Waiting More Than a Dozen Years

[Strong&Alive]

This is my first post.

Let me apologize for this being relatively long.

This is my second marriage. I've been married 17 years, as of next month.

Let me premise what I write with this thought: I have always believed that a woman has the absolute right to decide and control if, when, and with whom she will be sexually intimate. I can't remember when or how that thought became part of who I am, but as a young adolescent and adult male, if a girl or woman did not want to be sexually involved with me, I thought that was her choice. So, my wife has the absolute right to make this choice, and she has.

Now, she has been married twice; once right out of high school when she was in college (he eventually left her for someone else) and the second time to someone that was at least as strong-willed as she was (and "controlling"). As things went badly in her second marriage, she was sleeping with her first husband, in part for revenge. I did not know her during any of this time and this is all stuff I learned early on when we started dating. In fact, her first husband kept showing up from time to time early in our relationship before she decided, without me forcing the issue, that she really needed to be done with that relationship. She was already divorced from her second husband when we met and she wasn’t going back to him, either. If it wasn’t for the fact that the two of them had a daughter together, she would not have had any contact with him. According to her, I was completely opposite of her second husband. I was so laid-back I was almost horizontal. Actually, she said I was much like her dad in temperament (whom had died a number of years before she and I met).

My first marriage had ended because my wife had an affair with a college student seven years younger than we were. We had a son nearly three years old when she started her affair with this student. A year later, the affair was revealed and she wanted to go off and live with him. Though I wanted to see if we could work things out, she divorced me and eventually married him. She would tell you that I re-emerged from that “as the person I first fell in love with” and developed into a wonderful father. She has told me that I was the best lover she has ever had. But after our son was born, our sex life just “went away” and then so did she. At the time, I felt used and little more than a sperm and name donor for “legitimacy.” After a relationship of 11 years and a marriage of 7 years, I gave myself nearly two years to heal from the pain of the affair before I was even willing to consider being available.

My current wife was the custodial parent of her daughter. I had joint custody of my son with my first wife. We managed to blend our families fairly well but there were issues and differences of opinions about how to deal with specific child raising issues. Our sex life and intimacy were good through the first several years of our relationship, but one of the greatest challenges in our discussions was about my first wife (who I would not verbally trash). As much as it all hurt, I my first wife’s choices as just being who she really was and that meant not being married to me any longer. It took my second wife 10 years from the time we met before she finally understood how I felt and viewed my relationship with my first wife, so that's not much of a point of contention any longer. I don't harbor not have I held such strong feelings about or towards her previous husbands. I was not there.

Six years after meeting, and well after we were both divorced, we got married. Our sex life had definitely slipped from the first couple of years after we met but it went in fits and spurts and it had its moments. I was more vocal about it than in my first marriage. Part of the off-times was her being angry with me about something but there was more than that, though I just couldn't put my finger on it.

So, here I am on the cusp of our 17th wedding anniversary.

As I type this, we are approaching 12 years and 3 months since the last time I had ANY sexual intimacy. And it is not of my choice. At the 10-year mark of this relationship and 4 years into the marriage, we were down to sexual intimacy about once every 6-8 months. Not that I did not try; more often she would brush me aside. Eleven years after we met and four-and-a half years into our marriage I was diagnosed with cancer. Now there was a mortality wake up call. But I was lucky and I was aware enough of my body that I caught it early and was successfully treated. But two months after my diagnosis, she surprised me one morning by initiating our last lovemaking session. Initiating sexual intimacy was something she had not done in at least two years and it was a pleasant and refreshing surprise. Whether she was feeling sorry for me or just wanted to be close to me are thoughts I’ve entertained from time to time and that is now in the distant past.

Then the lovemaking and all sexual play stopped, at least on her part with me. That was 12 years and 3 months ago. Oh, I tried to get her interested, and even on her birthday (seven months later) became a bit more persistent when she got the most upset with me that I've ever seen. "NO MEANS NO! NOT yes, NOT maybe, but NO! Isn't that what we teach our children?" Well, she was right, but celibacy in our marriage was not something I expected, asked for, or even bargained for. I already had one sexless marriage, why would I want another one? But I was not willing to let this slip away silently like it felt like in my first marriage.

That was not the end of it, as we "negotiated" the sexual terms of our marriage. We had rules to follow in this negotiation and there were three possible conditions to the negotiation. One of us could either accept the offer of the other (which would end the negotiation with agreement). We could decline but give a counter-offer for consideration. We could go back and forth on offer and counter-offer, but as long there was that give and take on these, we agreed that the negotiation was still open. The last option was the "no" and no counter-offer. By agreement, this too would end the negotiation and the matter would be considered closed (not necessarily acceptable, but closed to further discussion). Only the person who declined the offer with no counter-offer could re-open the issue since, as noted above, "no means no." After 8 months of back and forth (and still no sexual intimacy) she finally said that she was not willing to be sexually intimate with me nor was she willing to make any commitment to any future intimacy with me. There was never any reason why, just that it was her choice. That meant that I was not to make any further attempts at sex with her, anything suggestive in any form or fashion, and although she was not happy about the fact it placed the responsibility of initiation of anything sexual squarely upon her, she was not willing to have me initiate with her constantly turning me down. No more lingerie, no more romantic evenings or weekends for the two of us.

I knew in the moment that she said that, two things happened. First, it relieved the immediate pressure on the issue of sexual intimacy from a level of conflict between the two of us. And second, though I hoped she would change her mind some time into the future, it probably could mean the complete end of our sex life (which it has). Recently, my wife was chiding a friend of ours over her appearance of sexual overtures to get attention and possibly become involved with some other guy (and this women is married). The woman retorted "you used sex to get a husband!," a statement that my wife did not refute.

Now, there is something I have not shared. At the outset of our relationship I made two promises and later made a third. First, I promised that I would maintain the fidelity of our relationship (I think she was afraid that my first wife would suddenly have a change of heart and would drop back into my life, in part because she had done the same thing to her second husband). The second promise was that if I broke the first promise, that I would not hide it and we would deal with it directly. It turns out that these two promises were very contentious, not because I would not accept them and make them (I did with little hesitancy) but because I would not set or require similar promises from her. As I pointed out, requiring a promise does not provide a guarantee of anything as what really matters is the integrity of the person you are dealing with. "You either choose to be with me or you choose to not be with me. In either case, it is your choice and I have no power to make you choose otherwise if I really believe in your having the right to choose." We went around on that for more than four weeks at the beginning of the relationship, and even then it probably took two or three months to calm whatever was going on for her around that.

The third promise, which came about later as I was frustrated about some of the things (including the lack of sex) that were occurring was to promise to not threaten to leave as a way of dealing with things. The marriage counselor we were seeing suggested that it did not help if the overt or inherent threat was that I was going to leave and I kept vocalizing that.

I have kept the first and the third promises. The second one is not needed unless I break the first one.

We get along and I still care for her, but we are more friendly housemates with a legally recognized arrangement than anything else. We certainly are not intimate lovers. We no longer sleep together at home (I make it too hot for her to sleep comfortably) and when we travel we sleep together only when we have to. When we travel, we may enjoy sharing being there together but there are no special moments of intimacy like there once was. I recognize that I still hold love and compassion for her, but I am also beginning to question, as I have off-and-on, is this all there is? This is what my life has devolved to but it is not the life of my dreams. The love of my dreams has proved elusive. I realize that I've made so many concessions for the sake of peace and a degree of tranquility that I have lost any sense of joy of romance that I once sought and had long ago. I’m more a butler. I serve her coffee in bed while she shops QVC or HSN before we go to work on weekdays, or where she lounges on weekends.

An incident the other day had me think about something I have not in a very long time: the thought of just walking away. No warning, no threats. Just walking away, particularly when I’m told, in so many words, that I can’t be angry or display anger.

Thanks for listening.

Earl,

I second everything Bagheera has said and urge you to follow his suggestions.

On the face of it your story is one of a SSM. But the real issues are the ones I've underlined, and go very much deeper into your psyche and core beliefs about Life, Women and Sex.

In summary: Why have you been allowing your wife to dictate the kind of life and marriage you should have, instead of the one you wanted? Why did you give her that power?

If your life were a car, I would liken your predicament to one of having handed over the keys to your wife many hundreds of kilometres back when she insisted on taking a particular route to a particular (dry and arid) destination, when instead you should have thought very seriously about kicking her out of your car altogether i.e. divorce.

You may very well still have to do that, but it can wait a little while longer. The most important thing for you now is to discover the answers to the questions you are already asking yourself.

Get the no more mr nice guy book and start delving into yourself.

S&A