My partner doesn't want to have sex with me

Oh dear. This feels to me like there’s lots of ‘should’ and oughts’ going on here. No wonder things seem to have become stuck.

I can see why you might have felt peeved by him saying he felt rejected. Given that there was loads of sex going on, I’m sure everything seemed fine, so hearing he’s not happy must have been very disappointing and  baffling, to say the least. I can also imagine that you might have asked the ‘what more could I possibly do’ question, so it’s just as well he’s been able to say he’d like you initiate sometimes. Well, nothing wrong with that request. But what about your request? You’ve asked for ‘intimacy’ rather than ‘just’ sex sometimes and it seems that he’s finding that suggestion rather difficult to take on board, so let’s think through what all this might be about…

There are so many myths ‘out there’ about sex. They’re everywhere. Sometimes they can be very influential to the point that people start doubting whether what they do together actually meets the required ‘standard’. By this, I mean that people compare themselves, their bodies and goodness knows what else with what they read, hear and watch and sometimes end up with feeling things aren’t right when in fact, they’re probably absolutely fine. Whether it's stuff about multi orgasms, ‘staying power’, how much sex you 'should' be having etc, etc, etc. All these things deflect from focusing on what’s right for us as individuals and as couples. For some, sex half a dozen times a year feels totally fulfilling in the same way that sexual experience several times a day meets the needs of others.  Really – good sex is all about working out what’s right for each of you together, regardless of what the rest of the world might be up to.

Lots of people don’t give sex a second thought from one day to the next. But when they’re approached by a partner they feel attracted to and safe with, they respond easily and really enjoy it. Other people though, spend most of every waking moment thinking about sex and finding or initiating opportunities to engage sexually with their partner. Both of these are entirely normal – as is everything in between. It sounds like both of you felt able and willing to engage sexually so that’s a positive thing because often, problems with sex are to do with miss-matched levels of need. However in your case, it sounds like you were both getting as much as you wanted, providing he always initiated – which is what he’s complaining about now.

I think the basic problem is that you’re both working on assumptions. He assumes that you should sometimes take the lead, but never bothered to share this thought with you previously - and you assumed he was happy with you not doing so, because you always responded when he made the first move - but didn’t check this out with him. And of course, now that the conversation has become tricky, he’s decided to find it difficult to hear that you perhaps need to not always focus on just the intercourse. This is a common problem for some relationships, where the unacknowledged but powerful message between the partners is that it’s not ‘proper’ sex unless it involves some sort of penetration or specific ‘routine’. Now, when you’ve tried to make some suggestions about a softer version, it seems he’s wanting to make the point that - whilst he’s heard what you say - he’s still blaming things on the lack of initiation. So somewhere in all this, each of you needs to do something different…

First off, he needs to stop calling you frigid. This is an old, abusive and very stupid criticism that is often applied to women and implies that unless you want to have sex exactly as a partner dictates, then there’s something wrong with you, when there so obviously isn’t. Second, he need to properly hear that you would like to focus on other sexual pleasures sometimes. Perhaps, as many couples do, what happens between you always follows a similar pattern, again, often as a result of each partner making assumptions. So being prepared to make some changes and play differently might really help. Third, you tell me that you don’t experience spontaneous sexual desire. Well, as I’ve said, lots of people would identify with this. But curiously, that doesn’t mean you can’t let him know you want him sexually by making a move. Some people do find it difficult to be the first to initiate and that’s sometimes because of the messages they’ve grown up with. There are hundreds of very negative messages such as ‘I’ll be rejected', 'I’ll look silly', 'I don’t know what to do', and 'nice people don’t’ and so on. Sometimes though, just having a go at initiating and seeing what it feels like, can help us to change thoughts and feelings we may have previously had about doing this. And by practicing this initiating, it can start to help you think more about initiating in general, and perhaps becoming more comfortable with it.

But of course, there's the whole lockdown issue. Lockdown has impacted on so many relationships. Not being able to create a natural space to 'cool down and calm down' can be really difficult. If you think about it, getting out, meeting friends or just drifting round a supermarket are all ways that any of us might use to recalibrate before going home.  All of this is likely to have brought everything  in your relationship to a head, so the rows and anxiety you describe are really not surprising.

Hopefully, as lockdown eases, we’ll all have the chance to work out what the new normal looks like. That might mean some difficult conversations as well as acknowledging how well we’ve coped. It’s just possible that had you not been living under lockdown conditions, the problems with sex might never have emerged and you’d both have continued working on assumptions. Now you both know what you know, there's a real chance to start a better conversation about sex. I think you both have to stand back, sit down together and talk. I don’t think he’s lost desire for you. I think what happened is that each of you is trying to get the other to see how important your respective distress feels. So on transmit, rather than listening. There's a load of self-help resources out there about how to talk together differently, resolve rows and move forward – have a look online.

The key thing is the recognition that you each need to do something different. That’s always the major hurdle. Once over that, so much else is possible.