Advice Needed – Low-Drive Husband
Hello! I’m desperately looking for advice.
My husband and I have been married for about ten months now. We both waited until marriage to have sex. We were regularly sexually active in the first two weeks of our marriage, and then it went downhill from there. I try to initiate most times, and he’s always tired, or exhausted, or it’s late.
He does sometimes initiate, and I’m always available for him. But when I initiate, he usually turns me down. I don’t initiate anymore as I’m tired of getting rejected. For the most part, he rarely tells me I’m sexy unless I ask, even when I change in front of him. He also rarely makes any effort to plan intimacy.
Before we got married, I was under the impression that he had a high libido, but this unexpected reality has been heartbreaking and disappointing. There is a lot of tension because of it in our relationship, and I really don’t know what to do about it. He saw his doctor, who recommended weight loss, but it doesn’t feel like enough. I’m at a loss now, and feel like my marriage will be destroyed.
Do you have any advice to offer?
Have you had a chat to him about it? I would also maybe recommend a sex therapist. I have seen a sex therapist which I find was better than a normal therapist.
This is always hard to diagnose without knowing either of you. There could be a myriad of issues so take what I’m about to say knowing that your relationship dynamics are virtually unknown.
My wife and I have been in marriage ministry for years because I think the marriage relationship is designed by God to help us see him in all His glory.
With that being said and also realizing that what I’m about to say can be very controversial …
My wife and I have been in marriage ministry for years and one of the things I’m coming to realize is the significant number of relationships that are being negatively impacted by the husband feeling emasculated.
I’m also observing that the wife hardly realizes that her actions are causing this.
When a man feels emasculated, there seems to be a couple of typical responses. One is a strong defensive reaction and the second is to shut down and become very passive.
This can play itself out in the area of sexual intimacy and general intimacy.
There are two women that I’ve been listening to lately that have been very helpful in understanding this, Laura Doyle and Alison Armstrong.
As a husband, and as a man who has literally observed hundreds of marriages through our ministry, I’ve seen a lot of what these two women highlight as emasculating behavior. It has been eye opening.
This may not be your issue with your husband but I can tell you are desperate to figure things out so I felt like you would want to consider any possible issue.
I hope that might help lead you in a direction that helps your new marriage.
There is a culture of emasculation. They do not like a strong population. They want sheep that they can lord over with one powerful central government. They want what the CCP is in China but on a global scale.
Satan drives them. He loves chaos. God intended their to be many people with many cultures. This testing down of cultures by tearing down the men who protect them is nothing short of evil.
That said men need not let these forces affect them. He is the natural head of the household and can assert himself. It's never virtuous to play the victim. Always keep a fit godly body. Gluttony is a sin and if her husband is obese, it's likely suppressing his testosterone levels. He should try to reduce his belly fat.
[From MH: While human relational behavior and culture are certainly intertwined with politics, let's try to keep political and government-related talk to a minimum, please, as it can be inflammatory without having much relevance to the personal marriage/sexual relationships our site is focused on. Discussions on the related cultural and spiritual factors are more than welcome, though!]
I’m sorry you’re having this trouble. Very little is more frustrating, heart wrenching, or painful than not having your needs met; or having them seem not to care.
I think you need marriage counseling. That may be difficult to bring up, but your marriage is worth saving and it may be time to have that hard conversation.
Seek advice from a pastor, counselor, or trusted friend, but don’t let anyone tell you that you’re being ridiculous or overreacting about your needs.
Physical/sexual intimacy is absolutely essential for a healthy marriage.
I will pray for you, your husband, and your marriage.
So sorry you are having to deal with this so early in your marriage. Our pastor told me one time that "Sex is a byproduct of a healthy marriage." My recommendation is that you and your husband go and see a marriage counselor or therapist. There could be one of many underlying issues in your relationship that a therapist can help you and your husband uncover. My wife and I have been married for over 35 years and we still seek out counseling when we think we need it. It is hard for men to discuss intimacy issues, but keep on trying to open up that communication with your husband. The first year of marriage is hard, but are not meant to figure it out in isolation. I pray you have community of people who follow Jesus that can walk through this with you.
Hey Fungirl!
Thank you so much for trusting this group with something so vulnerable. I want to start by saying this clearly: you are not wrong, broken, shallow, or unreasonable for feeling this way. Sexual rejection, especially repeated rejection from a spouse, cuts very deep, and it makes complete sense that you’re feeling heartbroken and afraid for your marriage.
But all is not lost!
A few important things stand out. First, what you’re experiencing is not uncommon in newly married couples, especially when both partners waited for sex. There’s often a huge buildup of expectation, pressure (spoken or unspoken), and anxiety once sex becomes “real.” For some people, particularly men, that pressure can actually shut down desire over time, even if they genuinely love their spouse and are attracted to them.
One resource I highly recommend is a book that helped me see sex in a new light with my Christian faith:
The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You’ve Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended
by Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, Joanna Sawatsky, and Sheila Wray Gregoire
In the development of this book, the authors surveyed over 22,000 women to reveal how harmful teachings about sex have shaped dissatisfaction and disconnection in Christian marriages. The book exposes how generations of distorted messages have left women feeling ashamed and men settling for a shallow view of intimacy. By examining what actually happens in Christian bedrooms, it contrasts damaging beliefs with healthier, life giving ones. Ultimately, it offers a far more biblical vision of sex, one rooted in mutuality, intimacy, and passion, and points couples toward the wholeness and closeness God intended.
Second, his lack of initiation and verbal affirmation is understandably affecting your self worth. But this is very important to understand: his low desire is not a reflection of your attractiveness or desirability. Many men struggle to express desire verbally, especially if they’re dealing with fatigue, body image issues, stress, depression, hormonal imbalances, or performance anxiety. Weight can play a role, but it is rarely the only factor.
Right now, the biggest risk to your marriage isn’t the low frequency of sex, it’s the quiet buildup of hurt and resentment. Avoiding initiation to protect yourself makes sense emotionally, but it can also create a painful cycle where neither of you feels safe reaching out.
Some concrete steps that may help:
1. Have a non-sexual, non-accusatory conversation about how this is affecting you emotionally (not just physically). Use “I feel” language rather than “you don’t.”
2. Encourage him to explore more than weight loss with a doctor, specifically hormones (like testosterone), mental health, sleep quality, and stress.
3. Consider marriage counseling or sex therapy, ideally with someone experienced in desire discrepancies. A third party can help mediate these conversations. In our own 13 year marriage, we’ve sought both marriage counseling and sex counseling at different times. That wasn’t weakness, it was choosing to fight for a marriage that mattered to us.
4. Rebuild intimacy without the immediate goal of sex for a season: touch, affection, cuddling, reassurance. Sometimes desire grows where safety is restored.
5. Ten months is still very early. This does not mean your marriage is doomed, but it does mean this deserves attention and support now, not silent endurance. You matter. Your needs matter. And it’s okay to ask for help before things break.
God is attentive to quiet suffering, especially within marriage, and He often works through honest conversations, wise counsel, and courage taken one step at a time.
I know this can be expensive but I would recommend getting therapy for him and possibly you as well but definitely getting some marriage therapy with a sex-positive therapist. I’d look for a therapist or marriage therapist or sex therapist- but I’d make sure they had Christian values. Although it’s important that they don’t have the inappropriate view that sex is not that important in marriage. (I dropped a therapist for that reason.)
Your husband might have low testosterone levels but maybe the doctor checked that already.
We have desire discrepancy and setting up a sex schedule helped us. For the person with higher libido they know sex is coming (so to speak 😉.) For the person with lower libido they know when it’s going to happen. They should both agree to follow the schedule unless there is a serious reason not to have sex – like being too sick with an infection. Be flexible with the schedule but not too flexible. This has really helped us.
Over the years we have modified the schedule as health issues & aging have occurred, but we still keep to our current schedule. We still sometimes have spontaneous sex as well.
You have to negotiate with your spouse the frequency. That could be done in a marriage therapy session or just together with your spouse. I could still have sex daily but my wife wants it less frequently so she licks n sucks my man-nips n helps me masturbate to orgasm nearly every off day. We currently have full sex every 4 days. Maybe your husband could suck n stimulate your nipples as you and or he give you an orgasm on some off days. It’s not as good as full PIV sex, but it’s still nice.
Thank you for sharing this here. My first thought is that he needs his T-levels checked, and possibly other tests in case there is any underlying health issue. Would he be open to that?
So sorry to hear about that. Did you talk about sex before you got married, including how often he (and you) masturbated? Does he do that now?
Is he overweight? (excess body fat can turn testosterone into a form of estrogen which kills male sex drive)
Does he use porn?
How old is he? My wife and I married at 25 and were both virgins. My drive has always been through the roof (and still is). If you got married later in life, it could be that his T levels are low. Have those checked. It can really make a difference. I have been on T therapy for a few years now (compounded testosterone injections). I can tell when it is time for my shot. It affects a lot. If he is young, you might inquire about any porn usage or underlying guilt. Some men can carry needless guilt into the marriage bed as they are not used to having sex and it's everything goes once that ring is on after years of saying no to himself. All of us are not immune to the temptation of porn. I don't use it at all as I think its destructive on many levels. He could have fallen into the trap of jacking to porn and may just need your support in praying for him to get out of that trap. My wife knows I edge but I only do it focusing on her. I imagine us in these stories (and have written several myself to help other married couples). Nothing wrong with a man jacking or wife jilling if it is not taking away or replacing the marriage bed. Solo and sex are each beautiful and unique and suit their purpose. Communication is key. Like others have also said, Christian counseling may be in order as well.
Hello there,
I do not know if my comment will be of any value but if I may offer something from my culture a bit, which is from the East of Europe.
There is something to be said for conjugal duties but I do not think that what some have suggested here – to make schedules – is helpful. If anything, it may make problem worse. My wife and I have friend who was also in some schedule, and it almost broke her marriage as she could not deliver during her period.
There is also something to be said for testosterone, but the desire for sex is more than just about these levels.
Perhaps because we come from a different place in the world, we think a little differently about such problem as we had other daily issues, but because we relied on the family to see us through life, we are usually very straightforward with each other.
So best advice I can give is to talk to husband. You have family unit and it must work for survival in society, and for this we need honesty. Try avoid counselors or intrusions, but family members can help of course.
What must also be remembered is that intimacy starts long before any sexual activity, maybe husband is more responsive if you engage in the small things that stimulate his intellect or interest.
This may be "controversial", but I am thinking along the same lines as WeBeTrying. I have had dozens (hundreds?) of conversations with manly men during my military and law enforcement careers. In my observations, a "low drive husband" is a VERY rare person.
What is more common is a husband that feels "beaten down". (That does not necessarily mean "by you", but it could.). There might be things happening at work that make him feel that way. He does not want to come home and discuss it, because then the main focus becomes his powerlessness. So, he holds it inside and it eats away at him.
One suggestion to help him feel more powerful (and help you get some relief at the same time) would be for you to pretend to make a sex video. (Don't make a real one — at least, not on the first try — because it could backfire.) Tell him that you want to be the "actress" and for him to be the "director". Tell him that you want him to have some good visuals that he can carry around with him in his mind. Then, if something is bothering him at work, he can have a "happy place" in his mind where he can take a mental vacation.
If he likes the idea, then tell him that whatever "movie scene" was in his mind at work is what he can have when he gets home. If this doesn't get him going, then something is really wrong.
Maybe he's pleasuring himself and then has no more energy left for the real thing.
Also be careful that he is not a closet homosexual. I had a preacher once who seemed kind of effeminate and had those spiral perverted eyes. Although he had a wife and kids, he seemed off to me and his sermons weren't teaching anything about morals. He was just about permissiveness, so I quit going.
IsoHorny,
That popped into my mind as well, but I did not want to discourage Fungirl.
I had a dear friend from high school. Her daughter went off to college and married a young man. They had been married five years when she discovered that he had had a boyfriend the entire time. She was devastated and divorced him. But, that wrecked her future dating experiences — which became fewer and farther between.
If the low-drive husband is actually a closet homosexual, then divorce is not only "acceptable" but also "recommended".
I second everything that ChainsAndHearts said. Lots of good information and advice there! "The Great Sex Rescue" is an excellent book that I have read, and I 100% recommend as well.
I also agree with BehindTheCurtain on the point that a sex schedule may or may not be helpful. It is definitely helpful for some, but depending on other factors and the mindset both you and your husband have toward that schedule, it could end up adding more pressure and tension rather than relieving it. It's worth a try, but watch how it affects you, and after giving it a good try for a month or so, be willing to ditch it if it seems to be having a net negative effect on your relationship.
Here are a few other thoughts too.
Our culture tends to portray men as always horny, so a man with a lower drive might feel emasculated by failing to meet that cultural expectation, and shut down further. For that and other reasons, he'll need total support and acceptance through this. He needs to know—and not just know, but FEEL—that you don't see him as any less of a man just because he doesn't want to go at it 24/7.
There are many potential contributing factors, but five major ones come to mind as possibilities:
– Stress (from work, family, grief/loss, etc.)
– Harmful teachings from childhood (sometimes religious, sometimes not)
– Relationship issues (such as being emotionally disconnected or arguing)
– Health/medical issues (overweight, hormone imbalance, or other)
– Porn use/addiction
STRESS:
I'm not an expert at dealing with stress as a contributing factor, but I'm sure there are lots of good resources online to help you assess whether excessive stress is impacting your husband negatively. If you look for a quiz of some kind, or other assessment tools from mental health professionals, you probably don't have to look for a sex-drive-specific one. If stress if impacting his sex drive, it's probably impacting other things as well, and if it's impacting other things, then it's likely sex drive is one of those impacted areas too.
HARMFUL TEACHINGS:
If harmful, sexually-repressive teachings from childhood are contributing, then reading books like "The Great Sex Rescue" (as ChainsAndHearts recommended) might help uncover that, because even though it's more geared toward women, I believe it also addresses damaging teachings aimed at men too. There are tons of other sex-positive Christian books out there too that could help replace the unhealthy, repressive teachings with good, biblically-based, sex-positive and healthy teachings that will bring more freedom, and could set free a sex drive that may have been suppressed by hidden false guilt.
RELATIONSHIP ISSUES:
A poor relationship foundation can cause a low sex drive too. Men are often portrayed as wanted sex regardless of the relationship status, and there's some truth to that. The culture around us promotes casual sex in abundance, totally divorced from real relationship. But many men still need a real relational connection before sex becomes appealing to them. I'm one of them myself! I am repulsed by the idea of sharing something so intimate and vulnerable with someone unless I know her well and love her deeply! If one or both of you have felt emotionally distant for any reason (there are many potential causes of that too), then that could be a contributing factor. If that's the case, marriage counseling/coaching would help identify and address the issue(s) causing the relational distance, which would then relieve the low-sex-drive issue (assuming there aren't also other issues keeping it suppressed).
HEALTH/MEDICAL ISSUES:
Health issues are a possibility too. It sounds like you may have had one doctor visit, but that may not be enough. The weight issue could be contributing, but there are lots of other factors too. As educated as doctors are, the human body is so vastly complex that no one doctor can ever give you a full picture, even if they're a good and knowledgeable doctor (which not all are). You may need a more specialized perspective, so maybe consider a visit to a professional specializing in sex-related issues. Their specialization will allow them to hone in on the finer details of any medical issues that may be contributing.
PORN USE/ADDICTION:
And finally, I hate to bring up the possibility of hidden porn addition, but it IS a possibility, and it can have sex-drive-suppressing effects. Not all men use porn, but a wide variety of studies, surveys and polls suggest that a very high percentage of men do. I'm not sure if there's any real data about levels of use among Christian men compared to the general population, but whatever it is, it's still concerningly high.
Also, not every man who uses porn becomes addicted. I regretfully used porn throughout my teens and into my early 20s, but thankfully I never had issues with addiction. But many men do, and porn addiction often comes with symptoms like decreased sex drive and even erectile dysfunction. This can happen because the scenes portrayed in porn can be so intensely stimulating (by being extremely unrealistic and fake, like junk food that's 90% sugar) that users become desensitized to normal and healthy sexual stimulation. This is one thing that MIGHT explain the pattern you mentioned: a highly sexually active honeymoon, when sex was still novel and extremely mentally stimulating, and then a decrease in activity as the novelty wore off and real sex started to appear less stimulating than porn. But recovery is totally possible, it just requires effort, just like recovery from any other kind of addiction.
And take heart, because this is just one possible cause of the issues. Chances are, it's probably not the main cause here. But you have to recognize that it is still a possibility, and you also have to recognize that, even if you trust him with your life, he may not admit this to you at first because it's a very shameful thing for many men, especially Christian men who know it's wrong and feel like failures for falling to it.
Your marriage does not have to be destroyed because of this. Sometimes this is the way it goes. Many marriages have lasted with less sex & intimacy than yours. The point to marriage isn't sex, but love. Loving like Jesus, of enemies, & even people who won't, or can't, love back.
But, with Jesus there is always light. Enjoy the sex you have. I am not saying you don't, but communicate with him as a peer, not out of disappointment or anger, if you can. He may not be as mature as you sexually, faith wise, etc. He may have esteem issue with his weight, etc. Pray for insight. Be compassionate as Jesus has been [toward] you. Jesus knew you & still went to the cross for you. That attitude goes a long way.
Look into any great advice you get. I do know from experience that guys want variety. But, I also told my wife she doesn't have to perform for me. There is a balance to strike between performing for him & variety. One is a puppet, the other is a peer/partner. Be willing to open up & be vulnerable, if you can, to mutual variety. & be willing to communicate about differences as best friends, not enemies.
Check for sin. Your's especially, his, & in your marriage together. Anything like that can cause a wedge between you. Resentment & bitterness of any size can start to close people off. Make amends, learn lessons, change, ask for forgiveness, & forgive.
And, masturbation is not a sin.
These are things from my perspective, hope they help. Prayin' for you both.