Waiting More Than a Dozen Years

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Cyrena:

I missed your earlier post which deseves a reply as does this one. And the responses are related.

First, I do accept that there are people, couples, transforming their lives and relationships through the choices they make. I do not reject that as being possible or occurring as a statement of fact/reality.

Second, the facts on the ground are really quite simple even though I've laid out a fairly detailed and intricate story: there are no conditions under which my wife would be willing to be sexually intimate with me.

I cannot paint it anymore bluntly than that.

I can make a different choice and say that it is "OK" that the marriage be sexless (and if that were the case, I would not be writing about it here. I would be telling a different story about how "successful" and "wonderful" my marriage is and has been).

Can I have a marriage that includes sex and sexual intimacy?

Yes!

It just does NOT include my current wife.


And now to your second post: I have mulled over exactly these points you raise. It's a farness issue and a sense that she bailed out of the sexual intimacy part of the marriage.

As I have stated before, she made that choice knowing and being fully informed as the other adult in this marriage of the sort of range of what I was looking for/desired.

One could say that she made this choice, fully informed, almost as a challenge to me to see what the consequences would be. As I have said, I regret that, in that moment, I did not go with my gut told me: leave now.

Clearly, the law is on my side in this case. Technically, we've met all the requirements for filing for a divorce today. And after remaining sexually faithful to the marriage vows for more than 13 years, I doubt that many would think I divorced w/o cause (though some might view this fidelity issue as being a bit extreme).

I do realize it is a choice to soldier on and to run out the clock. In the meantime, I occupy my time with walks in the woods and the continuing slow loss in weight. But that is another aspect.

The Captain