Carolyn Hax: Husband wants to know why wife lost interest in sex

Q: After the pandemic, since 2022, my wife does not seem to be interested in having sex. How can I rectify this?

— Curious

A: If “rectify this” is your only focus, then I feel confident you will not rectify this. With her, at least.

But I’m picking up the wrong thing with my little quotation-mark tongs. The real issue here is “seem.” That says you have not yet talked to your wife.

I understand sex is an awkward topic to broach and a grueling one to stay on through mutual truth-telling. Judging solely from the mail to this column, I’d say most of us arrive at committed relationships unprepared for these conversations.

Despite some heroic efforts in public health to counteract misinformation and prudery (see: bit.ly/3YshYQt), there are still well-meaning (but misguided) parents burying their awkwardness in avoidance and inane body-part pseudonyms. Then peer and fear culture jumps in to stereotype us into airless little boxes. Then reactionaries shriek about drawings! in library books! while a pipeline of live-action smut gushes to devices owned by middle-schoolers whose eyeballs simply cannot be supervised and controlled enough to protect them.

Often novelty keeps things exciting for couples long enough for it not to seem like a problem that they can’t talk about sex. But when novelty is gone, intimacy needs to take over, and I am sympathetic to anyone who gets to this crossroads in their sex lives feeling alone, confused and unprepared to be vulnerable.

But this is your marriage. This is your wife.

Either she, her well-being, her feelings and her body are right next to your own at the top of your concern pyramid, or you have a lot of your answer right there.

So that is where you start.

Being equally mindful of her allows you to see many potential answers without having to ask for them. Did the pandemic, for example, dump extra responsibilities on her? Extra stress at work, child care at home, losses in her extended family, disruptions in her friend network? Is she more isolated, are you both home navigating the same shared spaces more, is she incidentally less physically active, did she get long COVID? Did you change?

Did the pandemic aggravate existing problems between you?

If she’s anywhere pre-retirement-age-ish, do both of you a favor and type “perimenopause” into your favorite search engine.

Libido is variable not only from person to person, but also from life phase to life phase — plus it is sensitive to so many things inside and out, medical, emotional, social, traumatic.

My examples are just to get you thinking; apply your own relevant versions of noticing and giving a fig.

The noticing alone can have a marital-warming effect. But since life has a warped sense of humor, drawing conclusions about people for them can be repellent. So care, observe, then ask your wife for her share of the truth.

And apologize, too, for letting it go for so long: “I didn’t know how to start this conversation, and that’s on me: Are you OK? Are we?” Acknowledge you miss sex, but also say you “know/noticed _____,” where _____ shows you care about getting her, not just getting some.

Conversations like this can be terrifying, but they are also necessary for intimacy.

Her answer won’t necessarily be the one you want, no matter how well you ask. But if she is equally vulnerable and equally mindful of you, then she will tell you the truth — maybe not all of it, but enough to ensure you’re not in this, whatever it is, alone.

• Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/carolyn.hax or chat with her online at 11 a.m. Central time each Friday at www.washingtonpost.com.

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