I'm sex starved, he has EA with OOW

[Bagheera]

Greetings BT, and welcome to the board!

Let me introduce myself. I am a middle-aged man, married to my first wife for the past 24 years, the last two of which has been spent in repairing our relationship from near-divorce and long-term "sex-starved marriage" status. You're welcome to review my history and SSM recovery steps, which I summarized in this post.

Despite the fact that I've come from the high-desire male / low-desire female perspective, I could identify with much of what you wrote. For example:

We were down to having sex about twice a year by this point and started sleeping in seperate rooms because I could not stand being in the same bed when I was sure that I disgusted him.

For a few years, I too slept in a separate bedroom because I couldn't stand having the woman I wanted to take just a few inches away from me, but knew that (in my mind at the time) she didn't desire me and didn't want me to desire or touch her. The only way I could sleep was to remove myself to another room.

In reviewing the process of my own successful SSM recovery, and watching a handful of other folks on this board who have had success in that area over the past couple of years, I realized that for nearly all of these cases, there were four basic "phases" to that process, which I talk about in this post. I would also strongly recommend obtaining MWD's The Sex-Starved Wife, along with it's older companion The Sex-Starved Marriage, if you haven't done so already.

If you'll allow, I'd like to point to a couple of things regarding phases 1 and 2 of "The Four Phases of SSM Recovery," particular to your case. You wrote:

I am not sure if I even care anymore... I am so angry that it is not even the cheating that bothers me. I want him to be as miserable as he has made me.

I know I am bitter... I try not to be, I hold it back and try very hard to act like nothing is wrong but every once in a while something sets me off and I just explode, telling him how I feel, how he has made me feel.

While I understand fully (I've been there) how you feel here, it's important to recognize just how unhealthy (to both you and your relationship) and unhelpful (to solving your SSM) that the above attitude is. It not only makes you feel awful, both physically and mentally, but it puts your husband continuously on the defensive, braced for an attack, and feeling your scorn even when you *aren't* yelling at him --> and it drives him away. Even if he were to suddenly develop a high sex-drive, he wouldn't want to come near you right now. This is something that you need to recognize, and why Phase 1 is so incredibly important. It's not so much about forgiving or forgetting as it is about taking your own happiness, attractiveness, self-value, and self-confidence into YOUR own hands, and no longer dependent upon your husband's validation, affirmation, or behavior. This process will not only reduce your own anger/bitterness significantly and make you feel much better about yourself as a sexual, attractive woman, it will *also* make you much more attractive to your partner, and (hopefully) start to spark his interest in you once again.

Secondly, and just as difficult as the above, it's important to recognize that one of the probable reasons that your husband is having these online affairs is because they serve a need or desire in him that you have not been meeting for some time. I'm not condoning his behavior in any way -- he's made the situation far worse because of it -- but those women are stroking his ego, complimenting him, affirming his manhood and masculinity, and giving him an emotional connection in a way that he has probably not heard from you or had with you in years.

And believe me, I do understand this is a "which came first, the chicken or the egg" scenario. Way back when, he started failing to meet *your* needs for physical and emotional intimacy, which in turn led you to stop meeting *his* needs for affirmation and emotional connection, and the whole thing spiraled out of control: setting you up to be that "angry, nagging, shrew" and causing him to withdraw into his secret on-line fantasy-land.

It's a cycle that has to be broken, in order for things to get better. And it requires at least one of you to be big enough to reach beyond the past, and beyond your hurt, in order to break that cycle and begin the healing process.

Finally, I'll add this. It's also important to recognize that a true low-desire person (someone who is just naturally that way...always has been) honestly has NO CLUE what it is like for a high-desire person to be caught in a sex-starved marriage. They truly don't understand what the fuss is about, why you feel so hurt, undesired, frustrated, and angry. They simply just don't get it: they have no way of relating to it. So you have to cut them some slack and recognize this. At least in the beginning of the developing SSM, they honestly *did not* know how much they were hurting you, and they certainly weren't doing it on purpose.

I'll finish by heartily applauding his decision to get his T-levels tested and to go on T-replacement therapy. It may take some time, but I sincerely hope that this starts to get the ball rolling. However, you have some serious emotional connection repair work to do first, before you can start thinking seriously about the physical connection.

Let me know if you think the above sounds applicable to you, or if I'm off the mark (based upon your single post above). Also, with luck, some of the ladies here will begin to chime in, with whom you can directly identify.

-- Bagheera