Free sexual wellbeing guide
Mismatched Libido: When You Do Not Want Sex at the Same Time
Almost every long-term couple has a higher-desire partner and a lower-desire partner. That is not a problem in itself — the problem is what each of you has concluded it means. This guide unpicks the difference between the two, which is where most of the pain lives.
PDF · 23 pagesFree · no cost, everSumarie Engelbrecht
Sound familiar?
This is for you if
One of us always initiates and the other always has to decide
I feel rejected every time and I have stopped asking
I feel constantly under pressure and I have started avoiding affection altogether
We used to want each other at the same time and now we never do
I want to want it — I just do not, and I do not know why
Why "low libido" is usually the wrong description
Most people assume desire works one way: it appears spontaneously, and then you act on it. For a substantial number of people — women somewhat more often, but by no means only women — desire does not work like that at all. It is responsive. It arrives after arousal has begun, not before, which means waiting to feel like it before starting is waiting for something that was never going to come first.
This one distinction resolves an enormous amount of unnecessary distress. The lower-desire partner has usually concluded that something is wrong with them, or that they have fallen out of love. Very often neither is true; their desire is simply arriving in a different order than the script says it should.
The rejection loop
What turns a normal difference in desire into a painful one is the loop that forms around it. The higher-desire partner initiates, is declined, and experiences it as personal rejection. They begin initiating with more anxiety attached, or stop initiating and become resentful. The lower-desire partner starts to experience all affection as a possible request, and withdraws from touch generally to avoid having to decline again.
The result is a couple who are now barely touching at all, each convinced the other has lost interest. Neither of them has. They have simply built a system in which any physical contact carries a question, and questions carry stakes.
Most of the practical work in this guide is about detaching affection from expectation — which sounds abstract, and turns out in practice to be an entirely concrete set of agreements.
Common questions
Questions people ask
It is close to universal in long-term relationships. Desire differences are the norm rather than the exception; what varies is whether the couple has found a way to hold the difference without either partner feeling rejected or pressured.
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Sex is one of the hardest things for couples to discuss without one of you feeling accused. Couples counselling makes that conversation possible — your first session is free.
This guide is for information and is not a substitute for individual counselling. Written by Sumarie Engelbrecht, HPCSA Registered Counsellor (PRC 0042480).