When did pleasure start to feel like an effort?

Sincerely, you're the only person who can answer that question. If you can sit down and articulate when you stopped enjoying sex, when you stopped enjoying laughter, when you stopped enjoying being held, when you stopped enjoying being spoken to, when you stopped enjoying conversations, when you stopped enjoying friendship with your partner, when you stopped liking them, when you stopped liking yourself, when you stopped liking sex, when you stopped liking life — because your sexual pleasure is just one part of your life.

Pleasure Beyond the Bedroom

There are other things that are pleasurable. Laughter is pleasurable. Food is pleasurable. Travel is pleasurable. Friendships are pleasurable. People in your life are pleasurable. And so work is pleasurable as well.

Tracing Where Pleasure Disappears

When you start to realise that you're experiencing a lack of pleasure in your bedroom, it begs the question of where else you might not be having pleasure in your life. If you can then articulate and find those places, the next question becomes: when did it start, and what happened that made it increase?

Tools for Healing

If you find both of those things, then you have significant tools to work with a therapist, to then say, “Oh, okay, this happened and that happened. And this was what happened.” You may not have answers to this question, which is where you go to a therapist so they can ask the right questions that cause you to produce the answer.

Before You Try To Restart Pleasure

Otherwise, you're going to keep trying to restart your pleasure and not know that you're leaking somewhere. You're draining out somewhere. Wherever you're draining out from has to be clogged first.