As I mentioned earlier, I had minor abdominal surgery a couple of weeks ago. This resulted in physical limitations, pain, and being totally exhausted several hours before bed.
It also gave me a glimpse of being the lower drive spouse.
It’s not that I lost all interest in sex. I didn’t. But once we did it, it took me a lot longer than usual to feel the desire again. But I’m all about her sexual needs, so I offered even when I would have been fine doing nothing. And I offered not being sure what, if anything, I was going to want. I did out of love, but you know what, it still took some real effort.
I also had to think ahead because by bedtime I was usually way too tired. So if I wanted to provide what I knew she wanted, I had to rearrange my day to make it happen when I was up for it or to save enough energy. Then there was the time my body wasn’t up to what we wanted to do and we had to punt. Still nice, but not what we went in for. And all of that is on me, with her being loving and understanding about it.
In another week or two I should be close enough to normal this will stop being an issue. But it has allowed me to understand it from the inside. Some of what I offered was well beyond what I felt like doing. Had Lori rejected what I suggested as not enough it would have really hurt me.
It’s all well and good to say spouses should not refuse sex. Living that out well takes far more from the low drive spouse than you might think.
If this was our new norm, we’d have to have some understandings:
- Asking for sex at bedtime is rolling the dice.
- Tell me in the morning you want it today.
- Asking me for something nonsexual that uses a lot of my energy is saying you are okay with not having sex today.
- I’ll give you as much as I can. Please accept it as such.
- You will come, I may or may not. I need you to find a way to be okay with that.
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Glad you’re on your way to recovery.
My husband recently got diagnosed with Peyronie’s Disease, and just a month shy of his birthday too. Our roles from HL and LL were already switching, but this was just the straw that broke the camels back. Now I can understand how he felt all those years being the HL while I could have done without sex, and now he’s understanding how much effort it takes to be the LL to a HL spouse. That role reversal has been a good thing for us… helped us gain some empathy for the other spouse.
Yeah. That’s pretty much what it feels like all the time for me. Except
1) I don’t have a desire for sex. If I don’t actively choose to think about it, I forget it exists entirely and 2) my HD husband does not want to initiate for whatever reason. It’s really annoying to be the one who doesn’t feel spontaneous desire, like ever, and also be the one tasked with keeping the show on the road.
Just wanted to say this was extremely helpful to me as the high drive spouse, thanks.