Staying in the marriage isn't all about my needs. I have a whole pack of kids.
"For the sake of the kids." That's a very understandable approach. Until... you ask yourself what kind of example of marriage you're giving them. Would you want any of your children to end up with this kind of marriage? Its a fallacy that kids don't know their parents aren't having sexual intimacy. They know. And that is the message about marriage they receive. Think back to when you were their age.
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And again, the marriage is otherwise quite good. It just seems so silly to switch it all around just for this one bedroom activity, which takes relatively little time compared to sleeping.
Your marriage cannot be "quite good" or anything near it, if you are constantly stifling your authentic desires, having sex on the side/ affairs/ whatever, not being true to yourself, just so you don't "rock the boat".
You can rationalize - this "silly", "bedroom activity" that takes "little time" - all you want, but the truth is that it means way more than that, and you know it. Again, is this "sex is really just silly" line what you want your children to believe, or do you want them to see a healthy role model?
I agree with the other poster that said you have let your wife right off the hook. You have also let yourself off the hook. Your actions (all that count) have told your wife sex is no big deal in a marriage. She currently has no incentive to make any effort whatsoever. You are also brainwashing yourself and settling into a stagnant marriage... have you seriously contemplated where this is going and how it all ends?
I'll bet that if tonight you looked right into your wife's eyes and said "I'm sick of a sexless marriage, you either help me change it, or we divorce" and meant every word, you would see a whole new side to her. And if you got no emotional response, no acknowledgement of your wants and dreams and desires, a "see if I care" attitude, the question you have to ask yourself (that every man in a sex starved marriage has to ask himself) is "If I mean so little to her, if I am worth no effort on her part, why the hell do I want to be with her?" Seriously.
I would be interested in hearing when was the last time you actually had sex with your wife, what exactly your arrangement to get your needs met outside the marriage is, and what she had to say about it at the time?
S&A
"A man can be destroyed but not defeated" - from The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway.
Which I take to mean that every man has within him a spirit of relentlessness and optimism. Its already there; he just has to cultivate it.
