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Post by Apocrypha on Sept 12, 2023 14:55:36 GMT -5
That's a manipulative load of crap. He needs to get real. Look, you don't marry everyone you fall in love with. Falling in love with someone is just that -- falling in love. A marriage is something much more than that. If you are feeling guilt about it (which is normal), then try reframing the question. What is a marriage and how is it different from simply loving someone, or going steady? Does marriage - as you'd both envisioned and signed up for - include a sexual component? If so, do you agree you have a marriage? I think for the most part, the decision to separate is simply playing catchup with the truth of a relationship, rather than trying to lie about it. Nobody WANTS a divorce any more than people want an amputation. But that doesn't mean there aren't good reasons to do it. I appreciate your response. Yes, marriage must include a sexual component as I decided. The hard part is I can not go around telling people that I am in a sexless marriage (like zero sex), so eventually I am the one who is taking the social pressure as a unsatisfying or unfaithful (if I start to see other men). I am going against the uphill now, but I know it is and would be OK. Well, in my own unhappy marriage, the person playing the role of my wife also explained that she too was in a sexually averse marriage. So, a thing you have in common is that you both are in a celibate relationship. You both are in a a relationship with a person with whom you don't want to have sex. You pose centering the missing sex component because for you - sex with your husband is something you desire, and it's something you see as a necessary part of a marriage. He poses gaslighting and manipulating and diverting about the absence of sex in the marriage because focusing on the reason for its absence would likely end the marriage. So, you both want to continue the arrangement - and for good reasons. But you are pointed in different directions on the approach. You'd likely agree, framing it this way - on what a marriage is and isn't. If you don't have a marriage, but you still value some part of the relationship, there are ways to be truthful about that that don't involve you being married.
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Post by Apocrypha on Sept 7, 2023 10:51:17 GMT -5
Once you make them a roommate, you never again ask that question again or even consider it. Mine has been a roommate so long thoughts like that never ever cross my mind anymore. Reminds me of the difference between "I don't have a cigarette" and "I don't smoke."
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Post by Apocrypha on Sept 7, 2023 10:21:23 GMT -5
I think this is a defence mechanism in the brain of many refusers. Somewhere in the middle of the "talks" I had with the then W sha made a statement that nearly blew me away. She countered my attempt to schedule some intimacy that evening by saying "we just had sex". I had been tracking frequency and type of sex so when we arrived home I showed her my calandar. It showed clearly that the last time we were intimate was over 2 months previously. This thread took an interesting turn. That attitude is just like vacuuming for me. I "just did it" but actually a couple of weeks has gone by. So it sounds like even with counciling, sex will always be like an unwanted "chore" for this type of denier. I want, and I think I deserve a person that looks forward to getting busy with me. It's not "a denier". It is someone who, for reasons, doesn't want to have sex with you. It needn't be a psychological problem on their end and likely isn't. There are a gazillion people who for reasons (they don't know me, aren't attracted to me, dislike me, find something they know about me to be unattractive, don't like the circumstances in which they might have sex with me) don't want to have sex with me. It doesn't mean there is something wrong with them. Similarly, there are people (including my ex-wife) who WERE attracted to me and DID want to have sex with me, but then later on changed their minds about their attraction. I'm sure all of us can forage the corners of our prior or subsequent married lives and think of people where the attraction was lost. Maybe it was when someone yelled at a waitress, or picked a nose, or did something that reminded us of someone we don't like - the mechanism isn't important. What IS important is that it happens all the time, and it doesn't always mean that something's wrong (even if it's a misunderstanding). So if instead of medicalizing it or posing it as "the kind of person someone is", and looking strictly at the behavior, it's not too hard to understand why two consecutive days of sex occurrences in a drought of 5 months might be seen as "all the time". How much sex with someone who you don't want to have sex with feels like "a lot" of sex? How about "any sex at all" - as the number? Yes, there is gaslighting going on - but it's not just directed at the unwillingly celibate. It's a lie to oneself. Far easier on BOTH sides to start with the idea that there's something wrong somehow, rather than the lack of sex being an accurate outcome from the actual sense of antipathy or absence of attraction to one's partner. The latter fact leads to an outcome that's likely divorce, and both sides see it, and both sides become dedicated to maintaining this fiction of a marriage. For the averse partner, the marriage depends on kicking the can down the road and burying their sense of lust - because to explore it would mean cheating. If they don't even let themselves think about that (for the very same reasons you are concerned about preserving the relationship), then it may appear even to them as "not into sex". For the unwillingly celibate partner, the marriage seems to depend on centering on the problem at hand - the lack of sex. And that person pretends that somehow their partner just forgot that they enjoyed sex or that you are mutually attracted, which you are no longer. And so the fantasy of marriage continues, even though it ended years ago.
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Post by Apocrypha on Sept 5, 2023 15:30:34 GMT -5
Having a talk after 15 yrs. of a SM is futile. It would not have mattered (in the long run) having a talk earlier. Your W was headed in this direction early on, you just happened to be in the car and ended up going along for the ride. In my post-marriage period, I was a prolific dater. Occasionally, I encountered someone who had been celibate for 15 years due to a similar kind of situation. I have to say... even though I came from a marriage that became sex averse pretty quickly, that level of tolerance for it always gave me pause, in the same way as a habitual long distance relationship seeker. My first thought is that maybe there is something about them that's averse to sex as well. Not trying to be a dick in suggesting it - more encouraging the OP to spend some time thinking about that and if there is a hidden element here where maybe he didn't want sex either. It seems an exceptionally long time. I dunno, I'm asking.
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Post by Apocrypha on Sept 5, 2023 12:00:09 GMT -5
He said he will divorce if I don’t love him anymore. I don’t know what love is now even. I tried so hard in our marriage and I loved him. That's a manipulative load of crap. He needs to get real. Look, you don't marry everyone you fall in love with. Falling in love with someone is just that -- falling in love. A marriage is something much more than that. If you are feeling guilt about it (which is normal), then try reframing the question. What is a marriage and how is it different from simply loving someone, or going steady? Does marriage - as you'd both envisioned and signed up for - include a sexual component? If so, do you agree you have a marriage? I think for the most part, the decision to separate is simply playing catchup with the truth of a relationship, rather than trying to lie about it. Nobody WANTS a divorce any more than people want an amputation. But that doesn't mean there aren't good reasons to do it.
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Post by Apocrypha on Sept 5, 2023 11:50:34 GMT -5
Her number one was acts of service. As it stands I already do all the housework and take care of things like taking her car to the garage and the maintenance around the house. So I don't know what I'm not doing for her. She questioned me on why I pull away from her when she tries to kiss me or hold my hand. So, I don't know if anyone else feels like this but I explained that the physical contact reminds me how much more I want and she doesn't want to give, she said that sex is not a part of her life anymore and doesn't think that should be what defines physical intimacy. For context we are both 46 and have had zero sex in the last 15 years. You are still at the point at which you frame this problem as a loose wire that can be fixed, rather than a change of mind about the destination and the nature of your relationship that happened some 15 years ago. Love languages are for people who are into each other. No amount of "acts of service" is going to increase your odds of a physical relationship with someone who fundamentally doesn't see that or want that with you. Flip it around. Physical is your love language - but there are people in your immediate circles with whom you would never, ever sleep with. Maybe it's because of who they are (your sister), or because of something you know about them (you dislike them, or something they did - to the extent that they simply aren't a viable sexual partner and you can't unknow it). 15 years celibacy isn't ambivalence toward sex with you. You might consider, what happened 15 years ago that ended this part of your relationship with her irrevocably. Why don't you see if you can have a discussion about what a marriage is, and whether either of you agree that you have one, or how what you have is different from an amicable separation.
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Update
Aug 31, 2023 9:08:01 GMT -5
Post by Apocrypha on Aug 31, 2023 9:08:01 GMT -5
? "Honey, I'm headed out to boff so-and-so on Friday", is most definitely a consequence (boffing someone else) attached to a behavior (you not boffing me), which seems a distinction without a difference from an ultimatum. See, I must've lost track of the conversation somewhere. While casual777 was outsourcing, I don't see where it was said that his wife knew about it. It is possible she found out, knew why it happened, and tested whether she could make him stop with actions rather than loud words. If he did inform her of his extramarital trysts, then it could be present a fifth case of recovery out of the five instances of informing a spouse of outsourcing, followed by a reset. Ah sorry - I may have misunderstood. When I saw "polyamory" rather than "affair", I assumed that transparency was on the table because that's a key part of what distinguishes it from an affair, or from a bunch of affairs. I suppose it's a "grey area" if he was having affairs within a polyamorous group. If an affair is the case, I'd liken it to buying your divorce on a credit card. The consequence has happened, but the partner hasn't been informed yet. That bill is coming though, with interest.
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Post by Apocrypha on Aug 30, 2023 11:57:14 GMT -5
What I learned from my foray into polyamory in the context of a sex-averse marriage was that I can resolve the problem of having sex in my life again, and feeling desired by a person, but that I'm still left with sexless marriage. When I come home, where I live - when I go to bed - I'm still in a relationship that is posing as a marriage when it is not.
I would liken the polyamory to be like taking a Caribbean vacation from my home in a polluted slum. I can leave that slum and find other places to enjoy, but 99% of my life is still in a slum. It doesn't mean the vacation isn't enjoyable. It just doesn't change the problem I'm facing and how I feel when I'm there.
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Post by Apocrypha on Aug 30, 2023 11:23:52 GMT -5
Yours will be the first recovery I've heard of with no ultimatum having been presented. ? "Honey, I'm headed out to boff so-and-so on Friday", is most definitely a consequence (boffing someone else) attached to a behavior (you not boffing me), which seems a distinction without a difference from an ultimatum.
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Post by Apocrypha on Aug 29, 2023 8:18:37 GMT -5
medium.com/hello-love/how-you-make-me-feel-in-a-dead-bedroom-31f9da0927eeWhen I reach out to you — it’s because I want to save this marriage. The other choice is leaving. I can’t love in a vacuum. Nor do I wish to any longer. Loving is an active verb. It requires action from two people. I can’t save us alone. I’m sure you’d say, “I have tried plenty! It’s always been you. You’re the problem.” And perhaps, I am. I won’t pretend I’m perfect. I have done as much wrong as you have in this union. Except, I won’t live this charade until the end of my days. Nope. I want more out of my life. I’d like to feel the opposite of all the above. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for. But it IS too much to ask for when you ask it of someone who no longer sees you as a sexual partner - with someone who doesn't want to be married to you, and who feels disgust in having sex with someone whom they definitely do not want to have sex with. In the scenario above, one partner already left the marriage and what's left is largely indistinguishable from an amicable separation. He or she is likely doing everything they can to stall, gaslight, and defer on the sex question because facing it means the end of the marriage, and they know it.
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Post by Apocrypha on Aug 23, 2023 12:44:52 GMT -5
Depending on your jurisdiction, making more money would likely mean that you are saddled with an obligation for support and equalization payments, if you make more money than him. If you are planning to have a long slow separation like mine, I'd recommend collecting tax records and asset snapshots now and every year. If this is a long road (years in my case), you will need to pick a separation date for finances, and this may end up a sliding scale. I make a lot more money than I did when my ex wife moved out, and I was shocked at what the likely outcome would be in courts for payments.
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Post by Apocrypha on Aug 23, 2023 12:27:02 GMT -5
I find this proven time and again. It doesn't mean anyone is bad at sex or unattractive. It doesn't mean that love, in some form, isn't present. It's improbable that someone "forgets" how to express sexual desire for a partner, nor that the importance of it in a relationship is lost (usually there are daily reminders from a spouse). It certainly doesn't mean indifference toward sex in general. You don't put your whole marriage and lifestyle on the line with indifference. Indifference could lean just as hard into "why not?" Most of the time, once the affair is revealed, or the relationship opened, or the "sex-averse" partner finds his or herself in the dating market again, there is a self-discovery and sex returns to that person's life. Usually, the lack seems to mean that there is such a fundamental disconnection between a couple that one of them has ceased to see the other as a viable sexual partner. Think of someone - anyone - that you know, who might be attractive enough but that you wouldn't ever touch or want to, based on something you know about them that you didn't always. It's a harsh toke, because most of the time, it's not really like you can "unknow" something, or rewind on whatever formative experience developed with them that turned you off them enough to override your own healthy libido, rather than have sex with them. Supporting your wife with writing and being a fan? Strikes me as a separate idea. Maybe to her to both of you, these are related The sex dried up before the writing started and even now she doesn't ever pleasure herself. As far as I can tell, she's become asexual. As far as you can tell, sure; however, if you are a person who she doesn't wish to include in sexual intimacy, she's really unlikely to share that with you. Suppose it's true that she doesn't do that alone... that doesn't change things much. As a divorced dating man who has dated many separated and divorced women, I can say that's it's a normal and expected revelation that at some span across the latter years of a relationship, one of the partners either seeks an outside sexual dalliance or, it expresses itself as a disengagement from sex with a partner entirely. If the person doesn't wish to cheat, then it would present as a distinction without a difference from aesexuality. In my own prolific dating career, including what I know of my own ex-wife - it's more common than not for the sex-averse person to "discover" sexuality again in a subsequent relationship - the same sexuality they had when you met. Depending on how honest they are with themselves, it may be as much a surprise to them as to you. I'm only explaining this so you can test this in your own situation and hopefully save time and heartache. If you do what I did, and what most people do - treat her disinterest as some sort of sexual dysfunction that needs to be restored to functionality, rather than the result of a fundamental shift in the way she sees you or the relationship - then you could waste a lot of time trying to correct something that is unlikely to work. She has to want to do it. The facts on the ground - what you DO know - is that she does not wish to have sexual intimacy with you. So, you need to figure out for yourself what the nature of your relationship is? Does a marriage include sexual intimacy? Would you - did you - both agree on that? If you don't have it, then you need to figure out whether what you actually have is a marriage, as you both agree a marriage to be. Are you committing to celibacy? Because essentially, you are both in the same situation - bound into an idea of a marriage and both choosing to override your sex drives to continue the household format of a marriage -both of you in a sexless marriage.
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Post by Apocrypha on Aug 22, 2023 13:48:08 GMT -5
So my wife writes romance novels. I've tried reading a couple but there are sex scenes in the books and reading them just makes me depressed. So I've told her I'm not interested in reading them since she's not interested in doing any of the sexy things she writes about. Now she's angry with me for not "supporting" her. Brother Apocrypha might weigh in on this one m76 . He often makes the point that just because your spouse has no sexual desire toward you, it does NOT follow that they have no sexual desire generally. I find this proven time and again. It doesn't mean anyone is bad at sex or unattractive. It doesn't mean that love, in some form, isn't present. It's improbable that someone "forgets" how to express sexual desire for a partner, nor that the importance of it in a relationship is lost (usually there are daily reminders from a spouse). It certainly doesn't mean indifference toward sex in general. You don't put your whole marriage and lifestyle on the line with indifference. Indifference could lean just as hard into "why not?" Most of the time, once the affair is revealed, or the relationship opened, or the "sex-averse" partner finds his or herself in the dating market again, there is a self-discovery and sex returns to that person's life. Usually, the lack seems to mean that there is such a fundamental disconnection between a couple that one of them has ceased to see the other as a viable sexual partner. Think of someone - anyone - that you know, who might be attractive enough but that you wouldn't ever touch or want to, based on something you know about them that you didn't always. It's a harsh toke, because most of the time, it's not really like you can "unknow" something, or rewind on whatever formative experience developed with them that turned you off them enough to override your own healthy libido, rather than have sex with them. Supporting your wife with writing and being a fan? Strikes me as a separate idea. Maybe to her to both of you, these are related
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Post by Apocrypha on Jun 25, 2023 14:13:40 GMT -5
So I've been doing some reading off an on about this the past several years and I'm really thinking she's asexual. She doesn't go solo, doesn't desire me or anyone else for that matter and I know for a fact she doesn't have anyone else on the side. She can watch a sex scene and it not affect her in any way whereas it will start to turn me on. She's told me several times she has sex because it's something I like and need. She has no need or desire for it. What is your evidence that she is asexual? Has she never wanted sex with you? If that's true, and sexual expression was important to you, why did you marry her? Or, did she somehow "become" asexual once she was married to you? Do you think that if you got divorced, that would be it for her? Relief in that she would never have to have sex with anyone again? Lots of people, me included, are unpleasantly surprised to find that our partner is suddenly sexually active or adventurous after a marriage is over. I've found that in many or most divorced couples, there is a period of profound disconnection that includes contempt and disgust for sex with that partner, in much the same way that you wouldn't want anyone you hate to touch you. That disconnection results in a "sexless" period in which people say "I thought I hated sex". And, therein lies the harsh truth at the core of most of these things - which is that the lack of sex (which itself is tough), comes downstream from another hurt - which is that you realize at some intuitive level that this absence is a true reflection of how she feels about you as a person, or about the marriage in general. It's tough to come home to that. You can point to the issue of oral, or the general state of anxiety with which she might treat her body or yours or sexual acts in general - it sounds like maybe she's up for PIV? But the gist I get on the whole is that you both are in the same marriage, but she regards sex with you as an expenditure or chore and you regard it - enthusiastically given - as something fulfilling and joyful. And now you've come to a point where you seem to realize she doesn't want it with you. Is there a way that, without judgment, and with sympathy for each other about what needs to be done as a next step, that you can agree on what the facts on the ground are? Authentically?
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Post by Apocrypha on Jun 22, 2023 11:43:40 GMT -5
It may help to parse out the separate issues here.
Your wife used sex as leverage with you. This means she felt it hurt you more than it hurt her, and that she intended to use it as transactional currency to manipulate you into doing something she wanted. It likely means that sex (with you) isn't something that she finds fulfilling on it's own. Doing it with you is an expenditure or chore for her - a favour from her, to you, even knowing that she likely would also receive pleasure, intimacy, and love in the same act. Pulling that thread, I would take that to mean - at an intuitive level - that this means she doesn't actually see you as a person she wants sexual intimacy with. It could be she's not attracted to you for physical reasons, it could be that she has come to hold you in contempt to a degree that she doesn't see you as a viable sexual partner (her sex is charity toward you, or work), or that maybe she never wanted to get married to you and she is so resentful and trapped in her present situation that having sex with you feels like engaging in relations with her captor. Or, maybe there is some aspect of the family situation you referenced or something she felt so strongly about that she came to see you in a different light and no longer wanted sex with you. Sometimes something can happen (cheating, a crime, a terrible secret, a behavior or discovery) that becomes so horrible once you know it, that it changes the way you see that person going forward, and it's permanent.
As for you not initiating sex and feeling badly, neither has she. So, again, it's up to you, apparently and she doesn't seem to want it enough with you to express love or to share intimacy for it's own sake or for HER sake. I don't know about you, but I when I have sex with someone else, part of the joy of it is the feeling I get from being enjoyed - knowing that my partner enjoys me - that I matter to her, and that it matters TO her that I'm the one bringing pleasure to her. By making sex transactional, she's presenting the ultimate rejection of you - the very essence, most stripped down (actually naked) version of you. It's incredibly toxic and is a HARD NO for me when I get a whiff of that in any relationship - time out and let's talk.
These two things lead me to think there is a FUNDAMENTAL disconnection between you that isn't resolved and that is so disconnected that it overrides her own normal sense of libido. Not to mention, if she's letting herself go physically to that extent - perhaps she sees no need to try to attract you (because she's not attracted to you).
If there is such a disconnection, the presence of children or not in your household won't prevent the divorce. It will simply be a divorce that happens with shared custody, and a longer marriage, and evidence suggests, after a longer period of celibacy. The breadwinner in this situation will pay more.
As for her biological clock, you both need to understand that SHE also has made decisions - many of them - that have brought you to this place.
With only four years in, two years celibate, I'm guessing a mutual aversion physically to each other, and likely some kind of deep disillusionment, disconnection or resentment that may also be mutual, what evidence do you have that any of this is going to be better at some point, later on? A divorce with no kids is way easier and cleaner than one with them - where you will have to deal with this person for the rest of your life.
Without committing to anything, I suggest you consult with a lawyer and find out the details of how a separation would shake out and consider your options. And think deeply about what you each think a married relationship is, and whether that resembles what you have with each other across the past two years. How is what you have different from an amicably separated couple, aside from a de facto oath of celibacy?
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