I'm a straight 30-year-old man, and I've been living with my girlfriend for 10 years. Yes, 10 years! We've been having this long, mostly monogamous and fairly vanilla relationship, only interrupted for half a year or so, years ago (we studied abroad for a while, met people, then got back together). Our life right now is fantastic on many dimensions but our sex life is kind of dead. Strangely though (or not), we've never been so comfortable together. So we talk about it quite openly: she recently told me she didn't feel any desire to have sex with me. This will sound terribly delusional, but I'm still really into her so I'm trying to rationalize.

My understanding of the situation is, first, she's not so much into sex. She's into being seductive and attractive, and sex is for her a way to get self-confidence from the fact she's hot (she is), but in fact I don't think—and in fact she tells me—that she's ever really enjoyed herself having sex for its/her own sake. Second, I'm not giving her really good sex. It's this kind of a circular situation.

I'm contemplating different solutions to these two problems. We could switch to a completely open relationship, in the hopes of us getting horny again together (although I suspect it would in the same time completely modify the rest of our life and eventually have it explode it into a thousand pieces). Or we could just renounce sex—with each other, with anyone else—and find solace in pure sublimation of sex into studies and work. This has proven an intellectually enriching (although not entirely satisfying) way of managing things to this day.

Maybe I'm just too much into living with someone, and too attached to our cozy life, and in fact it's all hopeless and we should break up? Or maybe we should try and become a polymorphous, fluid and sexy entity, living for and by pleasure into a dazzling web of multiple happy relationships? But how is such a thing done?

Still Highly Hopeful

I seem to recall swearing off answering letters from people trapped in sexless relationships/marriages—I distinctly remember saying something to that effect once or twice—but there's no escaping this question.

Instead of answering your question myself, however, I'm going to share an email I received from another reader, SHH. Read it carefully and you may spot a potential solution for you and your girlfriend...

I wanted to thank you. I have never requested advice from you, but you had a hand in helping me handle a very big change in my marriage. My husband and I have been married for almost eight years and for the past five my sex drive has been in the toilet. To his credit my husband has been extraordinarily patient with me and understanding: he has never demanded sex, whined about it, or guilted me about it. This entire time I have been racking my brain about what is wrong with me. I went to the doctor and had hormone levels checked, got back on anti-depressants, and scoured the internet for help. There were no answers, I was just completely uninterested in being intimate with him or anyone else.

Two weeks ago we went to lunch. As we got into the car he said that we needed to talk. I was sure he was going to divorce me—I have been waiting for this conversation for a while and was steeling myself for it. To my shock (I have known this man for almost 30 years) he came out as bisexual, and as it turns out had been having a fling for a few months with a man. The bi part wasn't the issue for me, it was the lie. To make a long story short we are two weeks days into this new chapter in our lives: we've been communicating, we have decided to open our marriage, and we've begun couples therapy. We have also started the process of joining a group in town that will hopefully allow us to meet other, like-minded people, people who can help us along this new chapter in our lives.

What I want to thank you for is this: You mention the "price of admission" quite a bit in your podcast. I never really had a perspective on this until 13 days ago. The price of admission for me is accepting my husband's bisexuality and allowing him to explore this part of himself. What I have discovered within this is that I am also free to explore and meet new people. This thought is exciting and it has reignited my sex drive. What I realize now is that my sex drive didn't go away because I wasn't attracted to my husband. I am. But strict monogamy somehow extinguished my sex drive.

So, I want to thank you for giving me information that I never thought I would need. I am thankful that I had you in my ear throughout this and made sure that what I said to my husband was tempered with love and not judgement. Thank you, thank you, thank you.