I have been married 5.5 years, together with my husband for 7.5. We have an amazing almost 3-year-old. The past few months, I have become increasingly bored with my husband and my sex drive is suffering. Other men are suddenly becoming much more attractive and interesting to me. I swear, anything my husband says annoys me and sounds stupid, and I am definitely the type that gets turned on by "good talk." I feel like a failure and no, I haven't talked to my husband about it, because how awful would it be to hear these things from someone? Please help.

Well, first of all, TTM, your situation regarding your sex drive is very common. It's what I call monotogamy. I just wrote about it here, too. I can empathize that talking is important for you to stay interested. I'm the same way. But really, did your husband get stupider overnight or are you just kind of vaguely bored and irritated with him because he's not so novel and exciting anymore? Hopefully, the latter.

Try to spice up your relationship by talking on a deeper level. Here, I have 100 Date Night questions to start you off talking on a deeper level. Ask him things you don't know about him. Go out alone at least once a week now that your daughter is a bit older, and do new and exciting things. Research shows that novelty is very important to keeping romance alive. Go for ballroom dancing lessons or go to a bar with a mechanical bull. Whatever is new and different.

You may not want to have sex, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it anyhow. You can try these tips for increasing your libido as well.

Have you and your husband tried anything new in bed in a while? Sometimes as people age or hormones change (e.g. after giving birth, getting older leads to less testosterone, etc), they need more stimulation to get excited. Can you share fantasies with your husband? Is he less annoying or stupid seeming via text or email? If you sent him a flirtatious email, like you used to when you started dating, would he possibly respond in an interesting way? You can try and see.

This brings me to the key point, which is, you're probably not acting like you used to act, so he isn't either.

If you think your husband is an idiot, it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Try it. Take the most intelligent comment in the world, and repeat it in your mind in an annoyed sing song voice as though it's the stupidest thing you ever heard. Anything sounds stupid if you're predisposed to think of it that way. At the beginning of the relationship, it was the opposite: you thought he was really smart and interesting, so if he pointed out that the sky was blue, you would have excitedly inquired as to the precise shade of cerulean to which this brilliant man was referring.

So cut your husband some slack. Ask him interesting questions, tell him interesting and new things about yourself, have more exciting sex (you can even visualize the other guys you like! It is normal evolutionarily for women to want to breed with a range of men to increase species' diversity; we don't do this now but your mind is your own), plan more exciting date nights, and try to be interested in your husband.

Here's a test to see if you really are checked out or not: Can you picture another woman snapping your husband right up if you were to leave him? Can you picture her having hot honeymoon stage sex with him? Does this bother you, even a little bit? Then you're good. If it doesn't, try visualizing her saying, "I bet your ex-wife didn't do it like this!" Anything? There we go.

Good luck and thanks for writing in. Till we meet again, I remain, The Blogapist Who Thinks He's Probably Not Always Annoying. But I Could Be Wrong.

This post was originally published here on Dr. Psych Mom and on Dirty and Thirty here. Follow Dr. Rodman on Dr. Psych Mom, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. Order her book, How to Talk to Your Kids about Your Divorce: Healthy, Effective Communication Techniques for Your Changing Family.

This blog is not intended as diagnosis, assessment or treatment, and should not replace consultation with your medical provider.