To preface:
- This is a throwaway account for obvious reasons
- I will try to keep my wording as clinical as I can. If something comes across as needlessly crass, I don't mean for it to
I'm mainly looking for perspectives/thoughts on my situation from married people (both men and women), but anyone's opinions/advice are more than welcome.
My wife and I are both young 20s and have been together just over 2 years, married for 6 months.
My sex drive is very high, whereas she could go months without sex and be completely fine with it. In spite of that, when we do have sex my wife enjoys it as much as I do. I just happen to want to have sex a lot more often than she does. Because of this, I masturbate fairly frequently. She is okay with this, provided I am not watching pornographic material of any kind. Obviously, that is totally fine with me because I made a commitment to quit when we started dating and have stuck to it since. I have a hidden folder in my phone of plenty of pictures and videos of the two of us together so I am never short on things to look at. Also worth noting that any toys we own/use during sex are 100% because I bought them. She likes using vibrators, but has not (and probably will never) shown any interest in seeking one out herself. It is frequently apparent to me that sex is largely a chore or that it is something to "get over with so we can go to sleep".
Part of the problem is the sex itself, though. she only ever wants to do plain vanilla missionary, usually with a vibrator. She is not interested whatsoever in any other kind of position, which honestly really bums me out. It's hard to not sound bad when I ask about other positions, because missionary obviously still feels great. I think my main hangup is that I want some kind of variety instead of the same exact thing every single time. For example, I enjoy doggy quite a bit. For a while when we first got together, we did it all the time. In recent months however, I practically have to beg to. I don't push when she turns it down, but it really gets me down when she doesn't want to. She says it's because I'm too rough whenever we do that, but still doesn't want to try it even if I promise not to be rough with her. She does not like to be on top (facing me or facing away) because she says it hurts her hips. She also does not care for 69. Unless I'm forgetting any commonly-used positions, that only leaves missionary.
She is very much a "pillow princess", so she's perfectly happy with letting me give her exclusive attention with a vibrator/my fingers. A shift I have noticed in the last 6 months or so is that she does not like to let me please her orally - which is something I used to do all the time. She thoroughly enjoyed it during the early days of our relationship and now it's like pulling teeth to get her to let me. Her reasoning for not wanting to is very back and forth - if she hasn't showered on a given day, she'll say she doesn't want me to do it because she "smells bad down there". So I think, okay no problem, next time I'll just ask on a day when we've both showered before bed. Then a few days later, the post-shower bedtime rolls around and now she doesn't want me to do it because "I just showered and your spit will make me smell bad down there". Nowadays, the times I actually do get the green light for oral are very few and far between and again, I have to practically beg for her to say yes. This is something that completely mystifies me. What woman would turn down oral sex with no expectation of reciprocation? I get not having it in you to have wild rowdy sex all the time (which to be clear, is not what I expect of her), but all she has to do for oral is lie there.
On the topic of oral, I happen to thoroughly enjoy receiving it. I believe she has given me oral 3 times ever. Maybe that number isn't exactly correct, but it's definitely <10. She says she doesn't like doing it because she's "not good at it", but also does not seem to show a desire to practice whatsoever. I suspect it is also simply because she finds it boring and it not getting anything in return. Which, if that is true, I don't understand at all. I find it incredibly arousing to be able to please her, even with no reciprocation and it honestly hurts my feelings sometimes when she shows zero interest in doing for me what I would do (and have done many times) for her in a heartbeat. She used to occasionally masturbate me with her hand, which was great while it lasted. However, it's been upwards of a year since she's agreed to do that in spite of my efforts to ask her for it every couple months or so.
I've tried to talk it out with her somewhat, but any "grievances" or anything of the like that I bring up are not received very well, no matter how lovingly or delicately I put them. It usually ends with either her feeling bad about herself for not "meeting expectations" (her words - I 100% do not impose a sex quota, figurative or literal) OR she gets annoyed, for the same reason.
It feels like I can't bring up that I want more variety without feeling like I'm made out to be the problem or that I'm some kind of sex-obsessed person. I'm not obsessed by any stretch of the word, but it is part of our marriage that is very important to me. I wholly understand that sex is not the only thing marriage is all about, but I also don't want a quasi-dead bedroom so early on in our marriage. I would suggest going to some kind of marriage counseling/therapy about this, but I get the impression that it's not a big enough deal to her to want to "fix" this issue. Plus, bringing up possibly going to said counseling would also provide an opportunity for her to remind me that "not everything in marriage is about sex" (also her words).
She has told me she sometimes has sex with me just to please me and make me happy, which honestly really takes the wind out of my sails. The point that I am unable to get across to her for some reason is that I want her to WANT sex with me. If I ask if she would like to have sex and she only agrees only to keep me happy or please me, I'd rather just wait to have sex until she actually wants to. I don't like feeling like she's making sexual concessions to me only because I want them. Additionally, she frequently makes mentions of having sex "tonight when we get home from work" or whatever the case is and then "forgets" and falls asleep early, or just scrolls on her phone until she's too tired to do anything. To be clear, the scrolling on her phone in and of itself is not a huge deal to me because I do the same thing. Just not when we've already made big plans for the evening.
If you think I really am the problem, by all means, tell me. I want any and all possible perspectives on this. I'm just reaching a breaking point and haven't had the chance to consult an unbiased third party.
Sorry for the long winded post. Just had a lot to get off my chest.
TL;DR My young 20s wife wants virtually nothing to do with sex unless it is plain PiV missionary and I don't know what to do about it