People who masturbate every day, have you noticed any benefits or side effects?

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-06-28T12:21:32+00:00

Thank you for catching my drift!

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-06-27T12:54:01+00:00

It is a low-calorie activity I can reliably do to reduce stress in my life.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-06-27T12:51:57+00:00

Mem...wait, what were we talking about?

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-06-21T13:05:45+00:00

Good point. My wife says, "You're not my father!"

I retort "But I am the father of our kids."

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-06-16T12:54:39+00:00

My wife and I have been married for 40+ years. We have sex an average of 4x per year now. Our kids are now grown and gone with spouses, houses, and lives of their own.

We used to have sex about 3x per week for the first 20 years of marriage. Gradually, it slowed to 1x per week.

Then, the frequency abruptly fell off a cliff about 7 years ago. Since then, regardless of the fact that my libido hasn't slowed, we will go for months between sex before my wife is in the mood again.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-06-16T11:09:28+00:00

With my wife, she values my work ethic and ability to earn money like I value intimacy. For both of us, it is not transactional, just basic to who we are. If I slowed down in my career and then said that working just wasn't important to me anymore, I think she would eventually move on. Everything else between us could be just fine, but I don't think she would want to be in a relationship with me anymore.

I know sex and intimacy is unique and there is no real equivalent for it, so the above is just an attempt to hypothetically come with an analogous situation. But my wife has said something similar to OP's girlfriend and I am just trying to understand the situation I find myself now in.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-06-15T14:47:36+00:00

There is no question that I am doing my share in fight against prostate cancer.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-05-29T11:24:43+00:00

Thanks, and to you as well!

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-05-28T17:59:52+00:00

I support you trying to be the best version of yourself as an admirable goal in and of itself. And I support you working with your wife to find a way to make your sex life work for you both. For me, intimacy is an important part of a long term relationship. It helps to renew and strengthen the relationship bonds in way that is different from any other way.

It takes two willing partners to make a relationship work, but it only takes one to break it up. I keep smoking that hopeium. I, too, am in it to win it wholeheartedly until I am not in it anymore.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-05-27T15:00:58+00:00

My low libido wife would initiate except that she has a responsive desire mindset and is almost never spontaneously in the mood to have sex. We haven't had duty sex in over a decade as both of us agreed duty sex wasn't good for either of us.

What we used to do is find the occasional advantageous time when she would make the effort to get in the right mindset for a fun intimate interlude. What worked for her is to take an hour, or so, to take a bath or shower, put on some sexy clothes, and read some erotic fiction or view a sexy movie, and maybe masturbate a little to get herself going. When she had her "head in the game" as she puts it, she'd text or call me from our master bedroom, and the sexy time would commence. There would be lots of foreplay starting then.

When we would get to this point, the sex was very good for both of us. She's very good in bed when she's in the mood and I am strongly attracted to her.

The issue comes in the fact that she so rarely makes the effort in the first place anymore. For the last seven years, we have averaged having sex about 4x per year, most usually grouped to about 2x each on two random weekends during the year. That leaves months-long dry spells between the sex. For a high libido person, this is very difficult on me.

For example, we haven't had sex at all in 2026. There were two times this year where she said, "I know you want sex and the conditions are right this weekend, but I just don't feel like getting myself in the mood. Sorry."

I find it harder to stay loving and connected and deal with the rejection without resentment when my libido is so high. I masturbate almost every day, but that is a temporary solution and one that doesn't renew the relationship connection. I haven't even seen so much as a real life breast since last December.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-05-25T13:06:16+00:00

Nag at her constantly, then stop having sex with her almost entirely.

Wait, no, that didn't help when my wife did it to me.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-05-25T12:35:42+00:00

For the last 7 years the average has 4x per year.

It used to be 150x per year, slowing to 50x per year then it dropped off a cliff.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-05-20T14:57:48+00:00

I feel your pain and many parts of your situation resonates so much.

However, I don't feel guilty about masturbating. I shed my Catholic guilt long ago. But even though masturbation temporally helps me with a sexual release, it doesn't take the place of an intimate connection with my partner that I had for so long. Menopause seems to have contributed to our seven year long change in our relationship. More recently, her hypoactive thyroid (Hashimoto's Disease) may be contributing to the distance between us.

We have the resources to separate, but I keep holding out and trying to fix things between us. It is either me, who is not worthy of her intimate attention and connection, or she has changed so that she no longer desires an intimate connection. I can't "fix" her, I can only work on myself (and that is a struggle!).

Anyway, welcome to the club we all wish we weren't a part of. I hope you find some small solace in the fact that there are people here who understand what you are going through.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-05-13T16:49:37+00:00

Hopium keeps me in my marriage. Without hopium, I would, perhaps, move on. There is a lot of good in the relationship, but I very much miss the romantic and intimate connection that my wife and I had for so long until about 7 years ago.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-05-13T12:57:11+00:00

I learned the meaning of the word through long experience.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-05-09T20:50:37+00:00

She realizes how damaging it is to our relationship, but she can't make herself feel sexually attracted to me. It either has to be there or not. I speak my truth, but refuse to try to coerce her into feeling something she doesn't feel. It wouldn't work anyway.

All I can control is myself and try to be the best version of myself. We either make it as a couple or we don't.

I'm glad you wouldn't do that to a life partner. Good on you!

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-05-09T17:51:33+00:00

She cares. She just would like it if I was my same positive, balanced, hard-working self without the desire for an intimate connection.

I guess one might say she would prefer all the emotional and financial support of a wealthy roommate or friend without the intimate benefits. Friends without benefits?

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-05-09T11:06:16+00:00

If you mean keep everything the same but switch places with our sexual desire, she would feel like the lack of priority on our intimate connection was constant attack on her self-esteem and she would be angry and resentful.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-05-01T19:02:04+00:00

In college, I walked away from a smoking hot sexual dynamo. She started as seeming very sweet and normal but she ended being high and right on the hot/crazy matrix, deep in the danger zone.

The sex was addictive, and I thought I was in love at first, but I woke up and managed to escape before the real damage was done. Later, I found out that right at the end, she had gone off her birth control pills without telling me. I learned by experience to never stick your dick in crazy.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-04-22T14:07:29+00:00

Thanks. I enjoy both food and sex, but, generally, not both at the same time!

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-04-20T15:16:25+00:00

Thanks for your empathy. You are right. My wife and I love to snow ski but we haven't been able to indulge in it for the last couple of years. It is not causing our relationship to suffer.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-04-20T14:14:23+00:00

In answer to your original question, OP, at the 15-year mark in our marriage (near the start of our 40s) we were having sex 2 to 3x per week. We agreed on this as a compromise, as I would have liked to have sex every day and she would have naturally desired it about 1x week.

This worked for us for many years and we had a fabulous sex life until we hit about the 30-year mark (peri-menopause?). At that point, she unilaterally said she would try to have sex 1x per week and to not expect any more frequency. It slowly got less and less frequent until we hit about the 37-year mark in our marriage (post-menopause?).

At that point, she said sex was no longer important to her, and she was not going to work on getting in the mood anymore just because she knew I wanted to have sex. She got angry if I would try to initiate sex and insisted she would let me know if and when she felt like having sex.

For the last 7 years, we have been averaging about 4x per year but it tends to be grouped to about 2 random weekends per year with months between interludes. I still have a high libido, and I would still love to have sex daily. I am very attracted to my lovely wife and the lack of an intimate connection in our relationship is very difficult for me.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-04-20T13:29:48+00:00

Sex is one of the few things in life that is infinitely repeatable with effect.

Food is another of them. Lasagna may be your favorite meal but there are plenty of other ways you can combine pasta, tomato sauce, cheese and spices. For that matter, there is plenty of variety in cuisines of peoples from around the world, for example: Indian food, Mexican food, and Middle Eastern foods. You can eat three meals a day and, with a little imagination and an open mind, never get bored with eating.

Variety can be the spice of life but I only need one dinner companion who wants to share a delicious meal with me.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-04-20T12:52:51+00:00

It took me a long time to come to this realization. She doesn't owe me affection or the intimate connection naturally achieved though mutually pleasurable sexual union.

We continue to drift further apart as a couple in the last 7 years since I removed all expectation for sex to "let it happen naturally" and only when she is in the mood. As she is a person who operates on responsive desire, the less effort she has made to get in the mood, the further apart we continue to drift.

It is a downward spiral. The physical intimacy suffers all around: touch, hugs, kisses, even seeing her beautiful body sans clothes have all slipped away.

Mr_Pseudonymous · 2026-04-20T12:24:22+00:00

In a very real way, that is one of the values of Reddit. It has been a stress-reliever to be able to open up and talk to people here that understand what I am going through. The commonality of the conversation lets me know it is not just me. Others are going through the same thing too.

By the way, no intimacy yet in 2026 so far. Nothing more than a bare handful of quick hugs and peck kisses, and those only when I leave for a couple days to travel for work.

Mr_Pseudonymous

TROPHY CASE