Virgin at 43 story

In the beginning when you penitration couldn't happen was there other forms of intimacy and other sexual things happening?

No, there never was any other form of intimacy. He is not a very affectionate person. I dont see him hugging other people or anything. And thinking about it now, his family is also not affectionate. In fact they are extremely non affectionate people but when I met him, I thought he would be different as he was & is very friendly. Even my family is not affectionate but I still crave it. Initially he might have hugged me a few times but for exa if I hold his hand, he actually lets go of my hand. And he does it without even realizing. Any kind if intimacy is that unnatural to him

Redefine what you have. Since you and your husband never have had sex, in all religions and jurisdictions that I'm aware of a marriage has to be consummated to be official. Otherwise annulment is possible.

You do not have a marriage. You are compatible roommates and coparents.

If you are in the US, if you get a divorce, not an annulment, due to having been married more than 10 years, you would qualify for alimony and possibly even a share of your husband's retirement. Contact a lawyer for info. Often the first visit is free and you will learn how a divorce would shake out legally.

That you are a stay at home mom does not mean you will always lack financial means and have to rely on your husband. You could get some kind of job. You also could return to school and get skills to get a decent job. The cost of your schooling could even be covered in your divorce settlement. He also would have to pay child support.

Presumably your husband would be ashamed that you two never had sex so would cooperate with a legal divorce if that helps keep the secret that the marriage is sexless ( you might be able to divorce while getting a religious annulment).I would bet he has found a way to meet his sexual needs via porn or sex with women or men. For most, as you now are experiencing, the sex drive is powerful and finds an outlet.

As for your parents, you are fortunate that they live in another country. That would make it easier to break with tradition. You also could tell them the truth about your sexless marriage. I realize your family doesn't talk about sex. But now continuing that is an option you don't have to take. And I hope you are getting info and informing your children about sex so they have better lives than you have had. There are age appropriate books you can use.

If you are in an ILIASM shithole, and then choose to get a 3rd party involved, it is invariably a game changer.
Here, for example, the third party has awakened your sexual persona, and there is no putting that genie back in the bottle.

Probably, what will happen with this other bloke is nothing as far as the longer term future goes, but I'll bet that at the very least it has got you thinking about how short changed you have been in your primary relationship (and that's not necessarily a bad thing).

It will boil down to this.

If you stay in your non sexual primary relationship, you can kiss goodbye any thoughts of a robust intimate life. That is probably going to escalate your resentment levels greatly - quite possibly to a level where you have to get out.

Another scenario would be your spouse finding out about your painting outside the marital lines and giving you shit about it for years and years after, making your life a misery. Or reacting volcanically and divorcing you.

The odds are, that one way or another, divorce is in your future. Not tomorrow, but probably sooner than you think.

On that basis, my suggestion is that you see a lawyer in your jurisdiction and establish how a divorce would shake out for you, in theoretical terms. In other words, find out what the stakes are in this game, and how you might manage that situation.

I'd caution against devoting much time / energy on your spouse. You are not going to convince, cajole, manoeuvre or manipulate him into being anything other than what he is. Sexually disinterested in you.

I think you need to take a longer term view of things, and he is not likely to be in that picture as a partner - though he most certainly would be in the picture as a co-parent.

Difficult choices loom for you Sister shep40 .
Try and make those choices on as fully informed a basis as you can.

shep40, welcome to the club nobody wants to be in, and, my condolences for your ordeal.

I'm going to assume you're from a Christian background. Normally, I don't make long posts, but I can't make a Cliff's notes version of this.

The first thing I would like you to consider is shedding your guilt over what happened. You've been a saint, dealing with this for as long as you have. I would like to give you some scripture to go along with this, which helped me from my perspective, and, I hope helps you.

1 Corinthians 7:3-5: 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Shep40, your husband has been depriving you in clear violation of his vows. I don't think I need to quote from Eclesiastes to remind anyone what G-d thinks about people that break their vows to him. My perspective is at odds with society. From my vantage point he made a promise he did not fulfill. He is the cheater. He has cheated you out of two decades of a basic human need. In this day and age of modern medicine, there is no acceptable excuse for that.

I want to extend this to English common law. If there was a contract for services that the provider could not or refused to fulfill, the customer was then free to find services from another provider.

I know my perspective is different from society, but society does not see the abusive nature of forced celibacy. You married with full faith that he would fulfill his vows. He has not. He never told you that you would live a celibate life with him. You never consented to this abuse. Your deal was "to have and to hold", and he cheated you out of that.