MY HUBBY SAYS I’M BORING IN THE BEDROOM

Dear Coleen

I’m a woman in my forties and I’ve been married for 15 years. My problem is, over the past few years, we’ve hardly had sex. Before lockdown, when life was busy, it was easier to ignore the problem.

However, since we’ve been isolating, it’s become so obvious that our sex life and our marriage is in trouble.

I don’t know why – probably because I’d had a couple of glasses of wine and was feeling stressed from spending 24/7 with him – but I blurted out that we never have sex and that it wasn’t right.

He became really defensive and said why would he want to have sex when it was so boring. I took that to mean I’m boring.

We’ve hardly spoken a word to each other since and I’m miserable. I feel unsupported and unattractive, and don’t know what to do.

Coleen says

I think continuing to ignore the elephant in the room isn’t the way to go. But please don’t blame yourself. I’ve made that mistake in the past, too – I blamed myself and tried to turn myself into the woman I thought my partner wanted me to be, but that’s crushing for your self-esteem.

You’re in a relationship, you both have responsibility for it and, if sex is boring, that’s down to him, too. Somewhere along the line, you stopped communicating and drifted apart. It’s an easy trap to fall into when you’ve been together a long time and life is busy and stressful.

But you can’t just snap your fingers and get that intimacy back – you have to build it up again and make an effort for each other.

I suppose my question to him would be: “If sex is boring, what can we do about it?” Open up the discussion and try to work out if you still have something to build on.