Sex File: Why won't my husband experiment in bed?

He's happy with the sex we've always had and I'm getting increasingly frustrated

Mon, 01 Jun, 2026 - 02:00

Suzi Godson

My husband was my first serious relationship and as we've got older our tastes have diverged in bed. He's happy with the sex we've always had and if I suggest experimenting he looks completely bewildered. I'm getting increasingly frustrated. Any advice on how to encourage him to try something new?

Without knowing a bit more about your husband, this is not an easy question to answer. His personality and his level of openness will determine how far you get with your desire for sexual experimentation.

If, for example, your husband is a very timid, shy, passive, or sexually conservative person, I doubt any amount of encouragement is going to get him to channel his inner Christian Grey. If he is generally outgoing, confident and adventurous, you might be able to persuade him to explore a little light kink.

I am curious about what has led to this divergence in your sexual interests. In your longer letter, you say you might want to explore your submissive side. It's not unusual. Lots of women find the idea of relinquishing sexual control very appealing — it's why the Fifty Shades books, which were published in 2011 and 2012, were such a huge phenomenon.

When a woman feels burdened by responsibility for her relationship and her family, the idea of someone else taking charge in the bedroom holds a lot of appeal.

Although I know you want advice on how to encourage your husband to try something new, I actually think the first step would be for you to explore what it is that you actually want in more depth. Unless you can clearly communicate what it is that you want your husband to do, it is unrealistic and unfair to expect him to be able to psychically intuit how to meet your new needs.

It is also virtually impossible for one person to instigate sexual change by themselves, so to have any hope of moving the dial, you need your husband to be on the same page as you. That might not happen overnight and you might need to have several conversations about your sex life — talking and listening — before he takes what you are saying on board.

I don't know how you presented your desire to experiment to your husband, but if you used the term "submissive", then I'm not surprised he looked completely bewildered. The language and imagery around domination and submission can be really intimidating, so you might find reframing your request makes it more acceptable for him.

Give him concrete examples of what you would like. Despite what people think, entry-level experimentation is often really gentle. Using a blindfold or restricting movement with a silk scarf or a pair of tights is not exactly the 'Red Room of Pain'.

If you think about the gap between what you have and what you want a bit more deeply, you may find it isn't about sex at all, and what you actually want is a relationship reset.

When two people have been together for decades, it's easy to get into a rut. Sex becomes routine. You take your relationship for granted. And neither of you feels as connected as you used to.

Being honest with each other about where you are at and how you miss having fun with each other the way you used to will do a lot more for your sexual relationship than playing doctors and nurses.