I’m writing something I never imagined writing in my wildest dreams.
When I married my wife 11 years ago, I was over the moon and fully committed.
Now I feel like I’m living in an alternate universe, and even though I still love my wife, I have to admit the ugly truth:
My wife is boring in bed. My wife is very boring in bed.
We’re talking nightmare-level boring to the point where I’ve questioned my own sanity.
How did this happen?
When I got married to my wife, I was completely in love, and I still am.
My friends were jealous, she was so beautiful and our connection was undeniable.
Our communication and a shared sense of humor made being with her a pleasure, despite the stresses of adjusting to new jobs and getting to know each other’s personalities on a deeper level.
I had a feeling from the start, however, that there was something a bit “off” about the sex.
We didn’t have sex right away in our dating life, but after engagement and marriage is when I began to notice the problem.
I had only slept with two women before my wife and I couldn’t help but compare the experience.
Despite the fact that I couldn’t stop looking into her beautiful blue eyes, our times making love were so awkward, forgettable, and…weird. It wasn’t just the atmosphere that was off; the actual physical act felt so mismatched, un-intimate, and unwanted.
But I admit I pushed down this thought. I was raised with a somewhat Puritan view of sex by my parents, and even though I’ve opened up a bit since my younger years, I was of the mind that since I loved my wife, the lack of excitement in the bedroom was not something I should focus on.
What was I, some insecure frat bro who wanted my wife to be a nympho in bed? I basically gaslighted myself into thinking that my concerns were unwarranted or would just work themselves out.
Still…her views on sex made my Puritan upbringing look like Woodstock.
The more I heard, the more I had a feeling inside that something about her attitude and beliefs really wasn’t healthy…
I told myself it was a phase, or just her warming up to me from a past trauma she wasn’t yet ready to talk about.
I told myself that our lack of enjoyment of having sex was no big deal.
A decade later, I’m here to tell you: it’s definitely a big deal.
Such a big deal that I’m thinking of leaving her if something doesn’t change.
I respect and love her too much to cheat, but I can’t keep climbing into bed every night and trying to make love to a human ironing board.
This just isn’t working for me anymore.
12 key things to do if your wife is boring in bed
Here’s my list of 13 things to do if sex with your wife isn’t floating your boat. I’m currently trying all of them at once.
Like I said, my marriage is on life support.
Here we go…
1) Stop hitting the replay button
My sex life with my wife has become like watching old reruns of F.R.I.E.N.D.S forever. Without stopping.
And with the laugh tracks echoing in my head like demonic shrieks…
As you might have guessed I’m not a huge fan of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Never have been.
My wife loves it, though.
Let me translate: my wife has an idea of sex which is very narrow, very boring and very depressing.
It involves her lying on her back, clinically removing her sensible cream-colored panties and then letting me know when I can “proceed” to the deed.
Then a week later, always on Saturday afternoon, we repeat the same procedure.
I always loved going to the aquarium as a kid, but I have to admit that her impression of a human starfish has started to completely bore me!
Do I sound like a misogynist? I swear I’m not, I’m just a really sexually frustrated man locked in a sex-starved marriage!
The experts agree with me, too…
“One of the big reasons that it may not feel super exciting, though, is because we tend to do the same things each time, or we hold ourselves back.
“Sex becomes stupendous when you stop holding yourself back and you jump in with both feet–and any other body parts you want,” advises Thriving Marriages.
I wish I could convince my wife of this!
2) Stop bingeing on hardcore internet porn
I’m starting off this list with a more critical look at myself and male behavior, because I don’t want to seem like too much of an egocentric guy.
The truth is that I’m not exactly an online virgin.
I’ve browsed enough porn tube sites to give somebody a seizure and it’s reached the point where I did wonder if I have a real addiction.
I know that porn addiction is often scoffed at as a bogeyman of the religious right, but there’s an increasing amount of hard science backing up the possibility that high-speed internet porn is also dangerous.
My wife has her sexual issues for sure, which I joked about in the last post (with a big grain of truth) but I can’t hold myself fully innocent.
My days overdosing on Brazzers and Bang Bros are far from guiltless in my own lackluster sexual performance.
All those oiled bodies and perfect camera angles were my medication for my wife’s low sex drive for so many years now.
But deep down they’re nowhere near the same as having sex with someone you’re really attracted to and fully enjoying the moment.
Porn is a cheap substitute for love. I know that over-consuming it has made my libido decrease with my wife and also fed into some unrealistic expectations about her body.
For that reason, I’m currently on a two-month porn detox.
Wish me luck.
3) Encourage her to explore her wild side
When your wife is repressed and unhappy in her life this will reflect on all the areas of her life.
Whatever is bothering her or not satisfying her, this will emerge in the bedroom between the two of you.
The best way to encourage her to explore her wild side is to talk more about what’s on your wild side.
Are you a little into BDSM but have always been afraid to tell your wife about it?
Go ahead and tell her.
What about the fact that you’ve always wanted to try roleplaying but held back because you knew it would throw your better half for a loop.
Well, go ahead and say it.
“All men love a girl who is adventurous.
“Relationships are hard, and half the time, the spark fades, therefore, you need a woman who is willing to take chances with you, in and out of the bedroom,” writes Humphrey Bwayo.
He’s right.
Once I opened up to my wife about my love of spanking and JOI (jerk off instruction) our sex life definitely got more interesting. Because she then opened up to me that I “needed help.”
4) Start communicating sexually with her
Tina Fey explains that one of the most common reasons couples get bored with their sex life is a lack of communication.
Much of modern society still has a pretty closed-off view of sex and that can have a really heavy impact on couples.
No matter how “open minded” or sexually comfortable you are, once it gets to talking about what actually turns you on with someone you love it gets a little bit trickier.
You need to really be brave and be OK opening up about what you like even if you feel like your spouse might find it odd or disapprove.
The act of being honest and vulnerable itself will help you make strides toward increasing your intimacy.
In the last point, I explained about my experiences opening up to my wife and how it didn’t go quite as planned.
But if you want things to get better in bed you’re going to need to talk it through.
My wife hates talking about sex and basically thinks it’s a task like getting an oil change at Jiffy Lube.
By the time I figured out that this wasn’t just youthful innocence and was actually her permanent underlying attitude it was too late.
Don’t be me.
5) Help her stop overthinking everything
One of the things my wife does is overthink everything.
There are some people, and my wife is one of them, who think sex should always be a respectful and “classy” affair.
The idea of getting down and dirty in any way really offends and creeps her out, and that feeling of shame has left me feeling pretty turned off.
Like Tom Miller writes about this type of person, “you firmly think that boning music should be a cappella or, barring that, have an important and subtle political message.”
But the truth is that sometimes you just want to grab your gorgeous wife and ravish her on the coach when you get home before you’ve even had time to take your shoes off.
Once you and your wife cut out the overthinking and get more spontaneous, your sex life is bound to improve majorly.
One thing I have found extremely helpful is breathwork.
I’ve never been a very “alternative” guy, but the idea of this really appealed to me because it makes a lot of sense.
I highly recommend watching this free breathwork video, created by the shaman, Rudá Iandê.
Rudá isn’t another self-professed life coach. Through shamanism and his own life journey, he’s created a modern-day twist to ancient healing techniques.
The exercises in his invigorating video combine years of breathwork experience and ancient shamanic beliefs, designed to help you relax and check in with your body and soul.
It’s an immediate antidote to overthinking.
After many years of suppressing my emotions and watching my wife bury hers under work and professionalism, Rudá’s dynamic breathwork flow quite literally revived that connection and has helped us start slowly improving in the bedroom.
And that’s what you need:
A spark to reconnect you with your feelings so that you can begin focusing on the most important relationship of all – the one you have with yourself.
So if you’re ready to take back control over your mind, body, and soul, if you’re ready to say goodbye to anxiety and stress, check out his genuine advice below.
Here’s a link to the free video again.
6) Explore your wife’s real core beliefs about sex and intimacy
Like I said, I noticed something was “off” with my wife’s bedroom behavior pretty near the beginning, but I wrote it off or dismissed my concerns.
I loved her and knew I wanted a life with her, so I pushed down my concerns that she was guilt-ridden, awkward and unenthusiastic about sex.
I figured it would get better or we could “deal with it” further down the road.
Well, now I’m talking to you from further down the road and I can tell you that these are not the kind of things you should put off.
I’ve been exploring my wife’s real core beliefs about sex and intimacy with her and by understanding more about her upbringing, and it’s been a real eye-opener.
She was never abused or anything like that, but she was raised with three brothers and a very strict father who made her feel ashamed of her femininity.
She began to believe that being a girl was “wrong” or bad somehow, and that she should be more like the typical idea of a boy that was around her.
This led into awkward teenage years, trauma over menstruation and an encroaching attitude that her sexuality as a woman was somehow bad or shameful, especially after her dad scolded her for dressing too sexy when she went to middle school.
As we uncovered these feelings and experiences we really began to work through some of these emotions, although they’re very deeply set.
7) Start paying more attention to your wife’s desires
Advising a man about the sexual frustrations with his new wife, advice columnist Pamela Connolly explains that the biggest issue is often that men don’t pay attention to their wife’s desires.
“Take her off the pedestal, forget trying to teach her techniques that excite you, and instead start finding out how to genuinely arouse her,” Connolly writes.
“For a while, focus entirely on giving her pleasure, gently and patiently learning how her body works and seeking constant feedback from her.”
In my own wife’s case, I’ve been able to find out that under that ashamed exterior there’s definitely a real woman.
I’ve seen hints of her desires but we’re still waiting for her to feel more comfortable.
I definitely enjoyed ordering lingerie with her online and helping her open up about what turns her on most in me.
It turns out that it’s not so much that she doesn’t care about sex with me as that she feels she has to do it “right” and not too enthusiastically, because doing so would somehow make her bad.
It really pisses me off when people shame women about their sexuality, I swear…
8) Stop letting your wife control you and sap your personal power
My wife is boring in bed and makes me not want to have sex with her. I mostly do it out of the vain hope that we’ll miraculously strike the chord one of these days.
That really sucks.
But one of the worst things about this situation is that I’ve let it sap my personal power.
Like I’ve said, I’m sympathetic to my wife’s issues and trying my best to understand her and communicate with her.
But at the same time, her problems are not all my responsibility.
For years I blamed myself for her lack of interest in sex, shamed myself for thoughts of cheating and even started wondering if I was somehow not good enough in the sack for her to get into it.
These self-defeating and irrational thoughts became like a paranoid delusion.
Now I just plain admit the truth.
And the truth is that my wife isn’t very sexually generous and that, in addition to her issues, she is a bit of a whiner in bed.
Being honest with myself about this instead of blaming myself has honestly been a big step forward.
This poor husband’s sex life is like a page out of my diary:
“If I take longer than 5 minutes to orgasm she starts getting annoyed. After years of this I am now conditioned to go earlier than 5 minutes because I want to avoid that.
“She likes how it feels but she says she starts getting uncomfortable.
“I ask if she wants to switch positions, and she says no…she says doggy style is slutty and her on top makes her boobs jiggle too much.”
9) Figure out why life has snuffed out your spark
Life can get all of us down.
And when it gets too much, that sadness and lack of energy can transfer right over into the bedroom.
I used to think my wife and I’s situation was unique in this regard, and to be sure we have some of our own unique issues, but finding out how common these kinds of problems are actually made me feel less alone.
There are so many married and unmarried couples out there who are struggling with an unfulfilling sex life.
I want to tell you not to give up if your wife is boring in bed.
I love how Deirde Sanders tackles this subject when she writes that “sex used to be exciting, so think back to when it changed and what was going on for your wife then.
If you can see why it changed, it will be easier to put it right.”
10) Check if your wife is having physical or mental health issues
When I read this post from BigPops it broke my heart. The reason it got me emotional is that I can relate to it so much!
“My wife has no spontaneity, she lacks any sex drive, and when I do beg for it, she will typically give in every other week.
“When we are together, it’s the same ol’ place, the same ol’ time and the same ol’ routine.
“When we are together she doesn’t say anything, she doesn’t move, she does not show any interest as to why she is even with me.”
Is BigPops my alter ego or something? He’s literally describing my sex life.
The thing is that in addition to the issues she had growing up around expressing her sexuality, my wife also opened up that she’s been suffering from depression.
I hadn’t even realized she’s been taking medication for over six months now until she told me.
If your wife is boring in bed it’s important to check if she’s having mental health or physical issues, because sometimes it’s really not about you…
11) Try to slowly spice things up
What can you do to spice things up in a marriage? A lot of people come to this question when they are in a rut or not feeling all that loved.
You can try to spice things up with little things, such as trying a warming lube, soft restraints, or some other things that may interest her.
12) Focus on her looks and have patience
My wife and I are still working on trying to spice things up. I still find her extremely attractive, but her issues around sexuality and intimacy combined with my years of frustration aren’t going to be solved overnight.
Nonetheless, I retain hope that we can keep working on things and make this marriage work.
I never used to think sex was all that important, but now I can see that it’s crystallization and reflection of everything else in the relationship.
Final thoughts
Hopefully, by now you’ve got a better idea of the things you can do if your wife is boring in bed. If you really want to spice up your sex life, pick the ones you feel most comfortable with and take action.
Your sex life is not going to change overnight, just as mine hasn’t or anyone else’s. You and your wife both will have to put some serious work into this.
Saving the relationship when you’re the only one trying is tough but it doesn’t always mean your relationship should be scrapped.
Because if you still love your spouse, what you really need is a plan of attack to mend your marriage.
Many things can slowly infect a marriage – distance, lack of communication, and sexual issues. If not dealt with correctly, these problems can shift into infidelity and disconnectedness.
Fortunately, relationship expert and divorce coach Brad Browning knows exactly what it takes to save a failing marriage.
Brad is the real deal when it comes to saving marriages. He is a best-selling author and shares valuable marriage advice on his extremely popular YouTube channel.
The strategies Brad reveals are extremely powerful and might make the difference between a “happy marriage” and an “unhappy divorce”.
So, if you want to give your marriage another chance, watch his simple and genuine video here.
