Q: I am a 36 years old male. From the last 4-5 years, I have not been enjoying sex with my wife and I am getting the same complaint from my wife. I don’t feel anything when I touch her. Also, I am addicted to masturbation for the last five years and had been living away from my family. Is my problem due to my masturbation practices?

A:There are two factors here:

1. There is a need for you to work on your relationship. After prolonged periods of separation, the need to recapture love and intimacy is more important and takes precedence over sex. Spend considerable time with your partner doing other companionable things, express your love and admiration of her, and prolong your foreplay. This will automatically improve your sex life.
2. The other aspect is about your masturbatory practices. The kind of intense stimulation that is possible by masturbation is mostly not possible during (vaginal) love-making with the partner. You might want to encourage your partner to stimulate you more vigorously or permit you to masturbate yourself in her presence - but only until you are fully rigid and aroused. Once such stimulation gets your arousal level to a particular threshold, you may commence sexual intercourse. However, the risk here is that you may not last long enough intra-vaginally, or, conversely, you may find once again that the stimulation obtained with vaginal intercourse is not good enough.