I hate sex with my husband

She no longer desires intimacy with her soul mate! What next for the relationship? Gardy chacha finds out

There are myriad ways couples express love for each other, and one of those is through sex! Conservatives prefer sex after marriage while others — largely in the current generation — have no qualms making sexual commitments while dating.

Usually at the start, a married couple will not keep their hands to themselves as they engage in steamy escapades, often running deep into the night.

“My husband and I enjoyed sexual intimacy every moment we could spare a minute for it at the start of our marriage,” Tabitha Waruguru, a lecturer at a Nakuru college says, adding, “As time went by, our interest in intimacy just waned. We reported back to work, babies came and little fights emerged in the house: And my drive slowly turned off,” she added.

The once intensely sparky sex life degenerated into a morose ‘let’s-get-it-over-with’ before the rotor went totally silent.

After a period of time, the spirit of sex and intimacy between couples usually takes a spiral downwards — it happens. It even evokes more interest if the woman no longer feels the connection that involves the consummation of love.

This is a grim situation, isn’t it? Unfortunately, this is one of those problems that feed off themselves, bringing marriage to a precipice and invoking gloom in a relationship.

Hormones

What happens when the woman loses interest in getting intimate with her better half? Tension is blamed for this, as it is what converts a small blip into an ongoing circus, and a seemingly insoluble problem.

But first, it would be good to understand what may lead to a woman losing the mojo to get the bedroom teaming with ‘life’.

Sex therapist Kelly Young writes in the website www.sheknows.com that all women will notice natural and normal fluctuations in their sexual appetites over time.

“Much of these happen due to hormonal changes (during menstruation, pregnancy and perimenopause), which affect a woman’s body and self-image; she may feel less sexy, and, in turn, less sexual,” says Kelly

Lack of arousal, continues Kelly, could be associated with insufficient vaginal lubrication, which makes penetration irritating or painful, and may even trigger vaginal or urinary tract infections. Painful sex, however orgasmic it would be, is obviously unfulfilling; a woman is unlikely to desire it, and she may begin to fear or avoid it.

Well-being

In her writings, Kelly farther explains that physical and mental illnesses can also negatively affect a woman’s libido, as can the medications often used to treat the illnesses. This school of thought is also vouched for by psychologist Nancy Kimani who says: “A woman cannot participate well (probably wouldn’t) in intimacy if her health isn’t in the right plane. Stress, pregnancy, illness or anything that puts a strain on her wellbeing would equally put a damper on her mood and performance.”

It could be because a baby has already come, or life’s demands are weighing in, or that the initially intense feelings of love have degraded to mere embers. In the initial stages, it is not easy to feel the changes, but for a keen mind, little snippets wouldn’t be hard to notice.

If she faces the opposite direction when you show some interest, then it could be high time you start looking for the dysfunctional nut and get it tightened.

Lifestyle in modern times, says Nancy, where everyone is dealing with stresses of office work and assignments, negatively weighs on a couple’s sex life. The demands of juggling work, family and other responsibilities can be exhausting and overwhelming; there may be little energy and enthusiasm left for sex. The solution would never be in seeking clandestine satisfaction.

At the heart of the matter though, relationship problems and difficulties in communication can have a major detrimental influence on a woman’s sex drive. For this, Nancy explains, the proper antidote would be couples opening channels for conversation.

She also relays that the major missing nut in men’s mind about their women is that sex to them is, “more than physical embroilment of a man and a woman: it is an emotional connection to someone I love.”

As it turns out, sex begins in the morning when the man is leaving for office and goes beyond an actual orgasm achieved after a night of passionate love-making, concludes Nancy.