Hi, I am a bit at my wits end. My partner, who has been on T for almost 9 months, says he doesn't want a sexual relationship with me any more. We've been together for 14 years, and always had excellent sex. He has had a very hard transition, with generalized anxiety disorder, and has been off work since January. He's only just gone back to work and has been stressed out about that. But I am confused. I thought when people go on T their sex drive takes off. We're having less sex than we've ever had. I am basically his nurse/mother/sister/cook at this point. He says his sexual interest in me may come back; he hopes it does. And he doesn't want us to break up. But I am confused: we were having sex earlier in the transition, and now its nothing. It feels weird: controlling and withholding. And even though he isn't into it, he absolutely refuses to be giving towards me. In other words, no mercy ->-bleeped-<-s or getting me off in any way. Yet somehow I am supposed to be home every night to cook dinner, take care of our son, etc. I feel like its the 1950s. Does anyone have any experience with anything like this? And yes, we are in couples therapy and its doing zilch on this. I think the therapist is so fascinated with my partner's transition she can't see straight. Help! Helios.

Thanks, Caseyy. Unfortunately, I am afraid you are right. But at the same time, I am unwilling to read the writing on the wall, mostly because of our son (who is 5). He's dealt with a lot thus far, including his mom becoming a guy, but also having 2 moms to begin with and a sperm donor. Not sure I want to put divorce on the table too. But there is also only so much I can deal with before feeling completely and totally used, and that's not good for our son to see either. So I am not throwing in the towel yet. It seems like even the most difficult of transitions may be through their worse periods after one year, and so I have agreed to hang in there until that time (December) and then check in again to see where things are at. And if they haven't changed significantly, I will move on. I do think it would be his loss, since I am very loving and supportive and think he's totally sexy and fab. But I can't make him feel things he no longer feels. When he told me he wanted to have surgery and go on hormones, I never thought he'd be the one to lose interest in me; the opposite is the usual case. But not here, alas. Thanks for responding!

I agree with caseyy with this. It doesn't sound like a T issue but a relationship issue.

I am so sorry you are going through this

For once I am going to say something a little more positive although I agree with everyone else. Lets try and think of an alternative to you just giving up well... not giving up but breaking up. It sounds like you're trying really hard.

My girlfriend is MtF I know I know it's a little different but hormones and changing and being slightly screwed up is still the same in my opinion. What I mean is it is like going through puberty for them so they get a little messed up.

When my girl first went on hormones she went right off me. Now I am not entirely blaming the hormones because I think it is part of the emotional journey as well. She did not want to have sex at all and everything we did was all me. It can make you feel ugly and worthless I understand completely. But it does pass what I did was try as hard as I could to woo her but things in the bedroom were hard and very awkward.

We broke up for five months and I have a nervous break down NORMAL I think tbh. She wanted to have sex with me while we were not going out which was weird but it left me feeling upset she even literally bent over backwards to get me in bed. Until I started crying and said no and she said she couldn't hurt me like that.

We even moved into different places. I was getting over her but every day still hurt. Her dosage of medicine got increased and OMG it was like she was my girlfriend again that bright cheerful person I fell in love with. Not only that she wanted me and missed me.

It took a lot to forgive her though I utterly adore her. And she did a lot of apologizing though we do not bring up the break up because it was a horrible time with lots of bad feelings. She now makes an effort and will get a job and looks after me as much as I do her.

What I'm saying is hormones screw people up if not the actual drug the concept I believe in taking them. Try and work things out but tbh you both may need a holiday away from each other try not to live in each others pockets, if your not there she may miss you.

Hope I helped. The whole trans thing is a huge process I can't even begin to understand so I don't judge those who act strange because of it. Everyone deals with everything differently.   

Hi there,

You said that your partner has been suffering from an anxiety disorder for which they have been off from work for. So my question is, is he on medicinal treatment for the anxiety?

My OH is and RMN (royal mental health nurse) and he said that the anxiety meds will most definitely counter act anything the T does, and are very much well known for suppressing the sex drive, and can switch it off totally. We have an FTM couple we know that this has indeed happened to, all because of anxiety meds.

Also any form of depression or anxiety can have the effect of switching off the sex drive. My partner is pre T but has terrible terrible dysphoria and we have made love once this year. He just has no sexual drive whatsoever. Doesnt matter how turned on I am, if he has no sexual feelings its just not going to happen. He does show me in other ways that he loves me, we have lots of cuddles and he is very demonstrative of his love for me. Its doesn't stop me feeling horny of course, but it does help me still feel cherished.

Hi all--just a quick note to thank all of you for your posts. You are very generous to share your stories--it helps a lot. Thanks. I really apppreciate it. H.

I never got the increased libido from T, what I got was acctually the complete opposite.
I had no libido what so ever for a while, and for months it was a bit of a "sure, why not" sort of a thing which was more about intimacy than "sex" for me.

I also have to ask... "supposed to" ?
Is this something you two have discussed? or is it that you've been "told"?
Cause if it's discussed, then you had a say in the matter, but if you've been told (whether directly or indirectly) then T isn't the issue, he's just being a douche for not treating you as an equal member of the household.

And lastly....
Sometimes, things get worse before they get better.
You know how if you decide to actually "do something about it" and clean a room you're starting to feel is getting a bit messy, and in the process it becomes just so much worse and it sort of becomes clear just how much mess is really there?
Transition can be like that.
When I acknowledged myself to myself, I started to "want" to actually "do something about it", but it's not until I was actually IN transition that I became aware of all these little things and even big things that I'd stuck under the bed in the analogy above. I became more aware of just how disconnected and miserable I was about a lot of my self and my body. I started to feel the pain I had denied and ignored for most of my life.
This made me have a hard time with my body, which in turn sometimes made me have to tell my husband "no, not tonight, I can't, it's just, too much" because my body wasn't "my body" and I didn't want to have anything to do with it and when I was at my worst I actually asked my husband to sleep in boxers (ME! who put up a "NO CLOTHES OF ANY KIND IN THE BED! NOT EVEN UNDERWEAR!" rule for our bed!) because just... seeing his cock made me even more sensitive about my own bits and pieces in that area.

I'm not saying he's dealing with what I was and still somtimes do deal with, but I am saying that this may be a factor.
He might be having a really hard time with you, as a sexual person and as a woman, because of how much his own body is repugnant to him that some of this is spilling over onto you, which is totally unfair, I know, but he can't help it if his dysphoria is so much he can't even bring himself to be sexually intimate with you.

Also, I would point out that using emotional blackmail (guilt trips) to coerce, or attempt to coerce, someone into a sexual act they aren't comfortable with is kind of.. well... do I need to say it?
You can't "demand" sex. He doesn't "owe" you sex.
If you were a man posting about a wife, we'd probably all be telling you that "my wife won't have sex with me" and "she absolutely refuses to be giving to me" and "no mercy ->-bleeped-<-s or getting me off in any way" is a rather bad point to be taking.
If he doesn't want to have sex, then he doesn't want to have sex. If he doesn't want to have any sex at all then he doesn't want to "give" you sex.
"Giving" is sex too.

Dear All, thanks so much for weighing in on all this; it's super helpful to be reminded of everything I know in my head (eg, about anxiety, dysphoria, etc) but in my own anxiety and need for reassurance, I forget in my heart. The update is: we are having sex again, and independent of that, my partner is being very, very loving. I do think a lot of this has to do with anxiety (both of ours--his relating to transition, mine relating to needing reassurance about his love for me), and you are all right to point out that putting pressure on my partner is the last thing he needs. I appreciated Miniar's comments about guilt trips, too--you are absolutely right. Hadn't thought about what this would read like if the gender roles were reversed....ewwww! I appreciate everyone's comments. best, Helios

Helios~~
I'm glad things seem to have resolved for you. I came on these boards after your initial post and had not made my way to it yet, so I'm still going to weigh in my two cents' worth here just in case someone else with our same issue ever reads this.

Your initial situation is very similar to what I'm experiencing with my wife, Dana, who is MtF pre-hormones and surgery. She is unable to initiate the physical transition at this time due to work, and as a result, is very depressed. She's on anti-depressants, but they don't seem to be working. I am almost positive that it's the depression and fatigue that kill her libido (the therapist and doctor concur), but there's still a lot of fear in me that this is just the beginning of the end for us. I wonder if it's me to whom she's not attracted anymore. I wonder if she will move to a place where she would rather have a non-autistic, slimmer, non-anxious, single-gendered person as a partner. I wonder if she will move to a place where she would rather have a genetic male as a partner. But she assures me (and on my good days I believe her) that it is my soul and inner person to whom she is attracted and Loves. She swears that will never change.

I think the reason it is so hard for me to feel more secure in her Love for me is that physical touch seems to be my main love language. And more than that, I seem to be hard-wired to equate physical touch with depth of affection. That is, I feel closer to friends who are willing to hug me--and hug me good!--than those who won't. I also crave sex from a biochemical level. I understand the hormones involved, and one of them, oxytocin, is very important for people with autism because adding it to the system can help with anxiety and trust issues. I also understand that there is a separate bonding process when the chemicals of a genetic female and a genetic male have sex. Dana is long past the point of wanting or being capable of having sex as a male without it destroying part of her soul, so I know that latter ship has sailed. But I still get a good oxytocin buzz with what sex we do have as well as feeling, as you say, "cherished." It's very, very hard for me to live in this deprived state (sex every few months, if that) and not wonder about the future of our relationship.

To counter this emptiness, I try filling it with one or more of the following thoughts:

1. Dana *does* Love me and shows it to me in many other ways: cuddling, kisses (though not passionate ones), hugs, doing stuff around the house, making me feel as safe as possible, and, most importantly, pulling on that drab uniform and going off to work every day. (I mean drab in the Shakespearean sense of "dressed as a boy".)

2. Don't take it personally. This is a mantra from the book The Four Agreements, and it reminds me that her lack of libido has everything to do with *HER* bio-chemistry and state of mind and nothing to do with me.

3. Dana told me when she first came out that she didn't even know who she is, let alone who she might Love. She did eventually say that she still Loves me and wants to be with me. I need to put a little faith in that decision and that it came from her soul.

4. She is, by definition, in transition. The caterpillar Loved me. The cocoon Loves me. I just have to wait and see what the butterfly will do.

I don't know if this will help anyone else, but it's what I do to try to stay sane. I am heartened by the fact that when we do have sex, it's still all glorious and hot and making Love, the way I always want it to be. Frequency aside, it's pretty good stuff. I just need to try to be what I've never been very good at being: patient.

Best of luck to anyone on this journey. It's a hard one, but hopefully, a very rewarding one.

~~E

@Helios
I'm glad things are working out between you. It's always hard to be with someone who's going through something rough, and any change can be rough, even one for the better, and transition can be about as rough as it gets. I do wish you the best of luck in your relationship and I do hope you stick around on the forums, maybe even peek around outside of the SO area and read about other FTM's transitions and worries because sometimes telling the people we love how we're really feeling, even if it's as "simple" as "I feel really sad today", can be terrifying if not impossible and so maybe reading about what other FTM's go through can help you get some insight into what your partner is going through even if it may not be exactly the same.
Also, you can maybe encourage him to email you things that you will read and "not judge", giving him the chance to write to you whatever may feel hard to say. Sometimes, communicating is a little easier when it isn't face to face, 'specially if you're communicating your own doubts, guilts or vulnerabilities. In a world that pressures men to be strong and tough it can be impossible to admit that you feel weak, let alone that you feel guilty about being unable to be as strong as you believe you're "supposed" to be. I had to come to terms with and learn to let go of a lot of guilt myself. Not because of things that it was "right" for me to feel guilty for, but because of things like; transition's expensive, doctors are expensive, what about my daughter, my husband's family might not approve, etc. And even things unrelated to transition like my fibromyalgia caused me to carry around mountains of undeserved guilt, enough to cripple any man.

@Ellie Ryan
My advice to you would be to give her physical contact without expecting "more". It may seem a little strange to say "hug her" when you're the one wanting to be hugged, but being hugged back is better than not being hugged at all, no?
Physical contact, intimacy, even things like simple touches now and then (a little brush of a hand over a shoulder as you pass by or a little squeeze of a hand in the kitchen), it all serves to make physical contact easier which in turn encourages people to give it more readily.
And when it's given and accepted without "expectations" then more can come of it without guilt or pressure which can mean a more mutually enjoyable experience when or if more does come of it.

Dear Ellie, thanks for sharing. I so, so get what you wrote; it is so familiar to me. A long time ago I decided to not make any big decisions/changes until at least one year after my partner started T (which was Jan of this year) because people had told me that the hardest part of the transition was the first 9-12 months. So there have been parts of this process that most people would have walked away from, and I've had to deal with behavior from my partner that frankly would be considered abusive under any other situation. But it's a transition, and so therefore the rules are not the same. Or I agreed to myself to cut some slack during his transition-induced craziness. I have felt an ethical commitment to both of us (in addition to the love) to stick it out regardless of how grim the signs have seemed (and they have been very grim, indeed) for at least the 12 months, and THEN decide about what to do.. So when things got bad, which they were most of the time, I figured out how to take care of myself and get my emotional needs met elsewhere (and physical ones too, as much as I could), and I sort of tried to make it to a calendar benchmark: can I make it to May 7, how about Sept 1, etc. It helped keep the pressure off me in terms of the catastrophic thinking (he doesn't love me; we'll never have sex again; he's going to leave me, etc.). The amazing thing is that my partner has 'come back' in almost all ways, and I can see he'll make it. He's the same as he ever was, just furrier, and the love and connection is still there. I really didn't think it would come back, frankly. But I was wrong. So my advice is: trust your partner. If she says she loves you, then be patient! Also the other thing: my partner's dysphoria was the worse pre-surgery and pre-T--that waiting period is awful. Anyway hang in there! And thank you for sharing your strategies. Helios

Helios~~
Your post is probably the most helpful (and hopeful!) piece I've ever read anywhere. You're the first one to whom I've talked that is going through this same process who has such a similar experience to mine! I take such great comfort in your outcome, and I really appreciate you sharing your story. As a bonus, it's your 44th post, which is my favorite number, so I kind of feel like the Universe is sending me a sign. (I know sounds fruity, but I'm kind of a fruit that way. The Universe and I talk in signs.)

I have some hope for the future. Dana had 4 days off from work this past weekend, and by Saturday, she kind of started to un-zombify. Saturday night, we managed some nookie, and it was brilliant stuff as it always is. Better, actually, as I started crying pretty hard afterwards, and she just held me through it. (I have little idea why I was crying.) I try to take hope from things like this when she seems to come alive more with just a little time off to really be herself for extended periods of time.

Anyhow, thanks so much for the encouragement! It really helps. <3

~~E

You mentioned that he has GAD. I also have problems with anxiety, and it is often accompanied by depression. Is it possible that it really doesn't have anything to do with your relationship or even necessarily the T itself, but rather he is actually just feeling anxious/depressed? Often people who are depressed can experience a significantly decreased sex drive, despite T levels.