Libido

As they say in the classics losing something is rather careless. Where do you suppose you left it? It does seem to wax and wane a bit over the years, but most people are inventive and retrace their steps and finally rediscover it again if, as you say, only for the sake of the beloved.

Freud, whom we all love to hate nowadays, thought it was our most basic motive force. Just suppose he is right for a minute, do you think you have been sublimating your sex drive into other activities; artistic or exhausting Christmas housecleaning for instance?

Or, do you think you are not as beautiful that you once were now that you are menopausal, or is there possibly some rule in your head put in there by someone unremembered that sex after a certain age is undignified or even absurd?

Then again, your partner may be on some prescription drug regime that has altered his smell and it is turning you off, or he has some heavy cold and he is coughing and expelling phlegm.

On the other hand, maybe it is due to your prolapse, maybe you are being very protective of your feminine organs worried they may become damaged.

Can you think it through?

Best wishes, Fab

I hear you! My loss of libido has strained my marriage, and has been an issue since my mid 30s after having 3 children. I have tried anti-depressants (10 years ago), fish oil, diet, exercise and now marital therapy. Some of it is due to situations in my marriage and not hormonal, but there is a definite hormonal undertone that cannot be ignored. I wish I had great ideas for you.

All of my parts 'work'. It isn't that I cannot get physically turned on, but that I just have no desire. I'm not out there looking for other men or hoping another will come along, either. I am in good shape and I don't have a terribly low self image. It is physiological.

The prolapse doesn't help, either. NOW I feel uncomfortable and scared that sex will hurt which adds another layer to the mess. It really does not feel normal, but the more I talk about it the more I hear about it from other women. Maybe it IS normal? Just not something that fits in to a marriage well.

My husband is trying to be understanding, but he cannot live in a marriage where sex isn't regular. That pressure makes it even worse for me. Therapists are hopefully going to help. I'm at the point where I don't even initiate any physical contact because I don't want him to think he can get lucky and then I disappoint him or feel depressed for just going through the motions and wondering if I can do that for another 40-50 years!

Sorry, I'm just venting and whining instead of offering advice.

Oh, but I did feel that my sex drive was at its best when I cut out all processed sugar. I can't seem to last long with that restriction, but I think it works. Try it!

Libido is a very personal thing. If you've done everything you can to keep yourself healthy and happy, and you and your husband don't have any serious issues you need to talk through which might be affecting your feelings, then figure it's just hormonal, and fake it! You might find yourself getting more into the spirit of things than you thought. And even if you don't, then at least you'll feel less guilty. - Surviving

Dear " just a question " try to eliminate foods, one at a time, it could help you !
I have eliminated gluten and processed sugars and to my surprise my libido is starting to awaken and I am seventy years old, for years my libido was suppressed from my mind, the pain of sex was bad ( I have Lichen Sclerosis ) Since I discovered Christine's research and Red Clover a few months ago, my whole life is changing for the better, you are in the right place! - Solita

Hi just a question,
You deserve encouragement. There are answers and solutions. There are many things that can affect one's Libido. For example: medication, including the birth control pill (which many women do not know about), diet, health, stress, maritial difficulties, family relationships and difficulties, pre- menopause and the list goes on. If you can try to identify those things that are inhibiting your sexual drive. And if you can find quiet time with your husband and talk about your sexual life and what can be done to make it a better. Perhaps a good therapist. Sometimes it only takes a few visits to help you work things out.
Most of all don't get discouraged. All marriages have ups and downs with libidos and when it get to be a problem there is help.

Fab,
I found your reply both inappropriate and insensitive to just a question. My understanding of this forum is support and encouragement not ego bashing.
To build one's self up by knocking another down is never the answer.
NFP

10 years! That sounds horrible, but it is true. It wears you down. :(

I have upset both just a question and NFP and I apologize to you both sincerely.

I thought I was saying that loss of libido was a normal every day thing that happened and not to get too worried about it. Seems I failed in this.

best wishes, Fab

Just a Question, Of course this is a very appropriate place to ask this question. Good heavens, the topic has only been up for about 12 hours and already has ten responses, counting mine. I think there will be more.

I know Fab has apologised but I think there is something in what she says. There are a plethora of reasons why a woman loses her libido, including normal menopause, surgical menopause and drug side effects.

Nowhere in the holy books does it say that a woman will want sex for all her life. It might say in the bible that married people should not go looking for sex outside of marriage, and it might say that people get married to satisfy their sexual urges, but if the urge ain't there, it ain't there. Fab and others have given some reasons why this might have happened, and one of them is that you have reached menopause and your ovaries are no longer producing enough testosterone to stimulate libido.

I see from a past post that you had a hysterectomy a long time ago. During Hysterectomy the blood supply and nerve supply to the ovaries often becomes damaged, and sooner or later, if the ovaries are left in place, they simply can no longer function. They literally die. You don't say how old you are, but adding the loss of oestrogen from menopause to that mixture may have reduced your testosterone levels so low that they are now negligible. Testosterone is basically made from oestrogen.

Loss of libido is in itself a stress when we have hereunto expected our interest in sex to continue. We then also have a partner who either has to adjust to his wife's lower desire for sex (which he may interpret as being rejection of his love - strange creatures!) or else find sexual relief in other ways, which he might feel embarrassed or guilty or repelled by. So his attitude towards her changes too! All this along with the woman's guilt for not being sexually interested in her partner. This has enormous implications for marriage which has previously been stable and comfortable. It has even more implications for a marriage that has been held together by the sexual side of the relationship, and measured by it by either or both partners. Even more so in a marriage that was sexually unsatisfactory or one sided for a long time.

Some parts of society have the expectation that women should be interested in sex for all their life. There is a whole pharmaceutical/cosmetic surgery/beauty/fitness industry based on keeping our libido up, our vaginas moist and receptive, our bodies and faces youthful and ageless. This group part of us wants us to be perpetual virgins, always keen for sex (and to make our men folk feel loved) and that they can attract and keep an 'attractive' woman, and to make money for their shareholders by exploiting our insecurities. Whose interests are being served here? The woman's? I don't think so!

It is no different from believing in Santa. If you believe the hype, and you spend plenty of money, you can keep Santa coming down that chimney every single Xmas. But you never actually meet him. He is not real. Sigh. You now know that I have also recently read The Change, by Germaine Greer!

If the reality is that the woman is not interested any more, then she, or her body is blamed. This is not rational reasoning. Sites like this one, http://www.menopause.org.au/consumers/information-sheets/36 provide lots of sensible starting points to solving low libido, but it does it from the position of describing loss of libido as a medical condition, a women's problem that has to be solved by the woman doing something (to her body). Surely, if the woman is not suffering physically from her loss of libido, then it is not a medical problem? It might be a social problem or a psychological problem, or a relationship problem not related to sex, or the woman may at last be giving herself permission to no longer try to sexually please a partner who is either not loving towards her, or rude, rough and selfish during sex. Why would she be wanting to jump into bed for a romp with him? (Not saying this is your situation, Just a Question.)

Female sexuality is very complex. Sexual attraction is also very complex. women's brains are wired differently after menopause, when luteinising hormone and follicle stimulating hormone are continually high and oestrogen is continually low. Dr Christiane Northrup writes about this in The Wisdom of Menopause. We literally C-H-A-N-G-E, into a different woman after menopause. We morph, just as we morphed from girl child to young woman during puberty. Menopause is not just about lowered oestrogen production by the ovaries and cessation of menstruation.

Looking forward to further discussion. Just a Question, I hope this gives you some starting points for your quest for libido or peace, or both. ;-)

Louise

And can I also add that I don't think faking it is a good solution. (Not judging you Spamelah, I can understand the temptation!) Besides betraying your own integrity and dishonouring the honesty of your relationship, having bad sex is not going to lead to good sex for you.

My partner and I have struggled with this, and the break-through for me was when my partner stopped pressuring me (overtly or implicitly) for more sex. I feel like it allowed my poor over-shadowed libedo to begin to blossom again. We might not have sex as often as my partner would in his ideal world, but when we do, he knows I want it and it's great for both of us.

it was a wonderful post, Louise.

But Curiosity, if someone is depressed, putting on a happy face and trying to be happy i.e. faking it, can and does work to pull you out of depression. For your loved ones, they appreciate and esteem your effort and know that it is as much for them as it is for you.

best wishes, Fab

Well I am on low dose natural hormones.......I have tried to go off several times. I went on them because it was either that or hysterectomy. I was bleeding so bad I could not get out of the shower without blood all the way down on my feet and floor.....side effects were I was able to think again, lost 15 pounds in three months, got my sex drive back, my family said you are the old self happy again don't ever go off those drugs. I am not saying go on drugs....but everyone is different so try different things. It is not always in your head......we have a friend who had prostrate surgery he has tried the new drugs and they do not help...it is not in his head. Good luck to you. Life is a journey we are always traveling.

I think I must be missing something in this thread. I found Fab’s response extremely sensitive and she asked some very honest and valid questions. And since it was me who first suggested “faking it”, I think that if that was found offensive by anyone, then someone else seems to be getting the blame there.

What I find disturbing is the notion that something must be wrong and something must be fixed, if a woman does not continue to have a strong sex drive past menopause. I believe Christine herself has written on this topic.

Men are wired differently from women. If everything else is OK in the marriage, and it’s just a difference in sex drive at this time of life, nothing wrong with a little fakery is there?

Just A Question is a middle-aged women with a painful prolapse and a hysterectomy in her past. I’ve read up enough on hysterectomy to know that one’s sex life can definitely be affected by this. As Louise has pointed out……even if they leave the ovaries, as often as not they cease to function after awhile. In other words, the sex organs are gone.

So I repeat. Unless there is underlying anger and other issues in the marriage, then one way to get past the difference in sex drive is some kind of compromise which involves doing the deed when you are not in the mood. If you want to get your mojo back, it’s a lot more likely to happen if you are doing it, than if you are avoiding it. - Surviving

I know a few women who swear by it :)
http://alayahypnosis.com.au/maca-can-help-with-energy-depression-libido-...

Also, and this may not be your bag, you could try figuring out what will turn you on....I find a clean house that I didn't have to clean really sexy ;) but maybe you'd like to read some smut novels? Exploring your sexuality on your own can be really empowering. Perhaps you've done this already and I'm just annoying...

regarding faking it: Know how when you want a back rub, you negotiate with your partner and if you give your partner a back rub first even though you really don't want to, then you get a back rub? Maybe this is just a dynamic in my own situation, but I'm guessing you all see the same thing sometimes. So I think maybe faking it is like that-you do it so that you can have the fringe benefits it brings, a happy partner being one of those benefits. Yes? And if you are tricky, other benefits too- pre and post orgasm are really great times to bring up things you want to do that may have gotten a little resistance if mentioned when not engaged in adult fun :)
I don't know that I would want to fake it for years and years (no judgment Spam! I'm sorry you are worn down by it, but I admire your dedication) but the idea of fake it until you make it has served me well in most arenas of my life, so I can see the value in relation to sex for sure.

Justaquestion, I hope you can get this important element worked out and feel good about it!

Totally agree Alemama. Finding out what turns you on is empowering (and communicating this to your partner, along with the things that do not turn you on). I also find a clean house that I didn't clean myself sexy! I also find stress a huge turn off and my partner knows this.

I don't think what you are talking about is what I would call faking - it's more negotiating and finding ways of saying yes. And same with you Fab. What I think of faking is actually pretending you are into it when you are not i.e. deceiving your partner. What some people call a mercy fuck. I know my partner does not want a mercy fuck, and neither would I if our roles were reversed. We are both aroused by each other's pleasure.

You didn't give any details Surviving so maybe you didn't mean faking in this way either. I totally agree that the expectation that women maintain a high libedo through their menopausal lives is unrealistic. I also don't think it is reasonable for a man to place the responsibility of his sexual happiness on a woman, to think he has an entitlement to sex whenever he wants.

Faking it, if it deceives anyone at all, is deceiving yourself. You think if you hear that same old chestnut from your aged parent just one more time that you will scream or go mad, but you swallow your anguish and engage in the story; ask the right questions at the right time, receive the same old answers, but you have intimately engaged, you feel better for taking that stance and old mum is happy. She has enjoyed herself telling her favorite story to a warm listener, and you have obliged.

You might say there is no honesty and integrity in such an act; that we are acting hypocritically, but are such considerations really appropriate when it comes to motivating ourselves to act in loving ways?

No-one is saying, it’s all in the mind, what I am saying is that because we are human we have the power of thought, and thought can and does constantly enable us to overcome adversity whether it be physical, emotional, due to stress and weariness, psychological or just to motivate ourselves. Equally, it can itself lead us into adversity.

We were not talking of a medical condition Mika, and I certainly do take your point however, just a question mentioned no medical condition in her original post at the top. Yes, she did mention menopause, but that is a stage of life not a medical condition in itself. I do not contest that it can contribute to a medical condition, or emergency, as it seems in your case.

I see faking sexual enjoyment as more about deceiving yourself, or rather motivating yourself, in the hope that you will become physically aroused to actually enjoy the act, or at the basic minimum accomplish it and bring pleasure to your partner. Where the mercy fuck in that is, is to yourself. For the partner to feel patronized by it is to give it a nasty little spin.

To get real does not mean having to give up reading fiction, watching Fox news on television, enjoying magicians’ tricks and illusions or being nice to people.

Best wishes, Fab

Agree with Fab, giving your partner a bit of what he craves even though you may not think you are very much in the mood, need not be viewed in such a sinister light! Mercy fuck? Yipes, that's a very unfortunate way to look at this. - Surviving

Yes, it is an unfortunate term for an unfortunate situation. Many men simply seem to need a lot of coitus. For some it is a lazy and society sanctioned form of masturbation, which *really* is unfortunate. For other men coitus *equals* love. They are not stupid. They can tell when a woman is expressing love via coitus, and when she is in mercy fuck mode. I know one couple where the man became quite cross and felt patronised and abused when he experienced his partner cooperating passively with sex so she could just get it over and go back to sleep. He wanted the woman to enjoy it, but she simply wasn't enjoying it. He had no power over her lack of enjoyment. It was a lose-lose situation.

I agree that faking interest is deceitful, and doesn't help either partner realise that they have a problem to deal with. Only the hard work of meaningful, intimate communication, with a counsellor if necessary, will get to the bottom of it and give both partners a way forward.

Faking orgasm? Well, that *might* be a different story. But that is not the topic of this Topic. Yes, there is compassionate faking, like Mum's repeated stories, but that is different from two fully functioning sexual partners deceiving each other about their real motivations. That is a real intimacy killer!

It would be interesting to see the anthropological history of sex compared to our westernized view of it.

I have read that the human is the only mammalian species where the female is receptive to sex at all times.

I think this was written by a man, and that is how lack of female libido has become 'female sexual dysfunction'. It has become an abnormal condition and we are told that it 'needs treatment'.

Perhaps there are no species where the female is receptive to sex all the time?

In traditional communities, often men live with the men, and women live with the women and children. Socially, they have different systems. I wonder if this is because it is not satisfactory for women having men living with them because men want sex regularly and women don't, or are lactating or in the second half of their cycle or postmenopause if they are lucky to live that long. This may also have a protection of children effect.

Patriarchal societies and their patriarchal religions often prescribe how male-female relationships will be done. They often prescribe that in marriage certain rules will apply, eg that the man and the woman will live together until death do them part, and that the marriage is, eg to ensure that a woman is available to the man all the time so that he does not have the temptation to satisfy his carnal lusts in other ways. What about the woman?????

Control of male and female sexuality has been central to societies and religions from time immemorial, and still is. I think it would be very difficult to separate nature from society and family factors.

But it is a very interesting question.

Louise

... did anyone else see this? http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/magazine/unexcited-there-may-be-a-pill-for-that.html. What do you think?

I just had a quick skim of the article and I found it sad (if I got the gist of it correct). A pill just masks the real issues and then prevents you from realising or rediscovering your true potential. I am currently suffering low libido after my first baby and pop. However, I know it is psychological and I need to work through it. I actually want to have sex to help push organs up, but don't have the desire due to tiredness and mild marital issues. I'm confidant that once we redevelop a connection and make time for each other, the libido will return. I also have orgasms, sometimes quite intense in my sleep which further makes me think libido is a psychological issue especially for women. But I know we are all different.

It was long and interesting, but sort of annoying. They used the terms *lust* and *libido* interchangeably (or so it seemed), which really muddied the truth of what they were talking about. They also talked about long term relationships in the same paragraph as discussing research where they played audio to women while monitoring arousal (vaginal blood flow) and one was a handsome stranger and one was a handsome friend and the arousal was higher for the stranger- silly things like that indicating that biologically we must be wired to have interest in new partners and our lack of desire is tied to our interest in monogamy.

I am interested in the premise that libido has lots to do with the brain chemistry and the comparison of making a pill to treat low libido to treating depression with ssri. But the truth is, I think the actual pill they are testing right now is coated in testosterone and contains a viagra like ingredient (to increase blood flow to the vagina)- so that doesn't sound much like a brain drug to me- they mention that it's a combo drug, but then don't talk at all about the mechanism of action...
Eh, the women and doctors they quoted sounded very convinced that low libido was a problem- I'm not equally convinced, though I can see where it would cause a strain in a marriage if there was a big difference in libido between the partners. I think it's an interesting area of study anyway. But in an anthropological fashion, not a 'develop a pill to treat that' fashion.

LLL, first baby and pop can do a number on your libido. It's a physical thing too! Hormones really do have an effect on sex drive big time. We have always handled that low drive really delicately, I'm pretty fragile in those early months. I'm tired, really tired and I don't feel awesome about my squishy saggy belly, my breasts are very sensitive from the early nursing and my emotions are all over the place. You know how people talk about walking on eggs? Dh walks on those suckers for months, gladly ;). But we've gotten better at it each time we have a new baby. It is an adjustment.
and holy cow! I used to have orgasms in my sleep when I was pregnant! that was cool :)

I know this wasn't directed at me but LLL, I have found that after my babes have been born, it was much harder to be in the mood. Hormones are up and down, and I seem to be so emotional. Also I think nursing gives me all the touching I need at the start and also it takes sometime to get accustomed to my new body again. My husband is very considerate of this, and never pushes things with me until I initiate after a baby. It can take sometime, so if you can, let him know how you feel, physically and emotionally. Also for me I find it starts long before the bedroom, help with the chores, bathing the kids, or helping with putting them to bed does wonders for me. Simple things like emptying the dishwasher, while your nursing the baby, or a quick vacuuming of the downstairs can be all it takes to get things going. As a husband, they will soon see (hopefully) there is much more to it than just relations. (and a little self sacrifice for them is good sometimes) Your drive will come back, you just have to find what turns it on again. After a new baby, things that worked before may not work, and he may find he has to look further than the bedroom, and into the kitchen or laundry room.

I know what you mean LLL and Alemama. I had a similar sort of response in the sense of reacting against the idea of needing a pill to cure every ill. But then I read the article more carefully and I found I could really identify with the woman who said that her relationship her her partner is good, she enjoys sex when they have it, she orgasms, and she wants to have more sex with him but the desire to do that is just not there. There is a barrier there, whether that is physical, mental, emotional or a combination. I know from my own experience how stultifying having to talk yourself into sex can be. As I have said on here before, my partner and I went through pretty horrible times with sex when our kids were very young. It is the one thing that could have broken us up. That was when I realized how so very important sex is to my partner, and the stark reality of our desire discrepancy became apparent. And then I started to think maybe I would try a pill like this. To give him and me the thrill of me wanting him unreservedly in the way he does me. I would be scared about the side effects of the introduced hormones and neurotransmitters, and that itself might be enough to stop me taking it. I've not taken the pill since my early twenties, and even only take iron supplements with reluctance. But ... I have definitely taken my share of recreational drugs, and those experiences have been some of the most amazing of my life. So, the jury is out in this house. Have a few years to decide anyway.

P.s. totally agree with you Alemama and Agnusdei re postpartum sex - it's in a special category all of its own :)

P.p.s. Alemama, as far as I could tell the pill has is sugar coated with testosterone, and the middle part contains the neurotransmitter stuff, but yes it was light on detail, but that's probably because it is commercially sensitive, and yes, I agree, this is anthropologically fascinating. The evolutionary biologists/psychologists would have us believe that men are interested in sex and women commitment, but the research is showing that women get bored in long term relationships faster than men. So how does that work?

are here curiosity, how does the pill idea relate to the concept of the 'mercy fuck'?
Also, "but the research is showing that women get bored in long term relationships faster than men. So how does that work?"
it keeps them home tending the children and not out tripping the light fantastic. And perhaps it leaves men free to share the wealth for progeny sake or as in most cases just feeling restless and grateful for what they get. Life's tough.
I'm sure we could shape that however we wanted.

If you don't know the answer to that one Fab, then you've obviously never given a mercy fuck, something for which you should be very grateful ;-)

for what it's worth, a female colleague of mine once shared an insight that seems to me at least somewhat germane to this thread and which was a huge ah-ha! for me in my younger years: "men want to make love to feel good. women want to make love when they feel good." sleep deprivation and exhaustion is a libido killer. i loved your comment alemama, "I find a clean house that I didn't have to clean really sexy." there was an article in the huffington post not long ago with the headline that went something like, "do more housework, get laid more often."

with a first child, dad is discovering that he is no longer numero uno with his honey bunny. he's a way distant second. this is a difficult transition for the man of the house. he'll come to terms with it in time, but i think it is easy for new mommies who are just trying to cope with the physiological, emotional and logistical tsunamis that have hit them with their first baby, to underestimate the impact on that isolation has on new dads. men are likely to compensate by being more sexually aggressive, which only exacerbates the situation.

sex is great, but in the larger scheme of things i think it winds up creating at least as much pain in relationships as it does pleasure, which suggests that the whole sexual dimension of our lives occupies way too much of our bandwidth. even napoleon hill wrote that most men achieve their greatest accomplishments after fifty when their attention is less directed toward sex. i think we'd all be happier if we could just lighten up around sex.

if you don't feel good, you're not likely to be interested in sex. that's a useful thing to communicate to your partner. sexual dynamics are so complex and unreliable, it is really essential that a relationship be built on the foundation of friendship, mutual respect and a common dream rather than just being hot between the sheets. sometimes sex just won't be happening. that's got to be OK, and way less important than the companionship and partnership. that's not a conversation a husband is likely to be happy to hear, but if a partner can't accept that, he's not much of a partner.

yes I agree, grateful I am.

You hit the nail on the head with that one, Lanny! Well said!

Great post Lanny, a much-needed mature male perspective on the whole thing. - Surviving

Thanks for taking the time to respond Lanny. And thank you and Christine for this forum - isn't this so brilliant to be able to discuss, share, nut out, these issues?

Ok, I'll shut up about this soon, and let everyone get back to core POP business.

sex is great, but in the larger scheme of things i think it winds up creating at least as much pain in relationships as it does pleasure, which suggests that the whole sexual dimension of our lives occupies way too much of our bandwidth. even napoleon hill wrote that most men achieve their greatest accomplishments after fifty when their attention is less directed toward sex. i think we'd all be happier if we could just lighten up around sex.

So I can live in hope that once my partner gets to 50 his attention will be less directed towards sex :-)

I think saying we'd all be happier if we could just lighten up around sex might be easier said than done though. My partner did try this when we were in our post partum years and ended up very unhappy. It's just so important to him. It's hard for me to explain because I am not him, but I have tried hard to understand it, because I love him. It's the thing that makes him happiest in the world.

to be able to help curiosity, but I can only come out with the conventional: when a partner demands more sex than the other can respond with, and demands it or manipulates for it, it is usually considered a political power play, otherwise when there is an imbalance of desire the higher sexed partner usually sublimates their libido in the pursuit of creative activities. "Haven't you got a good book to read?" I agree with Lanny that at a mature age a man becomes involved with other things, but not for everyman. It depends upon the degree to which he has been able to develop his spirituality. The man needs to incorporate within himself his conflicts, and divergent aspects. Jung talked about this (to put it simply) as reincorporating into the psyche those repressed elements which have overloaded the unconscious with the anima/us, the shadow and the archetypes. I don't know whether you are into that stuff or not. Seems to me these old fellows were on to things far more than the cognitivists' quick fix would be able to explain. But thanks for your frankness in the posts above. It gives a broader splash to your dilemma and an understanding why this is so pressing. I don't know if you are involved in artistic activities already, if not I would suggest you do engage in them; your leadership may very well be followed by your husband.
best wishes, Fab

Thanks all - lots of food for thought which I'm sure will be helpful for many. Lanny's comment re:new fathers definitely makes sense.

Sorry this is a general response to the topic, so much food for thought here - my take one year pp with our first child, having been with my partner for 14 years before starting our family (and hence through many and various ups and downs not just in our love life), is that the next few years of tiny child wrangling while we (hopefully) add another child to our family will be some sexually fallow years. I just don't have the energy, I felt very ambivalent about the state of my body for months pp, and actually in a long term monogamous relationship I have come to realise that the ebbs and flows of sexual interest are really important to me in maintaining passion and interest. I think the changing rhythms of a long term relationship can create an equivalent excitement of getting together with a new partner. If you've ever spent a few months apart from your lover, you know the excitement that anticipating and then finally getting back together brings - and I see this as a time to create some of that anticipation. Luckily my partner is with me on this - in his younger days he wouldn't have been, and that was a source of conflict at times. Now we are comfortable that as we are in a long term relationship we can afford to take a long term view of our love life, and it will be better for it.
Edited to add - I don't mean no sex, just lots less regular sex.

Do we agree at least by our experience and anecdotal evidence that the physical/hormonal desire in men recycles daily (or more often) and that women (though capable of being physically receptive) don't necessarily recycle by physical need daily? If that's the case, there is an actual natural imbalance between the two which might be taken for the root of the problem. But I always argue that we function as we are designed and problems develop when we establish practices against natural function and purpose. (Procreation is the purpose and sexual pleasure is the gift that ensures the purpose will be fulfilled.) Then what if the problem is the requirement (social, legal, financial, religious) of the one woman/one man marriage and the ways we have to twist ourselves emotionally to fit it? This is just another perspective of what has been described above....the conflict between the acceptable societal and psychological format of our lives as couples vs. (and complicating) the differences between our hormonal (which do affect the emotional) cycles as couples. Our minds are affected (propagandized) to try to force our bodies to work in an unnatural way (sort of like posture!) and the problem of sexual cycles between men and women is never solved. It would be ideal (but totally not expected) for women to love each other and their man (one man) and share the labors (housework, childcare, financial support) and share the pleasures in turn.

Disclaimer: I am not a polygamist and am not involved in a multiple-partner marriage nor do I belong to any religious denomination (at all, or one) affiliated with the religious practice of polygamy. I do think that some who are involved in that are doing it happily and others may be quietly but happily practicing the lifestyle. I'm only suggesting that we consider these social and legal pressures and how they affect us as human beings trying to love and communicate with each other. We (in all relationships) have to do what is right with each other, finding the authority in ourselves to do the right things and never minding the pretended moral authorities that educate us wrongly in how to think and feel.

Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter! What is really natural? What you describe, Bebe, is more natural. Men have always taken second and third wives - often younger sisters of their first wife. But I wonder how many cultures had all the women in the same house? I think you have to have strong patriarchal codes that keep all the women in line to make that work. That sort of “sisterly love” is hardly natural. Most women want their own teepee. Why can’t a woman have more than one husband? That is very natural too, and common in old Tibet among other places. As much as we don’t want to believe it, it is very possible to be in love with more than one person. Some cultures, such as France, cope with that reality better than others.

That said, I think nothing is more heavenly than having been through the ups and downs of life with one person, survived it, and are now living out their lives in marital bliss - without the complication of excessive hormones.

I appreciate your responding. Yeah, women are competitive and it would take a real understanding and sisterhood (spiritual, not incestual!); but I do think that sisterly love is not so unnatural. I mean, look at this forum for examples of love among women with disagreement and reason...all looking at the same goal and supporting each other. Yeah, it would require women to view the husband as head of the household and actually man as head of woman/women. I know this idea is strongly resisted in our world. Yeah, our norm makes it financially impossible with the expectation that men should provide for women and that to a very high standard. I said it would be ideal, not expected.

As wonderful as love is between one man and one woman (and it is), in the ideal I described it would still be....the man with each woman....without jealousy and with the added benefit of a larger loving family. The ideal according to natural cycles and our need for family and community. As to keeping women in line, again the ideal is voluntary and individual. Trying to make anything acceptable to all is to change it to a compromised unacceptable thing.

The reason I think it won't work the other way around is the natural protectiveness of man toward woman and woman's (wrongheaded but real) effort to create jealousy and therefore violence between men and for establishing fatherhood (necessarily a male dominated society, patriarchal -- not matriarchal). For the sake of physical health and cleanliness (and someone with more medical knowledge may be able to help here), it seems more logical that a woman (as a receptacle of a high-protein substance) shouldn't be receiving such a mix. Even among animal breeders it is rejected as bastardization. I think it has a lot more to do with reasonable wholesomeness than the right of women to "behave as men". After all, the subject includes the differences in cyclical sexual need so turning it around would defeat the solution to the problem of everyone getting satisfied.

As to coming to the friendly companionship of long married couples finally without complication, it seems that's where we should have started.....as friendly companions willing (even eager) to gratify one another and discovering how to do so without societal complications.

My suggestion is always to consider the ideal. Why do we even think there is one, that things can be better, that problems can be solved? Because otherwise we'd just be all mucking around in our discontent.

My best wishes to each of you ladies (and gentlemen) for a friendly, affectionate and gratifying experience. And I do agree with Surviving, by the way, that to decide to participate whether you feel like it or not is to take a faithful chance that it may turn out to be a good thing. Is that what you meant?

Who is determined father when The Wife gets pregnant? Women can hardly keep up with one partner's libido, what happens when she has 2+ men to placate? And I would think she would probably have a bit of difficulty maintaining healthy vaginal flora with so many husbands...

In cultures, such as old India, where women were free to be with whom they wanted, I hardly think they were “behaving as men”. If we are to believe the historians and people who have researched the subject deeply, sex was considered a divine union and engaged in with great “wholesomeness” and care. Contrast that with the extremely unwholesome, incestuous, intensely patriarchal groups who engage in such practices as “spiritually” marrying young girls to old men. “Ideal” is relative.

Well, Chicka, it has probably been the case in many ancient lands that The Wife's family considered all her children their own. Likewise, in ancient Rome, The State owned all the children. I don't know about your last question...lots of honey, I guess!

I agree it's so important that whatever we believe we find a husband/husbands who feel the same way!!

But I found this article interesting:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/06/the-gay-guide-to-wed...

Let me clarify that our midlife crisis had everything to do with me and nothing to do with my lovely, completely devoted, straight husband. In truth, I caused him great pain and that is the part we survived. All I know is this: it is a big, complicated world and what is needed more than anything is compassion and tolerance. You never know what might happen. The important thing is to live and love in truth and have no regrets!

I'm sorry I should've been more specific about which answers I was referring to. Each thing I mentioned was just an agreement to something I already mentioned... I must have said it wrong. The massage thing n the house chores thing was in response to the original question. N the other stuff was just to show how different we all are n as long as we r open w our partner everything can be worked out. I missed the post in referrence to your marriage Christine n I sincerely hope I didn't offend anyone. I must've said what I meant, wrong.

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Oh...I wish you hadn't deleted your wonderful comment, WMLB! These individual opinions and expressions are what make life real. The absolute only thing that gets in the way is judgment of other's realities, which you certainly are mindful about. Thanks for being here! I need to get back to work now. :)

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I am soooooooo very sorry. What was taken from my response was not what I meant at all. All I meant is that we should follow our hearts n always do what's best for our families n by The Lord. I am so very embarrassed n so very sorry my words came acrost as they did I must've used incorrect terminology bc I didn't mention anything about homosexuality. I was just agreeing with everyone else n am so very sorry I expressed my words so improperly. I will makes sure I use my wording correctly from now on. Again I NEVER mean to offend anyone here. Y'all are wonderful strong amazing women who have made an amazing difference in mine n the lives of many.