Dr. Laura Blog

Are you and your spouse not clicking like you used to in the bedroom? Here are some of the possible reasons why you’re not having sex:

1. Health issues. The first thing I always recommend to couples struggling with sex is that they each get a full medical checkup to make sure something isn’t wrong healthwise.

2. Exhaustion. As parents, students, volunteers, and/or employees, many of you simply don’t have enough energy for sex, and that’s a problem. Self-care is very important, and sex really is part of self-care. When you let yourself get depleted, you have nothing more to give - even to yourself.

3. Anger and resentment. Resentment can start out small, but if you don’t talk about it, it becomes a big deal. Many people don’t communicate when they’re angry and hurt because they figure the other person doesn’t care and they’re not going to do anything about it anyway. Then, 10-15 years down the line, somebody is having an affair and/or walking out the door, leaving the other person thinking, “I thought we had a great relationship.” Well, you thought so because nobody was talking.

4. Complaints and criticism. When women are hypercritical of men, it just about kills the man’s sex drive. Men already have a lot of performance anxiety as it is. When they feel seriously criticized by their women, they shut down. Pay attention to how much complaining and criticizing you do. Put things in a nice way. If your spouse comes home late, instead of immediately getting on their case, say, “You know, I feel such a wave of love when you walk through that door.”  Do you think that person is going to want to come home late again?

5. Bad technique. For a man to have good sex, he needs his woman to look and act as though she’s really enjoying it. For a woman to have good sex, she needs her man to know what he’s doing and to make sure she is satisfied.

6. Insecurity. When one of you is very insecure, immature, needy, or naggy, the relationship changes from a love relationship to a caretaking one. That’s not sexy.