Sex within a relationship

We think my husband might have Autism, he is on a waiting list to see someone.

The problem is I have a very high sex drive and he doesn't seem to have one at all. We have been together for 11 years and I always thought things would get better, but they haven't.

Finally today he has said one of the reasons is he doesn't like the smell of me down there, I'm not dirty and I don't notice a smell, so I explained to him that its natural for there to be a smell down there.

I also asked him if there is anything I can do to help him and he said no, he just needs to get over this by himself.

He said he has no idea how he is going to get over it and after always being like this, I can't see how he can just get over it.

I would be grateful for any advice on this.

Parents
  • Sex is not just about orgasms, it's about intimacy, and all sorts of squishy psychological and other things. A HUGE miservice that our media has done us as a society is to exalt it as a thing in it's own right, whereas it actually seems to be more a product of a lot of other seemingly unrelated things going right. 

    I remember the (horrible) couple next door, who used to shag loudly and enthusiastically (when they weren't making trouble about the sound of my christmas party five minutes after they've moved in, etc.)  But a little later in the night, I'd hear the sound of her weeping... I bet he was sleeping soundly thinking he was "da man"...

    (We had thin walls and I'm a night owl, I really wasn't listening, or particularly interested in their lives, per-se, outside of when they were being oppressive, but I notice what I notice).

    An honest appraisal of your situation can only be made by your hubby. If he masturbates frequently, then it isn't lack of sex drive, it's lack of "engagement" which I've experienced a lot, sadly, and requires a lot of work and motivation to fix. We are taught in the west to simply give up and move on to a new relationship, rather than focus on fixing those problems. 

    A little known generalisation that has just occurred to me and may be true, is that men need to feel "safe" in sex whereas women need to feel safe in everything BUT sex.. "Generalisation" is very much out of fashion these days as a tool for understanding life, and can of course lead to misunderstandings, but it was also a "useful rule of thumb" for much of human history, and can be used wisely if one is kind and gentle with it's application I still feel.

    FWIW, I was taught when I was young, that there is a "magic triangle" of life by the name of Love Sex and Marriage, and that all three sides of the triangle are interdependent. In a long term relationship I find that the "magic and sexual chemistry" ebbs and flows, as does the "love" to be honest, after you exhaust your stock of oxytocin or whatever fiendish chemical it is that causes you to "fall in love".

    Sex if you do it with out love, just becomes a chasing after a high, or for some people (particularly if you look at porn, where the extremes are presented as normal, and the normal presented as "dysfunctional" thus skewing the regular an impressionable viewers expectations in an often unfortunate direction) an olympic challenge. 

    The marriage part is all the hard work that has to go in if living together is to succeed.

    There's more but a bright mind can run with this themselves, and people on the spectrum I believe are often very bright indeed. You sound like an honest person who loves her husband and is working at things, I wish you well, and I'm sure that you and your hubby will find a way to make it work if you just keep working at it. 

    LIfe isn't like Disney sells it very often, at all, is it?

Reply
  • Sex is not just about orgasms, it's about intimacy, and all sorts of squishy psychological and other things. A HUGE miservice that our media has done us as a society is to exalt it as a thing in it's own right, whereas it actually seems to be more a product of a lot of other seemingly unrelated things going right. 

    I remember the (horrible) couple next door, who used to shag loudly and enthusiastically (when they weren't making trouble about the sound of my christmas party five minutes after they've moved in, etc.)  But a little later in the night, I'd hear the sound of her weeping... I bet he was sleeping soundly thinking he was "da man"...

    (We had thin walls and I'm a night owl, I really wasn't listening, or particularly interested in their lives, per-se, outside of when they were being oppressive, but I notice what I notice).

    An honest appraisal of your situation can only be made by your hubby. If he masturbates frequently, then it isn't lack of sex drive, it's lack of "engagement" which I've experienced a lot, sadly, and requires a lot of work and motivation to fix. We are taught in the west to simply give up and move on to a new relationship, rather than focus on fixing those problems. 

    A little known generalisation that has just occurred to me and may be true, is that men need to feel "safe" in sex whereas women need to feel safe in everything BUT sex.. "Generalisation" is very much out of fashion these days as a tool for understanding life, and can of course lead to misunderstandings, but it was also a "useful rule of thumb" for much of human history, and can be used wisely if one is kind and gentle with it's application I still feel.

    FWIW, I was taught when I was young, that there is a "magic triangle" of life by the name of Love Sex and Marriage, and that all three sides of the triangle are interdependent. In a long term relationship I find that the "magic and sexual chemistry" ebbs and flows, as does the "love" to be honest, after you exhaust your stock of oxytocin or whatever fiendish chemical it is that causes you to "fall in love".

    Sex if you do it with out love, just becomes a chasing after a high, or for some people (particularly if you look at porn, where the extremes are presented as normal, and the normal presented as "dysfunctional" thus skewing the regular an impressionable viewers expectations in an often unfortunate direction) an olympic challenge. 

    The marriage part is all the hard work that has to go in if living together is to succeed.

    There's more but a bright mind can run with this themselves, and people on the spectrum I believe are often very bright indeed. You sound like an honest person who loves her husband and is working at things, I wish you well, and I'm sure that you and your hubby will find a way to make it work if you just keep working at it. 

    LIfe isn't like Disney sells it very often, at all, is it?

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