My (36M) wife’s (41F) libido is down. How do I deal with it?

Me (36M) and my wife (41F) are together for 9 years now, have 3 wonderful kids (8, almost 6 and almost 4). I perfectly know it is natural that woman libido drops down due to age, responsibilities, stress, perimenopause (which she has entered already) and many other factors and I would be a fool to expect that she would have the same sex drive she had before kids, but I just can’t get over it. **I’d have sex every other day, still feel huge desire for my beautiful wife, and she would take sleep over sex anytime :)**

I love her dearly, we do the daily chores together, I earn the main bulk of the family budget (she works 8/5 too though), set the date nights, buy presents, say compliments, don’t force sex, emotional intimacy is here, I am not addicted to anything else but nicotine etc. **She loves me, wants to spend the time with me but does not have desire for me anymore** (huge issue for me) nor thinks about sex at all- that’s what she has admitted some time ago and she is not comfortable with that. She never masturbates, at least that’s what she told me, though she used to masturbate once she had higher sex drive. Funny thing is that she has sexsomnia – she sometimes masturbates or performs sexual movements while deep in her sleep, however she never remembers this and has a hard time believing me that she does it. I have no reason to believe she has ever cheated on me. Wife never initiates, we still have sex 1-2-3 times a month, but sometimes I feel it’s more of a chore for her, I feel shit when I see her not involved. However most of the time during sex she has good time, gets aroused and usually orgasms ( I hope she is not faking that one ;D ), that probably means she still has that responsive desire, but nothing impulsive. I really try to put her pleasure first. She finds it hard to talk about sex, whenever I try to talk about her needs or our performance, she just says that everything is OK.

I think I should bring up more facts about our past for a clearer view. We met once I was 27 and she was 32, I told her hello while passing by on the street and since day one we were together. **Before her, I never seriously dated, was kind of a virgin** \- never had penetrative intercourse, only few occasions of oral/intimate touching stuff with several girls, one night stands if you can call it this way. Was always very shy with the girls, I had this fear of failing, even though I got their attention, the prettiest girl from the high school was in love with me 🙂 After I met my current wife I was too anxious to have sex with her for 2 months. One day she told me: “What’s wrong, when are we going to have sex? I know you want to marry me but I am not a virgin.” She thought I was not initiating sex due to the fact that I am from a religious christian family, but it was my anxiety that was holding me back. Anyway, after this conversation we started having sex, everyday or multiple times a day. As you can imagine, it was wonderful. She got pregnant very shortly after, on her first ovulation. 6 months after we first met we were married. First pregnancy was a little bit complicated, we couldn’t have sex until month 6, so the honeymoon phase of our relationship when we had sex was around 3 months in total 🙂

Her past was quite different to mine. **She had multiple friends with benefits, multiple one night stands.** Most of the men she’s been with are really good looking, some of them – 6ft4, 6ft7 alpha males 🙂 Some of these guys I know personally, we live in a small town with population of 10K people. And I am your average 5ft11 guy with average looks, average build and average package 🙂 As far as I know her only/most serious relationship was with a black basketball player, 6 ft 3, shredded an all – she’s been with him for 2 years, loved him for at least 2 more years even after he went back USA. We are from Eastern Europe, there are like 0 black people in our town. Yeah, I am kind of a racist, but I despise that and I am working to overcome this issue. You might ask me how I know all the facts from her past – over a year a go I started experiencing retroactive jealousy and part of it is going through partners old DMs, emails and so on. I’ve been working with this issue too, seeing a therapist, working on personal growth and I am in a much better place at the moment compared to what I was 10-5 months ago. I’ve been open to my wife about everything and she has been nothing but supportive to me (have I told you I love her so much?). Have to add that I am also an anxious attacher and she is more of an avoidant, it’s hard for her to open up about her deep feelings. Her mom passed when she was 9 years old and her dad is a super closed, avoidant personality, an alcoholic, though I don’t think she experienced anything abusive in her childhood.

**To try to sum the things up, my subconscious mind can’t get over the fact, that she had desire for all these guys and she does not have it for me anymore.** I know this mindfuck is partly due to the retroactive jealousy, but even if I totally beat it, I doubt it will help me with my sex drive for my wife. Probably she has had enough sex in her life, and I… did not. There is an ongoing thought of mine, that I have missed something in my life, I haven’t explored my sexuality. Especially now, when I feel comfortable with women, not only my wife.

**Any thoughts guys how can I come over this? Divorce, cheating, open marriage, hookers are not viable options 🙂 Masturbation helps a little, but you know the rest. I really doubt her libido comes back to anything close what it once was and it’s just depressing to me. What are your personal experiences in dealing with this? Any substitutions maybe? I have several hobbies, fishing and cycling, but last few years I am more and more feeling I am taking something from my family when I engage in personal activities.**