My beautiful wife of 25 years never initiates sex

Sex advice with Suzi Godson

I have been married to my beautiful wife for nearly 25 years and we have two grown-up children. I know my wife enjoys sex, as do I, yet I cannot remember a single time when she has initiated the process. I find this frustrating and it makes me feel very insecure. Should I be worried? Should I try to change things or will I just make the situation worse?

You shouldn’t worry about it. You definitely shouldn’t take it personally. But you do need to implement change. In order to do that, you need to accept that, at some stage, both of you must have endorsed the existing arrangement.

Couples tend to divide out the various roles and responsibilities that exist within their relationships and, more often than not, they break down along gender lines. The woman does the cooking, the cleaning and the kids. The man does the money, the motor and making the first move in the marital bed.

It is also conceivable that your wife was brought up to believe that women who initiate sex risk being perceived as sexually aggressive. Initially, that reticence didn’t bother you because making the first move made you feel more masculine and, as a consequence, made your wife feel more feminine.

Now, you’d like her to take the initiative to show she is still aroused by you. However, her reluctance to do so may derive from a similar set of insecurities.

As a woman ages, she becomes less confident about her appearance and she may, after a quarter of a century, have come to rely on your continued willingness to initiate sex as evidence that you still find her attractive.

It’s possible your wife may not begin to experience feelings of desire or arousal until sex has actually commenced; this is known as “responsive” or “triggered” desire, and it begins as a “decision” to have sex, rather than a drive to do so.

If a man makes sexual overtures and a woman allows herself to experience the sensations of her partner’s touch, she begins to feel some build-up of sexual sensation.

The trouble with this theory is that it doesn’t factor in the distress that responsive desire causes men who always have to initiate. When one partner continually expresses no autonomous interest in engaging in sex, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that their co-operation is motivated by a sense of duty.

Like you, most men don’t want a partner who simply complies with their sexual demands. They want a partner who is equally enthusiastic about sex; who will occasionally greet them in the hall with a G&T in one hand and her knickers in the other.

I know you are concerned that making additional demands will jeopardise existing provision, but settling for a one-way sex life is only a viable option if both partners are content with that.

When one half of a couple is yearning for reciprocity, dissatisfaction is inevitable, so unless you confront this issue it will keep eating away at you until it undermines what is, otherwise, a wonderful relationship.

In line with many other studies, my own research confirms that the ability to communicate openly about sex is, without exception, the most significant predictor of sexual satisfaction in a long-term relationship.

If you are not accustomed to sexual honesty, disclosure might feel more challenging than simply accepting the status quo, but as long as you admit complicity, avoid blame and frame your conversation around your own doubts and insecurities, you should, as two intelligent, loving, successfully married people, be able to resolve this issue in a constructive way.

Send your queries to [e-mail]