I'm 40 years old, in good health and have a wonderful husband. Although I find my husband physically attractive, there's one problem -- a big one: I never want to have sex. Before we married five years ago I really enjoyed our lovemaking and had orgasms, but now I never feel sexually aroused. What is my problem?

You may have seen the results of a highly publicized survey of 1,749 women that found 43 percent of American women are facing the same problem. Please don't take any such survey to heart. When judging such a survey, the most important aspect isn't the answers, but the questions. Depending on how the survey is worded, and who is asking the questions, a survey can be created to say just about anything. Instead of reading surveys, I suggest you pay a little more attention to yourself and try to find out what is going on with your sex drive.

Since your problem could be medical, it would be a good idea to be checked out by your gynecologist. You'll have to tell him or her why you're there, and if there is a physical cause, your doctor will help you to solve it.

If there is no physical reason, then it's a psychological problem. Sometimes the cause is relationship-based. Whether or not you find your husband physically attractive, if you resent him for some reason, then you're not going to want to have sex with him. Perhaps you now have children and you've given yourself up totally to their care and have allowed your libido to die out. If that's the case, then you have to make it a priority to jump-start your love life again. The best way to do that is for you and your husband to take a mini-vacation, which could be just an overnight stay at a nearby motel -- without the kids, of course. If you are working very hard at several different jobs (including taking care of the house and kids, which may be the cause of that resentment I spoke of), then you and your husband need to work out a plan so that you can rest first and then have sex afterward when you have more energy.

As you can see, the most important step is to find the source of the problem. There could even be multiple causes, such as resentment combined with exhaustion. But once you know the cause, if you both set your willpower toward arriving at a solution, you can resume having an active sex life. Just as sex involves the two of you, developing an answer to your problem will also require the active participation of both partners.