Well, it seems like you have been trying to help satisfy your wife and that is commendable, but she in order for this to work, she too will have to be on board with learning how to satisfy herself when you are not emotionally, physically or mentally down with getting it on. And that's important for the two of you two to understand, that just because one person wants play sexually doesn't mean that it HAS to happen, EVEN if they are in a relationship and the other person wants sex more than masturbation or for whatever other reasons there may be.

So, masturbation can be a great way to allow the partner who wants to "play" to experience sexual release and pleasure, but respect the needs of their partner.

Reaching orgasm for some women during masturbation can be a challenge and for many different reasons. She may have guilt with self-pleasure from her family or religious upbringing, she may not have included fantasy as part of the experience and therefor cannot reach climax (a very common problem) or just using her fingers may not work out best for her anatomy. So here are a few suggestions of things to try out so she can be satisfied and you can catch a break.

1. Make sure that she is incorporating fantasy into her self-pleasure times. This can be done through thought alone, adult video's, magazines, romance novels or audio tapes. For many people thoughts are a critical step in order reach climax but because our culture focus's so much on the genitals, many people do not think to include this part into the mix.

2. Purchase a sex toy. There are many types of toys that can be used during sex play you can use more than one at the same time! It sounds like your wife likes to have something in her vagina in order to climax, so purchasing a dildo would be recommended. You can purchase a dildo that vibrates or one that does not, but to be fair, having a dildo that vibrates will give her more options to utilize than a non-vibrating dildo as she can always choose not to turn the vibration on if she doesn't like it. The vibrator could also be just what she needs to reach climax. Often fingers don't give enough stimulation for women to reach orgasm.

3. Read a book or watch a video on different masturbation techniques. Anything by Betty Dodson, Jamye Waxman or Saddie Allison are all authors I highly recommend. Maybe she just hasn't found a "diddling" style yet that works for her. Betty Dodson has books, videos and a website that teach women how to masturbate, Jamye has books and video's and Dr. Allison has a few books out. All of these women offer great advice.

It's wonderful that you want to help your wife out with this and yet respect your own boundaries of when you choose to be sexual with her.

Hopefully, this will give her a lot to experiment with (toys, reading, fantasy, oh my!) and everyone will be a little more happy!

Thanks for addressing this important question and good luck!

Reviewed by: Kathleen Scarbo (VanKirk) DHS