Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums THE SEX-STARVED MARRIAGE Waiting More Than a Dozen Years

What about the word "skewered"?

I'd agree with Virginia and Silly Old Bear--the study does NOT reflect the stories of my network of women friends, and appears sensationalized and skewed.

The fact that someone latches onto the survey seems to say more about that individual than about the actual sex lives of women. If the survey can be used to confirm someone's view that the majority of women are as sexually shut down as his own wife, then it reinforces his fears that his gains will not outweigh his losses with a new partner.

I recently read, in Prevention Magazine's summary of 400 readers' most distressing questions, that "low libido is the most common sexual complaint among women," with over 40% being affected. However, the experts responded that, apart from physical issues, the primary cause for this was in fact boredom with sexual routines. Which really comes back to the old chestnut that you're not going to have a satisfying sex life until you learn to communicate openly with your spouse.

Are the women who would prefer dental surgery to routine sex actually telling their partners that, or are they keeping silent to protect their partners' feelings, and only talking to the researchers?

I'm around several networks of women where 80% or greater are cheating on their husbands and they also giving their marriage a low priority. I'm not saying its common, most common, least common, just that this sample is out there.

The sample of women and marriages that I mentioned, is just among certain groups in a certain area that do this, and I know it does not represent the country as a whole.

I know we have highly sexxed and immoral with respect to marriage, and also situations where the sex drive has declined from lack of interest and lack of use.

For the complainants, they can also initiate the sex acts or affect sexual behavior with new ideas to prevent boredom.

Although the iVillage survey did not publish the questions asked, nor the raw numbers (so one could evaluate how representative the cohorts are and how much sample adjustment was needed or warranted), the sample population was 2,000 married woman. This IS NOT an insignifcant number as surveys go, particularly since they did include the did not answer/declined in the study results. In addition, the narrative give more detail to the underlying statistics.

Let me also counter that counting on your own network of friends to determine whether the results are skewed or sensationalized has the same problem you attribute to me...it says more about your choice/preference of friends in your network than it says about the broader population of married women in the US.

What does it suggest to me? It suggests that leaping out of this marriage in the hopes that another would provide a more satisfying sexual experience is about a one-in-three chance. Not great odds (not random chance, to be sure), but not absolutely dismal. Just "depressing." Though, I could also say that nearly ANY sex life compared to my current status is an improvement.

No, like some (maybe all) of the 11 men that died on the DeepWater Horizon, who had to know they were stuck to the floor of the Gulf of Mexico because the pipes would not sever, the kill and choke lines would not detach, and the Lower Marine Riser Package which was attached to the BlowOut Preventer would not release, so that the rig could power up and motor away to safety from the Blow out in progress, I feel similarly "stuck."

Or do I just leap away and hope to survive. These are and have been the questions I've been asking myself.

The Captain

You say the questions are not given--yet if the question was, "Have you EVER felt that you'd rather do anything else than have sex with your partner?"--surely every woman, victim as she is to hormonal fluctuations, has had the kind of day where she'd answer "Yes" to that. Without knowing the actual question, the scale of the response is impossible to gauge, rendering the information useless.

The difference between those workers and you was that those who could make it to an escape craft did it without hesitation. Those who couldn't, were left with a choice between staying on the burning rig or jumping into the open sea; neither environment gave them much chance of survival.

You aren't facing that choice. Your choice is among fixing the marriage, accepting the status quo, or leaving to live your life without the marriage. You think you're stuck, but you're not.

I may have been incorrect on this point. The reason I said that the questions were not given was because there is not a PDF or some other form of the actual survey form with the possible choices.

However, the iVillage site does present a question and choices with each graphic and the inference is that these were precisely the questions asked. I have not made that assumption (unless I missed it somewhere that these were the actual questions asked). The answers, however, seem like the ones that the 2,000 respondents had to choose from.

So, in reply, I would point out that the question(s) presented:

"Which Would You Often Rather Do Than have Sex With Your Spouse"

That is not even close to the position you've taken with you hypothesized question. It is not and was not a yes/no question and there are a range of choices including "N/A-There's nothing I'd rather do."

But thank you for sharing anyway.

The Captain

Well, to be honest, I'm not going to read iVillage, since I'd trust their accuracy (and intentions of sensationality) far less than actual sex therapists like Schnarch. But I still don't see that the question is indicating that the respondents never actually have sex.

And I still maintain that MANY things are better than boring, routine, unconnected sex.

Let me know when you've reached 13 years, 2 months and 6 days without any sex in a marriage and whether you still maintain that opinion.

That's not a choice I would make for myself, thanks.