Are there any midlife women who want daily sex?

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Apparently this site is one that is visited very early in the morning (maybe when the sex starvation is at it's greatest There were 55 people viewing at around 2:30-3:00AM ET). Anyway...

SSMGuy:

Once again there is a completion of a circle. This is the way these periods of discussions go. And let's face it...we prefer to "vent" here rather than doing the thing(s) that might actually make a difference.

The uncertainty of the outcome and the front that our wives have put up are daunting; no frightening because they've made addressing these issues so incredibly unpleasant to us, that we rarely dare to tread that path again. Though there probably wasn't a time where your wife said "I'll teach him a lesson he'll never forget!" the effect has been the same.

As a result there is the resignation to two unpalatable alternatives...accept a sexless marriage or divorce. Those represent the polar bookends given the current experience. And in this website, there is advocacy for keeping a marriage intact (but also strengthening it so that it functions rather than just being a marriage in name only).

So, you won't see a lot of advocacy for divorce though there is the clear recognition that it happens.

Since you haven't been divorced and I have, let me tell you a few things about it. It IS a tough choice and is survivable. For example, you raise issues of shared parenthood...well, you just have to choose the following: the issue between your wife and you are not your children's responsibility. You can make that work by not putting your children into the middle of some tug-of-war.

It is about personal failure in not being able to make the most important relationship in your life work. And in this case, its also going to be around something else. It's about divorcing over the absence of sex and being legally released to pursue a complete relationship (rather than settling for a broken one).

It is no picnic and whoever makes the first step is likely to be seen within the family and friends as the bad-guy. So, its not something to pursue blithely and a question that needs to be asked (more of her than you) is this "Is divorce preferable to s sexless marriage?" If the answer is "yes" then there nothing left to do than start the process. If the answer is no, as has been pointed out then accept what you have or do something different.

Letting go of someone you love and care about deeply is one of the toughest things I have ever done. And it is frightening, just as frightening as confronting the wall that you (and I) have been presented by our wives.

While it has never been clear to me whether some significant portion of your wife's issues stem from physiological issues, the story you present is one that is fundamentally psychological. I know the two are not disconnected.

However, you speak of how much you like you in-laws but have you ever questioned where this sex-aversion has come from? If it's not organic (physiological), then it came from somewhere. That's the environment she came from. What happened there?

The difference for me in two years is that I've done and said things that, without any sort of intention, has moved my view that maybe, just maybe, there is the opening to much more smoothly do what needs to be done...to alter the marriage relationship.. Otherwise, the choice is what you've presented: either sexless or divorce.

We both know what needs to be done even though we've tried things that we've thought of and others have offered. The simple fact is that we are too afraid to do them. As I recently told my wife, I'm tired of being afraid and if I knew that this was they way my life was going to turn out, I would have never married.

Ultimately, this is a cancer in our lives. Your wife's refusal to do anything with you that addresses this sexual dysfunction (even if it can be identified as totally physiological) is a cancer in your marriage and for the moment I'll ascribe the cancer to her.

Refusing to address it is like refusing to treat a slow- growing cancer. Eventually, it can (and probably will) crowd out everything else or metastasize into something far more lethal. Would your wife knowingly ignore cancer if it was treatable and survivable?

If the answer is "yes" your choice is a lot more simple than you think.

As a cancer survivor, I know what the future and the next treatment steps can be scary. In my own conversation as to what's next for me, I'm reminding myself of that experience. Since you haven't had that experience it might be a little abstract, but I think even without the experience you know what you'd do. Ultimately, the same applies here.

The Captain