Denton County Living Well Magazine January/February 2016 | Page 28

Middle Age Musings

Advice from Dr. Stanwix
Loveless Sunday

We are in our mid-50s and will be
empty nesters and retired in the next
five years. I fear that if we don’t maintain some degree of communication
and intimacy, it may be difficult to rekindle it in the future.
Please tell me how I should handle this
situation.
Dear Dr. Stanwix,
I am not sure if my wife is turned off
by sex or simply turned off by sex with
me. However, we are going through a
serious dry spell, which is causing me
to have some doubts. We both have
demanding jobs and the children take
up a great deal of our time. Both of
these take away time from our opportunities for intimacy.
Until recently, though, we have kept
an almost sacred ritual of lounging in
bed a little longer on Sunday mornings
and building up to a satisfying sexual
experience, for me at least. However,
lately, my wife seems to do anything
she can to escape this routine. She
springs out of bed before I am even
conscious and is usually downstairs
having breakfast with the kids by the
time I come down. I am curious why
she is suddenly turned off by this, but
I have not had the courage or the opportunity to discuss things with her.
This has created so many nagging
doubts that I’m beginning to feel really
depressed. I fear that she might not
want to have sex with me any longer
or that she no longer wants YH\