Loving Myself

Among my many "reasons" for my low libido, the one that did the most damage to me mentally was my insecurity. I didn't want to put myself out there in vulnerable positions, or try advanced techniques, or anything like it because what if I was terrible at them? What if my husband, a regular viewer of pornography at this point, "discovered" how flawed my body is? How my thighs squish out when I'm on top of him, or how many rolls my abdomen has while in doggie style, how my vulva looks in a lit room. What if he realizes just how unappealing I actually am?

As you can see, I was in a terrible place. No one should have these concerns with some one they are intimate with, and especially in a long term committed relationship. Maybe a fleeting thought occasionally. But constant worry, to the point where I don't experiment in bed or do much more than missionary? Debilitating. And it was, of course.

Now, pornography is not evil, or even harmful in most cases. Like anything, it can be abused. How it affected me is not the fault of porn itself. But only recently have I realized that I had all these expectations from what I saw in manufactured porn. I thought that I had to have a flat tummy, giant breasts, tight thighs and a round butt, minimal labia, no blemishes or body hair, and always dressed sexy and made up. I have very few of these, actually. So I must be super ugly and unattractive, right? I thought so. I didn't come right out and think thoughts like "If I don't even get into weird sexual positions, he won't see how fat I actually am", but the theme was me avoiding contorting my body much in order to avoid that very thing.

As far as sexual skill, we began dating as virgins. We were both inexperienced, of course, but due to my false expectations from porn and other media I thought that I was supposed to be able to deepthroat his penis until I gag, but still not vomit. I wasn't confident that I wouldn't vomit, so I didn't try this many times. I am supposed to hover inches above his body while  gyrating on his cock. I tried a couple times, and squatting for longer than a couple minutes is fucking exhausting if you are not used to it.

Of course, porn is not meant to be realistic. It's like action movies. But I was so far and away what I had seen in crazy iterations that I still felt I was just awful. So I tried to hide it. If I didn't put myself out there, it wouldn't be obvious how terrible I was at sex.

So how to fix insecurity? For a long time I relied upon others to feel good about myself. Working hard on projects, gaining compliments in some form or another, whatever. But it turns out this doesn't work. It might feel good to get a little boost of confidence from recognition, but nothing will make you finally start to love yourself, EXCEPT changing your own thoughts. Not an easy feat, but completely worthwhile. This is an ongoing project for myself, and many others out there. Here are the steps I have been taking, in order to finally appreciate myself. Some of these might seem silly and repetitive, but it will take a LOT of work to undo years of self-defeating thoughts.

I did a bit of research, because it felt like these steps were intended for a younger audience. I'm an adult, dammit! But in reality, everyone reiterates essentially the same things:

Steps to Improve Self Esteem

1) Positive Self-Talk

2) Don't compare yourself to others

3) Exercise

4) Don't strive for perfection

5) Don't beat yourself up when you make a mistake

6) Focus on the things you can change

7) Do things that you enjoy

8) Celebrate the small stuff

9) Be helpful and considerate

10) Surround yourself with supportive people

Positive Self-Talk

 The first step is definitely the hardest, to me. It means, inside your head, instead of pointing out flaws, you point out features. Don't focus on your muffin top or new pimple, focus on how awesome your hair looks today or your cute shoes. I find that I have a LOT of instances of negative self-talk internally. When I have a particular thing I am self-conscious about, I type it out in the third person. 

"She is worried that her husband finds that woman more attractive than her."

Then I type a reply, as I would if I were consoling a close friend.

"Your husband's attraction to you is not comparable to anyone else. That woman may be beautiful, but you are so much more to your husband. You love him, take care of him, sleep next to him. All of these factor in to his attraction, and no other woman could possibly compare to that. If your husband wasn't sexually attracted to you, he wouldn't have spent 20 minutes going down on you last night."

I try to really dig in deep and get specific. Graphic, if need be. 

Don't Compare Yourself to Others

This is another tough one. There are so many people to compare yourself to. Everyone will be better than you at something. Maybe even many things. It doesn't matter. I find myself comparing my performance as a parent, wife, lover, general human being. I have to actively fight these. 

Obviously, it is good to improve yourself. You shouldn't settle just because some one else is better at it. But, improve yourself because you deserve to be better. I am not losing weight in order to be fitter than my neighbors, I'm losing weight to be a healthier version of myself. I am not finding more variety in preschool activities to be a better mom than my friend, I am doing it because my child deserves it. The point is, do good things for you and your family; not because some one else is "winning" at it. 

Exercise

Exercise is good for you. There's no question about it. Whether you want to build muscle or not, it is good for you to get moving. 

Don't Strive for Perfection

This one goes along with #2. Don't put so much pressure on yourself to be absolutely perfect, because it's counterproductive. If you set yourself up to fail, then when you inevitably do you will feel worse. If you are trying to improve on something, go through the SMART goal process. 

Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-focused, and Time-bound.

This will give you direction, and a reasonable process to achieve you goals. The third part, Achievable, is the focus here. Is it realistic? Only you can know for sure.

Don't Beat Yourself Up When You Make a Mistake

Mistakes happen, they are the best way to learn. When it happens, take a breath, figure out where you went wrong, accept responsibility, and move on.

Focus on the Things You Can Change

Forget about how you will never have a cute little button nose; or giant, natural breasts; or longer legs. You cannot change those things, so relax. You can change how adept you are at programming, how much muscle you build at the gym, and what foods you put into your body. There is no point in dwelling on what you CANNOT change, it's just making you miserable.

Do Things That You Enjoy

I find it tough to think that I deserve time relaxing. If I have free time, I usually fill it with laundry-folding, sweeping, or at least doing research on new activities to get my child to practice writing. As a result, I have been burnt-out numerous times. I deserve to enjoy my time too, not just feel obligated to clean up and make myself useful. Figure out how you like to spend your time, and enjoy it!

Celebrate Small Stuff

Every small victory is still a step in the right direction. I planned the meals for the next week, now we won't waste so much money going out so often! Or, It's sunny outside! Anything. Just point out the good. 

Be Helpful and Considerate

When you do things for others, you get a little boost of feel-good hormones. Try it out, and it'll get you going in the right direction. Plus you can feel good because it proves that you are a good person.

Surround Yourself with Supportive People

If you have a bunch of negative people around all the time, you will just practice being negative. The people surrounding you have the biggest affect on you, outside of your own head. 

Our Differences in Libido

When partners have different desires in frequency for sex, it can cause a lot of strife and discontent. The partner with the higher libido will often come away feeling rejected after being turned down for sex. The partner with the lower libido will often feel pressured to have sex, which can worsen the already-low libido. Nothing sexy about feeling pressured!

As the partner with the previously low libido, I will mostly discuss my own personal experiences.

This being my very first (and only) sexual relationship, my confidence in the bedroom was nonexistent. Couple that with feeling self-conscious about having squishy thighs and a belly, I did not want to be in positions that showed off how un-fit I was. I somehow managed to get this guy, who was physically out of my league, to be my boyfriend. I didn't want him to see how ugly I (thought I) was.

I was especially embarrassed about my vulva. I had grown up looking at a lot of porn, mostly out of curiosity. None of the women in these pictures or videos seemed to have visible labia. I thought I was disfigured and ugly, in one of the most vulnerable areas. On a number of occasions I researched average costs of labiaplasty and made future plans to save up and have it done in future years.

So, lingerie to cover up various areas on my body and lame repetitive positions to avoid being "seen".

On top of these, which were present from the beginning, after we started having sex, (and due mostly to repetition and inexperience), I thought sex was fun, but nothing to write home about. When I climaxed, it was alright, but not earth-shattering. I was bored with our limitations, but thought that I just didn't like sex all that much.

Through the years, other factors came in as well. Birth control was an early factor. Hormonal birth control can really mess with your libido. Getting pregnant, then breastfeeding, and raising very young children did a huge number on my own sexuality. I didn't even masturbate any more. I didn't feel like a sexual being, just a mother and a housekeeper.

Because I didn't want to have sex often, I didn't want to lead my husband on with lots of kissing and flirting. So the more innocuous forms of affection ceased as well. We were becoming roommates who raised children together.

My husband was feeling less attractive, less important, and less connected to me emotionally, and shut that down. He supplemented his libido with porn.

I felt used up and unimportant, like all of my sacrifices for the family were meaningless if I wouldn't put out. I just suffered alone.

Our communication skills were really weak, and we are still working on that. But, instead of expressing our feelings in a meaningful manner, and trying to work together as a team to fix our problems, it became me versus him. I wanted to feel emotionally close to him, and like an equally important member of the parenting team. He wanted to feel physically intimate, and like he was being considered important as well. We were really fighting for the same thing: to connect on a deeper level, and to truly hear and care about each other's problems.

In a partnership, you have to become a team. Any issue that one partner is facing becomes an issue that both partners are taking on together. 

If this does not happen, then you get to places of disconnect. "Well HE just wants to have sex". "SHE won't be intimate with me enough!" etc etc. Any issue of a partner's is something to work to fix together. We didn't understand this, and we didn't truly listen to the meaning behind each other's words. We were too hurt and wrapped up in our own feelings. 

How to Kill Your Sex Life

One of the most often-touted skills that are necessary in all aspects of life; communication is ever-important in a marriage as well. Specifically, communication in regards to the bedroom. If my partner and I had practiced better communication throughout our relationship, we would not have such a deep hole of pain and hurt to dig ourselves out of now. We both made numerous mistakes in communicating our needs - our true feelings.

This started many years ago, slowly, after I began the birth control pill and we became complacent in the bedroom. We started dating as kids; both were virgins before getting together. As such, it's not altogether unusual that we had childish means of communication and absolutely no idea what we liked/wanted in terms of our sex life. It seemed my boyfriend wanted sex all the time in any way (stereotypical guy at this time) and I was extremely self conscious and lacking in ability.

That part is all on me, of course. No one else can convince me that I'm worth loving; that I am attractive and sexually appealing. I get it. But back in high school I didn't want to be very adventurous in the bedroom. Specifically, I didn't feel attractive or capable, and this led me to try and avoid many sexual positions. Oral sex (also a first for my boyfriend and I together) was never that great for me to receive. I grew up incredibly self conscious about having visible labia. The porn I saw growing up led me to believe I was abnormal, and I researched and planned to save up to get labiaplasty when I was older. Honestly, I am nearing thirty now and only just getting comfortable with my vulva. This embarrassment of my most basic sexual body part carried over through the whole experience.

Yep, due to my self-consciousness, and my partner's and my lack of experience, over the years our sex life essentially was missionary position, basically no foreplay, with the occasional crappy blow job and doggie style thrown in. It's no wonder we were unhappy, really. But we turned a blind eye, because relationships are more than "just sex", right? At this point, my husband and I had been married and gotten pregnant. Nothing like having a child to revamp the sex life! (sarcasm)

I didn't feel pleased with this crappy sex life but I wrongly blamed sex outright. My feelings seemed to be along the lines of "Sex isn't that great anyway, why add to it by working harder and feeling embarrassed in weird positions?". Totally off-base, and I didn't straight up say or think this sentence, but rather that was the overall sentiment.

Somewhere along the line we stopped doing things especially for each other. Little gifts, love notes, dates that involved any preparation to make it actually feel special. There was a growing emotional divide between us. Not to mention that I had to convince him to do housework of any sort. Laundry wouldn't make it into the hamper, but rather 3 feet away on the bathroom floor. That type of stuff is really aggravating - especially when both parties are working full time.

At this point we had our first baby, and I was freaking exhausted. Breastfeeding, having an infant cling to you all day long; those really REALLY can hinder even a very low libido. I had quit my job to raise our son. My entire day was doting on a needy infant, cleaning up the same crap without recognition, and then nothing ever to break up the monotony. Meanwhile, my husband regularly complained about us not having frequent-enough sex (we were down to about 1x per week at best), and us not doing enough things in the bedroom. It was boring, absolutely, and I didn't see the true importance of it at the time. I just thought he wanted to get off. Sex at that point, was nothing more than a means to an orgasm. So what was the big deal? I was raising his child, and trying to keep up the household, and I did not see him pulling his weight. I was touched-out, just wanted some freaking time to be an adult and think about myself for an hour. But he wanted to have sex.

I didn't feel emotionally connected to my husband. He shut down, didn't divulge his work stresses or personal feelings, or much at all to me. I now see that this is because he needs physical affection to be able to feel vulnerable emotionally. My side of the coin is that I need emotional affection and attention in order to feel vulnerable sexually.

Now, the reality about sex in relationships, is that it can bring you together emotionally as well as physically. Regular sex helps you associate those good hormones that show up after orgasms, with the person you are with who helped you get there. Not only that, but it is a way to show affection. Kisses, hugging, holding hands, massage, other things, and sex. 

I didn't understand that my husband wanted affection, physical love. I just thought he wanted to get off.

We had this conversation a number of times, actually. He would say the same stuff "More sex, more variety" and I would say "Why is sex all you care about? I'm a person, not a toy." and neither would step up in our areas of weakness for very long. Our harmful cycle continued, until it reached a breaking point: my husband said in no uncertain terms that we would end up divorcing if we continued to have such infrequent and uninteresting sex.

We fought about it. I said my piece about being neglected emotionally, and he countered with his side of being neglected physically. We both thought our unhappiness was more important. In any case, after an incredibly childish fight, we came to an agreement that we were both happy with.