HEALTH MATTERS: How to create the right sexual mood for her

The right mood, therefore, remains the paramount determinant of whether your wife or girlfriend will draw close to you or not. PHOTO | FILE | NMG 

What you need to know:

  • The couple no longer treated each other in any special way, no sweet words, no gifts, no spending time together. They were drawing apart emotionally. The mood was gone.
  • It took three months of therapy to recreate the lost intimacy. And with additional sex coaching, the couple was back on the path to exciting romance.

"The truth is, I am just never in the mood for sex; I am unable to pretend and so John is very offended," said Sarah when I met her with her husband.

The couple was going through the most trying of times in their 10 years of marriage. They were having sex on average once a month.

"How sure can I be that she is not seeing someone else?" John asked looking at me straight in the eye. "I also have moods but I still feel attracted to her. To me this is a lame excuse."

I did a medical assessment to determine the cause of Sarah's problem. She had not been on any drug which could cause low sexual desire.

Laboratory tests showed no abnormality in hormones nor any other medical problem known to cause low sex desire. The couple was happily married until the low desire set in.

Like in Sarah's case, lack of desire for sex in women is something that has bothered scientists for years.

RIGHT MOOD

In one research scientists studied 3,300 women over a 10-year period to understand the frequency and desire for sex.

They concluded that everything zeroed down to the mood of the woman: if their spirit was elevated they desired for sex; if it was foul or depressed they lost desire and had no sex.

The right mood, therefore, remains the paramount determinant of whether your wife or girlfriend will draw close to you or not.

The big question, however, is whether men know how to elevate women's desire to maintain a happy relationship.

Fortunately, most women confirm that there is nothing complicated that a man needs to do for their cheer to be elevated.

"All I want is to be sure that he loves and cares for me; that he thinks about me in everything he does," says Esther, a middle-aged married lady.

"Peace of mind, the knowledge that he understands me that I can come home after a difficult day and get a shoulder to lean on," says Mary.

'LITTLE' ACTIONS

Men need to know the many ways of showing the care, love, and understanding which most women so dearly value.

"You see, the problem with men is that they take it for granted and assume that we are aware that they love us; some also take it as a weakness to confess love and to say nice words to a woman," says Esther.

"Even when I am in a total mood disaster, his reassurance that he loves, cares and misses me awakens my desire."

Gifts, whether flowers, a dress or just chocolate is what matters for other women.

"For me, a gift is a confirmation that you were thinking about me, it is not about how expensive it is, it is the thought behind it," confesses June, another married woman. "Even if I was upset it is the button that just turns me on."

For other women it is the acts of kindness and care that matter: it is the day he serves you with tea, or irons your clothes, or just chooses to wash the dishes because he realised you were too tired.

It is those acts that show that he cares, like opening the door of the car for you, or washing your clothes.

Yes, it is when he chooses to carry you on his back across a muddy path, or when he chooses to massage your painful leg.

Just one great act of care and kindness can be a game changer in some relationships.

NO EXCITEMENT

Other women just want the man around, not on their computers or watching football but spending quality time with them.

They want the man to talk to them. They want the man to listen to them. It is a tough call for men who would rather spend time in bars or with friends at the expense of their wives. By the time they come home, the woman's mood is gone.

So back to Sarah's case: after several therapy sessions, I arrived at a diagnosis: the relationship had become dry; there was no excitement.

The couple no longer treated each other in any special way, no sweet words, no gifts, no spending time together. They were drawing apart emotionally. The mood was gone.

It took three months of therapy to recreate the lost intimacy. And with additional sex coaching, the couple was back on the path to exciting romance.