Dear Neil: I am in a long-term mostly happy marriage with my husband of 17 years, but there is no sexual juice at all between us. In virtually every other respect our relationship is wonderful: we love and care about each other, we are financially doing OK, we ‘re good parents together, we’re very compatible, […]
Dear Neil: Given that you are a marriage and family therapist, I am surprised that you seem to know so little about post-menopausal women. Western post-menopausal women—due to stressful lives, bad diet and lack of exercise—end up with endocrine degeneration, which in turn leads to a significant loss of sexual urge. Foreplay doesn’t work, and […]
Dear Neil: My wife of 25 years and I are both in our late fifties. We once had great emotional and physical intimacy, but now her desire for sex is non-existent. She constantly repels my advances—to such a degree that we now sleep in separate bedrooms. I find myself getting short-tempered, irritable and grumpy, which […]
Dear Neil: Your article about a woman’s loss of libido published in October suggested that testosterone treatment is the answer for reduced libido in women. Unfortunately testosterone is not available in New Zealand, and doctors cannot prescribe it. Could you raise this in your column in an effort to reverse the situation? Stymied in Wellington, […]
Note: This is the second of a two-part series. We all know that men have one-track minds. That lots of women are fearful of being too affectionate with their man for fear that he will interpret that affection as a sexual invitation. We all know that men desire as much sex as they can get, […]
Dear Neil: I am a 68 year-young woman, married for one year after being widowed for many years. We are very active sexually, but the only issue we have is that my husband can’t reach orgasm. The desire and excitement is present, but the body seems unwilling to cooperate. He is 70. He seems blocked […]
Dear Neil: I understand that being in a relationship often involves doing things for the other person that you may not particularly like. Examples are things like dishes that someone else dirties, giving a massage when you’re tired, spending Christmas with the mother-in-law, etc. I also understand that this extends to sex, even if you’re […]
Dear Neil: I am a 38 year-old married mother of two, and I have an issue with the total loss of my sexual desire. We have a good marriage. I love my husband dearly and I am very attracted to him. I don’t know what is wrong with me. I have no desire to have […]
Dear Neil: Five years ago, when husband’s ADHD/bi-polar son started acting out, I was so exhausted after working all day and then dealing with his son that I had no desire for lovemaking. After about a year and a half without intimacy, one night was all it took and I became pregnant. The pregnancy lasted […]
Dear Neil: I’ve been in an on-and-off again relationship with a man I have two children with. I love him dearly and I want to be with him. But he wants to leave in order to determine what he really wants from our relationship and how he feels about me. He’s having a hard time […]