My (22F) LL Update. More perspective?

marriedscoundrel · 11ヶ月前

First - if any of you are downvoting her, stop. Immediately.

Second - look. You're treating libido like it's something purely physical. Over the past few years, I've been learning that it's not. It's mental. Don't just sit around waiting for your body to respond. That's like me giving you a cookie, and you saying "Oh man, I'm not craving a cookie right now, but I sure wish I was so that I could eat it! What can I do to make myself crave this cookie...maybe I can get my blood sugar levels lowered..." ...Why don't you just eat the cookie?

Re-read this -

When we cuddle and make out I am scared it will lead to sex, I am scared I won't get horny and then I am scared he will think I am not attracted to him anymore and I don't want to upset him so that's why I try to avoid it in the first place.

Does this sound like a person who would ever want to have sex? You're psyching yourself out of it.

I WANT to want sex

No. You don't want to want sex. You...just want to have sex. That's it.

Look, I'm a guy in his mid-30s. I'm not the young spring chicken I used to be. I also work a pretty demanding job. I do have random bouts of hornyness, but these are usually in the morning or early afternoon. By night I'm kind of tired and worn out from the day. Pretty much 99% of my opportunities to have sex are all at night. With a different mindset I could very easily be LL. Just say "Oh, I'm tired. Maybe next time." and start watching my sports games or read or surf the net before bed time. I'm HL (almost disgustingly so) because I just like sex. It gives me great personal, emotional rewards, and I enjoy it in the same way you'd enjoy a hobby.

Last night I had sex. It's been a very busy couple of weeks - I was tired and sleepy and mildly stressed. I'm also fighting off the last of a bad chest cold. When I saw her I wasn't thinking "Oh man, she's so sexy and I feel horny and I want to have sex!" But I started sex for no other reason than I wanted to have sex. And the more we got into it the more my body responded. Eventually it turned into, quite possibly, the best sex I've ever had.

Which would not have happened if I'd been relying solely on my physical state.

If you read some of the LL success stories on here, you'll find the same idea - they had to find a personal reason to want to have sex. Something to motivate them to do it. Something beyond just a physical craving. I suspect this is true for most of us HLs as well - it's just that our mental craving for it is so strong, it transfers to a physical one as well.

Find the fun in sex. Find a reason for you to want to have it. There is nothing "wrong" with you - you just need a different mindset.

[deleted] · 11ヶ月前

HL male here.
There was a LL woman on here about a week ago who had said something about the link between physical touch and the act of initiation. For people who are only used to implicit initiation, they've crossed those wires, and when an LL is involved, they shy away not only from the sex, but from kisses, hugs, hand-holding or even eye contact. Your HL partner becomes some sort of slumbering sex giant in your eyes and you're just trying to get out of his way before you're forced to touch them.

What might help is to suggest a new ground rule: No more implicit initiation. When you hug, it's for the sake of a hug, when you kiss, it's because you like kissing each other. With your conditioned knee-jerk recoil from physical contact, you will be hard-pressed to move into anything more sultry. Just saying'.

jessalon · 11ヶ月前

I feel for you. My wife is LL. And people here have told me to just divorce her. She's my best friend and favorite person. And has had two kids and dealt with illness. She shares a lot of the fears you've expressed. I hope your situation improves.

anonnymouse99 · 11ヶ月前

Basically, what /u/marriedscoundrel said... though from a more understanding perspective. You are psyching yourself out. I have been there, and I'm going to tell you now, you need to nip this motherfucker in the bud. I don't mean the LL, I mean your fear and anxiety. Because if you let that fester for a few years? It's going to get really fucked up, speaking from experience.

Stop caring so much about making him happy. Seriously. A lot of HLs are going to take great offense to that, but I'm telling you, all this anxiety about letting him down is absolutely going to kill your relationship with sex. Probably began with a legitimate 'rut' and all this anxiety is twisting it into a legitimate issue. Your sex is about you. It is for you. It is not a gift to him.

You should sit him and down have a nice long talk with him about what you're doing to make it right, and to ask for his patience and understanding--not because you don't already have it! He might be all of those things! But because this talk will reassure you psychologically that every little word or action from him is not initiation or frustration or disappointment in you--because he already knows what to expect, and he'll already know that perceived 'pressure' is making shit super difficult for you. My husband got it instantly, like a light bulb over his head. He could see the signs in my avoidance, but didn't know the cause. My admission of the anxiety and the cause of it was a huge reassurance to us both.

Once your SO knows the root of your anxieties and is (hopefully) secure in knowing that you're still in love with him and still are attracted to him, it'll be easier to re-cultivate your relationship with sex. Not for him, but for you.

tehxemmers · 11ヶ月前

Thank you. You sound a lot like me. My boyfriend is always trying to get me to read this sub and he doesn't understand why it upsets me. Being LL doesn't make us horrible people and we need support too because it's a really tough situation to be in as well. I hope things work out for you and get better!

CthulhuTentacleDick · 11ヶ月前

You sound rather similar with my SO. You do know it's a problem for him and you're taking steps towards a solution. I know my SO is fighting something similar so I do applaud you.

[deleted] · 11ヶ月前

Have you had your free-testosterone levels checked since you've been on birth control? Did you have a libido prior to hormonal birth control?

Your testosterone levels for a healthy female libido should be around 4 nmol/L or above. My wife on Nuvaring, Yaz and Ortho was less than 1. Once off, she bounced back to the 4 range.

Even when you are aroused, do you have a hard time getting very wet? Did you get wet prior to bc?

Yuckthepolice · 11ヶ月前

I totally understand where you're coming from. I'm the LL in my relationship and very recently found out I have Hashi's which is an auto-immune hypothyroid problem.

For the past six months or so my boyfriend and I have been having talks on and off. He's upset because I don't want sex, do I not love him, is he not sexy enough, is there someone else? It's like no, this is not the problem. For a long time I didn't know the problem. I wondered why I didn't enjoy sex, or why having my SO try to initiate sex was making me feel so anxious.

For me the whole thing feels awful. I love my partner and I want him to be fulfilled and happy. I enjoy sex when I'm not anxious or in pain. I would like to have more enjoyable sex, but that's not always possible.

Seeing other people say that you aren't trying hard enough to want sex or suggesting that you can just overcome this by telling your body to have sex until it wants it really drives home your last paragraph.

Iggy_ · 11ヶ月前

Did you ever enjoy sex with your partner? If so, try to remember that you're still you and he's still him, as obvious as that sounds. All of the anxiety and mental anguish you're going through when it comes to sex is making you guys like strangers. You're afraid to have sex with someone you love, and who loves you...

It's fairly common, and I've been there myself, though not in my current relationship. And you're totally right about it being a battle going on in your head, but you have to let him in on that. You might not be able to make sense of it, and he probably can't either, but you have to at the very least be on the same page. He needs to know how you're feeling so that he can respond to it appropriately, instead of just guessing or making assumptions about how you feel.

I really hope that the changes in medication help things, but don't just spend the next six months waiting to see if something happens. You need to make the choice to have sex. Not if you really don't want to, please NEVER have sex if you truly don't want to. But being afraid of disappointing your partner and therefore being scared and anxious is not the same as not wanting it. What I think is very common for LLs is to feel anxious about sex and therefore assume they just don't want it/can't get in the mood or whatever. You don't want to disappoint him, so you avoid sex... but your avoidance of sex is part of what's disappointing him, right?

Tell him you're scared. Tell him that you worry your body isn't responding the way you want it to and that he might have to do a little extra work to get you relaxed and focusing on YOU. Have sex for your own enjoyment. There's nothing wrong with you. Your medications might be fucking your shit up a bit right now, but you've gone to the doctor and started sorting that out. There is nothing wrong with you. You've gotten yourself stuck in a negative thought spiral when it comes to sex, but that's not some sort of fatal flaw in you. It's something you can change, but it really is in your head and not about the physical sense of "being in the mood."

You say you can't have sex when you're not in the mood at all. And you say you sometimes try to force it. You're only "forcing" it because you're afraid it won't come naturally... but you don't allow it to come naturally because you're so afraid. If you're sitting there frustrated and wishing you had a libido while trying to turn yourself on... well, that's not going to work. Instead, if you think about how much you love your partner and how fun sex can be for both of you when you're relaxed and focused on your own pleasure... well that might work a bit better for getting you in the mood. I know it's hard not to worry about everything but it's honestly the only answer to the problem. The problem is not your libido necessarily (or some physical inability to get in the mood), the problem is fear.

burntorangepeels · 11ヶ月前

Sounds to me like you're being pretty proactive and willing to address the problem. You're taking responsibility for what you can control, and I applaud you for your effort.

I do think you're psyching yourself out a bit, and that won't allow your body to relax, get revved up, and be in the moment. You're on the right track though, and the effort you're making should be recognized by your partner. Most of us HL folks just want to have our DB problems acknowledged by our partners, and it often feels like they don't.

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