Your wife is making you miserable by withholding sex. If you were not miserable about it, you wouldn't be here. Unless it's a medical problem, that is a wholly selfish decision on her part. She is not fulfilling her marriage contract. Why do you have her on this pedestal?
I don't take her withholding personally. You have to look at it clinically -- loss of desire is often a clinical problem. If you look at it as love=sex, then you will feel resentment of course.
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If you had a new wife who you loved and adored, and you loved and adored you back, PLUS loved having sex with you, I don't believe you would be sad -- I think that's fear talking. If you had a fulfilling marriage that satisfied you sexually, instead of wondering what you gave up, I think you would KNOW that what you gave up was years of having a fulfilling sex life to go along with the rest of your marriage. You are giving that up right now.
You might be right.
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I listen to a radio call in show with a sex therapist. A lot of open marriage participants call in. What I have learned from listening to that is that open marriage can be fun for a while, but eventually it will break you down. You can't be in love with two people at the same time, and it's almost impossible to engage in sex repeatedly with people you are attracted to and not have your feelings for them escalate. If they are also married to someone else, you're in a double bind. It seems to me to be a recipe for short term gratification but longer term mental anguish.
This is one of those politically correct myths that are widely believed. I know personally of counterexamples to what you're saying. The problem is that people in quiet and happy open marriages have no interest in calling in or seeing a therapist. And in the overall statistics they show up as married. There is no checkbox on the IRS form for "openly married".
And as for "eventually breaking down" -- what kind of argument is that? Most marriages completely "break down" into divorce by the 12th year.
And as for not being able to be in love with two people at the same time, also absurd. It's a social ideal that's taught. Show me the brain circuits which make it impossible to be "in love" with more than one person at the same time, while you are still able to "love" more than one child at the same time. Really? Look, I believe it's a powerful social norm, and that is important to consider, but don't make it sound like biology. There are a lot of guys out there who are married and have a secret mistress for many years. But you don't see them on Dr. Phil. Not that I advocate that. Just making a point.
