Reverie
Active member
Weird libido things that I have been thinking about that are troubling me...
I've historically been a one-to-two times per week kind of gal, after a short, initial, NRE-fueled unlimited times per day stint that lasts for a couple weeks or months. This has been my pattern for most of my sexual life. But with my fiancé, Rider, I was coasting happily along at wanting it one to two times per day for the entire 18 months of our relationship so far—an almost always REALLY wanting it, craving it, getting turned on thinking about it, plotting kinky stuff kind of thing. It had become my new normal, and I was very pleased with it.
Then something happened. Recently, my libido has just crashed. I would suddenly almost always rather cuddle, sleep, or even roll around and kiss with no promise of more. I find myself pleased rather than disappointed when Rider is too tired at the end of the night and wants to go straight to sleep. And I do get into it if I start, for the most part, but I almost dread the starting. WTF?
I have a few possible factors, but I can't separate out which are involved because they all happened at the same time, about three or four weeks ago:
1. I started having sex with a new guy, Beckett (which has only happened three times, over two dates). I have a major crush on him, though I recognize he would make a poor long-term partner for me for a variety of reasons, and I have been experiencing NRE-type feelings despite my thing with him not being "a relationship." I'm just kind of taking it as it comes and enjoying the ride, short though I know it shall be.
2. I started being massively overworked with job stuff (working 12–14 hour days pretty often). This has made me kind of want to do NOTHING a lot of the time that I'm not working.
3. I had a weird 12-day menstrual period this past cycle that made me feel like my hormones were totally in flux. My libido is generally pretty responsive to my cycle, with a definite spike around ovulation usually.
I'm not sure if it is related to one of those things, or all of them, or some combination—or something else entirely. Complicating matters is that this started a couple of weeks ago—right before Rider and I just got engaged. I am still madly in love with him, and I don't want to fall into that stereotypical "add commitment, subtract sex" cliché. Honestly, I'd been planning the engagement since April, so I've been this committed that whole time, so it isn't that. But I believed nothing like this would ever happen because my sexual connection to Rider has been so strong and the sex was getting so much BETTER with time, not worse. It's just my suddenly low libido has me so confused.
I can't really help the work part—my schedule's going to be insane until mid-November—or the hormonal part, if it's mostly those. But if it's poly-related (i.e., tied to having a new occasional partner that I really like), maybe there is some strategy for that? Has anyone experienced that? I've been browsing around the archives here trying to see if there's something I can do, but I haven't found much.
It's not like sex with Beckett was so utterly mind-blowing that it diverted me from wanting to have sex with Rider or anyone else; it WAS really good, but even while I was in the middle of it, couldn't help but notice that it wasn't as phenomenal as what I'm used to—less reliable orgasms, for example. And it's not like I even know when I will see Beckett again at this point, so it's not replacing sexual occurrences with one with sexual occurrences with the other. But I do kind of still want sex with him more? Like, at the very least, I fantasize about making out with him. And when I remember having sex with him, my heart lurches in my chest. That heart-lurching feeling is very NRE-related for me.
Could it be that my libido is so tied to NRE that I actually WAS still in some form of NRE with Rider until Beckett came along, which blasted away the last of my Rider-NRE and killed my libido down to my pre-Rider one-to-two times per week? Can NRE with a new person destroy the remaining vestiges of NRE with an existing person? Even if the new situation is untenable and the existing one very happy and stable?
This is the first time I've had a mega-crush on someone while I've been with Rider, so I don't know what's normal for me in that situation yet. I definitely haven't lost sight of my love for Rider AT ALL, but my body is just being weird. I am also afraid to communicate to Rider about this as much as I do about most things because I don't want him to feel unwanted—especially if it turns out to be somehow related to getting a new partner. I feel like that would be unnecessarily hurtful.
I'd love it if people could weigh in and share their experiences / hypotheses / suggestions / etc. All I have done so far is to kind of try to wait it out. Is this a thing that happens? Do I need to see a doctor? Tweak something in my relating style? Just keep playing the wait and see game, since it's only been three weeks? Also, how much communicating should I do? I don't want to jump the gun and say something that hurts Rider if this is likely no big thing.
I've historically been a one-to-two times per week kind of gal, after a short, initial, NRE-fueled unlimited times per day stint that lasts for a couple weeks or months. This has been my pattern for most of my sexual life. But with my fiancé, Rider, I was coasting happily along at wanting it one to two times per day for the entire 18 months of our relationship so far—an almost always REALLY wanting it, craving it, getting turned on thinking about it, plotting kinky stuff kind of thing. It had become my new normal, and I was very pleased with it.
Then something happened. Recently, my libido has just crashed. I would suddenly almost always rather cuddle, sleep, or even roll around and kiss with no promise of more. I find myself pleased rather than disappointed when Rider is too tired at the end of the night and wants to go straight to sleep. And I do get into it if I start, for the most part, but I almost dread the starting. WTF?
I have a few possible factors, but I can't separate out which are involved because they all happened at the same time, about three or four weeks ago:
1. I started having sex with a new guy, Beckett (which has only happened three times, over two dates). I have a major crush on him, though I recognize he would make a poor long-term partner for me for a variety of reasons, and I have been experiencing NRE-type feelings despite my thing with him not being "a relationship." I'm just kind of taking it as it comes and enjoying the ride, short though I know it shall be.
2. I started being massively overworked with job stuff (working 12–14 hour days pretty often). This has made me kind of want to do NOTHING a lot of the time that I'm not working.
3. I had a weird 12-day menstrual period this past cycle that made me feel like my hormones were totally in flux. My libido is generally pretty responsive to my cycle, with a definite spike around ovulation usually.
I'm not sure if it is related to one of those things, or all of them, or some combination—or something else entirely. Complicating matters is that this started a couple of weeks ago—right before Rider and I just got engaged. I am still madly in love with him, and I don't want to fall into that stereotypical "add commitment, subtract sex" cliché. Honestly, I'd been planning the engagement since April, so I've been this committed that whole time, so it isn't that. But I believed nothing like this would ever happen because my sexual connection to Rider has been so strong and the sex was getting so much BETTER with time, not worse. It's just my suddenly low libido has me so confused.
I can't really help the work part—my schedule's going to be insane until mid-November—or the hormonal part, if it's mostly those. But if it's poly-related (i.e., tied to having a new occasional partner that I really like), maybe there is some strategy for that? Has anyone experienced that? I've been browsing around the archives here trying to see if there's something I can do, but I haven't found much.
It's not like sex with Beckett was so utterly mind-blowing that it diverted me from wanting to have sex with Rider or anyone else; it WAS really good, but even while I was in the middle of it, couldn't help but notice that it wasn't as phenomenal as what I'm used to—less reliable orgasms, for example. And it's not like I even know when I will see Beckett again at this point, so it's not replacing sexual occurrences with one with sexual occurrences with the other. But I do kind of still want sex with him more? Like, at the very least, I fantasize about making out with him. And when I remember having sex with him, my heart lurches in my chest. That heart-lurching feeling is very NRE-related for me.
Could it be that my libido is so tied to NRE that I actually WAS still in some form of NRE with Rider until Beckett came along, which blasted away the last of my Rider-NRE and killed my libido down to my pre-Rider one-to-two times per week? Can NRE with a new person destroy the remaining vestiges of NRE with an existing person? Even if the new situation is untenable and the existing one very happy and stable?
This is the first time I've had a mega-crush on someone while I've been with Rider, so I don't know what's normal for me in that situation yet. I definitely haven't lost sight of my love for Rider AT ALL, but my body is just being weird. I am also afraid to communicate to Rider about this as much as I do about most things because I don't want him to feel unwanted—especially if it turns out to be somehow related to getting a new partner. I feel like that would be unnecessarily hurtful.
I'd love it if people could weigh in and share their experiences / hypotheses / suggestions / etc. All I have done so far is to kind of try to wait it out. Is this a thing that happens? Do I need to see a doctor? Tweak something in my relating style? Just keep playing the wait and see game, since it's only been three weeks? Also, how much communicating should I do? I don't want to jump the gun and say something that hurts Rider if this is likely no big thing.
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