8 Possible Reasons Your Husband Doesn’t Want Sex Like He Used To

Life can get hectic, and as a result, sex can be put on the back burner. Especially if you have kids, it might not be top of mind for him to come home from work and initiate sex right away.

“When you come home at the end of the day and you’ve worked all day, you’re either going to sit down and watch TV or go to sleep, or you could somehow have sex,” says Pizzulli. “Sometimes, sleep is more preferable.”

The key here is normalizing the fact that your priorities are bound to change throughout the course of your lifetimes. “This is not something catastrophic for your relationship,” says Pizzulli. “The frequency of sex and the priority of sex changes and ebbs and flows through the life cycle for both men and women.”

Just like women, as men age, their risk for certain health conditions rises—including erectile dysfunction (ED) and prostate cancer, both of which can have a serious impact on your sex life.

“ED leads some men to avoid sex altogether,” says Alyssa Dweck, M.D., a New York-based gynecologist and author of The Complete A to Z for Your V. And when it comes to prostate cancer, surgery might be a requirement, which could result in shifting your definition of sex.

“The very first thing we have to understand is that sex is not just penetrative sex,” says Pizzulli. “Sex is not just intercourse. Sex is a lot of things, and it’s anything intended for one’s arousal. So yeah, you’re going to have to adjust things, but intimacy comes in many forms.”

So when your partner gets a diagnosis that could impact your sex life, make sure they’re getting the medical attention they need and provide support. “Anyone can help their partner by showing up as much as possible and taking an active interest in their loved one’s medical problem,” says Christine Milrod, Ph.D., a sex therapist and researcher in Los Angeles.

If you’ve been in a relationship for 30, 20, 10, or even 5 years, things can start to become familiar. You’ve gotten into a routine at this point, and that comfort (which is great in some ways) is decidedly not great for your sex life.

“Familiarity creates a platonicness in the relationship,” says Pizzulli. “There’s a sexless marriage when you start to get into a situation where you’re really just best friends, and the eroticness has kind of dropped off in the relationship.” Chances are, folding laundry and washing the dishes together—although possibly bettering the friendship within the couple—is probably not peaking arousal for either of you. “If time together is primarily spent watching TV, taking care of household biz, etc., there is nothing to arouse you there,” says Brandy Engler, Psy.D, a Los Angeles-based psychologist specializing in relationships and sexuality and author of The Men on My Couch. “Men generally don’t walk around aroused; they need stimulation.”

Over the course of any relationship, there are going to be times that are significantly more stressful than others. Two big causes of that stress? Work and money. “Being fired is a definite romance killer,” says Milrod. “Anxiety is sky high.”

It’s common for couples to get in arguments over money or job security, but those little arguments can add up over time to the point where they eventually affect desire.

“You can actually bicker your sex life to death,” says Milrod. “Men, just like women, will withdraw both emotionally and physically, since every jab creates a mental ‘wound’ that takes longer and longer to heal.”

Believe it or not, some men just aren’t that sexual, or they aren’t confident in leading the way—especially if you’re typically the one who does. “That just might not be part of his erotic blueprint,” says Pizzulli.

This could be true even if he was initiating regularly when you were dating or even early on in the marriage. Some men feel more comfortable initiating early on because it’s “the social norm for men to initiate all things sex,” Pizzulli adds.

It’s totally normal for a man’s sex drive to simply decrease over time. “Many of my male clients are reporting lower sex drives in general,” says Engler. This could be the result of various factors, like mental health or testosterone levels decreasing from environmental factors.

“These guys are usually less interested in intercourse but may still appreciate sensuality or even giving pleasure to their partner,” adds Engler.

In that same vein, medications, particularly anti-depressants, can cause major shifts in libido, says Tatiana Rivera, L.I.C.S.W., a clinical and social work therapist with ADHDAdvisor.org. Research shows that selective serotonin uptake inhibitors (SSRI) specifically increase chances of erectile dysfunction, and it sometimes persists in those who discontinue the medication.

Especially if you and your husband have been together for a long time, it’s normal for age-related changes to throw off his game—even if he’s not vocal about them. He may be ashamed to bring up newfound insecurities, so he avoids intimacy altogether, Rivera says.