An End/Beginning of Year Update

[Accuray]

I don't want to misunderstand you, so I have to assume you're not including women who are struggling with the aftermath of abuse or rape, or who have difficulty with vaginismus or a host of other problems? What exactly do you mean by "capable of"? If it means the ability to be aroused for comfortable sex, etc., you're almost excluding it only to women who are more or less in a good relationship with you in the first place, making it a tautology.

Thank you very much for clarifying! Let me be very specific, this is the case I don't understand:

You date a person and have an active sex life, you both enjoy and appreciate sex. You decide to get married, among the factors going into that decision is sexual compatibility.

When you get married, you are entering into a relationship with some shared understandings -- you are committing to be monogamous, you are agreeing to more or less stick to the patterns you have established during dating (i.e. if you are a working professional, you won't suddenly become a ski bum as a unilateral decision). You are agreeing to care for your spouse, and to "be there" for your spouse in a variety of ways, sharing chores driving the other one to the hospital, etc.

Ideally, you are also signing up to take the other person's needs into consideration, and making it your responsibility to fulfill them to the best of your ability for the good of your marriage.

That's the baseline.

I am excluding situations where you got into a marriage with an agreement that there would be no sex.

I am excluding situations where there are medical issues that prevent the ability to have sex.

I am excluding cases where there was sexual trauma or abuse where both parties have agreed that the results of that trauma are best dealt with by abstaining from sex.

So referring back to my baseline, you have two people who have established a relationship including sex, agree to get married and be monogamous, and are generally doing a good job of meeting each other's needs where the partners would say that they are enjoying a happy and satisfying marriage.

*In that context* if one partner unilaterally decides there will be no more sex, I find that incredibly selfish and unjustifiable regardless of the fact that they may decide sex is unimportant to THEM or that they want to show their love in other ways.

It is a position of completely disregarding the needs of your spouse. It is not a discussion, it is not meeting in the middle, it is simply "FU" if you don't like it, that's how it is.

My *opinion*, my *point of view* is that you should not expect to stay married if you take that position and are not willing to work with your spouse to see their needs met, just like you expect to have your needs met.

I enjoy the discussion, and I welcome all of your opinions and input. For Mr. Bond's benefit, I *have* read the SSM book and found it immensely helpful. It was instrumental in moving my marriage from an SSM to one with a healthy sex life -- I was able to take the learnings from it and put it into practice.

I have also read many other books on the subject, I would assert that the stack of books I have read about marriage, sex in marriage, relationships skills, etc. would be taller than I am, and I'm 6' tall, so I'm not commenting without having done any reading.

In that stack, I did not come across even one book that suggested that unilaterally ending sex in marriage was acceptable, or a valid POV. I would assert that virtually any unilateral declaration in marriage that negatively affects your spouse is probably not a very good POV to have.

Acc