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Post by carl on Dec 11, 2018 21:42:55 GMT -5
I have been in a sexless marriage for years. There is the odd reset but the overall current is always sexlessness and control. I stay in a sexless marriage due to the family situation. Kids, house, financial responsibility etc. But it has been the most awful experience of my life. Nothing but sadness and regret. All because she can’t have sex, embrace or make love. Years ago I couldn’t have conceived the idea of leaving, but I think that is part of my weakness and I imagine leaving or think of ideas of how to arrange a separation most days now. It is also my desire to do so now rather than a compromise. I don’t want to be with someone who has issues with sex. I just don’t think I could ever love a refuser. Who could ? Surely it is impossible ? Does anyone really honestly love their other half or are you deceiving yourself if you think you do ?
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Post by baza on Dec 11, 2018 23:09:04 GMT -5
If this is where you are at presently - "I imagine leaving or think of ideas of how to arrange a separation most days now" - then, the standard advice you'd have seen many many times here would apply Brother carl . See a lawyer in your jurisdiction to establish how a divorce would shake out for you. Within those parameters start putting an exit strategy into place and knock it in to do-able status. Shore up your support network. Research everything you can on assisting kids transition through such an event. None of this commits you to anything, it is just you doing your homework to get yourself fully informed about the leaving option, from which you can make a fully informed choice.....and you'll probably mull over that choice for months before you settle on one or the other. In respect to the "loving the refuser or not" issue, I personally think it's a sidebar to the main issue. One school of thought might be to wait until you can't stand the sight of your spouse before acting. Another is to get the deal done whilst there is still some level of goodwill present as you are still going to have some sort of relationship with them as co-parents if nothing else.
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Post by workingonit on Dec 11, 2018 23:11:40 GMT -5
At the risk of sounding like a generic greeting card I think there are lots of kinds of love. I think most of us settle for something, it feels familiar, there are ways our marriages are friendly or supportive. It is not the love we need or want. But it is not nothing. We accustom ourselves to crumbs, to calling the shadow of a relationship we all have "marriage."
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Post by ironhamster on Dec 12, 2018 0:04:12 GMT -5
Love is an emotion. It is not by necessity logical. It is entirely possible to love a refuser. I loved my refuser for twenty-three years.
Logic may not get us into this mess, but it gets us out of it.
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Post by TheGreatContender -aka Daddeeo on Dec 12, 2018 6:10:22 GMT -5
Love is an emotion. A very real emotion.
Marriage is an institutional myth most of us have been programmed to buy into.
Choosing to spend your life with someone reciprocally out of free will, now that is something special.
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Post by sadkat on Dec 12, 2018 6:32:14 GMT -5
At the risk of sounding like a generic greeting card I think there are lots of kinds of love. I think most of us settle for something, it feels familiar, there are ways our marriages are friendly or supportive. It is not the love we need or want. But it is not nothing. We accustom ourselves to crumbs, to calling the shadow of a relationship we all have "marriage." I agree with this. I do love my husband but it’s not the kind of deep emotion that I would have for a lover. It’s more like the kind of love I would have for a very good friend.
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Post by choosinghappy on Dec 12, 2018 7:53:12 GMT -5
Yes I loved my refuser. But the lack of reciprocation, building resentment, and pain caused by our SM changed that love from a romantic love to a platonic, familial love. I will always love him (as a person, as the father of my child), but I fell out of love with him long ago.
ETA: It’s hard (maybe not hard, maybe fruitless?) to continue to love someone romantically who doesn’t love you back in the way you need to feel like a whole person.
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Post by choosinghappy on Dec 12, 2018 8:02:35 GMT -5
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Post by shamwow on Dec 12, 2018 9:02:26 GMT -5
A prisoner can love their captor (Stockholm syndrome) and a slave can love their master. Of course you can love a refuser. It's possible, but difficult to say the least. Does a captor or master or refuse truly love their victim back? Possible, but, again, unlikely. Fortunately you are also unlikely to be writing this from a prison cell or the auction block. You are a free man. Your goal now should be to be an educated free man. Follow the advice of baza. Visit an attorney. See how a divorce would shake out. Then, as a free man, take your time to make an informed decision.
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Post by solodriver on Dec 12, 2018 22:07:52 GMT -5
ETA: It’s hard (maybe not hard, maybe fruitless?) to continue to love someone romantically who doesn’t love you back in the way you need to feel like a whole person. Can't plus this enough!
I'm using this in my profile.
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Post by carl on Dec 13, 2018 4:49:12 GMT -5
Thanks for your comments. Always nice to read. I don’t think I have loved the refuser in my marriage since all the intimacy disappeared. It’s not that love means sex but it’s just that arrogance around sex kills love for me. But I see how others could love a refuser and it’s not a situation that I would be totally immune to. I noticed that Sadkat and one other talked about love for their partner as like that towards a very good friend or it being platonic. But I must admit that I don’t like feeling trapped or ignored by anyone. I love my friends because they are good friends and they don’t try to change my life or take away my freedom.
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Post by ironhamster on Dec 13, 2018 5:24:00 GMT -5
Thanks for your comments. Always nice to read. I don’t think I have loved the refuser in my marriage since all the intimacy disappeared. It’s not that love means sex but it’s just that arrogance around sex kills love for me. But I see how others could love a refuser and it’s not a situation that I would be totally immune to. I noticed that Sadkat and one other talked about love for their partner as like that towards a very good friend or it being platonic. But I must admit that I don’t like feeling trapped or ignored by anyone. I love my friends because they are good friends and they don’t try to change my life or take away my freedom. I think it is a lot easier to stop loving when your perspective changes. Two terms of psychological manipulation come to mind. DARVO and Gaslighting. A quick internet search will explain either of them. When you believe there is hope to fix this, and you just need to be something a little better than you are, now, then it will all be good, it is easy to maintain that love just as it is to turn your frustration inside you and let it feast on your self esteem. If your refuser is playing mind games, they are probably expecting they can maintain control of you for forever. Whether they can depends on whether or not you catch on. Once you see it, the spell is broken.
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Post by greatcoastal on Dec 13, 2018 5:38:03 GMT -5
A pastor once told me, " LOVE is the greatest commitment to the good of another person". Fair enough, simple enough.
What gets left out of that equation is the giving and receiving.
You can easily give to your spouse,but you need to set a boundary for yourself. A much shorter period of time (perhaps with every act of giving) needs to go by before you ask yourself, " what have I received back from this? Are my needs being met? Where's the commitment to the good of ME from this other person?"
This goes back to the "coke machine" analogy.
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Post by flashjohn on Dec 13, 2018 14:47:22 GMT -5
Thanks for your comments. Always nice to read. I don’t think I have loved the refuser in my marriage since all the intimacy disappeared. It’s not that love means sex but it’s just that arrogance around sex kills love for me. But I see how others could love a refuser and it’s not a situation that I would be totally immune to. I noticed that Sadkat and one other talked about love for their partner as like that towards a very good friend or it being platonic. But I must admit that I don’t like feeling trapped or ignored by anyone. I love my friends because they are good friends and they don’t try to change my life or take away my freedom. I think the problem is that the refuser does not love you, so eventually, your love for him/her dies. You can't do it forever. So what is keeping you there?
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Post by carl on Dec 13, 2018 19:24:34 GMT -5
Thanks for your comments. Always nice to read. I don’t think I have loved the refuser in my marriage since all the intimacy disappeared. It’s not that love means sex but it’s just that arrogance around sex kills love for me. But I see how others could love a refuser and it’s not a situation that I would be totally immune to. I noticed that Sadkat and one other talked about love for their partner as like that towards a very good friend or it being platonic. But I must admit that I don’t like feeling trapped or ignored by anyone. I love my friends because they are good friends and they don’t try to change my life or take away my freedom. I think the problem is that the refuser does not love you, so eventually, your love for him/her dies. You can't do it forever. So what is keeping you there? My children keep me here. But I am thinking of ways to take care of them and separate from their mother. It’s bad but staying now would be no better.
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