Why I am staying with my sexless wife...

Thank you both! It is very helpful to hear about the stages other people went through. Although all replies are from people who eventually left. I'm glad to hear you are all much happier!

Sounds that both of you, Baza and apocrypha, when still married to your exes, took steps in the direction of separating yourselves emotionally from the spouse and from the marriage. Apocrypha, you took steps towards building a support network to be there when you made the final move. It sounds to me that these stages are necessary for a succesful separation and coping with the aftermath, not only for coping with being in such a painful relationship, when you were still in.

Yes, regarding me saying "we just don't have sex", and then launching into a rant, it's true, I have opposite thoughts sometimes. I have good days and bad days. I have good moments, when I think about all of his qualities, what an amazing man he is, and how he showed me and still shows me how much he loves me by other things and sacrificies he made/makes for me/us, how smart and kind he is, how he built his life the way he did, how he's here for me when I need him, how he's not a yeller like my ex etc,  and think that he must be in pain as well. But then I do have days when I am angry at my husband, and resentful that he seems to not have been genuine before marriage, angry that he's not making more of an effort and doesn't try understand how I feel. 

My first husband, a man I met early on in college, was my first everything and we got married right out of school. He was an angry man. Always angry at someone. Not me necessarily. Most of the time not at me. But he was always yelling, ranting, throwing things and most of all, I felt I was always alone in the world while married to him. I realized that he simply wasn't a good person. He was a weak, envious and petty man, who hated everyone and thought the world should give him everything because he's special. We did not have the same values. He wasn't kind. But what worked in that marriage was sex. I don't know if my ex was great at sex, but he was my first and to me, he was great. Truly, I didn't have sex like that after we got divorced. My current husband was the next best, from my limited experience.  In addition, the ex was very touchy-feely all the time. Well, when he wasn't throwing something or yelling, or slapping the kid. It was very stressful to live with him. On the weekends, I was leaving our home with our kid, so we are out of his way and his wrath. He was for some reason afraid of me so he never hit me, but he was taking it out on the kid, always trying to hit the kid, or say cruel things to him. So I would wake up and drive around town all day Sat and all day Sun. Mostly to McDonalds payplaces and other playgrounds. It lasted as long as it did because of sex. I often thought that's the only thing we have. I knew I could not count on him. I knew I was alone. If I lost my job, I'd need to take care of the problem myself. I was the one to carry us all of my life. It helped me work harder and get higher in my career, in an effort to survive and raise the kid. I felt like a single mom, while being married. I had multiple instances when I had to make do. I did lose my job and many many other dramas and extremely stressful situations, when I was every time...alone. I knew he wasn't in the marriage. He felt more like...a FWB. A stressful, abusive one, whom I had to live with, but the sex was good. I eventually got a divorce. Good times after that. We had such a great time, my son and I, in our home , with our friends, many happy years.

Then when I started dating, I was attracted to my husband's kindness. I still love him a lot and my life with him is good.  We get along. It's not stressful. Nobody is yelling at me or anybody. In fact, he hates yelling. He's not talking shit about people all the time like my ex did. So to me, this marriage is great that way! Finally not dreading hearing my husband's car in the driveway. We had several issues, like all couples, but we solved all of them by talking. Some took a long time to get resolved. For example, it took us about 2 years (lived together before marriage) to come to an agreement about how to share finances but never had a problem since. Had other situations and we solved them. 

I am not yet at the point where I don't chase the "why's". I am chasing the whys ad also the solutions to improve emotional closeness.  It may be futile, but I need to go through this stage before I go to emotional separation as a coping mechanism. I know it's their problem and even if I know "why", I can't fix them. But I still want to understand. It sounds like some of you here, and myself too, when I'm in my angry mode, feel like these people are doing this to us because they want to, or to punish us. Sometimes that may be true. I know some people withold sex to punish, manipulate or gain leverage.  But sometimes it's not, sometimes they just don't undrestand our whys. They don't understand how much we need sex becauase they don't feel the same about sex if they are low desire or if sex is painful etc. Sometimes they don't understand what the big deal is. To me, it's important to understand. Even if eventually I will end up leaving. If it's resentment from their part, is there anything we can do to address this in counseling or otherwise? Are they depressed? I don't think I can live with a depressed person, but it would be useful to know so I know I should go ahead and leave soon.  If it's physical, and I know he's not doing it to spite me, to punish me, I feel less angry.  

I am still trying to find a solution. I think the chances to solve the problem are extremely low, as I did not hear ANY success stories from stayers so far. But I can't move on before I feel I've done everything I could. I don't imagine my husband will transform into a passionate man, but maybe we can improve the situation to the extent it can be improved. 

I don't think my husband doesn't have sex with me and doesn't make more of an effort to fix his issue because he "doesn't give me consideration", or he doesn't love me. I do believe he doesn't see me as a sexual partner, like someone said, and yes, that is painful. It could be that because he has very low T, he stopped wanting sex once the newness wore off. It seems that men with low T can still perform fine when infatuated, but then they go back to their baseline of desire. That, together with the bedroom failure making him feel bad, is a recipe for avoiding sex. It's not an excuse, but I feel differently if I know it's not that he maliciously witheld sex just after marriage, to dupe me. It doesn't change the fact that he doesn't see me as a sexual partner. I may still end up deciding we are just not a good match and moving on. But in the meantime, it would make the time together more enjoyable and the eventual break up friendlier.

With my ex, we didn't even have lawyers at the divorce. Extremely amicable. We have still a very good relationship with each other. I still think he's an insane person, but although I can't change that fact, and I could never live or spend more than 10 minutes with him ever again, or even be real friends, we have a very amicable relaitonship. No contention. 

I want to understand, to help me cope and to empathize with my husband. Low desire people are not necessarily out to get us. They have their own pain and even if they give us pain, they may not mean it. We don't need to walk around being angry all the time. I'm talking about myself, not about you other posters. I can recognize he doesn't want me, I may recognize I'm not in a real marriage if you wish, and I may recognize it's not going to work out, but I can do that with anger, or without anger. That's all. That's where I am right now.

Interesting that although 70% or more people in sexless marriages stay, they don't seem to be on these forums. I wonder why. Shame?