I am in a marriage that the sex is so absolutely terrible. I'm sure we probably have the worst sex life possible. The even sadder part is that I have always been in relationships with really awesome sex, so it's terribly difficult for me to just try to be "satisfied" with this. I feel like I'm wasting my best years having no sex and being completely deprived of affection. I would like to have an affair with someone who is a good lover and who enjoys have romantic, passionate sex - rather than someone who just wants to penetrate, get off, not please their partner at all, and be done. It's really terrible being in this situation and our awful sex life is really driving a wedge between us. We usually get along as brother/sister just fine, but because of our terrible sex life, I'm frustrated and short tempered with him. I think he's asexual or something, but he's most certainly the least sexual person I've ever met. I don't know why I ever thought a sexless marriage would work.
You've come to the right place... the place no one wants to be. You are among people who understand what you are going through-- believe me we do.
Why not start a thread of your own below and tell us something about yourself and your situation. We may not be able to help, but sometimes it helps just to know that others truly understand. (The board is kind of slow on weekends, so don't get discouraged if there aren't replies right away.)
Many of us in this forum have also been in past relationships where the sex was fabulous and it's killin' us that this is such a troubled issue in the current relationship.
There is a web site for asexual people, and I think it has a message board... http://www.asexuality.org/home/ You might post your sitch there and see what people have to say. Although confirming your suspicions probably won't make you feel any better.
Thanks lilliperl. I actually went to the asexual boards and they sound strikingly like my husband. I'm a little surprised, because I kind of used asexual as a dramatic overstatement - but maybe it's a little more accurate than I'd thought. I talked to him about it and asked him to read the boards and he just got angry (understandable) and he says he's certainly not asexual - I guess labeling it makes one uncomfortable. I find the whole asexual thing very interesting though and I think there may be something there that can explain the lack of sex (or any sexual relationship whatsoever) in our relationship.
Hello Michelle,
Not sure if you remember me....Its been nearly 5 years I think since Ive posted here. In fact I think one of my quotes is in your book, the sex starved marriage. This site was such a help to me. I was in a very desparate state when I found this forum and the discussions here helped me incredibly.
On a sad note I want to say that my dear friend CVG who posted here and led me to this site has passed away summer '04 and I miss her sooo much. She was a beautiful person inside and out.
When I posted here I was married to a narcissist, I was his devoted wife, devoted desperate wife who would do almost anything to make my marriage work for the sake of my 3 children and for the sake of marriage and out of fear. In other words, I was fearful of being without him because I thought I had nothing without him. 12-13 years with a narcissist leaves a person extremely love starved and desperate but what kind of person pairs with a narcissist?. I realized that I was half of the pathological equation and I was at a loss at where to go from there. I had a lot to learn and a lot to do.
I learned that our lack of sex was a combination of his fear of intimacy and my lack of self. He would rather masterbate or fantisize about other women that make love to a wife because a wife expects too much emotionally, so he kept me as far away from him as he could. Sex opened the door to closeness and intimacy and that scared the hell out of him, hed rather have me on the opposite side of the bed. Besides, in his narcissistic mind if he wasnt stuck with the likes of me he would be able to make real love to someone really worthy of him. He genuinely believed that and at some point eventually so did I. He had issues no doubt but so did I. HoW could I be a part of this for so long?
I must have posted 1000 times on here. Its over now.
2 years of therapy, a nasty divorce, careful planning, I completed my degree in nuclear medicine, found secure well paying employment, my children are honor students...I've traveled to every city on the west coast from Vancouver CA to Cabo since I left him along with New orleans, Chicago and NYC (hunting trips were my only outings with him heheh). I even bought a new SUV ( he always drove the new car and I drove the junker because I stayed home with the kids and he said I couldnt afford a car). But then...I went along with that mentality didnt I. I was such a good loving wife. uugghh
Anyway....I guess Im just checking in. Divorce is awful,(so can marriage be) but sometimes unavoidable and oh so necessary. Id say I should have never married him but then I realize I would have just ended up with someone else just like him. I didnt value myself and I married someone who never would. That I had to learn and fix.
In Fact.....
He just married a MAIL ORDER BRIDE from China of all places to insure complete domination and success this time. Its amazing and just validates my opinion of why divorcing him was the ONLY solution. Although the only course was to really reflect on why I was living like that for so long. Now hes teaching our daughters to ridicule the new chinese wife in order to teach her american customs. "make fun of her" he tells them "then shell learn to chew with her mouth shut."
Lesson # 2. Never make babies with a psychopath.
Is my life easier now? No. Theres always the aftermath of divorce. Although I will admit Im not the least bit sex starved anymore thank goodness. Dating is constantly disappointing, partly because Im scared to death of my judgement (duh) and partly because I refuse to settle unless hes wonderful and LOVES me for me. I feel like love is a lottery....LUCK! Unrealistic? maybe but in my opinion its better to be alone and hoping than married and miserable. I speak from experience here.
I will say that although things are not easier, Im truely happy now. I have a self now and Im still learning, raising my children and trying to make minimal mistakes for now. Ive come a long way in 5 years...further than I ever thought I could. I cant take all the credit because so much of it was pure blessing from God. I did work very hard at the outcome tho and I did it for my daughters and because life so valuable it needs to be real. Im truely happy now... happier than Ive ever been.
I used to post deperately here...reading some of these posts I remember the agony I was in. Best wishes to all of you. Pray for Wisdom and Courage. Use your good sense. And most of all, be true to yourselves!
This is my last attempt at this marriage BS and yes that is how I feel. My husband did have a very high sex drive up until about the last 6 months. I found him geting off in front of the computer and I think that is what replaced me. He shuts down and doesnt even act like he wants to be married. The problem is this is my second marriage and I have a 10 year old little girl. I dont want to end another marriage with divorce for her sake more than my own. I try to talk to him and he isnt receptive. I try to treat him very nice and he doenst care, acts like i should anyway. I finally told him I wanted out, I am sick of it. Once again he acts like nothing happened. I can't take it anymore please help me.
Can you put your story on one of our threads? Or, if you'd like I'll be happy to start one up for you if you aren't sure how to go about it. You'll find you will receive much more feedback if you start one of your own.
When you do this....please include much more detail about your sitch. What have you said? How have you tried to communiate? What has his response been? How has his behavior changed? How has your behavior changed? Stuff you might think is trivial could be very important....so don't worry if it's a very long post. The more info we have the better we can help you out.
Hello everyone~I have been reading this thread on and off for most of the day. I feel so thankful to have found this board and to see that I am not alone in this horrible situation. I am a HDW and my LDH is/has been that way for a long time. We have also been married for a little over 25 years and I have dealt with his desire gradually decreasing over time. To be fair to him~I have had some health problems but, nothing that would interfere with a good sex life. He has me wondering all the things you have mentioned here~is he gay? having affairs, asexual? I only wish I knew so I could address the elephant in the room. I have tried just about everything to reach out to him, to initate sex, to try to be attractive to him. To the point of literally embarassing myself. But; nothing but rejection and being left feeling worthless, unlovable and unattractive. I have and am considering an affair knowing that it is morally wrong~but I am longing to be held, loved, and made to feel like the sensual woman that I am. There is no chance of that happening with DH. I have suggested counseling ad he refused so I am now going on my own! I have suggested a retreat for marriages in trouble in our church~again, no. I've even asked him outright if he has someone else and he just acts like~how dare I ask him that!! I posted over on the infidelity thread and recieved some good f/b but, I'm not sure that the folks over there "get it" the way you all do here. I don't want to end my marraige, but if this continues on and on ~along with the emotional neglect and abuse (which is a whole different discussion)~I don't know what will happen. I love my DH but because of his isolation and neglect; it has been a long time since I have felt "in love" with him. I would love any f/b from those of you who have walked this path and YES!! I would love a book to address this issue. Thanks and Best of luck to you all.
Hi...you are among people who understand. I'm going to start you your own thread for people to respond to. You'll find that you'll get more feedback by having your own thread, and it's easier for us to keep up with your situation.
I'll copy and paste your post....and respond to some things there
Hello. I am new to this forum, but not new to The Sex-Starved Marriage book. I read this book last year, and had hopes that my husband would read it and hopefully try to improve our sex life, but that didn't happen. He and I still have a very unfulfilling sex life. My answers to the questions are below:
How did it start? When did you notice it?
Honestly, even when my husband and I were dating, we didn't have an active sex life. It took us 7 months after we began dating to have our first sexual encounter. While waiting wasn't so bad, as during that time, we got to know each other quite well on a friendship level, initially the sex was really bad. I had to basically let him know that oral sex was the best way to satisfy me sexually and kind of teach him how to go about it. He wasn't open to it, but eventually, he started doing it, and the sex between us began to improve a bit. After we got married, the sex actually got better! I mean, REAAALLLL GOOD for both of us; however, we still weren't having sex but a few times a year.
What sorts of problems does it create in your marriage...in your life?
I've noticed that there's a lot of tension and restlessness in our lives, and I think this could be resolved if we had sex more often. Last year was the worst year between us. I lost my job, became depressed, and gained a HUGE amount of weight, and I am still struggling with my weight. As a matter of fact, my husband claimed that my weight was part of the reason we weren't having sex as often. I think that he was sort of truthful about that, but not 100%. He's overweight, too, and I don't have an issue with it. I still think he's very sexy, and I am still sexually attracted to him. We are both working on losing weight, now, though, but still no sex. We almost separated, but I guess we weren't ready to do that yet. We did have one session with a marriage counselor, but never went back due to lack of insurance and finance issues.
Also, my husband has type II diabetes, and the illness got pretty bad last year, and this may be part the issue why our sex life pretty much came to a halt last year. The couple of times we did try to attempt sex last year, he was unable to "keep it up." On a side note, we are not having children. We simply don't want any. I am sterilized with Essure, and he finally went to a urologist to talk not only about getting a vasectomy, but also about his ED problem. The urologist gave him a sample of "the blue pill," but he doesn't want to take it, and honestly, I don't want him to, either, but something has to change. Maybe he can take half of one and see what happens. At any rate, while he and I do a lot of touching, kissing, hugging and all of that, but this does not replace sex. Not by a long shot. When we do have sex, as I wrote above, it really is great, so I don't understand why we just can't get going here more often than I would like. More than likely, we need to return to marital counseling, too, but that has to come when we can afford it.
I feel that I am at my sexual peak, and I am highly sexually frustrated and partake in a lot of "self-pleasure" activities. He knows I am sexually frustrated, but now, because of the ED issue, we haven't even bothered attempting having sex. I don't know how he deals with it - maybe by not thinking about it or just channeling the feelings into something else.
I have had the feeling that he should love me no matter what my weight, but I did weigh a lot less when we met, and I know he was attracted to me then and we may have had a little more sex then. Oh, well, I am hoping that his seeing that I am working on losing weight as well as an upcoming getaway weekend next month will help jump-start our sex life again.
ETA: Not only does our lack of sex make me feel restless, I feel very unattractive, I have become rather untrustworthy of my husband because I am often wondering if he's not getting sex from me, is he trying to get it from another woman, and also I have wondered if he is secretly gay or bisexual. It's sad, but true. Good sex can sometimes cover over or even help get rid of a mountain of bad feelings, and when it doesn't happen, the feelings just sit there in your gut and get worse.
I've posted a few times on this thread but I wanted to give an update.
A month ago I found out the main reason I had been living as a sex starved wife. I orignally thought I was dealing with someone who had a history with women that had torn down his self esteem....and that truly simply didn't have a sex drive (because intially that's what I'd been told). My H, I found out a few weeks ago had actually all along been participating on adult website where people go to hook up....or live out sexual fantasies....our entire M. He'd been expending all of his sexual energy towards "fantasy objects". Let me tell you this hurt as bad as if I had just found out my H had been having a PA with someone else. It was such a betrayal and such a massive breach of trust.
I had been working for 2.5 years towards what I thought was a common goal for both of us only to find out....I had been wasting my time. I had been working my butt off, trying to be understanding of the excuses he handed me....all the while he knew he was visiting websites, chatting with women, e-mailing, and had been viewing their live porn video downloads....and lying to my face about it.
Naturally when I found out about it I didn't take it all that well. I confronted him about it and FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY....we are really making progress.
Why did my H choose to take that route for his sexual fulfillment rather than coming to me, his sex starved wife? It was less threatening, it couldn't hurt him.....I could. Even though I was begging my husband at home for sexual attention he didn't really believe that what I told him I wanted, I truly wanted. In his mind only "sluts" wanted what I was asking for and he viewed me as someone he respected, loved, revered....so I couldn't possibly be someone who "would do those things!". It's the whole whore/madonna thing. He married the woman he could look up to, someone he respected and loved....but would never defile. You only "defile" those you don't really care for.
Since then my H has come to see that the whore/madonna can live in one woman and that he is married to that woman. We are truly finally beginning to make real progress in our M now that I've blown the lid off of his dirty little secret....and accepted him for what he was wanting sexually. The sad thing is, what he was wanting, what he was fantasizing about....was in me all along, he just didnn't believe it. So I spent years having to suppress that side of myself. No longer.
He hid his sexual side away from me because he thought it would disgust/repel me....when in reality what he wanted, is what I wanted too.
Now unfortunately we are having to deal with the reprocussions of all of the lying and the breach of trust due to his online activities. We will eventually get past this, and he's absolutely willing to do what it takes to rebuild my trust. It's just sad to me that it took something so hurtful/so drastic to bring us closer together. Since I found out what I did we've been much closer. He's more open to talking to me, we've literally had more sex in the past month than we had our entire M...and the EC is definitely building. Here's hoping that things keep improving.
