Further, the greatest predictor of distress related to sexual desire in marriage was not the distance between the high and low spouse’s level of desire

Research consistently tells us that in any culture or subculture, husbands have the higher sexual drive in about 80 percent of marriages. That is not a tiny number. So realize: It is possible that nothing is wrong with you or your husband, and that you just happen to be one of those couples. Expecting to be one of the 80 percent when you are actually one of the 20 percent can put undue pressure on your spouse, yourself, and your marriage. Again, it is fine if you wish you weren’t one of the 20 percent, but it is equally important to recognize that you might be.

Now, does that mean you’re simply supposed to accept that you have a mismatch http://besthookupwebsites.org/facebook-dating-review and “live with” the challenging and negative feelings that come with it? Not at all. You might need to accept that you are the high desire spouse in your marriage, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do about it, or that you need to live with hurt, fear, and confusion. We’ll touch on this more in Part Two, but the bottom line is that there is a lot you can do to address the problem – but there’s also a lot you can do to address your feelings. Take charge of your emotions, so they do not take charge of you.

Some wives simply believe that his desire “should” always be higher than hers– no matter what hers is. The reality, however, is that most individuals (meaning both husbands and wives) report they would like sex more frequently than it happens. So the problem isn’t always the natural desire itself: it’s that other things get in the way of desire, such as fatigue, work, distraction, and fear – to name a few.

His lack of desire might still seem like a problem to you, but before moving forward, try to check your expectations about what his desire should be, and what sex should look like as a couple.

Typically, when a wife comes into my office concerned about her husband’s lack of sexual desire she tells me she is afraid he is attracted to men, is getting his sexual needs fulfilled elsewhere, or is no longer attracted to her body. We call these explanations of someone else’s behavior attributions. We view their behavior and attribute certain explanations to it. Our attributions can be accurate or inaccurate. Attributions can be positive and can affirm the marriage, or they can be negative and destructive.

While this is a clear majority, it does mean that the wife has the higher sexual drive in one of five couples

My doctoral research focused on desire discrepancy in married couples. My findings showed that the greatest source of pain in couples was not based on who had the higher or lower desire. In essence, the high-desire spouse’s level of desire was not the cause of the distress, and the low level of the low-desire spouse caused only a small amount of marital distress. The greatest predictor of distress was in the attribution of the high desire spouse.

Practically, what that means is that if you are the high desire spouse in your marriage, what you think about your husband’s low desire is far more important than his actual desire level, in predicting pain in your marriage. Occasionally I find that the wife’s worst fear about her husband’s low sex drive is true, but typically the reason is far more benign. In their hurt, fear, and confusion, many wives lock in on a negative attribution and don’t take the time to explore what might really be going on. They keep driving down the wrong road, demanding that their husband fix something that is not the core problem.