My wife basically never makes the first move when it comes to sex. I have voiced my concern and she pretty regularly tells me I need to be the one making the first move. Am I supposed to be ok with this? I honestly don’t like it, and I believe there should be a shared amount of initiations.
This also actually goes for extracurricular activities too, you know, events and things to do on our spare time. She is very passive and un initiating when it comes to coming up with things to do. Again, she try’s to put the burden on me to come up with things to do.
She does like sex and eventful activities, but when it comes to initiating them she basically says I always need to be the one initiating. Is this normal?
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Normal yeah, but is it right… not really. I am assuming by her lack of interest of imitating that it makes you feel unloved or unwanted, because if she did wanted or loved you she would be into it for herself as well. I think this goes back into love language… you might be a physical touch kind of person but she isn’t and so when she isn’t giving you physical touch then you aren’t feeling loved. Now there is reactive touch which she is doing but again its not actively touching which shows to you that you are wanted.
If things don’t get better maybe its time to see a marriage counselor.
> I honestly don’t like it, and I believe there should be a shared amount of initiations.
It is fine that you don’t like it but you should really try and figure out why it bothers you so much. I will do the leg work for you to save some time. The reason you don’t like this is because you want more validation. Her initiating sex boosts your ego. What is more important to you? a. A enjoyable sex life with your partner or b. Your partner giving you an ego boost?
Another point is the logic here is just flawed I can rephrase your statement as such:
***I honestly don’t like it, and I believe there should be identical amounts of desire for each other at all times, we should have the same libidos, we should have experienced the same social pressures, and we should have the same past experiences with the opposite sex.***
Expectations and reality are two separate things, and it seems in this situation you are ignoring a lot of outside factors which is only causing you greater frustration.
no, i make moves on my spouse all the time. but as long as the person is receptive to it, i don think it matters as much
No
I’m the higher libido partner so I make the first move 100% of the time, so no it’s not the man’s responsibility, it’s whoever is the higher libido’s responsibility. It’s frustrating. I’ve kind of just accepted that my husband is a passive person m.
75% of women have Responsive Desire. They feel sexy in response to something in the environment around them. It would be highly uncharacteristic for such a person to initiate sex.
Things usually work out such that one of you initiates more than the other but as long as both of you do initiate and both of you do your best to make sure its a lot of fun, the discrepancy is meaningless.
I was the one that initiated for about a decade, but we fixed that. She takes the lead a lot and also tells me what to do during sex to make her feel good.
Love is give and take. She is communicating she wants more initiation and effort on your part, and I think you need to be willing to do that.
It always being on you is just the other extreme. Communicate just like she felt the burden was on her, she is just making you feel that way.
There is no normal. Every marriage is different.
While I have no issues taking a dominant role in most other aspects of my marriage like financial decisions, child-rearing, and household management, my husband has always initiated sex, and that’s the way I like it. Of course, there are subtle signals and cues that I send to show him that I am receptive, like flirting, body language, physical affection (neither of us are normally that physically affectionate), so it’s not like it’s truly him unilaterally always deciding when we do it…… there is certainly nonverbal communication that goes on before things turn outright sexual. Still, I need him to be the one to actually flip the switch and take things in an overt sexual direction. Why? I don’t know, to be honest. Sexuality is complex and we don’t always know why some things turn us on and some things turn us off. If he were to expect me to flip the switch, it simply wouldn’t happen, or else it would need to be pre-planned, in which case I wouldn’t actually he initiating, Id just be following a script…..
It’s possible your wife needs you to initiate in order to get turned on. If that’s her sexuality, there’s probably not a whole lot you can do to change that, but you can ask her to script it a few times and see what happens. Like plan for her to rip your clothes off on Wednesday after work.
M married 35 years. On the sex, Yes, you are supposed to be OK with that. People have different levels of assertiveness and different libidos. It probably won’t change much.
On the other things, like “what to do this weekend,” it’s not so clear. I could never get my wife to instigate ideas for weekends, or vacations and that drove me nuts. You are probably like me in that you want it to feel more equal picking between the options. You’d feel a bit of guilt if you were the one always getting your choice, and you end up trying to guess what she wants, and then suggest that, right? It’s frustrating, because you’re probably a nice guy and want to do things she likes too.
Part of our story is that, 30 years ago, she may have come up with some ideas and I’d come up with “something even better.” I mean, it really was better, for both of us. Something she hadn’t thought of. She is naturally not assertive, so all it took was a couple of those to shut her down completely. I wasn’t aware of this happening at the time.
Fast forward 30 years. We both got into therapy, realized what had happened, and are working on fixing it. She is becoming more assertive, and the rare times she makes suggestions, I don’t change or modify them and I do my best to make sure the activity goes well!
How my relationship was, I didn’t mind it at first but when you get rejected 99% of the time you kinda just stop putting yourself in that position. Been over 3 years of no sex and I’m sure I’ll be to blame for it because I didn’t initiate lol. It sucks but honestly I’m glad it happened, made me realize just how lopsided our entire relationship was in all aspects. Getting ready to file for divorce and hopefully find someone who shows me they actually like me.
My wife makes moves on me even at the middle of my work…
My relationship with my husband can be the same. I think mine stems from me feeling I initiate so much other things: convo, activities, etc. I think it may also stem from the insecurities women in this current climate are prone to, always have to be the prettiest, youngest, smartest… So my husband initiating sexual activity calms that insecurity. Not sure if this is helpful.
I do believe it should be a shared responsibility and try to incorporate that belief in my relationship. My husband has voiced to me that he wants me to initiate at times too.