The Sex-Starved Marriage: Boosting Your Marriage Libido: A Couple's Guide

Bring the spark back into your bedroom and your marriage with gutsy and effective advice from bestselling author Michele Weiner-Davis.

It is estimated that one of every three married couples struggles with problems associated with mismatched sexual desire. Do you? If you want to stop fighting about sex and revitalize your intimate connection with your spouse, then you need this book. In The Sex-Starved Marriage, bestselling author Michele Weiner Davis will help you understand why being complacent or bitter about ho-hum sex might cost you your relationship.
Full of moving firsthand accounts from couples who have struggled with the erosion of sexual desire and rebuilt their passionate connection, The Sex-Starved Marriage addresses every aspect of the sexual libido problem:

If you're the more highly sexed partner, you'll breathe a sigh of relief. At last someone understands your feelings about the void in your marriage. Discover why your pleas for touch have fallen upon deaf ears and why your approach to the lull in your sexual relationship could be a sexual turnoff. Most important, learn new ways to motivate your spouse to take your needs for more physical closeness to heart.

If you're the spouse with a lagging libido, you're far from alone. You'll learn about the physiological and psychological factors, including unresolved relationship issues, that may contribute to the chill in your bedroom and what you can do to melt the ice. And if you're a man, you'll be surprised to learn that staggering numbers of men, even men whose sexual machinery works just fine, "get headaches" too!

The Sex-Starved Marriage will give you and your spouse the inspiration, encouragement, and answers you need.

ISBN-13: 9780743227339

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Publication Date: 01-08-2004

Pages: 224

Product Dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.44(h) x 0.50(d)

Michele Weiner-Davis, MSW, is an internationally renowned relationship expert and author of several books including The Divorce Remedy, the bestselling Divorce Busting, A Woman's Guide to Changing Her Man, Change Your Life and Everyone in It, and In Search of Solutions. She has appeared as a regular guest on Oprah, 48 Hours, The Today Show, CBS This Morning, and taped a seminar on PBS entitled Keeping Love Alive. A therapist in private practice specializing in Solution-Oriented Brief Therapy, her highly-acclaimed workshops have earned her national recognition. She lives in Illinois with her husband of over thirty years.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One: The Sex-Starved Marriage

Dear Michele,

Please, please help me. I am going through hell!! I am twenty-eight years old, married with a three-year-old daughter. For the past three years, my wife has avoided being sexual with me. It has slowly gone from having sex maybe twice a week to now, if I'm lucky, once a month. And even then, it's not really having sex. It's more like her saying, "Hurry up and get in here, and let's do this before our child wakes up." There is no foreplay. She doesn't even kiss me. I'm the one who always is initiating any sort of affection.

I get completely angered, hurt, and resentful toward her because I can't understand how she could be so cruel to me. I want to tell her, "If you don't love me anymore, then we can split up and move on," but we have a child together, and I don't think that's right or fair to our daughter. I want to be there when my little girl wakes up in the morning and goes to bed at night. But I also don't want to be with a woman who doesn't want to be with me.

So I struggle every day with what I should do because I can't keep living like this. I'm miserable. I have talked to my wife about how I feel numerous times, and nothing I say seems to change anything. Is there anything else I can do besides getting a divorce? Is there something you could write to her so she hears from another person about the importance of a good sexual relationship in a marriage?

Does any of this sound familiar? Are these things you've thought or said to yourself? Or have you heard words like these uttered from your spouse in an attempt to get you to change? Either way, you need to know that you are not alone. It is estimated that one out of every three couples struggle with problems associated with low sexual desire. One study found that 20 percent of married couples have sex fewer than ten times a year! Complaints about low desire are the #1 problem brought to sex therapists.

And if you've been thinking that low sexual desire is only "a woman's thing," think again. Many sex experts believe that low sexual desire in men is America's best-kept secret. Just read what women have to say about what really goes on behind closed doors:

I am so tired of reading articles in women's magazines and watching talk shows that perpetuate the myth that men are always more interested in sex than women. This is a bunch of hooey! There are many, many women who would love to have a spouse who wants to have sex, touch, or kiss.

I've spoken to many women who have this same problem....Their husbands simply aren't interested. I cannot believe my circle of friends is so different from the average. None of their husbands are "getting it on the side"...they simply are not interested. In my case, my husband of 26 years has never been as interested as I in sex, and during the last 5 years our sex life has been nonexistent.

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This lack of sex is more than just a lack of physical attention....It goes deep into a woman's heart. I think in a normal marriage, a couple can fight about anything, but then they can make love and soothe the bad feelings...sort of like a rebirth...a forgiving ritual. But when you are deprived of even that, bitterness and resentment and desperation accumulate. I have a husband who is a good guy, great father, good provider, but I have no lover. I'm angry about the wasted years, the years I could have been loving, but spent agonizing about why I was being deprived. It's so much more than sex. It's feeling wanted, and sexy and desired by the man that you are committed to for life.

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