OK, I am thinking about giving my wife the following letter after I have devised a suitable closing. I would appreciate your input on this. There is also a question of timing. She is going out of town for a week Thursday morning with the kids. Before or after?

Anyway, here it is:

Dear Wife,

I have waited too long to write this to you, but it needs to be done. We have a serious hole in our marriage, our sex life. I have been dwelling on this a lot over the past year and I have come to some conclusions. At first, I blamed you for this as you naturally have a lower sex drive than I do, but I have come to realize that a great deal of our situation is my fault alone.

Before I go any further, let me explain something about what sex means to me. I know that for you, sex is the result of feeling connected and things being ok in our relationship. For me, sex is the method of feeling connected. That is of course in addition to the obvious things of enjoying it physically. But, I did not understand how critical the emotional portion of this is to me. That is why being in bed together means more to me than what we do in the shower. Shower sex is almost purely physical, bed sex is much more emotional. When we do not have sex, I don’t feel very connected to you. It is the same as conversation and quality time are for you.

After much reflection, I have begun to realize some things that have crippled our sex life. First, I know that from our wedding night on, you have never been sexually satisfied by me and you do not regard me as a good lover. I understand why you feel like this. I know the issue has not gotten better in 14 years, and you have given up. This is reflected in your attitudes during sex in how you just want to get it over with.

I also realize that the last few years have damaged our emotional connection. I do not feel like you have ever gotten over the porn issue. Again, I understand. I also know that part of your initial attraction to me was the strong personality that I used to have. This was destroyed during my time at company M and afterwards during my partnership with C. I have lost a great deal of my own self respect when I prostituted by integrity for money due to my fear of going broke. I am no longer the strong man you married.

We have also been through four years of cancer treatment with A. That alone is enough to kill almost any marriage as the divorce rate among parents of kids with ALL is 90%. I know our financial situation drags us down as well. This is not what you signed up for when we married. I know my bout with depression also seriously reduced by standing in your eyes. Can’t fault you for that either.

I also believe that we are not very compatible sexually. My sex drive remains at once or twice a day, if we had time etc. I realize that is not really a practical amount, given three children etc, but it is where I am. I feel that your rate for having sex is probably once every month or two. It is no use comparing ourselves to other couples either way on this. I know I offended you initially when I told you how many times per day my friends had sex, but you have also offended me with your return that I am abnormal or perverted because of my drive.

I also feel that you are uninterested in expanding what we do in bed, as that makes you feel as though I am trying to fulfill some sort of pornographic fantasy. Again, given what I have done, I can understand this. We now do fewer things than we did when we were first married. I am not sure the last time we had any form of oral sex. I believe it was sometime before we moved last, so maybe eight years.

I have reached the point where I think it best if we stop having sex or pretending like we might. The rejection I feel both when we don’t have sex and even when we do, has become an anchor for me and a source of intense frustration, which I know you feel. In comparison, how would you feel if I stopped any real efforts at holding conversations with you? I believe the solution is to go to counseling with somebody who is capable of working on this issue with us. However, we can not afford to go until finances change. Hopefully, I will be able to find a better job soon. Since we will most likely have to move when that time comes and who knows how long it will take for the house to sell, we will be more or less separated during that time frame anyway. Stopping sex now will just prepare us for that time.

Once we have re-established ourselves and have some money, we can find a good counselor and see if we can work on these and our other issues so that we can improve our marriage.