I have made a post or two in this sub. I have been curious about how I can possibly increase or ensure my wife’s orgasmic pleasure comes first (toys, lubes, aphrodisiacs). But it is difficult to make sure her pleasure comes first when we have a failure to launch scenario.
To her credit- she says she wants to have sex more often than we do. And she says that I’m not doing anything that is consciously turning her off. But what she does notice is within herself- she is thinking too much.
Hypothetical scenario: [the scene, we are in the kitchen cooking dinner together, music in the background (because we always cook with music), the food has just hit an inactive moment] -She begins to think “maybe I want to try something right now”. That maybe evolves into “do I want to? I don’t know. Why don’t I know? Why don’t I right now? I love him and he’s so great to me and I am attracted to him why don’t I want to right now? What’s wrong with me? I guess I don’t want to. Well maybe I should try. I should try. But if I try and we start doing something, how far will we go? If we start but then don’t finish, I don’t want to disappoint him. But he’s never upset when we don’t go all the way, he’s too patient, he’s too good for me, I suck. I should *want* to do something right now. I will make myself want it right now.”
Then, she comes over to kiss me. That kiss might turn into a brief makeout. I know she is in her head, I know she’s worried about needing an offramp. I’m willing to give her one at any given second. But the moment my kisses get a smidgen too impassioned- she becomes further removed from the moment and back into her head into her thoughts.
She pulls back on the kisses. I ask her what’s up and she says that she is thinking too much and that maybe she might want to try something later. To which I always tell her “you are worth waiting for, and I am always ready when you are.”
[Later rolls around] she turns to me: “babe… Nevermind…” But I ask her to tell me what’s on her mind (even though I already know what it is). She proceeds to tear up telling me that she wants to have sex but is putting too much pressure on herself. Says she knows how much I want it (which is true) and then implies that my patience somehow makes it worse because I’m being “too sweet” like I should be angry with her. But I know that being angry with her would only hurt her and hurting her is the last thing I ever want to do.
I try to get her to apologize to herself for putting so much pressure on herself. But she won’t even do that. She tells me how little she has been attuning to what she needs and I tell her “if you’re going to try to attend to my needs, you need to attune to yours first.” That sometimes taking care of your spouse *means* taking care of yourself (and vice versa). But sometimes it’s like I’m talking in a language she doesn’t speak.
It seems way too easy for my wife to think of everything outside of herself (to do lists, family, friends, everything). She wants to have sex too. Which makes my heart happy. She wants that connection. But it’s almost like because she sees sex as something “for her” nearly as much as it is for me- then it goes near the bottom of the to do list. Because she always tends to put herself last. (I’m having a bit of a mindblowing almost therapisty moment here) she does always put herself last. That’s been the pattern her whole life, since she was a kid. Her mom is a flaming narcissist, her dad is a robot that almost got mad when other people had emotions, her brothers are whatever. She cared for her brothers frequently when she was a kid, she tended to her mother’s feelings when her parents fought. She still turns her emotions off around her parents. And to this day when she reaches out to her family for really anything *crickets* (fucking douchebags).
I’ve told her so many times to do something for herself when she asks me if where is anything that I need her to do while she is out and about. I’ve told her “do something fun” or “something that is meaningful to you” and when I get home she will have done some errands or something around the house but then she will have completely left herself out of the day.
Woah… So of course doing something that feels good for herself feels so foreign.
(As if I didn’t hate my in-laws already…)
Sorry for the psychoanalyzing detour…
TL;DR: I think me and my wife need to see a sex therapist because my wife says she wants to be intimate more often but has vocalized having a mental block.
How do I find a good sex therapist? Can they be seen via telehealth?