Dear Brooke,

I am a scholar for eight months, married for six years, and ever since I had my first date with my current husband, I lived in a state of mind that something is off between us sexually. I never experienced such a dry physical connection and poor sex with any lover before and we both realized pretty soon that sex is very awkward between us and sure enough stopped even having it five years ago. Other than that we have a lovely relationship and are best buddies.

Last night we had dinner and for the first time he opened up and said he wants to try to solve our sex problem. I told him that as far as I’m concerned we never had it and that I always felt I am trying to make love to either a gay guy or someone who terribly doesn’t want to touch me.

Suddenly he shared that ever since he was growing up he always felt that he is a terrible lover and that he doesn’t know what to do. It caused him to choose a certain line of work that involves lots of traveling, it caused him to not have a serious relationship till he was 54, and it also caused him not to develop the very skill he believes he is so bad at.

I felt tons of compassion and love for him and told him that by thinking that he is a terrible lover, he showed up that way and sure enough his actions were awkward, messy, and disconnected and that’s how I experienced him.
Putting on the coach hat I told him that he must realize that this thought doesn’t serve him and that even if we ended up divorcing, he will experience the same problem with the next partner.
He said he cannot just change the thought to tell himself he is a great lover.

I agreed that he has to do the thought ladder work and follow with massive action but here’s the issue – I don’t want to serve as a sex doll for him to ‘intern’ on and try to be a better lover. Before we had this conversation I was already living in a future world where we divorce in a year and I move on.
Physically I am not attracted to him, mentally I convinced myself that we are just good buddies and it seems to me almost inappropriate for us to touch each other in that way now.

It’s like we are both stuck in different states of minds that will keep us physically disconnected.

Would you shed some light I may not be seeing about this?