My wife came out to me last Tuesday. We'd basically had a sexless marriage for 22 years, with 4-5 years between sex in the last 15 years.
I still love her, we're emotionally close, we still cuddle, we've been witness to each other's lives for 22 years. We want to stay together.
Is there any way we can each put a positive spin on our sexuality in the marriage? She's not going to stop being lesbian - we were looking at some pictures of naked women yesterday, and she's *never* responded to me the way she responded to those pictures.
Yeah, definitely a bummer. I wish I had some sage advice for you, but I wanted to let you know that I have sympathy for your situation. My wife, I'm pretty sure, is not a lesbian or even bisexual. I do suspect that she may be asexual. Still, she is definitely feminist in the bad sense, thinking that men are the oppressors, which presents a lot of problems.
The fact that you want to stay together is great, but then, how is she to fulfill her sexual needs, and you yours? If you're both willing to be celibate, fine. If not, then I see problems.
Ouch, that's a tough one. I have to agree with Hairdoggie though. Unless you are both willing to live celibate lives then I see stormy waters ahead. I believe you will have to address the sex issue too. Can you live the rest of your life with this woman and remain sexually unfulfilled? And for that matter can she?
Don't despair. She was finally able to be open and honest with you and now your relationship has more intimacy.
Pictures in a magazine are fantasy. The question is whether you both want to work at this. Does love transcend sexual orientation? Can this lead to a spark? What interesting questions to explore.
bolete, Did or does your W have an emotional or sexual relationship with another woman? Difficult to work on the R for 2 people. Even more difficult something if 3 parties do not agree on everything.
You stating you are HD struck me funny when you wrote that no sex for 4-5 years. If that were my case, I would consider myself LD and still sex starved.
Because your case is out of the norm, I really do not have any sexually related advice. Just the 2 or 3 people comment above.
My wife is feeling a lot less oppressed now that she has a reason to not want sex with me. We didn't have sex before, only the reasons have changed.
Yeah, it really hurts, and it's going to keep hurting. But I don't cut off my head because I have a headache. I can't see any good way to satisfy my sexual desires without endangering the relationship - it's gonna be tough. But it's been tough, it's not like we've been having sex before she decided she is a lesbian...
If we live together, I think the only possible choices are (1) live without sex, (2) live in an open marriage, (3) cheat, (4) find some way to have sex even if it's not all that great for my wife.
Those are the options. Yeah, it's gonna be tough. If anyone knows option #5, please let me know...
Yes, we definitely have more intimacy. And we definitely both want to work at this (I didn't know for sure that she did when I first posted, but that's clear now).
Right now, she's absolutely closed to the possibility of trying to have sex, even in the future. She really wants to say that she's not broken, that she doesn't need to be changed, and to be freed from the pressure to have sex. Our therapist mentioned that lesbians in marriages sometimes do have sex, and it might not be the most wonderful sex, but it can still be significant. Esther said clearly that she doesn't want to even think about that.
Feels more like a diagnosis than an answer. Now that we know, we're working hard on figuring out who we are, individually and together, and how we restructure our relationship. We've agreed to stay together. It's gonna be tough.
