly likely I am autistic and have ADHD (my children were both diagnosed a few years ago and my wife increasingly saw that I had many traits). I have a long wait ahead for a formal diagnosis but it makes a lot of sense of the struggles I feel I have had my whole life. I have struggled with intense sexual desire for my wife ever since I first got to know her. I am very intense and obsessional about her, I suppose you could say. I have never had another relationship and we married when I was a teenager. The problem is that I am frustrated all the time and feel ashamed that I can't switch my imagination off. I think it's possibly the case that I seriously misjudged/misread how sexually interested she was in me during our brief courtship. We're hardly ever intimate and it has always felt that way to me. She has recently said that this aspect of the relationship is something she could take or leave. Where as I am desperate to feel the intimacy of someone enjoying regular sexual closeness.
I do not want a divorce. We are both Christians and raising two adopted children who need a lot of support. Even if my faith and the needs of the children were not factors, I don't think I could love anyone else any way. Porn and extra-marital sex are not options I will consider. I've felt so embarrassed and ashamed of myself for nearly thirty years now, but when I accepted that I might be autistic I started wondering if my sexual desire was in some way affected/related. That's when I came across the more recent clinical [link removed by moderation team] into hypersexuality and increased prevalence in autistic males. In the USA there is medical treatment to reduce libido but I can't find anything about that here in the UK. My new GP seemed a bit freaked out when I blurted all this out recently. I think where I am at is that I would rather lose this part of myself than lose my family.
Has anyone here had similar struggles or experience of extreme sexual frustration / unwanted libido / hypersexuality? What has helped? Are you aware of any treatment possibilities?
I believe that my meds make me hypersexual. It's a symptom of hypomania. However, from a Christian perspective, there are possibly demonic attacks triggering the impulses.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I'm sorry to hear you're also struggling. It's tough when you're not sure the role meds that are meant to help may be playing.I don't know what makes people hypersexual in the clinical sense of the word. It's all a new area to me. I didn't even realise there were others like me until I read the article in Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience. I understand that there's real breadth to Christian theology. Personally, I struggle with the idea that demonic attacks trigger hypersexual impulses. I struggle, I suppose, because then if that's the reason all I've got as a solution is prayer against demons. And, in my experience, prayer doesn't diminish the need to work hard on understanding ourselves and our place in the rest of God's creation. It may also be in part that when I have struggled with my mental health I've been in the unfortunate position of Christian bosses characterising this as a demonic attack on the business... before then muscling me out! Finally, to finish on a positive note, in all of my many years of struggle, shame, and guilt, I still don't believe that it's fundamentally wrong that I have such strong monogamous hypersexual desire. It may be a maladaptive response to issues earlier in my life, or a coping mechanism as a likely autistic person. But, within a Christian framework, I've always consoled myself with the idea that even if I have some kind of disorder there's something good there too:
'Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. May her breasts satisfy you at all times; may you be intoxicated always by her love.' (Proverbs 5:18-20 written from an obviously male perspective in a very different kind of society).