Finding Our Sea Legs

[OnlyBent]

Really interesting responses thanks WF and Steve.

I legitimately can't wrap my head around how sex as a priority fluctuates so wildly for him. But in any of those cases there wasn't much I could to do to improve things. I can't adjust my behaviour to improve our sex lives when the issues are things that are for them to work through.

That must be really frustrating to have your sex life so out of your control, especially when traditionally we are told that women are usually the gatekeepers of sex.

Another factor is I know for my female friends with a low drive when they're rejected it feels like retaliation or they feel like their partners aren't attracted to them any more.

That's why trust and communication are so important in a relationship. My old self has actually had sex with women because I was too afraid to hurt their feelings or reject them, rather than be honest and communicate my feelings. Classic NGS stuff I know.

Especially because I'm the type of person where my weight fluctuates a lot, (depression meds, PCOS, genetics, all fun stuff). So because I already don't feel particularly at home in my body most of the time I definitely take the rejection very, very personally. I know some male partners do too, but given how just any female body in the world is constantly up for scrutiny, my personally being rejected by my H hits so much harder.

The only adjustment I can make is to not pressure so I don't create resentment, and to have conversations wit myself that the rejection isn't personal so I don't hold resentment.

So, I don't know if you're familiar with my sitch, but basically m STBXW would not have sex with me for pretty much the entirety of our 11 year M, not even on our wedding night. She had a medical issue, Vaginismus, which made it painful for her to have sex. The expectation of pain further manifested as fear, which is the ultimate un-aphrodisiac. I thought that the most husbandly and caring thing that I could do was not pressure because I didn't want to resent her. We had sex maybe 5 times the whole of our marriage (we would do other things but that died off, to the point where she wouldn't even kiss me properly). The not pressuring turned into complete avoidance of the problem, I've said before that I completely buried my head in the sand. In hindsight, our M never stood a chance, but I kept telling myself that I was being a great H because I was staying loyal and not pressuring her. But the truth of the matter was that I was totally resenting her, I felt so rejected. All I wanted was a married sex life. I told her once how rejected I felt every day and she completely invalidated me (that event is probably the biggest reminder of how important validation is). Since the M has ended she has since said it wasn't the physical issue but that she didn't feel loved or respected and that's why, which I totally believe but wish she had communicated rather than hide behind her medical diagnosis (she got treatment which I assisted with).

The greatest rejection came when I found out she slept with some guy she'd met on Tinder within a few weeks that she didn't feel any connection with. Then she slept with her current BF, I found messages of how much loved sex and how great he was at it (amongst other things). All very hurtful things, but would they have happened if I'd addressed my problems and changed what I could change when I could rather than hope for things to improve?