‘My husband almost never feels like sex’

Eline (26), married to Marijn (31) and mother of Pien (10 months):

“I should preferably request a love affair from my husband in black and white, three working days in advance. This is my standard joke to girlfriends. Unfortunately not far from the truth, because spontaneous sex is never an option with us.

Marijn gets completely upset when I propose to him with a wink that we also lay down for a while when we put our daughter on the bed. That doesn’t work out at all, because he has already made other plans in his head for that evening or has not been able to mentally prepare for a sex party. Marijn doesn’t like a quickie in between, is hardly in the mood for some fun playing in bed and certainly never just before going to sleep.

Libido

From the moment we got into a relationship, our sex needs differ. I’ve always had a much higher libido than my husband. When we met we were both in very different phases of life, I think that played a part as well. I was just twenty and in the middle of student life with the motto ‘long live fun’. I fluttered around a lot during that time. Marijn was five years older and completely settled.

When we were together on the weekends, I wanted to be very intimate with him. Marijn was equally happy to see me, but one time sex was more than enough. He simply turned me down, he didn’t mind. It made me feel vulnerable. It’s quite painful when your friend says ice cold no when you want to tempt him to have sex.

“It’s quite painful when your friend says ice cold no when you want to tempt him to make love.”

But for Marijn, sex has never been the top priority and he is not the type who ‘could make sense for a while’. Very atypical for a man. At least, the boyfriends I had had before easily got into the mood with a nice kiss, a little caress or an exciting lingerie set. Something that does not make Marijn warm or cold. Even hard porn doesn’t bother him. He’s too stubborn for that. If he’s not relaxed in his head, the rest of his body won’t join in either.

Sex Frequency

In the beginning of our relationship, it regularly led to heated discussions and heavy conversations. I thought I was much too young to have all the sex life of a worn-out couple, but Marijn didn’t want to have to bend over backwards to fulfill my wishes. We even went to the doctor once to see if there was something wrong with us and possibly to ask for a referral to a sexologist. But our story was not alarming, according to the doctor. He thought an average of once a week or even every two weeks was an excellent score and certainly no reason for panic or further action.

“It wasn’t making love anymore, it was mechanical sex.”

Because Marijn and I wanted to have children, getting pregnant caused a small increase in our sex frequency. Making a baby seemed fun and exciting at first, but after so many months and ovulation tests, sex became a must. That caused squabbles between us. Marijn is already not ready to go, now he had to perform when the time was right. He did, because his desire to have children was also great, but with the necessary reluctance. It was also no longer making love, but mechanical sex, which really got us into a rut and neither of us got much pleasure from the act.

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“Why don’t we do this more often?”

Luckily I got pregnant after a year and a half and the mandatory number was over. Because I suffered a lot from pelvic instability, intimacy became pure cuddling and lying against each other in bed during those nine months. Totally fine, but after the birth I really wanted to have sex together again and preferably with some regularity.

As crazy as it sounds, when we’re intimate it’s always fantastic. We are quite resourceful when it comes to sex positions and have already tried every nook and cranny of our house. Marijn is a great lover, not selfish at all, We have tried toys, but Marijn is not comfortable with them. It’s actually not necessary either; he always brings me to a climax. Every time afterwards I think: why don’t we do this more often?

Spontaneous action

Since the birth of Pien, the frequency has been very low. Because I don’t want to keep nagging anymore and don’t want to give Marijn the feeling that he is renounced as a husband, we have now made the agreement that he always takes the initiative. In that way he can think completely in his head when and what time he wants to do that and mentally prepare for it and it still remains a spontaneous action for me. After all, I know nothing about his internal dialogue.

“If it takes me too long, I sometimes resort to solo sex.”

Besides, I don’t have to endure that disappointment and rejection every time. I myself never have a headache, only when I’m really tired and tired I give up, but that hardly happens. I don’t need much to get in the right mood. So I know how to pick up that one look or touch, his non-verbal communication that radiates ‘I want you now’ and makes me literally immediately ‘on’. If it takes me too long, I sometimes resort to solo sex and help myself. Maybe Marijn does that too, but we don’t talk about that.

It’s still a shame that we don’t have the same sex needs, but the love that I get from Marijn and that we feel for our daughter together is also worth a lot to me. His loving personality makes up for everything he lacks in libido.”

Would you also like to be interviewed for this column? Mail to editorial@kekmama.nl.

This article appears in Kek Mama 16-2021.

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