How To Support A Partner Who's Dealing With A Low Sex Drive

If you're someone whose significant other or spouse has a lower libido, your focus should go beyond just trying to find ways to turn your partner on. As a sex therapist who supports couples with mismatched libidos, I recommend a more holistic approach. Here are a few key ways to support a partner dealing with a low libido that's causing them distress:

It's really important to know that the person dealing with desire difficulties is probably judging themselves. They may think that something is wrong with them or that they're "broken" in some way. So the partner who has the relatively higher desire needs to be kind and sensitive. All couples should approach their sex lives as a project that they work on together. They should talk about what they each need out of their sex lives to feel connected.

Oftentimes, the partner with seemingly lower desire is misunderstood. It's not that they have low or no desire; it's that the right circumstances haven't been in place for their desire to be able to show itself. Approach your partner with curiosity. What kinds of contexts do they need to feel desire? What blockages get in the way of them feeling desire? If you don't know, what dynamics could you experiment with?

The pattern I typically see is that the partner with the higher sex drive will stop initiating. They're either hurt from being turned down, wanting to feel desired by their partner, or wanting to not pressure their partner. But not initiating feels even more stifling, so the partner with the relatively higher desire starts to feel resentful. The partner with the lower desire can sense that resentment, and it makes them pull away even more.

We have to be really careful about the word "responsible." You never have to do anything with your own body that you don't want to do. You never "owe" your partner anything. That being said, in relationships, we often do things for our partners that we don't necessarily want to do or love doing. If you feel fully allowed within your relationship to say "no" to sex, you may find that you sometimes have the space to be open to being intimate with your partner, even if you weren't originally in the mood.

As I mentioned above, if you give full permission to say no to sex, you'll find that more space actually opens up for intimacy. One of the best ways to support a partner with a lower sex drive is to truly and fully give them permission to say no. Keep reminding them over and over again that you don't want them to feel guilty, and you don't want them to feel any pressure. If you take the teamwork approach to your sex life that I mentioned above, that also really helps. You take the energy you would normally waste feeling guilty and instead turn it toward creative problem-solving, together.

Creating an environment of safety, support, and curiosity—rather than pressure, stress, or resentment—will go a long way toward helping you and your partner develop a mutually satisfying sex life.