Monica Karpinski
DATING & RELATIONSHIPS
Q: I’ve been with my partner for a few years. We love and are kind to each other but our sex drives are totally mismatched: my libido is higher than hers, she rarely instigates and almost never wants to do it. I’ve started to think that I’m annoying her by trying, so I’ve stopped, but this just makes me feel self-conscious and rejected. Intimacy is important to me—how can I fix this?
A: First, I want to reassure you that you aren’t alone—it’s common for couples to have mismatched sex drives. There’s even a term for it: sexual desire discrepancy.
Sex drive is something that can wax and wane over time: your desire to have sex is influenced by everything that pulls you away from sex, like stress or not feeling well, and things that push you towards it. And this is an ever-changing picture. So, in any case, it’s unrealistic that you and your partner will be in sync with each other all the time.
But if you can try and understand what that picture looks like for each of you, you can try to find a balance. Here, communication is key. Research has shown that partners struggling with mismatched libidos found it helpful to speak with each other about why their desire levels were different. In doing so, you can learn what each of you want from your sex lives and from each other: for example, your partner might prefe
