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Found book on working out compromises with wife with low libido.
bostongreg 15 Reviews 10269 reads
posted

Just found a description of this book on amazon.com: Perfectly Normal: Living and Loving with Low Libido, by by Sandra Pertot, Ph.D.  See link below.

You can read many pages of it if you click on the link and then use Amazon's fine "Search Inside" feature.

I found her approach very interesting: don't blame your wife, nor call her abnormal.  Instead, try to work out compromises - HJs, letting her watch you masturbate, etc.

LG, have you read it?  What do you think?

I've ordered a copy, and can hardly wait to see what my wife thinks of it.  Better something than nothing.  Hope springs eternal!

There's a newer book on the same subject, which I've also ordered, but which doesn't look as good: I'd Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido, by Joan Sewell.   The link to that one is http://www.amazon.com/Id-Rather-Eat-Chocolate-Learning/dp/0767922670/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-1665438-9970537?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174183746&sr=8-1  It's pictured here; the picture of the first one had too long as web address to fit within TER's tech limits.

BTW, LG, when am I going to see a book on Amazon.com written by *you*?

-- Modified on 3/17/2007 6:28:02 PM

-- Modified on 3/17/2007 6:47:42 PM

-- Modified on 3/17/2007 6:48:55 PM

Related Link: Perfectly Normal: Living and Loving with Low Libido, by by Sandra Pertot, Ph.D.

Love Goddess9838 reads

Well, bostongreg,

It's pretty much the standard approach taken in the therapy room. Compromises are nice. They work if the parties are not marooned on separate "islands of bitterness," (Frank Pittman, another marital strife guru) and still have an ounce of thrills and chills about one another, even if dormant.

But none of these approaches will work if there has been past hurts that have gone unforgiven...and those are the subzero frozen couples that most often grace my therapeutic doorstep.

In addition, I believe that these books appeal to individuals who have achieved some stage of maturity and some longevity in their marriage. But with a couple in their early 30s, where the wife is in the midst of childbearing/rearing, even these types of compromises may not work. Data points to a severe dip in sexual activities for parents with children under 3 years of age. When you've got someone semi-comatose from lack of sleep, baby feeding, huge workload despite having an infant, etc., even a HJ may not be in the picture...compromise or not.

I've seen reviews of the Sewell book. On one hand, it's nice to see that the disparity in libido between the sexes is normalized; on the other, I wonder about appropriately and highly sexed women in their early 20s, who will read this and wonder if this is guaranteed to happen. As there are men with lower libidos than others, not all couples are doomed to disparity. There are those who are reasonably well matched in bed...meaning adjusted to the "female schedule."

Another potential danger is that we automatically assume that low libido is 100% inherent, and that environment and circumstances have nothing to do with it. It's difficult to get a raging female boner when you're angry with someone in a domestic situation. Oftentimes, there are feelings festering for a long time, and even the mere suggestion of books like these may just be like waving the muleta in front of a raging bovine.

As to a book written by the LG...keep feeding me these questions, and it may happen some day ;-)

Of course, I'd rather eat chocolate too;-D
the Love Goddess

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sgandolfs8333 reads

As just one idiot who has been thru the process of raising a family with my bride of 36 years, I can attest to fact that there is a huge dip in sexual activity, particularly during the first few years of raising children.  The sheer madness of getting three daughters up and running put a real crimp in our sexual activity for years... and while two are now married with children of there own, one remains at home... and the difficulty of having a nice spontaneous session together is still a very real fact - not knowing when she may come bounding back into the house is a huge QQQ and inhibitor.

One very nice upside to all of the work, pain and sacrifice over the years is that should your marriage survive - it DOES get better with age - we now actually take the time to go off on extended vacations with each other - at least twice a year to all inclusive resorts as a getaway - and devour each other (no not like we did when we were 20, but enough to work up a good sweat every day).
Marriage is a 24 hour job - and even when someone strays outside of it, trying to keep it working can be very rewarding.  While reading a book may help some, there is nothing like trying on your own new approaches, twists, ideas to keep things going.

bostongreg, mine is but one opinion, but I really think you will find the answer within yourself, and not a book... although the book may be a great tool for getting the thinking juices flowing.

-- Modified on 3/18/2007 4:19:01 AM

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bostongreg8033 reads

sgandolfs,

How lucky you are to have a wife who wants to 'devour' you, at least when you're on vacation.  Compare with my own week in Hawaii, recounted above!

If I can offer an unsolicited suggestion: why don't you and your wife talk about this problem, and then, together, tell your daughter, "Frankly, we need some time alone.  Please don't walk into the house unannounced on [specified days/hours]."  You don't have to specify what you need the privacy for - she'll figure that out!

I know that may seem difficult to do.  But my point is: your daughter needs to know, for her *own* psychological development, that her role-model parents want and have sex!  If you don't let her know that (in a tasteful and appropriate way) her coming to terms with her own sexuality might be handicapped.

Someone once told me: the biggest mistake a parent can make is to try to protect their children from knowing the parent's problems.  That's well intentioned.  But it doesn't demonstrate to the child that life consists of analyzing and overcoming obstacles.  Protecting offspring from seeing doesn't help them to develop character.

For years, I regretted that, for financial reasons,  I had to work out of a home office, because my son had to have his bedroom opposite mine and hear all the daily problems I have to deal with.

But now, in his mid 30's, my son is already Vice President of a major international corporation, and is asked to travel literally around the world first class to solve the company's problems.

Whenever I hear him talk on the phone - he sounds just like me, in voice, phrasing, tact.  I can't believe it!  If I had shielded him from knowing what I strugged with, I'm convinced he would not have the skills he now has.

If you want your daughter to have a nice sex life and marriage, don't you think you need (not to let her overhear as my son did, but) to surmise how you and your wife love one another physically?  Don't make the mistake I almost made and try to 'protect' her too much from your personal life.

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bostongreg9944 reads

Sgandolfs, have been thinking about your thoughtful comment - thanks for it.

I agree that the answer lies within myself (and inside all of us).  But I don't think 'a book' is necessarily something separate from that.  When a book stikes a chord and is internalized, it becomes a true part of us.  

The thought this book suggested to me was: why not accept your wife's low libido as normal, instead of your constantly trying to change or fight it.  That's not working - so maybe it's better to decide to accept her the way she is, and try to find ways to work with and live with that.

Yes, that's in the book. But it's also now truly part of me.

I suspect I was starting to come to this conclusion all on my own.  But the book - hearing it from someone else - was timely, and it helped.

We can all be helped by many people and things: friends, psychiatrists/psychologists/marriage counsellors, pastors/priests/rabbis/imans, and/or books/magazines/newspapers.  Those all can and do contribute ideas to our brains, and can become part of our 'self', if we wish.

That's precisely why I feel this Erotic Highway board is so important and so valuable.  Some ideas we learn here can truly help us and become part of us, when we so choose.

Let's face it: those of us who read TER are very much a minority.  The numbers of people browsing theroticreview.com numbers, at most, a few thousand. (Right now, my monitor says 2,377.)  Yet there are millions upon millions of Americans out there who would scorn our views, if they knew about them.  

So our helping each other is, I think, really necessary and important.  We are lucky to live in an internet age, where we can find each other and learn from one another.  

I lived a long life, long enough to know how new and how rare the internet community we now all can share is.  Learning new things I can internalize, if I wish, is very important to me; and I don't want to miss a minute of it.

Put another way: I don't feel the boundaries of my own 'self' are quite as fixed as the self v. book dichotomy you mention. But your point about the self is very well taken.

Is my explanation helpful?

-- Modified on 3/18/2007 4:00:07 PM

-- Modified on 3/18/2007 4:01:03 PM

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bostongreg9778 reads

How wonderful it is to write about a problem before going to bed, and then see an appropriate answer from you, LG (written in LA time) the next morning. Wow!  If you were nearer, I'd sure want to try to persuade you not to choose chocolate.

My wife and I are not in our early 30's, but our late '60s. So the compromises we need to make may be easier.

I agree - I don't feel my wife's low libido is (biologically) inherent.  It's cultural: her father was very distant, and her mother, very bitter and nasty.  My wife did try therapy for a pretty long while, but didn't like it - there's no way she'll try it again.

Your phrase about couples lost in 'islands of bitterness' struck home.  Some years ago, I took my wife to a lovely spot in Hawaii for 7 days.  To my great disappointment, we had no sex at all while there.  In the past, I've been very bitter about that (amongst other experiences) - but I now realize - that's just the way she is.  It's not going to change.  So any sexual compromise at all, along the lines suggested by this book, will be a big improvement, from my perspective.

This morning, while I was reading your comments on my pocket pc/phone, in my separate bedroom, she came in and offered me a very insightful and timely suggestion for the business she helped me build, which we've been running together now for over four decades.  She then picked up my favorite beloved cat and plopped him on my bed.  She's downstairs now getting breakfast. This afternoon, we'll go to an 80th birthday party for one of her aunts, a woman I like knowing.

So, sure, there's a lot I could be bitter about.  But there's a lot I have to be very happy about, too.

As an intelligent escort said to me recently, "Too many people get divorced who really shouldn't."  

Our culture tries to dictate that one woman has to do it all. But that just isn't true.

Instead of thinking of all I'm bitter about, I'm asking myself, "Why stay bitter? What does that accomplish?"





-- Modified on 3/18/2007 6:54:58 AM

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