An End/Beginning of Year Update

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

In other words, your wife's condition is that she will stay in the marriage as long as you're totally celibate for the long-term. Which is the complete opposite of what a marriage is supposed to provide. Your wife has redefined marriage to be a total sexual prison.

You know, with her definition of marriage, perhaps the Catholic Church would consider allowing priests to get married after all! Celibacy would still be maintained!

And so what I always ask in this situation, and which I've never received a logical answer to is, if a woman thinks sex is that unimportant, why would she mind if you had something that unimportant with someone else?

Or to ask it another way, what does she get out of knowing that you are celibate? Does she mind that you masturbate? If not then what is it about "friend assisted" masturbation that would bother her? Is it just intercourse with someone else that bothers her? Or just an emotional connection with another woman, even if it didn't include sex of any kind?

Perhaps she just wants a husband who is a skeleton in a chair that she can talk to, and spin around for the audience to gasp at? Don't know why, but that famous movie scene is what came to mind.

I get the sarcasm.

There is a subtle difference between what she has said and how you cast it. She hasn't said that she'll stay in the marriage with me being totally celibate. She has said that the marriage WILL END if I am unfaithful. It may be a distinction without a difference.

But it is more than the marriage that has had this ort of requirement from her POV because when we first started dating she stated a similar "requirement." Want to know what the argument that ensued was all about? It was because I would not put a similar requirement (call it a relationship "death penalty") for exclusivity on her.

I think part of that was, at the time, her fear that my ex-wife would suddenly show back up in my life once the reality of someone else showing up in my life might really preclude any chance of return. It is much more complicated than that and there are also some things in my current wife's own past that would lead her to that sort of requirement.

The Captain

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Honest conversations... thank you! That is the key. You don't know women by reading books or studying "women", you get to know ONE woman through intimate conversation, learning what she thinks, how she feels, and what she likes and doesn't like. It is really that easy. Whatever you know about "women" may apply 100% or 0% to the one woman who you're actually trying to relate to.

And to clarify why I said I missed sex "in theory," was because I was resigned that part of being married was having either no sex or lousy detached impersonal sex. Granted, I have learned there was a lot I didn't communicate, but communicating in that area seemed to really affect H's self esteem and there would be backlash, so since I "married for life" I just decided to be happy with what I had. But what I had was not what I miss, if you see what I mean.

Speaking of counting, and what you focus on expanding, when I was younger I took birth control pills, and I would get very depressed every time I threw away an empty month's case with the realization that we hadn't had any sex that month. And there were more months like that than the opposite. When I focused on it, it depressed me. That's where I was coming from with my questions here.

I'm learning to navigate between not feeling (what's the point) and obsessing or wallowing (how I feel matters). If it matters but you can't do anything about it...or have chosen not to...what do you do with those feelings. My background, which I'm trying to change, is to be cheerful and make the best of a situation WITHOUT LEARNING HOW TO CHANGE IT. I still wouldn't have D'd my H, and I had learned that he would not consider outside help, and trying to help things myself was making things worse. So I chose to not think about it, and focus on the good things as much as possible. I'm not saying that was the most healthy thing to do, but I'm trying to figure out what else there could have been.

Ultimately, this is a reasonable approximation description of what I have gone through. May real purpose in coming here several years ago was to see if there was something I missed (obvious or subtle) that could/would make a difference. Besides being a long, slow motion rant and storytelling, it also became more and more obvious that I really hadn't missed anything and sometimes there is nothing that one can do within the marriage to move the other partner from their entrenched position. So, it comes down to this choice: do I stay married without sex or do I divorce so I can possibly find a sexual partner. There is a third alternative: to much more broadly and openly publicize that she does not want sex and hasn't for more than a decade. I'm not sure bringing that sort of publicity would get me anything. I do know this. If I finally walked away because of this, I wouldn't paper over it.

I, too, miss the sex...the physical pleasure. And it was something I was really good at (I generally no longer dwell on this possibility: that one of the reasons why my wife started to just outright deny me was to take away something from my life that I was really good at, perhaps as punishment?) But it did leave me with a "why bother" POV. But it was more than that, it is the sense of closeness and intimacy that came from the total experience that is missed and ultimately lost.

Hence you end up with housemates rather than intimate partners.

The Captain

[RockJC]

Is there a 4th option?

I am thinking of forcing the conflict; Constantly remind her just how painful and unacceptable it is, and make it clear that there will be no longer be a relationship until this is resolved. She is comfortable with the status Quo, maybe you need to make it uncomfortable?

This may mean the end of your marriage, but if you are married to someone who is so insensitive to your needs, then maybe this is what needs to happen anyways.

Until this problem is solved, I would make it the focal point of every conversation and interaction. Yes it will create tremendous, conflict, but maybe it is time for some conflict.

Just a thought. Curious what others think.

[DaddyLongShanks]

Is there a 4th option?

I am thinking of forcing the conflict; Constantly remind her just how painful and unacceptable it is, and make it clear that there will be no longer be a relationship until this is resolved. She is comfortable with the status Quo, maybe you need to make it uncomfortable?

This may mean the end of your marriage, but if you are married to someone who is so insensitive to your needs, then maybe this is what needs to happen anyways.

Until this problem is solved, I would make it the focal point of every conversation and interaction. Yes it will create tremendous, conflict, but maybe it is time for some conflict.

Just a thought. Curious what others think.

Hmmm.

Make it uncomfortable? The HD in the relationship has NO leverage other than that they can leave.

The LD will let them know that they can't be made to do something they don't want to do and if you don't like it leave.

[ssmguy]

Sure, that's a 4th option and it will probably work for some couples. I guess it would work if the spouse doesn't understand the gravity of the situation and learns it this way.

However, in my experience, the 4th option didn't work. You can have a forceful conversation once or twice. But after that, the logic isn't new, and the repetition becomes a negative reinforcement and gathers very negative emotional associations, resulting in sexual aversion as the experts call it. And this can happen even if the unwilling spouse actually has sex and it is done reluctantly. You have a spouse who, if they have sex, has it to shut you up.

[ssmguy]

It wouldn't be just a "talk". It would be a long dating process to evaluate her character. A look into her history, how she treats her parents, her willingness to communicate directly with me.

I did all those things too. And we got along very well for a number of years. The problem is, when one is 60, the things one swore up and down were the case when one was 25 doesn't have quite the same context.

Most importantly, there is a spiritual component to it.

If you are both deeply committed, it could certainly help. But it's still no guarantee.

[Accuray]

I'm a fan of the fourth option (which is effectively an ultimatum). I also agree with ssmguy that it will NOT work unless the person issuing the ultimatum is prepared to follow through with the consequences.

So, it comes down to this choice: do I stay married without sex or do I divorce so I can possibly find a sexual partner.

I would definitely frame this differently:

Option 1: Preserve the status quo, stay married without sex or intimacy in a friendly housemates situation while also being prohibited from having other relationships with women.

Option 2: Issue an ultimatum that the status quo is no longer acceptable to you. Either she needs to work with you to mutually improve your marriage including the re-introduction of sex and intimacy, or you will divorce and go your separate ways. (Decision is hers)

Option 3: Leave to (definitely, not possibly) find a sexual partner

Option 4: Leave to find someone else to have a loving, committed relationship with that includes sex among other benefits, including intimacy, a productive cohabitation, shared travel, etc. etc. i.e. Whatever benefits you enjoy in your current relationship plus the addition of sex and intimacy

I fear that the way you're framing this choice is that you would be leaving a comfortable relationship and going through the pain and aggravation of divorce just to find a sex partner. I can't imagine that would really be the goal.

I would think you'd more likely be looking for someone who would take your needs into consideration and be willing (and enthusiastic) about sharing intimacy with you in many forms.

Why do you stay Captain?

[ssmguy]

I see the options more as a progression, not a "pick one". Otherwise you have not exhausted all the possibilities. First, of course, you make it clear how you feel. Then you live with the situation and be patient for a while. If you otherwise have a good relationship, it doesn't make sense to me to just go for divorce, in which case you've automatically given up all other options. Anybody can just divorce and move on -- crude and blunt and guarantees you won't be continuing to "deal" with the problem.

So before divorcing, you might suggest an open marriage, which can mean a great variety of things with different rules for different people. Newt Gingrich was too harshly criticized for this in my opinion by his ex-wife, who appeared to make him sound like a raging pervert for suggesting such a humiliating thing. We just don't really know the circumstances of his marriage so we can't say any more. But I can certainly see situations where such a suggestion is entirely reasonable if the alternative is simply divorce.

Open relationships are happening more than people think. Therapists claim they are rarely work, but that's because they only see the people who end up in therapy when they don't work. Otherwise people have no incentive to advertise them to the world.

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Captain,

You helped me very much when I first came here -- I view you as very wise, and yet I continue to be completely confused by your decisions. You refer to a commitment you made to your wife and your absolute determination to honor it, yet you live an unsatisfying life to hear you describe it. You've had great personal victories in terms of weight loss and fitness that are very admirable, but you and your W seem to be locked in a type of cold war.

You refer to giving your wife reminders and making other comments that she probably interprets as slights and digs. You also set the stage for her to step up and engage in some intimacy with you again and she leaves you hanging. It's a painful thing to read about.

From what you write, she is suspicious and paranoid about losing you -- it doesn't seem at all like she's operating from a position of not caring. What is her perspective on all this? If you were describe your situation from her perspective, what would it be?

One can simultaneously honor a promise AND not be happy with how it affects your life. One example is that which we call "marriage." From the perspective of having a married life that includes sexual intimacy, yes, I am unhappy about the way it has turned out for me. In the moment when I think about that specific aspect of my life I can say that I am "unhappy." But there are other moments in my life where that issue isn't even on my radar. That wasn't so true in 1997.

There is no cold war here. That war is over and she won. I have given her space to be who she really is. This is who she is.

You asked what I might write to describe my situation from her perspective. Two things come to mind if I was writing in her voice: first, that her stopped trying to get me to have sex with him. And second, I never believed that he would take me at my word and believe that were no conditions where I'd want to sexually intimate.

The Captain

[Accuray]

Do you mean she's surprised that you haven't continued to pursue her sexually and she appreciates that or resents it? How else would she describe your relationship? How would she describe you? If she had to rate her marital satisfaction on a 10 point scale how would she rate it?

How would she describe how you feel about her?

Is she aware of the pain the celibacy inflicts and if so how does she feel about it?