Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - When She Has Low Desire

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

What do you do when she’s not in the mood, but you are? Thirty percent of women under the age of 59 suffer from low libido and that number continues to increase after the age of 60! But it’s not just older women who experience low desire. Younger women struggle too due to stress, exhaustion caring for young children, depression, body image, and a host of other issues, younger women can experience low libido too.  On this Language of Love Bite, we’ll discuss low sex drive in women and uncover the variety of issues that are at the heart of the matter. When sex is working in a relationship it’s just one part of it. But when sex isn’t working, it can definitely take a toll on the connection between you. We’ll discuss ways to understand and overcome low desire with the goal of bringing the passion back where it belongs! If your bedroom has been lacking, tune in to this episode! Resources and Links Dr. Laura Berman Language of Love Podcast Laura Berman Instagram – Dr Laura Berman Facebook – Dr Laura Berman Youtube.com – Dr Laura Berman  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman. And for the last 30 years, I've been helping people just like you learn to love and be loved better. Welcome to the Language of Love Bites, where I tackle your most asked questions and requested topics. These episodes are designed to be fun, quick and to the point. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. Let's talk about low desire in women, okay? It is the most common complaint sexually that women in

relationships and in general have. About 30% of women under the age of 60 experience low desire, and that number gets even greater as we move into perimenopause and menopause. So let's talk about the causes of low desire. With all sexual function issues, there are emotional factors, relationship factors, and medical factors, physical factors. And they impact one another in a very nonlinear way. So for instance, the physical reasons why a woman may have low desire is either she's lost interest because she has pain or discomfort caused by some physical condition, or medications that she's on or menopause that is causing dryness or something like that. So as a result of the pain, she has low desire and then she feels bad about herself emotionally

and that creates inhibitions. And it's also creating relationship issues because her partner feels rejected and wants to be sexual with her and she doesn't want to, or maybe the partner is withdrawn from sex because every time they have it, it hurts because they don't want to hurt their partner, they're trying to avoid it, right? So you can see how all of these intertwine with each other, the physical, the emotional, and the relationship issues that go into a sexual function issue like low desire. But let's just talk about some of the key causes. Physically, I mentioned pain as one cause indirectly of low desire because then, of course, you're going to avoid, right? Another indirect cause of low desire is if you're having difficulty

reaching orgasm or experiencing pleasure in a way that's frustrating to you, right? Then the cost-benefit analysis of having sex doesn't work in the favor of sex, right? Because you're working hard for very little reward. So we'll often see desire become lower when it's harder for whatever reason to sexually respond or to reach orgasm. Hormones are another really common reason why women struggle with low desire, certainly as we age. So a woman in her 20s has double the testosterone, which is the hormone of desire that a woman in her 60s has. And it's slowly declining throughout a woman's lifespan. But when she hits her late 30s or 40s, it's often getting low enough that she's starting to experience the symptoms of low desire.

Another secret culprit of low desire from a physical standpoint is hormonal contraceptives, which is kind of ironic when you think about it. But the reason for that is a younger woman typically won't have low desire on hormonal contraceptives. But as a woman reaches her 30s and 40s, where that testosterone is slowly starting to decline, right, so she already doesn't have a full deck of testosterone, the way hormonal contraceptives work is by changing your hormones. It's a complicated cascade, but the way I'll kind of summarize it is by saying that it increases this hormonal cascade that the birth control

pills or whatever form of hormonal birth control you're using creates to prevent pregnancy. It also, a side effect of that is that it increases a protein in the blood called steroid hormone-binding globulin, or SHBG. And that protein binds to testosterone, free-circulating testosterone, and makes it unavailable for the body to use for things like desire. So a younger woman who has a full deck of testosterone won't really notice, won't feel the difference when she has less free-circulating testosterone. A woman in her late 30s will. So very often the hormonal contraceptives are one of the culprits as well. And medications, in particular antidepressants like SSRIs, like Zoloft and Prozac, will often cause low desire and difficulty responding.

Does that mean you jump off those medications? No, definitely talk to your doctor. And there are other medications or lowering the dose that may create fewer sexual side effects, But that is a common culprit. Now, in the emotional relationship realm, as a woman builds more stress in her life, which often happens as we get older and our hormones are already starting to work against us. There's also, by the way, something called postpartum androgen deficiency syndrome. So it happens more often after the second child that you've birthed, but sometimes even after the first, already it takes six months to a year for your body to hormonally kind of re-equilibrate after having a baby, six months to a year after you stop breastfeeding. But with the second child, we see a lot of women not necessarily bouncing back hormonally.

So their testosterone levels are still being affected even at six months to a year after breastfeeding, and that's affecting their desire as well as their sexual response. But chronic stress, which pretty much everyone in America seems to have, who has young kids and all the things on the to-do list, and even if she's not working out of the home, she's working her butt off in the home and doesn't get enough recharging of her own batteries and is feeling a tremendous amount of stress, which it feels like everyone in the world is. A doctor named Dr. Stuart Molloy coined this term, the hurried woman syndrome. And the symptoms are weight gain, sleeplessness, low desire, you know, all symptoms of chronic stress. And chronic stress

not only distracts us from wanting to relax into having sex in the first place, but it also increases. The more stressed you are, the more cortisol pops in, the more your oxytocin rises, ironically, because it turns out for women in particular, when we're stressed, our oxytocin levels rise, which is that chemical of attachment. And that also causes an increase in that protein I was talking about with hormonal contraceptives. So that also, chronic stress, will cause your free circulating testosterone to get bound up and unavailable for your body to use for desire. So these are all common physical and situational circumstances. In the relationship realm, if she's not feeling connected to her partner, emotionally intimate with her partner,

seen and heard by her partner, she is going to lose interest in being physically intimate. And I've made other videos about this, but this is something really important to look at, in particular in heterosexual relationships. It's what I call the sex romance stalemate, because men typically achieve a sense of emotional intimacy and closeness through the physical act of sex. and women typically are inspired to be sexual because they feel that emotional intimacy and closeness so as she's lost desire maybe for physical medical reasons her male partner if she's in a heterosexual relationship will inadvertently unintentionally emotionally withdraw a little bit and then the less close she feels to him the less emotionally intimate the less seen, the less held, the less interested she is in sex. And the stalemate continues. Right. And certainly if there's conflict or she's really stressed because even if she's working outside the

home, women still are in charge of 60 to 70 percent of the stuff around the house and the child care and the logistics of the home and everything else. So if she feels like she's drowning in that and unsupported in that, she's going to be that much less inspired to be sexual. And certainly if there's relationship conflict or lack of trust or unresolved anger, that is going to affect her willingness to. Hey, it's Dr. Laura Berman. I've been a sex, love and relationship therapist for over 30 years. And the main question I always get asked is how the heck do we spice it up in a long-term

monogamous relationship? Well, if you want to take your love life, your sex life to the next level, whether you're in a relationship or not, check out my free course on quantum sex. It's going to teach you how to take your sexual response to the next level capable of full body orgasms, how to use sex magic to manifest your dreams, and how to connect on an even deeper level sexually with your partner. Just go to drlauraberman.com and you'll find it right there on the homepage, the quantum sex free course. Check it out. Let me know what you think. And you can see how these things play off each other, right? So it's a medical reason why she

lost her desire, but then she's not interested in sex and isn't willing to have it. And then her partner withdraws and then the relationship starts to suffer. And then she's that much less interested. So you can see how all of these variables kind of work together. And the key is in the way I like to look at these issues is like a giant picture puzzle. And there are all of these different pieces to the puzzle, emotional pieces, relationship pieces, you know, and also emotional might be not only stress, but body image issues where you feel self-conscious about your body, depression, anxiety, those kinds of things, right? So the emotional issues, the physical issues, and the relationship issues are all pieces of that puzzle that are interacting with one

another in a very nonlinear way, but they all must be addressed. So what does that look like in action? It means going to your doctor and not all doctors are created equal. Many of them still much to my anger and dismay will tell a woman, you know, it's just natural. Go have a glass of wine, take a bath. No, find a different doctor if that's what you're told. Okay. Because you want to go to a doctor who is going to look at your medications, look at any medical conditions that are impacting pain response and or desire. You're going to want to look at any medications you're taking as well, right? And if you are a candidate for this, this is something you and your doctor would explore. You may have it indicated to take some testosterone, right? And in those cases,

and I'm saying this just as a PhD, not an MD, but one who has ushered many, many, many thousands of women through this process and work with tons of doctors. If you are going to do hormone therapy, you definitely want to explore bioidentical hormones rather than the hormonal therapies that are already out there by pharmaceutical companies. Why? While they are synthesized in a lab, they are made from natural sources. And the doctors who work with bioidentical hormones can give you the lowest dose and slowly titrate up until your symptoms are resolved. And that's what we always want is to give you the lowest amount of medication that you need to create the results that you want with the lowest amount of side effects, right? So you very well may be

a candidate for testosterone therapy, which is the hormone of desire, energy, general sense of well-being. Or your doctor may want to explore changing some of the medications you're already on, okay? That's from the physical perspective. From the emotional perspective, that can be harder to address because issues of stress, anxiety, body image, it's not like we can take a pill for those things. Those are lifestyle, behavioral changes that require support and sometimes counseling and therapy. And believe me, when you learn to put your own oxygen mask on first, which most of us don't do, we put ourselves lowest on the totem pole and everyone else comes first. And we think that somehow makes us heroic mamas. It doesn't. Okay. You're draining your resources.

You only have so much energy. And as you drain that reservoir, you have to do things that replenish it. Things around self-care, exercise, diet, meditation, relaxation, things that are going to ease your cortisol levels, ease your stress levels and replenish your energy stores. And when you do that, you will not only want sex more, but everyone in your life who you are serving will benefit because you have more patience, you have more focus, you don't feel like you're drowning, you have more energy to care for them, right? But it is going to help your sex life. And the same is true for your relationship, okay? Assuming you don't have tremendous pain when you have sex or are in tremendous conflict in your relationship, throw your partner a bone, especially if you're in a relationship with a man.

But regardless of who you're in a relationship with, what I find is in the average woman with low desire, once she has sex with her partner, she may not have necessarily wanted to or been in the mood. She would have rather watched Bridgerton or done something else on her to-do list or whatever it might be, right? Or made those phone calls she needed to make or folded the laundry, for goodness sake, right? But once she got started and actually had sex, she thought, hey, this was really fun. I really enjoyed this. We should do this more often. It's just the getting started. So get started. Even if you don't really feel like it, do it anyway. Now, once again, with that caveat that if the relationship is bad, if your partner is abusive,

if you have medical factors that are preventing you from having sex, all those disclaimers, but all other things being equal, just do it. And not only will you feel better about it and it will keep the momentum going, but your partner will respond better emotionally to you and that will feed the fuel, reverse that sex romance stalemate that can happen. And when you even take it a step further, especially if you have low desire, but really for any couple who is in a relationship and has kids or busy lives, you have to schedule it because if you're waiting for sex to happen spontaneously after you have kids, you're just waiting forever. And if you're waiting for sex to happen spontaneously when you have low desire, you're waiting forever. But when you start to

schedule it just once a week and it can change the day and the time, it doesn't have to be the same day and time every week. It starts to be something that you can prepare yourself for. you can get in the mood you can be extra romantic with each other you're ready for it and then when you have it you enjoy it and it creates the desire for more and it feeds the connection between the two of you and it helps reverse the cycle okay so there you go that's a whirlwind tour of things that you can explore you want therapy you want medical care you want to schedule it you want to make it a priority. Because while sex isn't the key to successful relationships, it's a major key. When sex is working in a relationship, it's one of the many aspects of a beautiful relationship,

just one cog in the wheel. But when it is not working, it becomes a bigger issue that will start to fray the fiber of your connection to one another. So if you want more information on anything I've talked about here or anything else you're curious about, love, sex, and relationships, let me know. I always want to hear from you in my quest to help you learn to love and be loved better.