Your Partner Has A Low Libido
If your partner has a low libido you may have tried to persuade, cajole or guilt them into showing more interest. These methods may not have gotten the results that you desire. This post offers 8 tips for ways to approach your partner to help restore the passion in your intimate relationship.
1. Be aware and respectful of your partner’s conditions for sex. Everyone has conditions for sex. Your conditions may simply be that your partner is willing, but your partner’s conditions may be more complex. Pay attention and talk to your partner. Find out what conditions help them feel more amorous. Conditions for sex are unique to each individual. For some it may be a clean and quiet house, for others it may be candle light and romantic music, for others it may be spending the day together doing something fun. Once you identify your partner’s conditions for sex, choosing to respect those conditions makes it more likely that you will hear yes rather than no.
2. Make good use of non-sexual touching. Consistently reaching out to your partner with non-sexual touching will help the two of you feel connected. Hug, cuddle, and kiss. Be affectionate, but not sexual. Remember touching a woman’s breast or genitals before she is aroused, often produces a feeling of revulsion rather than excitement.
3. Do more of what works. Think of the last time that you enjoyed passionate lovemaking with your partner. Think about the times when they have been more willing and when things were good. What was going on prior to those experiences? How were you treating and relating to your partner at the time? What was different? How can you introduce more of those elements into your current life?
4. Be generous. Women need to feel loved before they want to make love. Men on the other hand often want to make love to show their love for their partner. If your partner is rejecting your advances it may be because she is not feeling loved. It may be difficult for you, when you are feeling rejected, to choose to be kind and thoughtful. But by choosing to help her out more, to listen and make eye contact when she is talking to you, to call her or text her, to give her compliments, you may help her warm up to the idea of being intimate.
5. Be a little more feminine or a little more masculine. If you are a woman, step into your feminine energy and give your partner the opportunity to feel masculine. Does your partner feel respected and valued? If you are a man, step into your masculine energy and give your partner the opportunity to feel feminine. Does your partner feel loved and pampered?
6. Do something different. It is likely that you are feeling frustrated and that your partner is feeling pressured. Repeating the same patterns has not worked, so perhaps it is time to try something different. You may want to try talking it through. Not in the way you have in the past—not with the goal of getting your partner into bed, rather with the goal of learning more about your partner’s needs, first out of the bedroom and later perhaps you can get to talking about more intimate topics. It may also be helpful to stop focusing on sex for a while (weeks not minutes). There are no guarantees, but sometimes it can be helpful to let your partner’s libido build.
7. Do not take no as rejection. In order to be fully able to say yes to your advances, your partner must actually have the choice of saying no. If your response to no is to pout, get angry or punish your partner in some way, then you have not made it safe for them to say no and you also have made it more difficult for them to truly say yes. Obligatory sex is likely to decrease your partner’s interest in lovemaking.
8. Be honest with your partner. Being in a relationship where your needs for intimacy are not being met may make you more vulnerable to attention from outside of your relationship. You may also find that a sexless relationship is a deal breaker for you. If you are finding that your attention is wandering or that you have considered leaving, please be honest with your partner. This honesty will have less effect if it is offered in anger or in the heat of an argument. Talk calmly with your partner, use “I” statement rather than criticism, let them know that you do not want to stray or leave, but that you are feeling tempted. This is not to threaten or coerce your partner to sleep with you, but it is important to let them know how serious this need is for you while there is still an opportunity to resolve the issue.
When your partner has a low libido being patient, creative, understanding and communicative is perhaps a better choice that opting out of your relationship or having an affair. Efforts made to improve your relationship, reduce resentment and build connections may pay huge dividends in increased passion.