Leanne’S Sex Life Has Fizzled Out Since Getting Engaged

27 September 2011

Leanne asks :

Please help me! I've been with my other half for over a year now and we've recently got engaged, it was the happiest moment of my life!
However, I find that he never really seems interested in sex as much anymore, or not as much as me, and is sometimes unresponsive to my advances (rolls over and goes to sleep kind of thing) without even an explanation and I know we all fade out of the "honeymoon period" eventually but this seems to be getting silly, it's almost ALWAYS me instigating it and giving him all the attention in the bedroom and on the odd occasion when it's the other way round, foreplay seems to be rushed to lunge in for the kill.
We do have a kind of healthy sex life at the moment and I love him very, very much and I have tried to talk to him about it but I just don't know how to approach it properly.
Am I just being selfish or greedy with this or am I right to be upset over it? Should I just settle for my lot as it were as I really do love him to bits and would do anything for him?

Yin replies

You’re engaged, not married yet. You don’t have a ‘lot’ to settle for. It sounds as if communication has broken down here and if you’re not talking about what you want in the bedroom, then are there other areas of life and your future that also get pushed aside in order to satisfy him?
Yes, all relationships do have a honeymoon period, but many carry on with the same spontaniety and passion for years and years. It might be interrupted by having children or stress at work, but essentially, before you get married, you do need to address this because you’re obviously unhappy about it.
When you talk to him, rather than saying ‘Why don’t you?’ or 'You never.’, focus on the positives. Pick your moment and say 'I love it when you' (even if he hasn’t done whatever it is for 6 months.
Don’t put it in to the past.) 'It makes me tingle when'... 'It really makes me horny when'... Tempt rather than punish him. Re-educate him in the nicest, least painful way!

Yang replies

He’s doing you out of foreplay so that he can get a quick fix? He’s rolling over and avoiding you? It sounds as if he’s basically being lazy. Too lazy to have sex, too lazy to invest time and energy in to giving you pleasure.
I don’t even suspect it’s that he’s gone off it or gone off you in any way. He probably thinks you’re as hot as he did when you first met or when he proposed, but the habit of daily life has made him lazy.
So, you need to give him some incentives to make the effort. He needs to know that when he pulls all the stops out, it’s really worth it.
He needs to know that he won’t get anywhere with second-rate empty behaviour. This is his future wife he’s neglecting! Don’t be easy on him or accept it. It’ll only get worse.