Waiting More Than a Dozen Years

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

If you and your wife were to divorce today, do you think that she would go through the rest of her life as a celibate, single woman, or do you think it likely that she would find another man who could "reawaken" her sexual interests again (as happened with your first wife)?

Before we go too far down this path, let me state that my first wife isn't exactly in Nirvana. I realized that she is equally "trapped" in nearly the same (sexual) way as I am (once a year, maybe). She is also trapped by the choices she's made and feels, at times, that she has to vigorously defend the choices she made. But when she lets her guard down, she has told me (at various times and has told others) that she made the wrong choice. It's been worded different ways by her:

"If only I had waited (for things) to get 'better'..."

"If I knew that I would have gotten better...."

Or, very directly when she apologized to me years ago for what she did. What triggered it for her was the fact that when she had her second child (by him and he was not traveling or having the work schedule that I had after our son was born), and she felt the same feeling about him as she had felt about me and felt herself drifting out of that marriage and towards another affair, there was an OMG moment for her when she realized what she had done.

It was what pregnancy and the post-partum period did to her emotions and the way she felt about the world.

It wasn't me at all, and it never was.

She told me how sorry she was for that. Yet, she can still get pretty defensive about what happened. And there is much more to her part of the story that I won't be sharing here. But as she has shared with me, her sex-life isn't exactly like she thought it might have been when she left me for him (it released a degree of guilt and inhibition about being sexually involved with two men at once, one her husband trying put things right, one that was not) and she realizes just how much she gave up (the inevitable comparisons do come and moreso when your latest sexual partner does not quite live up to what you had once before). According to her I was and still hold the place of the best lover she has ever had. I'll just leave it at that for the moment.



As for my current wife, I don't know what she'd do if we divorced and frankly I'm getting to the point where I don't care. It might be time for her to find a nice new relationship and settle down with that. She could tell him (or her for that matter) what diagnosis code(s) apply from the DSM-IV. Or maybe she could take up with her first husband again, like she did during her second marriage. For that matter, maybe she already has.

As for the madding horde, you make a poor assumption that I even desire to keep 4 or 5 women entertained (sexually or otherwise) at the same time for a long period of time, even in rotation. As I have told some of them, I don't play hard to get, I am hard to get (in that I don't necessarily rush into bed with anyone). So, I have turned down some offers that some men, maybe many men, would not have passed up (both as a married man and when I've been single). But from my POV, none of these were prospects for long-term relationships. The sex may have been good, but without the rest of the emotional connectedness, its just sex, not intimacy. What I am seeking once again is sexual intimacy.

I don't and haven't ever followed my dog's approach to life (when it comes to women)...eat it now, I can always vomit later.

And you need one and only one to be the one long-term prospect. Every other relatonship, flirtation, or simple attraction is superfluous if and when you think you've met the one.

Are you willing to entertain the notion that YOU -- your character and behavior -- have contributed to your ultimately sexless relationships?

I've already gone far, far beyond this point well before I gave voice to what you read here. The question for you, in return, how far are have you been willing to go? Or are you more committeed to failure, than you are committed to success. You are may experience "resistance" as you read this. I ask you to notice it, but not be overwhelmed by your sense of resistance. This is a good stopping point, if you wish.

That said, I will continue.

I have not only "entertained the notion," that I "have contributed to" my "ultimately sexless relationship," I have taken on that it isn't a contribution at all. It's not that I contributed partially, it's that I caused it, 100% of it, that I am totally, completely, and utterly responsible for and at cause and accountable for a relationship that is completely devoid of sex and sexual intimacy and for every peripheral event.

Just to check-in, have you ever accepted that you are 100% responsible and accountable for what you've experienced with your wife? (and if not, why not?)

So, if I'm 100% accountable for this sexless condition, then nothing, no condition, excuse, behavior, circumstance, or reason that I might be tempted to assign to her would have any bearing or influence on what has happened in the past, what is happening now, or what will happen in the future. No "blame" of any sort can be directed towards my wife and there must be an entire and complete "hold harmless" zone around her.

I know, I know, you've told yourself all your life that there are some things that you can't control or that you just can't be responsible for.

In fact you can go the one-step further and say I caused this. Not her, not anything else, not a matter of hormones, age, body functions, just me.

And if this is what I caused (we won't debate whether I set out to cause it, the fact is that it exists in the here and now, in this temporal spacetime) how could it be anything other than perfect? We'll get to the SSM question next, but a question for you to consider is did you ever consider your marriage "perfect" when you were saying that it was an SSM? How could it be anything other than perfect if you are 100% responsible?

So here is the big question: while my marriage is truly sexless (not the therapists definition of less sex less than 10 times per year) and we are not really discussing sexless marriages but "sex-starved" marriages, how can a marriage be classified, for me, as "sex-starved" if I am 100% responsible, caused it all to be the way it is and it is a perfect reflection of what I caused?

Answer: It cannot be a sex-starved marriage. Never.

And you cannot change that which "is not."

Nor can you, I, or anyone else change a sexless one if we are 100% responsible.

Now, you might think this is a nonsensical discussion unless you've been paying attention,

If you've been paying attention, you already know that I'm here, right at this point and way beyond anything under "contribution?"

How can you tell? Because I said I should have gone it alone after my first marriage.

And I am not alone.

So, all there is to choose is do I go it alone from here until the end of my life.

And that's what I'm weighing, not whether my current wife will find another man (or woman) that could reawaken her. Frankly, she does not need me.