“I just don’t feel like sex anymore.”
Maybe you’ve said it out loud. Or maybe you only think it, hoping the person beside you won’t be disappointed again tonight.
You’d like to know where your desire has gone, too. It used to be there. Or at least sex used to feel less complicated. Now you’re lying next to someone you love, and what you want most is sleep. And as you try to drift off, you wonder whether something is wrong with you.
If that feels familiar, I’d like to stay with that thought for a moment. Because “What’s wrong with me?” makes it hard to be curious about yourself. You’ve already put yourself under suspicion.
I’m interested in something else first: What exactly do you mean when you say you have no desire?
Do you miss wanting sex? Or does your partner miss it more than you do? Do you have little interest in sex when you’re on your own, too, or is it more about the sex you have together? Those can feel very different from the inside, even though we tend to put them all under the same heading: low desire.
Less desire isn’t automatically a problem
Maybe you’d be perfectly happy with your current level of desire if nobody kept asking when you were finally going to have sex again. Or maybe it’s painful for you, too. You miss your fantasies, the anticipation, that part of yourself that once felt so natural.
Both deserve attention. There’s a difference between missing a part of yourself and mainly trying to meet someone else’s expectations.
Sexual desire changes with daily life, relationships, your body and different stages of life. There’s no right amount of desire you have to produce. And a difference between you doesn’t automatically mean the person who wants less needs fixing.
Of course, that doesn’t make the conflict any less painful. If you’re avoiding closeness because you’re afraid of disappointing someone again, “It’s all normal” probably isn’t much comfort.
Then it’s worth looking a little closer. What’s hurting most? Not feeling desire? Missing someone even though they’re lying right beside you? Or finding that, even while you’re kissing, you’re already wondering how you’ll get out of what might come next?
You don’t have to know how to untangle all of that straight away. But you don’t have to solve it all at once just because it’s ended up under the same heading.
Desire doesn’t always come first
Maybe you’re waiting to want sex spontaneously again. Clearly enough that you don’t have to think about it.
That kind of spontaneous desire exists. But desire can also develop once you begin kissing or touching. This is often called responsive desire. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, or ACOG, also describes how desire sometimes begins during sexual activity. Read more at ACOG
For some women, that’s a relief. They don’t have to know, before the first touch, whether they’ll want sex later.
But I want to be very clear here: This doesn’t mean you should have sex you don’t want. “Maybe the desire will come” can quickly become another demand.
You can want to kiss and nothing more. You can be curious about whether a touch feels good, as long as you know you can stop at any time. And after ten minutes, you can decide: That was lovely. Now I’d like to sleep.
If every tentative moment of closeness becomes a promise, it makes sense that eventually you’d rather not start.
Your whole day comes to bed with you
A full day doesn’t simply end when the lights go out. There’s still that message you need to answer. Something is missing for school tomorrow. The laundry is waiting. You’re tired, and you haven’t even had a moment to yourself yet.
And now you’re supposed to feel desire, too.
A free evening can help. But it doesn’t automatically take away the responsibility you usually carry. A lovely date won’t resolve the argument you’ve been stepping around for weeks, either. Sometimes we look for an erotic idea when what’s missing might be much more ordinary: sleep, a lighter load or time when nobody needs anything from you.
Physical influences deserve attention, too. Illness, pain, hormonal changes and medication can affect your experience of sex. ACOG lists pregnancy, breastfeeding, perimenopause and menopause, as well as depression, anxiety and stress, among the possible connections. Read about the medical factors
A clinical review of low sexual desire therefore recommends looking at physical, psychological and social influences together.
You don’t have to rush to choose an explanation: “Is it my hormones, or is it our relationship?” More than one thing can be involved. And you don’t have to work it out on your own.
What kind of sex would you actually want?
That question might irritate you if you’re thinking: None. That’s the whole problem.
Let it sit for a moment anyway. Perhaps you notice that you do miss touch. You just don’t want to begin the familiar sequence when you both already know how it ends. Or you like feeling desired, but not the sense that you then owe someone something.
If you’ve often said yes when you wanted to stop, it can become hard to look forward to the next time. The same goes for sex that hurts, or sex where there’s little room for what you want.
Then it’s worth looking at the sex you don’t currently want, too. That isn’t about blaming your partner. It’s an invitation to look more closely at what happens between you, rather than just counting how rarely it happens.
And if you have no idea what you’d want instead, that’s something you can explore too. It’s quite a lot to expect someone to spend years paying attention mainly to whether the other person is happy, then produce a complete guide to their own desire on request. Preferably ready to print.
You can begin with something small. A touch you like. A pace that would feel better. Knowing that tonight, a kiss really is allowed to stay a kiss.
When every kiss becomes a question
Maybe you’ve both begun to pull away. You, because you don’t want to raise expectations. Your partner, because another no feels almost unbearable.
Or perhaps it goes the other way: The more cautious you become, the more the other person reaches for closeness. You feel pressured. They feel rejected. And perhaps what you both want is to feel at ease with each other again.
In moments like these, sex can end up having to prove so much: that you still love each other, that you’re attractive, that your relationship has a future. No wonder an evening in bed can start to feel like an exam.
Perhaps the first step is a sentence that describes what’s happening between you, without promising a solution:
“I miss kissing you without immediately having to think about whether I’ll want sex afterwards.”
Or:
“I know you miss our sex life. What I’m missing right now is the space to work out what I want.”
These conversations can hurt. The other person’s needs don’t disappear because you’ve talked. But you can begin to talk about something more specific than who wants too much or too little. There’s more on this in Talking About Sex: Finding the Words for What You Want.
What would you like to have back?
If you imagine something changing, what would be different?
Would you want sex more often? Would you look forward to touch again? Would you have fantasies that belonged just to you? Or would you finally be able to say no without feeling guilty for the rest of the evening?
I find that question more useful than jumping straight to “having more desire again.” It gives you room to notice what you miss. Maybe you want something back that you remember from before. Or maybe, for the first time, you want to find out what sex could feel like if there were more room for your own wishes.
Depending on what’s happening, the next step might look quite different. If there’s been a sudden change, pain, numbness or a possible link to medication, it makes sense to speak to a doctor. If you’re experiencing significant psychological distress or struggling with difficult experiences, psychotherapy may be appropriate. Coaching doesn’t replace that assessment or treatment.
You don’t need a complete explanation before you have that conversation. “I don’t feel like myself at the moment” or “I don’t know whether I miss sex or just want a break from thinking about it” is already a place to start.
If you’d like some support, we can explore what you’re experiencing, what you miss and what you want through sex coaching for women in Munich and online. You don’t need to come with a target for how much desire you should have. If you’re looking for support as a couple, you can find out more about Pleasure Partnership. You can write to me directly.
Big Love & Pleasure from the Allgäu,
Mia O