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Post by frednsa on Aug 29, 2019 12:15:06 GMT -5
boy, that phrase about her frigidity costing both of us a really wonderful thing really hit a nerve. a long, long time ago we had some pretty good sex but always as a "donation" from her. and it always resonated in my soul on a level too far down to reach my 'other head' so pardon; i plunged in ! and, as men do, felt so lousy afterward. afterglow was not on my menu
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Post by Apocrypha on Aug 30, 2019 10:26:33 GMT -5
It's a tough one to swallow, to be sure. While I don't know the particulars in your scenario, I do note that it's pretty common in these things (my own ex as well) for people to find outlets for their sexuality - like masturbating - that they prefer over having sex with someone they don't want to root. That doesn't mean they prefer that in general. It's more likely that they view it as a compromise as well, and this allows them to see themselves as the hero - choosing marriage over sex. This means, as put out as you feel, it's quite likely they feel they are kicking in the afterburners too, in trying to "save the marriage" and feel just as trapped by circumstance - not wanting to leave behind the benefits of marriage that are obvious to you both. For those reading along here, it's important to consider that information as you plot the trajectory forward. I've never really seen a situation where someone whose antipathy had risen to the point of overriding their sex drive, suddenly realizing it was an error. Someone who's apathy rises to the point of overriding their sex drive, suddenly realizing it was an error. In my own case I have to agree. But the thing I don't understand is why when confronted with the obvious result this apathy brings about, they don't usually seek some accommodative behavior that might make the situation tolerable or manageable for their spouse. A couple ladies( and only a couple) here have posted about their spouses agreeing to a don't ask don't tell policy, thus allowing them to take care of things outside the marriage. As yet I haven't read a posting from any males here analogous to their W's allowing for the same. My X would not go along with it either, preferring divorce to me outsourcing. I have thought about this repeatedly but as yet I have not been able to find any sort of definitive reasoning behind the behavior, either for males or females. I see a few things in this response that I'd like to consider more deeply: 1. I don't think it's "apathy". Apathy is about not caring. Considering the pain, costs, stakes and risks attached to continuing the lack of sexual involvement with one's spouse (hurting one's spouse, recurring arguments, looming end of marriage, risk of affairs, celibacy on both sides, loss of status and lifestyle etc.), I don't think it's a lack of interest at all. This ventures into antipathy. By lulling myself into thinking it was just apathy, I led myself to think that this was a correctable error - like learning table manners or how to play on a team. I don't think this was helpful for either of us in my own situation (and in the many women I've dated since splitting). Antipathy is the reason it feels so incredibly shitty. It means the feeling you have isn't an oversight; it's an accurate read of the status of your relationship with your spouse and what they think of you. It could still feasibly be a positive relationship, but not one in which there is an expectation that you'd be romantic partners. There is a reason for the antipathy to you - you and likely your partner just don't know what it is yet, or haven't shared it. 2. Seeking "arrangements" might work if it was actually apathy, but the fact that they are resisted, indicates antipathyWhen you are in a celibate marriage - you are both choosing to be celibate over the alternative, because the alternative is an emblem of the end of your mutual fiction. Seeking paramours won't - in the mid to long term (longer than 6 months to a year) - increase or restore your relationship or the way your partner sees you, such that you suddenly become a viable sexual partner to them. It might raise their game in the short term, but the longer term result is that it shines a light on the disconnection (unless some kind of kink is involved). A "don't ask don't tell" ends up putting the risk and the cost of an unpredictable result on the cheating spouse, deferring their reaction until the infidelity is revealed. You might as well simply just have an affair. Once it's "out there" between you, I think it's resisted because it's like calling poker hand. There' no more bluffing game at the table and people end up becoming very honest about their prospects and the way they feel about each other. I tend to think it's like a back door as well - for the antipathic spouse who sanctions it. If they are the hero in their story for choosing celibacy over divorcing someone they aren't attracted to, then it goes double if the person they aren't attracted to is rooting other people. At this part of the game, when people are still invested in the lie, it's tends to be about which one of you is the "good guy" and which is the villain. They aren't happy you are getting sexual fulfillment elsewhere because they are going without. It's going to make it worse for both of you because it's intensifying the lie. Being open about it to each other means you are paying the costs up front and seeing exactly how well you handle it and what you are prepared to pay. I'll be really blunt about this: if you aren't willing to boff your paramour in front of your celibate spouse and/or include them in the selection of the paramour, then neither of you are probably being fully honest about what you are agreeing to do and/or tolerate, and at some point the bill will come due. So, coming back to that question about involving a third party - that's really about both of you becoming honest about your situation and prospects, and many changes of thinking cascade just from the conversation, which compel you both to consider what marriage is bringing to the table. That's not a bad question to consider, but if your goal is to avoid that by continuing to support the fiction of romantic investment rather than household or lifestyle maintenance, it's probably going to be avoided.
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Post by Apocrypha on Aug 30, 2019 10:32:19 GMT -5
This is an interesting comment worksforme2 . For me, intimacy is an “all in” kind of thing. I tend to give of myself wholeheartedly. I’m not the kind of person who can have sex for just the release. Sex is an expression of how I feel toward someone. My h knows this about me. If I asked him to open the marriage to allow outsourcing, he would know right away that he has lost my focus and attention. On the flip side (and prior to my disengaging from him), if h told me he wanted to open the marriage, the lense through which I see sex would be such that I would assume he would be emotionally withdrawing from me as well. Perhaps this is why most spouses refuse to open a marriage? This has also crossed my mind as I have tried to answer one of my own "why's". SO's when confronted with a request from their spouse to open up the relationship almost certainly have to realize that their partner is pulling away from not just the relationship, but from them. After all, isn't the marriage relationship predicated around the notion of exclusive intimacy with one's spouse? But seeing this, their response isn't to make a recommitment to the relationship or a search of their own feelings. It seems more often the response is denial, or avoidance or apathy. How is it when your partner is yelling "the house is on fire", seldom do them seem to be really energized to do something about putting out the fire. Or if they do (reset sex) it seems when they no longer see flames they view the emergency as taken care of. They don't see the smoke still coming off the smoldering embers. Fear of emotional withdrawal is certainly possible fear. But it seems to me that by the time when the "talk" usually takes place, emotional withdrawal is already creeping into the picture. And faced with the real prospect of divorce, how could they not think emotional withdrawal would not surely be a part of that process. Emotional withdrawal is what compels the celibacy in the first place. By the time "the talk" takes place - maybe a year after the celibacy programming has been running, or more (if babies, or pregnancy, or whatever sundry business is happening), the withdrawal has likely laid in place for several years, unaddressed. The "talk" then focuses on the lack of sex, rather than the cause of the antipathy to the partner (that they no longer view them as a sexual partner - no longer fit for that purpose, though there may be love or affection otherwise). Denial and avoidance is a strong motivator, rather than admitting the truth, because the truth is likely to bring about a divorce - which they don't want either.
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Post by worksforme2 on Aug 30, 2019 11:57:17 GMT -5
Someone who's apathy rises to the point of overriding their sex drive, suddenly realizing it was an error. In my own case I have to agree. But the thing I don't understand is why when confronted with the obvious result this apathy brings about, they don't usually seek some accommodative behavior that might make the situation tolerable or manageable for their spouse. A couple ladies( and only a couple) here have posted about their spouses agreeing to a don't ask don't tell policy, thus allowing them to take care of things outside the marriage. As yet I haven't read a posting from any males here analogous to their W's allowing for the same. My X would not go along with it either, preferring divorce to me outsourcing. I have thought about this repeatedly but as yet I have not been able to find any sort of definitive reasoning behind the behavior, either for males or females. I see a few things in this response that I'd like to consider more deeply: 1. I don't think it's "apathy". Apathy is about not caring. Considering the pain, costs, stakes and risks attached to continuing the lack of sexual involvement with one's spouse (hurting one's spouse, recurring arguments, looming end of marriage, risk of affairs, celibacy on both sides, loss of status and lifestyle etc.), I don't think it's a lack of interest at all. This ventures into antipathy. By lulling myself into thinking it was just apathy, I led myself to think that this was a correctable error - like learning table manners or how to play on a team. I don't think this was helpful for either of us in my own situation (and in the many women I've dated since splitting). Antipathy is the reason it feels so incredibly shitty. It means the feeling you have isn't an oversight; it's an accurate read of the status of your relationship with your spouse and what they think of you. It could still feasibly be a positive relationship, but not one in which there is an expectation that you'd be romantic partners. There is a reason for the antipathy to you - you and likely your partner just don't know what it is yet, or haven't shared it. 2. Seeking "arrangements" might work if it was actually apathy, but the fact that they are resisted, indicates antipathyWhen you are in a celibate marriage - you are both choosing to be celibate over the alternative, because the alternative is an emblem of the end of your mutual fiction. Seeking paramours won't - in the mid to long term (longer than 6 months to a year) - increase or restore your relationship or the way your partner sees you, such that you suddenly become a viable sexual partner to them. It might raise their game in the short term, but the longer term result is that it shines a light on the disconnection (unless some kind of kink is involved). A "don't ask don't tell" ends up putting the risk and the cost of an unpredictable result on the cheating spouse, deferring their reaction until the infidelity is revealed. You might as well simply just have an affair. Once it's "out there" between you, I think it's resisted because it's like calling poker hand. There' no more bluffing game at the table and people end up becoming very honest about their prospects and the way they feel about each other. I tend to think it's like a back door as well - for the antipathic spouse who sanctions it. If they are the hero in their story for choosing celibacy over divorcing someone they aren't attracted to, then it goes double if the person they aren't attracted to is rooting other people. At this part of the game, when people are still invested in the lie, it's tends to be about which one of you is the "good guy" and which is the villain. They aren't happy you are getting sexual fulfillment elsewhere because they are going without. It's going to make it worse for both of you because it's intensifying the lie. Being open about it to each other means you are paying the costs up front and seeing exactly how well you handle it and what you are prepared to pay. I'll be really blunt about this: if you aren't willing to boff your paramour in front of your celibate spouse and/or include them in the selection of the paramour, then neither of you are probably being fully honest about what you are agreeing to do and/or tolerate, and at some point the bill will come due. So, coming back to that question about involving a third party - that's really about both of you becoming honest about your situation and prospects, and many changes of thinking cascade just from the conversation, which compel you both to consider what marriage is bringing to the table. That's not a bad question to consider, but if your goal is to avoid that by continuing to support the fiction of romantic investment rather than household or lifestyle maintenance, it's probably going to be avoided. Thank you apocrypha,....This is probably the answer to my "why". I think you have reasoned out the behavior exhibited by my X and to some degree my behavior as well, the rational behind it. And I see many of my behaviors mirroring yours as I sought to find a way to "fix" it. It wasn't until right at the end that I really came to know she didn't love me as I did her. And that was the final nail in the coffin.
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Post by Apocrypha on Aug 30, 2019 13:19:31 GMT -5
Thank you apocrypha,....This is probably the answer to my "why". I think you have reasoned out the behavior exhibited by my X and to some degree my behavior as well, the rational behind it. And I see many of my behaviors mirroring yours as I sought to find a way to "fix" it. It wasn't until right at the end that I really came to know she didn't love me as I did her. And that was the final nail in the coffin. It's hard to let go the dream after so much sunk cost. Not just the good times, but also the misery and work endured. It has to COUNT for something, right? But, getting to the point of owning what's our own to manage ("she didn't love me as I did her") and proceeding from there, is cathartic. There's a point of clean break. We could get into forensics as to the why's, but that's not really going to be something that the romantically invested partner can provide; that's for the one who is disconnected (and they don't want to or are unwilling to do that). If people are struggling with when or how to leave, that's not a bad place to part ways. It seems to apply accountability and action more appropriately.
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Post by greatcoastal on Aug 30, 2019 19:17:50 GMT -5
As I read the many posts here there seem to be an issue that appears to get avoided a lot. Everyone talks about their partners lack of interest in sex generally, asexual, etc but it seem that it's just as plausible they have a healthy sex drive, maybe cheating, taking care of themselves and just don't want sex with you. I know the it's so much easier to accept that they have a low/no libido as the other possibility would be soul destroying. I did read, on another sight, about narcissistic partners who... have a VERY high sex drive. To a point that they want it 5 times a day, (are ejaculating all the time, and are usually addicted to porn, or have multiple partners, on the side) but...it has to be done their way ONLY. You will never satisfy them. Try telling them what you want, and you are wrong!. Then when their needs are met it's over! Your needs and desires mean nothing to them. Very little intimacy, just the physical part only. Many admit they were 'taken' at first, (love bombed) but later came to want nothing to do with such a controlling, selfish partner. To be treated like a piece of meat. I guess a 'healthy sex drive' can be very unhealthy when used selfishly.
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