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Post by Apocrypha on May 30, 2017 8:57:17 GMT -5
We still have good times in the middle of her telling me she doesn't feel it for me sexually, (But is trying). We do have 2 kids and I worry about breaking apart the family. I know people always says it's better for the kids to not be around this kind of stuff but we don't argue around them and we still hug and kiss, hold hands, etc around the kids so they see positive stuff. They don't know anything about what happened. My friend says it won't end until I'm leaving in handcuffs when she calls the cops and says I hit or raped her. I don't think she would do this because she knows I would lose my job and she needs my money whether I'm with her or divorced. I will ask the question again because you didn't answer it; instead you said how you feel about it and tried to minimize the danger you are in. What would it take for you to leave? Note that in minimizing the danger, you said "I don't think she would do this (call cops to say you hit her or charge you with rape) because she knows I would lose my job and she needs my money" Read that again. You are making a guess on this? From someone who is your wife? I've bailed on a fourth date when I found someone who, from her backstory, seemed inclined toward such behavior. And this is your WIFE. What happens if you lose your job, as happens to many people. Can I ask you something? I'm not making fun of you or trying to make you seem foolish -- There is something in the kink world called cuckolding - it's a subset of humiliation-based BDSM in which a person eroticizes the public humiliation of being cuckolded. Sometimes they enjoy being enlisted in their own humiliation by telling their story of how their wives bed other men (often in front of them), beat them up, or serve them and assist in their coupling in various ways that exaggerate their "forced servitude". Your story and the way you tell it has a whiff of the kind of feigned resignation that fits with this kind of exaggerated scenario. Is there an element of living like this that you find gratifying and that is substituting for your own direct participation in sex? If your wife told you that she is taking another partner, how would you feel about that? Honestly?
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Post by Apocrypha on May 30, 2017 8:42:38 GMT -5
Your wife is playing roulette with the nuclear launch button. She's hardly trustworthy to do the rational thing here. Listen to your friend; he's in a far more objective position than you are. And, you're close enough to the process to realize the living hell that will ensue if charges are filed. Even if conviction isn't a real danger, it can still cost you a small fortune in legal fees and stain you for years to come, professionally and personally. I'm gonna make myself scarce and do my own thing and not give her the power. That's my new strategy. I'm not certain you are grasping the scale of what you are dealing with. I can see by your responses to your friends and to what the people here are trying to tell you that the picture everyone is painting here doesn't seem to be getting across to you. Does "making yourself scarce" mean leaving her? I get the sense that the most you are feeling here is a bit of validation in how mistreated you feel, perhaps as fuel to take back to her, rather than to remove yourself from this powder keg. Do not expect the situation to remain static as your own avoidance behavior escalates. I have a friend who spent a night in jail after his wife with Borderline disorder flipped on him and called the cops when he went to leave. Your wife cheats on you all the time, is not attracted to you (and how the hell do you "try" to be attracted to someone?), blames you for her cheating, pays for sex with your money, and has accused you of rape. I've seen a lot of shit shows on here, and I include myself as one of them - but this one is a DEFCON 1. @sddiamond, this doesn't have a happy ending, this one. So choose your poison. Does this end, like your friend says, with you in cuffs in the back seat of a car, losing your kids, and having to explain your past on a first date with someone 6 years from now? This is a radioactive situation - whether or not you love her. Just because you love her, it doesn't mean you should be MARRIED to this woman. I've read thousands of these stories on here, but this is one of the ones that I'm watching with my hands covering my face, like a horror show, shouting with futility at a movie screen as the protagonist goes into the basement of the haunted house.
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Post by Apocrypha on May 29, 2017 13:16:30 GMT -5
Does this sound like a person who has PTSD from being "raped"? Then she has a 2 yr affair with a masseuse? What is your opinion on this? Was she really raped by this guy? Did I really rape her when she let me do it but I didn't stop when she said it hurt? Is she really suffering from PTSD from this incident? Why didn't she ever say he raped her before? Why now? Why is she bringing this incident up after 20 yrs? She even had the balls ro say that maybe she had the affair as punishment for what I did to her? This is shit because she cheated the very first time about 3 yrs prior to this incident and with 2 guys. One had no sex only because the guy had issues and couldn't get hard and she did have sex and left me for the second guy for a month. This was prior to marriage that these first 2 incidents happened. These are all the wrong questions with regard to what happens next. It's unlikely that anyone raped her. It's more likely that she is a narcissist and sociopath, but there is no way to know. Deception and inauthenticity are at the core of your relationship, and so thoroughly blended with truth that it's impossible to know one from the other. Here you have a person who either believes you raped her, and that this excuses XYZ of her own behavior toward you, or she doesn't believe you raped her but will say you did in order to get away with XYZ, because she knows the accusation is an effective means of manipulation. Both of those scenarios are nuclear-war scale. My ex-gf in my twenties was also a sociopath and she accused a man of raping her when she was caught cheating (she later admitted to cheating constantly on me). She used it as a sympathy ploy to avoid taking responsibility for her choices. Rather than talking to each other to directly resolve your differences (you taking her ass because some other guy did, and her claiming cheating is a punishment for something else) you two are discussing RAPE allegations. You have a serial cheater who takes NO RESPONSIBILITY for her actions - meaning she feels entitled and righteous rather than guilty about her actions - who is obviously prepared to cry rape as method of getting what she wants or avoiding responsibility. Here's a better question: What would you have to have happen to leave this situation?
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Post by Apocrypha on May 29, 2017 10:31:29 GMT -5
@lostsoul - Title of post: "Same sex encounters to deal with no sex with spouse?" I did not say that I had encounters with men........ When I got a profile, I was bombarded by guys seeking sex with other men. Specifically they wanted to give and get blow jobs. Interesting that you got that I did ..... Save JMX - I have also received quite a few unsolicited offers from both gay and men who consider themselves straight (as in they are not attracted to men, otherwise, and have no romantic interest in them) for straight to the point "service-oriented" encounters. This, in having a dating profile up, and sometimes a craigslist ad up for a non-gay situation. When I've asked the obvious questions about why they are barking up my tree, they are quite forthcoming an non-defensive about their answers. I have gay and bi male friends and whatever these guys-who-want-to-fellate are seeking, it strikes me as a somewhat different undercurrent. I'd likely put it more in the kink/sub fetish camp than I would in the gay camp, for whatever that means to anyone. And, you are mostly wrong about "lots of women" wanting to have sexual acts with men. I live in a metropolitan city - am not unattractive, nor a bad date. While technically you are correct, it would be more accurate to say the norm is there are lots of women who want to have sex with men, within a fairly elaborate context and under specific terms. This is quite different from these guys - who specifically DON'T require or want the more elaborate social context to winnow out a select winner for their attention.
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Post by Apocrypha on May 25, 2017 14:21:10 GMT -5
Legally, by all means, I am still his wife. His ex-wife has told me he wasn't this bad when he was married to her. so yeah ...... In our marriage agreement, he agreed to take care of me, look after me, be married, etc. I'm "legally" married to my ex-wife because we have not completed our divorce yet. I know of another couple who moved apart to different continents for several years after growing apart and pursuing different career goals. I'm not really asking what your technical or legal responsibility is. I'm directing your attention to your ethical responsibility and the personal way you define your relationship for yourself. You still define him as your husband while living in a scenario that would not seem to be a marriage. You are vague in your description of "be married". What does that mean? Is it assumed to be a monogamous relationship - that is, and exclusive romantic relationship that also has a sexual component? If so, is he "being married" by your mutual understanding of what that term entails? I gather that divorce is possible where you live because he has an ex-wife. How is your present relationship with him different than that of an ex-wife?
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Post by Apocrypha on May 25, 2017 10:30:13 GMT -5
We were communicating well, and it seemed as if we were going to remain good friends, but then her lawyer and divorced friends started negatively influencing her. Now she barely speaks to me and when she does she is unfriendly and unkind, but most of the time she ignores me and refuses to engage in causal or constructive conversation. She hasn't contributed to the bills once since, she refuses to do so, and said her lawyer instrcuted her not to. It looks like she is aiming for maximum financial gains and lifetime alimony. She also makes many false accusations about me and has shared them with many of our mutual friends and some have already taken her side. I'm sorry that this happened. It's illustrative of the veneer of pleasantness that often masks deeply submerged contempt. It's why so many people come here thinking "Everything is great except the sex." It means something when your former lover DOESN'T want sex with you. It means something to you, and there is a point of origin within your partner as well that ends in that result. With the facade of marriage dropped, you now are presented with behavior that indicates a more authentic view of her attitude toward you. I was astounded with the ferocity and projection I was confronted with in counseling with my own (ex)wife. While it was almost totally unfair, it was nonetheless how she felt the whole time. It was illuminating to see it come out and realize the scale of contempt with which I was held, basically, for marrying her when she didn't want to (but didn't say). If there is any solace to be taken, you can look to this example of your prognosis in the alternate life where you didn't part. You would have been sharing a home with that.
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Post by Apocrypha on May 25, 2017 10:14:35 GMT -5
When I confronted him months ago, he acted like he wasn't cheating on me anymore. [...] And he masturbates, after giving me all these lectures on masturbation being a sin. [...] he won't stay with her and move in with her because she can't cook. [...] I will continue doing wifely things other than sex, because he hasn't touched me in 4 years, I'll be a good Muslim wife [...] I need them to help me fulfill my responsibilities. What are your responsibilities? I mean, authentically, in the relationship you have. He's cheating on you. You are not in a mutually invested romantic relationship with him. You know that his moving into a home with another woman with whom he does have a mutually invested relationship has been discussed at least once. You know that he views your value in your cooking - which is a skill that you would have whether or not you were a "wife". Are you a wife? Really? Is this a Muslim marriage? Is this the promise you both took? Is it even close? Is it your responsibility to pretend and assist this man, or yourself, in presenting the facade of that marriage to others? It's a total sham. So just what is your responsibility here? You are a parent - you have a responsibility there. You have a responsibility to be a good parent, which includes taking care of your mental health. You have a responsibility to taking care of your physical needs - food, sleep etc and for helping your children to learn to do that for themselves. I'm not sure what presenting the facade of a marriage brings to the table at this point. Materially, I'm not sure how what you have is much different from the relationship of an ex-spouse and co-parent. There are roles and relations that become apparent later on in life. Your sibling has a child and you become an aunt, for example. You discover what that means to you. Likewise, many of us become ex-wives or ex-husbands and discover what that means to us. The truth of your situation seems much closer to that than it is to a marriage. Your post is about unwanted information. I certainly understand the wish for a rewind or erasure - a return to a time in which that thing didn't happen. But it isn't the information that causes the offence - it's the truths packaged in the act. You have come to a truth about your relationship with this man, and your likely trajectory with him. The person driving this bus is not taking it to any place you want to go. It's on you to take the wheel, or to get off the bus and chart your own path.
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Post by Apocrypha on May 25, 2017 9:55:15 GMT -5
Maybe you could talk to her and tell her what your concerns are, and if she still wants to go for it then give her a chance to try. In a way this is a growth process for her too. But you both need to be very sensitive to what is happening in your relationship. Because if she is having those kind of flashbacks she is very likely to make the trauma worse for herself. And sometimes if you go too far down a road you find you can't get back. I think it's important to note that I did just what you are saying at the top of your paragraph. We talked, for years. I listened, got a handle on her issues - empathy for them. She said she wanted to "go for it" and we got to scheduling sex and "try". It was intended as a growth process. I was incredibly sensitive to what was happening in our relationship and what was at stake. I was also pretty hopeful that her having positive experiences in sex would set her on a different track from whereever she had gotten to. The problem was that she really wasn't authentic with me about what she was doing or what was happening during sex. For the longest time, I thought her throwing her arm over her eyes was just her "thing". It's been noted by my lovers before and since that I'm extremely in tune with my partners in sex, reading them very carefully - and I still got this one wrong - she was able to fool me. It never occurred to me that she was totally dissociating, and she downplayed it when I finally objected to the pillow on her face. For a while, I thought it was just a strange "thing" she did, and that she was just an unenthusiastic lover (which she was, in addition to that, when she was unenthusiastic about the lovemaking). I'm not an insensitive, selfish, or self-centered oaf in the sack - and yet, this one slipped past. Nor is it the case that she is like this with everyone all the time. When she was chasing me, she was certainly an enthusiastic partner, and she has been, since, with other men. This response is triggered by having sex she doesn't want to have. It doesn't matter that it's agreed, or consensual, or a good idea, or an alternative to something worse. You can both go with the best intentions, but if you two decide to have a root - if SHE even initiates when she doesn't want to (like a chore), it's going to be read as a violation that wears YOUR face.
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Post by Apocrypha on May 24, 2017 15:52:55 GMT -5
Come to my town hahahah! I have had more women complain to me than I'd have ever thought about how few single men there are in my area (lots of single moms in their mid 30's to 40's). There is a distinct lack of available men under the age of 60 :/ My brother in law visited and was swamped with Tinder hits and messages, it was weird. This is outside of Seattle, lots of sugar Mama's hah! Tempting. If only...
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Post by Apocrypha on May 24, 2017 15:42:58 GMT -5
Interesting lines of thought by Apocrypha and JMX I figure that in a monogamous situation, one person unilaterally inflicting their sexual will on to the other person is abuse. Most commonly, this would be one spouse refusing to sexually engage the other. Less commonly, this would be one spouse forcing themself sexually on the other. (at the extreme end, rape) Both scenarios are full brothers to each other I reckon. In #1 - I have chosen not to have sex with you and what you might like is of no concern to me. In #2 - I have chosen to have sex with you and what you might like is of no concern to me. Both carry mental anguish for the spouse who does not even get a vote in proceedings. And of course #2 carries with it an implicit threat of violence. But both look like full brothers to each other in rationale. It isn't really inflicting a sexual will on someone though; it's a total lack or aversion. The situation isn't monogamous; it's celibate. Refusing to engage in a romantic/sexual expression in what is ostensibly an intimate relationship that is defined or differentiated by mutual romantic/sexual investment, means the nature or format of the relationship has already changed into something else. Abuse implies intent. While contempt usually rides the side-car of sexual abandonment on one side or both (perhaps the reason for romantic aversion), the aversion usually seems to play out as disinterest in the particular partner or relationship circumstances. Change those circumstances (end the marriage, change the person), and the interest in sex returns. It's hard to fault someone for not seeking or wanting sex, or for being turned off by it when you don't want to have it with a person. As a single man, I have considered the few times I've been having sex or have felt social obligation to have sex with someone I didn't want it with. My avoidance of it wasn't intended to abuse (I cared for them deeply). Of course none of this necessarily changes what the response is or should be to this situation.
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Post by Apocrypha on May 24, 2017 14:35:35 GMT -5
She says she wants to get back to normal and will just push those thoughts and memories away during sex if it happens so we can be happy again. She has even offered scheduled sex twice a week. This doesn't seem like a good idea to me and I think it will make her resent me (more) in the end. She does seem to be trying, but I think professional help is needed, but I don't want to force her, she has to want to get help. Am I being unreasonable? Do I accept the bone she is trying to throw me as an olive branch in the meantime, while she tries to work through this? I want to be supportive and not ice her out, if she really wants to change. How do I know when she is really committed to self improvement? Thoughts? Suggestions? I dealt with an identical issue with Mrs Apocrypha, right down to the scheduling. I took her up on it, and made a point to ensure she was satisfied even if I was not. She ended up having dissociative episodes during it, and trying to blank me out otherwise - sometimes (often) by putting an arm across her eyes, and later on a pillow on her head (that was too much when it became obvious and I stopped altogether seeking her as a sexual partner). In therapy, despite HER offer and occasional acquiescence or initiating a pity fuck, she resented me and became disgusted with me for not rejecting such offers when she internally did not wish to have sex. She said I "used her like a meatbag" and that I "raped" her. Linger on that language a bit - it came out at therapy. Try to imagine the lengths one goes to to try to ensure sex is satisfying, positive, gentle (if needed), exciting, and fulfilling - how important it is when it gets this fraught to get it right - and to then have such a loving act and intention characterized in such a manner. You think you don't have anything to lose by saying "yes" but you do. Don't fuck someone who doesn't want you.
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Post by Apocrypha on May 24, 2017 14:21:54 GMT -5
I have experience with BPD among my friends and family. It does cause irrational and impulsive behavior, and that might include cheating, but it doesn't seem to generally cause a lack of libido. It does cause problems in relationships, particularly with those close to them because they often attack and drive away their friends and family. In this case, you have been still invested and she is the one who has indicated a lack of investment - the opposite of that.
BPD isn't curable (though it can over a long time be managed to reduce some symptoms). The prognosis for treatment often takes YEARS to get toward a treatment and routine that works somewhat effectively. But that just manages the BPD - it won't create attraction or desire for a person.
Again, I don't see anything here that suggests the therapeutic intervention she's suggesting is going to work. If anything, it resets the clock and delays consequences while you assume the risk. There's no therapy she's suggesting that couldn't take place while you are separated - if you both choose a theraupeutic separation as opposed to a divorce. Then she assumes some of the burden to get back toward you and the marriage, as well as the financial risks, which are presently all on you. Even with therapy, the track record for success with this situation (if success is defined as a happy marriage) is very low, when it's gotten to this point.
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Post by Apocrypha on May 23, 2017 13:34:12 GMT -5
When you decided to split, did she try and beg and plead for you to stay?Or was she ok with it and acted like it was no big deal? Was she working then too? My wife barely works from home and doesn't want to work full time and wants the easy life she has so that's probably why she is still here. At least pretend and fuck me for it. Maybe that's what she used to do but now that she saw she could have an affair and now pull the no sex PTSD card and I'm still here, she thinks she can do anything to me including not having sex. No, she did not beg for the marriage to continue. She instead stuck to her guns in saying she wasn't sure if she wanted to be married, at least by my definition of what marriage is (which includes a romantic investment. She did not act non-chalent about it though. She acted hurt and as if she was the victim. She had been going to therapy with me, but she hadn't been doing the mutual exercises, and resented me for trying. She had been using the therapy as a venue to further express her astoundingly rabid level of contempt - which was surprising even for me, and I'd been through a lot. But what SHE was thinking eventually didn't matter at all. It had been established that either she didn't have a very good handle on her thinking or her behavior, and that the result was that there was no romantic investment on her part toward me. There simply wasn't any getting around the lack, nor the problems and work associated with trying and forcing it. That alone was enough to leave, eventually. She had a suicide card that she would play here and there, until she did it one too many times and her brother and I called the cops to pick her up, and she spent the night in the hospital strapped to a bed. Not having sex with you is not her DOING something to you. Remaining in a relationship that presents as romantic but isn't, and that is harmful to your well being, is you DOING that to yourself. Having sex with someone who you know clearly doesn't want it, isn't much of a remedy to your problem, and she's been clear in how she feels. The responsibility now goes to YOU to decide whether marriage for you includes romantic and sexual investment and expression. For her, maybe it's not necessary to have that with you (and she knows she can get it elsewhere). For you, it seems as though it is a pre-req in a marriage - a defining aspect of it. You don't have that - so it comes down to what you are going to do about it. Going to therapy isn't much of a solution. The first thing is really to decide on the goal of therapy. So is your goal to make do without the sex, or for her to have the sex that she doesn't want to have with you?
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Post by Apocrypha on May 23, 2017 12:53:13 GMT -5
An adult person has more agency than a dog that is tied up or a prisoner that is locked in a cell. An adult person usually has agency and can prioritize his or her miseries and make choices accordingly. They might be all shitty choices, but they are choices. I don't think anyone is arguing that a situation should be endurable or is kind or benign. Just as not all love should result in marriage, not all intimacy averse marriages that are harmful are abuse. If I stand too long in an inhospitable environment, it will result in my harm. That doesn't mean the environment is abusive. In some cases here, I'd say it is apparent that there IS abuse happening. But the withholding of sex, I don't really view as abuse and I don't see that calling it that brings anyone closer to remedy. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. But some of us were imprisoned by years of indoctrination that marriage is forever and that we are obligated to stay in a marriage, no matter how horrible. However, I still believe that years of sexual rejection does constitute abuse. flashjohn, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest to you that there isn't a select few of us indoctrinated into thinking that marriage is forever, but rather that we ALL thought that, and that particular aspect of your thinking is not special, unique, or worse for you than for other people. Every person who makes a choice to leave a marriage starts from the same place. The mental hopscotch that's needed to leave a marriage isn't so much about betraying one's dogma, but rather reframing the problem such that one realizes, there is no longer a relationship that is a marriage. Whether the intimate relationship and partnership is benign or overtly hostile, there is no mutual romantic investment, and thus doesn't qualify as a marriage, regardless of intention at the outset. The years of sexual rejection are not reprehensible on their own. It's not reprehensible to avoid sex you don't want to have with a person with whom you don't want to have it. Whats reprehensible is the insistence on persisting in posing the relationship AS a marriage, with all the expectations, duties and responsibilities that entails, without discussing that matter with authenticity. That authenticity is a shared responsibility, and is entirely within one's own capacity to perceive and act on it.
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Post by Apocrypha on May 23, 2017 11:40:09 GMT -5
It sounds like you have the whole situation pretty well pegged. Your analysis of this sounds pretty spot on. Here's the problem, I kept thinking of our wedding day as the date I needed to file by and now I looked on the Clerk of Courts website and see that the marriage license was issued on May 19, 2000. So it looks like I missed the deadline already. Not that I was prepared to file before hand anyway. Now I feel like I don't have that pressure and can give myself a set time, let's say 6 months. If 6 months from now, nothing changes, then I leave and hope that my attorney can pull a rabbit out of it hat and get me the best deal possible. He did say most judges are not giving permanent alimony these days and since she is 42 and capable of working for 25 yrs and has a teaching degree, most likely I wouldn't have to pay for good. What happened in your situation? How long were you with her? What did you try? Did she not want to have sex with you also and had an affair? Did you leave? Do you have kids? What kind of child support and alimony did you have to give her? Are you sure it goes from the date of license and not the date of the wedding? I imagine people could get a license and yet not marry (what happens if you call the wedding off?). It's worth getting the legal advice. You'd willingly pay more for insurance to protect less income than what you are staring at now with the legal fee and burning a vacation day. I know it feels to you like the two of you are just starting to deal with this problem. I can tell you from thousands of stories on here that - 25 years in, you are well at the end of the problem - Stage 4 cancer. The 6 months thing isn't a practical solution. Couples therapy will likely go longer. The idea of "nothing changes" isn't a great goal to set. Things will likely change. You will fight more. You might likely improve your communication and articulate yourselves, but you won't have desire in your life. In my situation, I went to counselling for years. I learned and proposed just about every unspeakable but legal kink and style I could reasonably think of, in case it was that. Eventually opened the relationship a crack on both sides, and after a couple years of her cruel failures at that and further therapy after we closed it again, I asked for a separation. I was with her 18 years, married 13. 2 kids. Yes, prior to opening the relationship but after years of near celibacy and sexual dysfunction and resentment, she did have an affair. When we separated, she left the house to move into an apartment up the street. We still have merged finances to save money (I live in one of the most expensive cities for real estate on the planet), and we co-parent and see likely too much of each other, but it is within a tolerable range for some of the benefits it provides our kids and the financial benefits. We will continue to separate gradually. If we separated now with a financial arrangement, she would have to pay me, as I lost my job.
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