Sexual Desire Mismatch could cause a strain on the relationship if it's not handled well. But how can you overcome when you and ...

you-want-sex-and-your-partner39s-not-in-the-mood-what-to-do-about-it

You Want Sex and Your Partner&#39;s Not In The Mood? What to do About It!

are you in a relationship where you always want sex but your partner is never into it or are you so tired of your partner wanting sex all the time well you are not alone this is called sexual desire mismatch I'm Dr Rena Malik urologist and pelvic surgeon and today we're going to talk all about sexual desire mismatch or desired discrepancy this is essentially defined as when one partner's desire is higher or lower than the others so now in a previous video I talked about the sexual response cycle and the difference between spontaneous and responsive desire and the video is called what comes first desire or arousal so you might want to check that out to get a more in-depth discussion so just as a quick review spontaneous desire is the desire that happens that you most often see in the media like you see something you want it right away you immediately get desire and arouse and want to have sex with that person responsive desire on the other hand is when you are spending time with someone and you may develop up that desire like you're cuddling you're touching you're being intimate and then the desire comes afterwards and this is completely normal desire can change over the course of your relationship meaning that you may have more spontaneous desire early on or what seems like spontaneous desire and then over time you may just not get that excitement anymore because you've been with the same person for long periods of time now this could happen for a variety of reasons this can be like lifestyle issues meaning you have a certain time you want to go to bed you have a really rigorous work schedule you have things to do in the morning you're having medical issues your hormones are not in the right place you have other medical problems and on and on and on now this sexual desire discrepancy is extremely common in fact one paper reported as high as 80 in couples now that does make sense because during some portion of a relationship it is common for people to have different levels of Desire it's really impossible to think that you are always always going to be in sync and have the same level of Desire throughout your entire relationship things change with work stressors family kids so on and so forth right now if this is bothering you the key being bother right because if it's not bothering you it's not a problem that needs fixing in fact many people accept this as normal and they know that there's going to be some variation over time and they're not bothered by it but if it is bothering you what can you do about it and most often people are bothered when they notice that the problem is persistent meaning it's been going on for a long period of time and it continues to grow so if it's a problem let's be real this is a serious sore point for couples so for the first part of this video I'm going to talk about what the experts recommend and then for the second half I'm going to focus on what we know about real world data like what people are actually doing at home to deal with this and what works what happens when you have desires so first you have to have a stimuli something you see you hear you touch that gets you aroused then your genitals get aroused with lubrication or erections and then your brain perceives that as positive which leads to sexual desire now in order to have that desire you need three things you need the stimulus you need the arousal and ultimately you need the motivation now back to sexual desire discrepancy the European Society of sexual medicine created a position statement and in it they basically say the literature is so sparse and they had very little evidence to create a position statement on sexual desire discrepancy so essentially it was all expert opinion meaning that this problem that affects the majority of couples has not been rigorously studied now that's just wild let's get down to it what do you need to do first you want to make sure that there is no clinical condition like is there another problem that might be causing a low sexual desire or a high sexual desire for that matter and once you ruled that out and I've talked about low sexual desire previously and I'm going to make another video very soon on low sexual desire in men specifically so make sure you watch that one as well but after you've ruled out all the medical issues there are some treatment options that you can try working on with you and your partner so the first four are focused on communicating and understanding the discrepancy veteran so the first thing to know is that this is very common so improve your knowledge and know that this is very common particularly in long-term relationships and know that desire as I mentioned earlier is variable day to day and the key is that not every sexual encounter is going to be mind-blowing it's totally normal to have mediocre sex every so often so don't come at me in the comments it is true and if you're telling me you've never had mediocre sex you're not being truthful number two is you want to realize that neither one of you is the problem this is a relationship a problem very often the person with lower desire gets labeled as the problem because they're using the higher desired person as a benchmark but this isn't a problem with one person it's a mismatch now again remember we've ruled out other causes of low desire so then we need to focus on the relationship what does this desire mismatch mean to each of you could it mean that you who is not getting the sex that you want feels less loved when your partner rejects you and now you feel like maybe your relationship is in danger or if you're the person who's always saying no do you feel like the only thing your partner wants is sex and they don't value the other things you bring into the relationship and in this same context you want to prioritize the quality of sex you're having rather than how often you're having it maybe it's not just about the sex and also it's important to talk about like what types of activities you define as sex and what kind of activities make you excited the next thing you want to do is focus on the actual desired discrepancy usually in these situations both Partners will either over or underestimate how much their partner actually wants sex so understanding what each of you really desires can sometimes be really eye-opening sometimes the reason people have sex is not because of desire it may be because they want to feel close because they feel like obligated to for stress relief to please your partner or because you yourself want to feel desired and sometimes another partner may just want intimacy that doesn't result in Sex and when they try to have intimacy that's always into sex it may become uncomfortable so number four is communicate communicate yes I get it it's hard I've talked about this so many times on this channel we don't know how to talk about sex and no one taught us how and as a society we're just generally pretty prude but regardless in order to have better sex you need to talk talk about what you truly like talk about the things outside of penetrative intercourse that you enjoy because sex is not just penetration and talk about what makes you arouse but in order to talk about that you yourself have to know what you like number five break the routine try to broaden the definition of sex in your relationship and consider expanding your sexual repertoire once you've done this communication about what you like think about what you could do to expand your sexual repertoire There's an actual thing called sexual boredom right so if you're bored with sex you're not going to be excited to have it so how can you even start talking about increasing your sexual repertoire well first you want to make a list like literally take a piece of paper write down every sexual act you like or think you might like oral anal manual Kink whatever write it down and then sit down together and compromise and gradually work your way into trying different things you may even try doing something called sense8 Focus which means essentially that you slowly work on increasing physical Touch without the goal of penetrating Nation this can help both Partners figure out like what they're really into what are their erogenous zones and incorporate that into their sexual repertoire generally sexual therapists will recommend doing this twice a week for 10 minutes you also want to schedule time for intimacy now I say intimacy not sex and a lot of people don't like this but it's really to take the pressure off let you rebuild and have the fun of connecting physically and create opportunities for sex rather than expecting both Partners to be ready to go at the exact same time in the exact same moment number six normalize having sex without desire once in a while so it's okay sometimes to please your partner with sex and give them a present now you don't want to do this all the time but once in a while it's not a bad thing for your relationship and number seven work on positive rejection try to find ways that are positive and respectful to actually tell your partner no I'm not into it tonight or this morning or whatever time of day it is number eight Focus on improving their relationship data suggests that people who are in more satisfying relationships are often less bothered by the discrepancy now you can work on this with your partner or you can seek out a therapist to do something called emotionally focused therapy now this focuses on what each individual needs and what the attachment issues might be in their relationship or if there's any power Dynamic issues that ultimately might be contributing to the sexual desired discrepancy and essentially it's focused on restoring closeness now if you feel like maybe you're too close to your partner you may need to undergo something called differentiation which restores the feeling of me individually and you as separate entities before I go on to what happens in the real world I want to take a minute to let you guys know that I have a brand new sexual health Urologic Health bladder health practice in Newport Beach California where you can come see me or you can see me via telemedicine if you are located in the states of California Florida Illinois New Jersey New York Texas Virginia and Maryland so please feel free to make an appointment at www.rinamalekmd.com appointment if you are not located in these areas I can also see you for an educational visit where we can talk about just general issues with your health but I cannot give you a diagnosis or treatment because I'm not licensed to practice in the areas you are located but this may offer you some educational information that you can go and take back to your doctor and discuss further now as I mentioned before these ideas were suggested based on scientific literature and expert opinion but what do people actually do that seems to work one study recruited over 200 participants in the United States using social media and they asked open-ended questions about things like desire arousal and how they deal with sexual desire discrepancy and in fact the most common answer was not surprising masturbation usually alone if you missed my last video on mutual masturbation make sure you check that one out because that is a very helpful technique to include in your sexual repertoire other ways people dealt with sexual desire discrepancy were to try and engage in alternative activity like either oral sex manual stimulation masturbating together or using sex toys followed by trying to trigger the desire or trying to get themselves or their partner in the mood or allow their partner to get them in the mood others tried to be close physically without actually engaging in sexual activity and lastly they communicated they let their partner know that they were not interested in having whatever type of sex and it wasn't because of them maybe it was because of the time of day or the environment or whatever they then looked at these different activities and they combined these results and they looked at which people had the best relationship satisfaction and overall which activities were the most successful in terms of dealing with the desired discrepancy and they found that generally things that you do together like communicating engaging in another Act activity together or having sex anyways we're actually the most helpful less than half of the people who did an activity alone like masturbation thought it was helpful these people in general also who did things together had higher rates of relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction so my take home is that you have to work on this if you are struggling with sexual desire discrepancy playing the blame game doesn't help anyone you and your partner need to work together this is a relationship issue and it may take some time and it will unfortunately require you to communicate with each other so as always I hope you guys enjoyed this video if you did maybe you like this video on genital numbness so why don't you check it out because it's something that a lot of people do struggle with and don't know what to do about so as always you want to take care of yourself because you're worth it

Dr.

Related Videos

Consultation & Treatment

Consult With Loading Doctor Data