A lot of relationship questions and concerns that I get center around problems regarding the couple’s sex life. In particular, a distressing number of men complain about their wives or girlfriends suddenly losing interest in sex after marriage or after being in the relationship for a while and having to go weeks or even months without having sex.  Obviously going this long through a sexual drought creates an awful strain on the relationship and often the male will end up cheating, justifying that he needs to get sex “somewhere.”  Although I never condone such affairs, it’s not difficult to understand the man’s dilemma in these cases. So what is a man to do if the woman he is with turns out to have completely lost all sex drive?

Assuming all other interventions, such as the articles published on this site about spicing up your sex life have been exhausted and nothing seems to work and other psychological causes such as depression have been ruled out, it just may quite be possible that your woman is suffering from something called hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HDDD). This is actually considered a sexual dysfunction and is listed under Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders of the DSM-IV.  So what exactly is HDDD? This is a condition marked by markedly low interest in sexual fantasies and activities over an extended period of time, and adversely effecting one’s relationships.  Most of the time lack of sex is due to problems within the relationship, but sometimes there is no other apparent cause for your woman’s lack of interest. An earlier version of the DSM, which is a handbook for psychotherapists, estimated that about 20% of the population suffers from HDDD. So, once again, if you’ve examined all other possibilities, it just may be the case that your woman has a clinical case of hypoactive sexual desire.

So let’s say, you suspect that HDDD may be present in your woman’s case, what should you do then? The good news is that this is a condition which can be overcome through cognitive-behavioral therapies under the supervision of a trained sex therapist, especially if it developed recently. Hormonal conditions such as decrease in testosterone or increase in prolactine may be at fault.  At any rate, since this is a relatively common situation, the therapist will have a lot of experience in dealing with it, with a high success rate.

Moral of the story? If you’ve tried everything to stimulate your partner and get her interested in hitting the sack and nothing seems to work, if you are communicating well and there is no resentment inhibiting sexuality, then perhaps, just perhaps your woman’s lack of interest has less to do with the relationship and everything to do with her own psychosomatic situation. In that case, instead of bailing or looking elsewhere, try to talk to a trained expert in this field. Chances are you may just get your woman and your sex life back and don’t have to deal with the guilt or hurt of straying. You’ve got nothing to lose.