7 Little Things To Do Right Away If Your Husband Doesn't Turn You On Anymore
Just because the spark isn't there doesn't mean it won't come back.
dimaberlinphotos | Canva A woman trying to decide if she should stay in her marriage or have an affair wrote an advice column with the following dilemma: After living with her childhood sweetheart for years, getting married, and having a now one-year-old son, “Mabel” claimed her husband's love-making no longer turns her on as it used to. She noted that while she didn't want to leave her husband (fearing her son might be “terribly hurt” in the process), she acknowledged that if the opportunity to cheat arose, she “might just go for it.”
Unfortunately, the advice provided in response to her was even more confusing than the problem, but there are certain things someone in her shoes should actually consider doing when they aren't feeling "the spark" in the bedroom anymore.
Here are 7 things to do right away if your husband doesn't turn you on anymore:
1. Understand that there is a “catastrophic rift” in your marriage.
Marriages don't simply end because one person lacks the desire for the other or because one person cheats. Desire fades for a reason — a physiological or emotional one — and affairs happen when a marriage has already begun to suffer. If you find yourself either not feeling it for your husband or starting to feel it for someone else, take a good hard look in the mirror at what is really troubling you.
2. Stop the habit of hiding your feelings from each other.
Your husband is not your fancy aunt hosting you in her home overnight on beautiful but scratchy sheets. Make it a practice to act like the adults you are and share the true, mature intimacy of telling each other how you feel. There's no need to whine or complain. You just need some straight talk.
RELATED: What It Really Means If You're Not Attracted To Your Partner Anymore
3. Figure out your own preferences.
Does it turn you on to grab your man and tell him it’s time, or do you prefer to be caught off guard and pinned against a wall? Maybe some give and take? Learn your own preferences so you won’t try to force yourself into a role that actually stifles your libido even more than it already is just because some relationship expert told you to do so. Then apply this new information to step four below, telling your husband what you were imagining and asking him to share his own take in return. It has to work for both of you.
4. Tell him what you want in the bedroom without scolding him.
The last thing any man or woman wants is to be sat down and scolded like a child while being told what they do wrong in the bedroom, let alone what they "should" be doing to make things better. Instead, try painting the picture for him through sensual texts, handwritten notes, traded GIFs or images, or whispers in his ear at an unexpected (but appropriate and relaxed) time. Just the act of figuring out what makes you hot is likely to make you hot, and fewer things turn a man on more than a woman who is already aroused. So let him know!
5. Stop keeping secrets from each other.
These discussions have to happen, and when they do, presentation, tone, and intent are crucial. Your husband is your equal — your life partner. His feelings, wants and needs are every bit as important as yours. If you want to be heard, you absolutely must let him know that he can trust you, and the only way to prove that is through your actions. Hear him, consider her views and perspectives, be kind, and don’t judge.
6. Expect that marriage isn't always a “wild bed of passion” — but that it should be at least some of the time.
Unless the two of you have some alternate agreement, when you get married your spouse rightfully expects to be the only man in bed with you for the rest of one of your lives, just as you expect the same fidelity from him. That means that for a good 50-60 years to come, your only sense of satisfaction will be your husband or yourself. That is a long, long, long, long (I really cannot add enough "longs" to sufficiently emphasize this point) time to go without some wild passion ebbing and flowing along the way. You can't expect to maintain full-throttle levels at all times, but as someone who's worked extensively with divorcing couples, I can guarantee that if you don't bring that passion to the surface more often than not, you will be headed to a family law practitioner's office one day in the not so distant future.
7. Know that a good marriage is worth fighting for, and a really bad marriage is worth leaving.
After reading Mabel's question in full, I had hardly concluded that she had a good marriage worth fighting for. If you neither love nor respect your spouse, as Mabel's matter-of-fact consideration of an affair would lead me to believe was the case for her, there is no chance that either of you is being treated the way you deserve or given the way you should. There are few fates more hollow and numbing than a lifetime of chaste cohabitation with someone you probably wouldn't choose as your roommate, let alone spouse, if you had the chance to do it all over again.
Deputy Editor Arianna Jeret, MA/MSW, has been featured in Cosmopolitan, The Huffington Post, Yahoo Style, MSN, Fox News, Bustle, Parents, and more.