Love, but no sex

[sombreroman]

I have been with my girlfriend on and off for about 7 years. She is unquestionably my best friend, and there isn't any lack of love between us. The problem I'm having is that we almost never have sex. I have what I would say is an average-to-slightly-above-average sex drive. We lost our virginity to each other when we were teenagers, and back then, we had sex all the time. These days, it's something like once a month.

Now, as I said, I really love her and do not want to leave her. But I am having a hard time with this. I feel like our relationship may as well just be a platonic friendship.

I have asked her about it before, and it seems like she just doesn't have much interest anymore. She is pretty depressive, and I suspect this has something to do with it. However, I'm also pretty depressive and it hasn't made me lose my sex drive (I wish it would).

I honestly don't know what to do. I don't want to leave her, but I don't think she has any interest in dealing with this issue as if it were a relationship problem that needs to be dealt with. At this point, I'm having a hard time figuring out what makes our relationship different from any other friendship.

[1averagejoe]

Conflicts like this can only be resolved with communication. Be straight forward with her and tell her basically what you told us on here. If still she doesn't care how you feel...you either deal with it and probably go nuts from the lack of intimacy and probably break up or you just break up.

[Gribble]

Depression can definitely kill a sex drive. If she really does mean as much to you as you seem to imply I think the best thing is to set sex aside right now. Instead, concentrate your efforts on helping her (and yourself) overcome depression. Figure out exactly what's wrong. See if the two of you can work through it. If not, bring in therapists. Once the depression is tackled her sex drive will hopefully return.

[sombreroman]

Depression can definitely kill a sex drive. If she really does mean as much to you as you seem to imply I think the best thing is to set sex aside right now. Instead, concentrate your efforts on helping her (and yourself) overcome depression. Figure out exactly what's wrong. See if the two of you can work through it. If not, bring in therapists. Once the depression is tackled her sex drive will hopefully return.

Yeah, I think it is very important to deal with the depression and she is working on it with both therapy and medicine (though I wonder if the medicine might end up killing the sex drive as well).

[vashti]

Many antidepressant medications have a negative impact on libido. She should let her physician know about this problem. They can either reduce her dose, add another medication in to balance her hormones, or change her medication to one that doesn't impact her sex drive.

[misombra]

sometimes when this happens it's because the girl is not being satisfied.

[SirHandsome]

honestly, a woman's natural response to great sex is to want more of it.

so yeah, the bottom line is that the sex probably isn't that great for her. that doesn't necesarilly mean its your fault, though. with the brain being the biggest sex organ, her state of mind definitely plays into her own satisfaction.

but at the same time, see what you can do to spice it up with seducing her... unfortunately, from my experience smoetimes the only thing that can reignite a lost spark of sexual attraction is time apart... a sudden shift in energy is just too unnatural for our bodies to adjust to sometimes

[friend]

We'll you should try and be more romantic, buy her flowers or send her a naughty email I am 100% that would work!

[friend]

Good Luck friend!