“Help! I've been with my husband for 5 years, and we have a great marriage in most respects, except in one area: sex! When we first met, he couldn't keep his hands off me, and we were at it morning, noon and night. But now if we do it once a week, I'm lucky. My husband's interest in sex hasn't just diminished, it's died a death. I'm crawling up the walls here! I'm a normal red-blooded woman who needs sex at least three times a day (OK, OK, at least twice a week) to feel sane. I love him to bits and I can tell that he really loves me too, so how come he seems to have lost interest? It really hurts when he's not interested. I've tried seducing him, dressing sexily for him, date nights, a sex contract (hey, don't blame me, it's what a counsellor recommended!), surprising him with a candle-lit bath with rose petals and scented bath oil etc., etc., and nothing has worked.” – Mandy

“Can you advise me what a man can do to rekindle the fires of romance in his wife after 19 years of marriage? For the last 11 of those years, we've had sex maybe 30 times in total and I'm about ready to have an affair. I've tried everything I can think of, but she just gets irritated and snaps at me.” – Simon

It is very common problem in long-term conventional relationships for one partner to lose desire for the other. Men lose interest; women lose interest. There is no gender divide here. There are many possible causes, but in many cases, the problem can be solved quite easily, so take heart and read on! I am assuming that in the past, the person you love did love having sex with you, that you have a reasonably good relationship otherwise, and that there are no other problems such as a lack of self-confidence on the part of the other person, etc. If the reason your wife has gone off sex is that you do not find her attractive or you have taken to spending hours on the internet looking at porn, then the problem is a very different one, and is not likely to be solved by the simple measure I am suggesting here.

Feeling pressured kills desire

You may be at a loss to know what caused the problem. Perhaps it started one day when your husband, who was a bit tired after a spectacularly bad day at work, did not feel up to a wild night of passion, and you were slightly insensitive to this, or you became a little anxious that he did not respond as you hoped he would. It might have started any number of ways, but however it started, one thing that is guaranteed to exacerbate it and prolong the problem is pressure.

One of the reasons being taken in hand can be so exciting is, paradoxically, that in eroticising control, it creates real desire and real consent. It turns what could be off-putting, unpleasant control into erotic indulgence, pleasurable attention, positive engagement. It tends to eliminate unwanted pressure! So in the long run, you might want to move to the kind of relationship we discuss on Taken In Hand. But if the person you love is feeling put off pressure for sex, for some, it might be wise to take the course of action detailed below first, to avoid counterproductively adding further undesirable pressure.

When people feel pressured to have sex, it tends to put them right off. Unfortunately, in conventional relationships it is all too easy to exert pressure despite your best intentions. When you want sex, you hope your man wants it too, and if he doesn't, if you are in a conventional exclusive relationship, you are likely to feel a bit disappointed. Sensing your disappointment, your man feels bad, because on the one hand, he wants to make you happy, but on the other, now is really not a good time for him. He might even feel a bit resentful that you seem insensitive to his lack of desire at this moment. He feels a bit pressured. Your expectation is a little off-putting. This leads to a slight dampening of his sexual desire for you which, if you are lucky, will be rectified shortly, but might be exacerbated by more inadvertent pressure on your part.

It is not that you are a horrible person: you are a human being with human wishes and desires and, perhaps, insecurities. You want the person you love to want you, and when he shows signs of not wanting you, it is human to panic slightly, or to begin to feel a bit desperate for sex. Your man then experiences your panic or desperation as further pressure, and that puts him off even more... which makes you panic and feel even more desperate for sex... and so on, in a vicious circle.

The problem with this sort of vicious circle, apart from the fact that you are “crawling up the walls”, is that once your man is feeling slightly pressured (for whatever reason),

he is then going to be hypersensitive to any further pressure, and worse, he is going to interpret even the most innocent questions, statements, and actions on your part, as yet more pressure.

You may think that snuggling up against your wife in bed and thus making your desire for her, er, felt, is just your way of letting her know you are, er, up for it. But if your wife is already feeling under pressure sexually, she will find this annoying, insensitive, pressuring (and not just literally!),

and distressing. She is more likely to be having dark thoughts about giving you a Bobbit job than giving you a blow job.

Similarly, you may think that when you answer the door to your husband naked and then lead him to your bedroom where you have waiting a bottle of Champagne and a new sex toy (and not just one of the intimidating ones either),

you are giving him a nice surprise. But if he is already feeling pressure to have sex with you, or to have it more often, not only is he likely not to respond positively, he is likely to feel resentful you for putting him under pressure in this way. If the other person reacts irritably to anything which might possibly be perceived to be pressure for sex, it is likely that pressure is at least part of the problem.

Even very subtle things can cause problems. For example, if you have (whether by chance or design) a particular routine, ritual, or code associated with having sex (e.g., when he has a shower before coming to bed, that means you will have sex; or when she says, “The kids are asleep but I'm not!”; or if you can set your watch by the sexual routine you have) this can, with a bit of bad luck, turn into a pressuring expectation that puts the other person off. And unless you manage not to panic, your reaction to the other person's drop in interest is likely to exacerbate the situation.

Remove all pressure

Back off. Don't –

- have sex
- ask for sex
- hint that you want sex
- look sad/upset/angry/sulky/disappointed
- make comments
- try to seduce him/her
- press yourself against him/her in bed
- turn a massage into sexual touching
- dress sexily to tempt him
- wander around naked
- talk or joke about sex
- spring romantic surprises on him
- masturbate in his presence
- threaten to see other people
- bring her flowers/chocolates to soften her up
- talk about past times when the two of you were having lots of sex
- be impatient
- try harder
- try so hard to please that you appear desperate
- force the issue

That is, don't do those things.

Don't even dress or undress in front of him. (I am not joking. This is important!) Keep the bathroom door locked when you use it, and start wearing non-sexy pyjamas in bed. Never be naked in his presence. When you are feeling pressured for sex, you can experience that as more pressure.

Do be very friendly, attentive, loving, happy, and fun in other ways. You do not want to appear to have lost interest more generally. This is about removing pressure and anything that might be seen as pressure, not about playing games or making the person doubt your love.

Don't just try this for two weeks or a month, think in terms of six months, otherwise you will be inadvertently exuding upsetness about the lack of sex, and that will turn him/her right off instantly. Think longer term to give this a chance of working.

This works because in many relationships, when one person is less interested, instead of backing off, the other tries harder to get the person to have sex. This puts the other person off even more, and causes the other to become even more desperate to get sex... and so on in a vicious circle. No matter how much the one being pursued for sex might want to want it, he just can't. He needs space to find his own desire again. So back off – but be friendly and happy and nice in non-sexual ways. If he likes being massaged, massage him without even the slightest hint that you want sex. Not a single hint of any kind. If she likes sensual perfumed baths with candles and soft music and a glass of Champagne, give her that – and don't even think of dropping any hints that you want sex.

Even when your partner does show flutterings of interest, do not have sex – yet. Remain strong. Instead, first, for some time – like many days or weeks (depending on how bad a case yours is!) – appear not to notice that they are showing signs of being interested in you sexually again. Continue to be friendly, loving, and nice, but do not even think of showing interest in them sexually. The reason I think you should not jump into sex at the first sign of interest is not to play games with the person you love (no!) but in order to be sure that the desire is real, wholehearted, and great enough that having sex will not yet again make the person feel icky and pressured and put off. In these cases, the first flutterings of desire are fragile and the person is still in a state of hypersensitivity to anything which could possibly be interpreted as pressure. So you need to wait until the flutterings have become an urgent, wholehearted feeling of need on the other person's part. This can take some time.

Find constructive ways to feel good

While you are doing all this, do things for yourself to make yourself feel good, and to make yourself feel attractive and confident, if that is in any way in doubt. Develop your own life. Increase your self-confidence by becoming more aware of others who are attracted to you. If your husband's lack of interest was killed by insecurity, or if he lacks confidence, avoid like the plague doing anything that might exacerbate that. But if he does not have that problem and just appears to have gone off sex with you for no apparent reason, the following might be worth doing:

When you and your uninterested husband are out with other people, and you notice a man looking at you, smile at him rather than pretending not to see. Start noticing these sexual signals from others more, and don't worry if your partner sees. Unless he has been turned off you as a result of you having been flirting (in which case, on no account do this or anything he might perceive as flirting!) it will help if your partner sees that others are attracted to you. Get yourselves invited to a party or two, dress really well, and let the one you love see that other people find you attractive, and even flirt a little (just a little). If you do do this, on no account do it in such a way that it appears to be hostile, threatening, or humiliating to the one you love. Of course if what you do appears to your man to be a desperate attempt to make him jealous, it will be totally counterproductive. The point of this is that looking through someone else's eyes can lift familiarity-induced blindness.

Avoid falling into old pressuring patterns again

Hold off from sex until he is not just begging for it, but crawling up the walls in desperation for it!

Then, after you have first had sex, instead of falling back into a pattern in which you were trying to get him to have sex, and he was pulling away from you, be careful to avoid pushing for sex. Sometimes appear friendly but uninterested again. Don't go back to trying to seduce him or her. Instead, let him initiate – at least for a long time, until you are sure that everything is all right and you have a sexual connection again. This is not about playing games, it is about avoiding exerting off-putting pressure.

Eventually, your man will become interested again. But it will only work if you manage to back off completely. If you are a man, and you just can't resist thrusting your erection into her back at night, or wandering around naked in front of her, or watching her lustfully as she undresses, you are not going to get anywhere, because you have not backed off. If you are a woman whose man seems uninterested in you sexually, and you sigh sadly whenever a love scene comes on on the TV, or if you try to dress to kill for your man to try to seduce him, or you masturbate in bed next to him, etc., you have not backed off. You have to stop all that – everything. Desist! Back off! Give his desire a chance to re-surface. Give her the psychological (and physical) space to create her own desire. BACK OFF. Have I said that enough times yet? I find that people just aren't aware of all the hints they are dropping, all the ways in which they have not backed off – so search for those and desist.

Afterwards

If the other person has been feeling pressured, I suggest removing the pressure as above first, before trying to introduce intimate control dynamics, because of the risk that the other person may experience that as further pressure. If pressure has played no part in the other person's lack of interest, then it might well be safe to go ahead and raise the subject of introducing control into your relationship, and Taken In Hand. Best of luck!

the boss

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