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Post by northstarmom on Mar 10, 2020 14:13:48 GMT -5
Thinking back to my SM in which the last 8 years were completely sexless and at least 8 others were either completely sexless or included only once a year sex, I wonder why it took me so long to accept the reality that if I were to have a great sex life again it wasn’t going to be with him.
Out of my SM now for 7 years and in a sexually satisfying relationship I don’t understand the long time it took me to give up on having sex in my marriage.
This brings me to the folks here who’ve been years in long marriages that may never have had good sex or may not have had sex for years. If you are still hoping your spouse will turn into an eager sex partner with you, why? What would it take for you to give up that hope and realize that your spouse will never be the sex partner you want? What do you get out of clinging to hope?
What I got was wasted years that I will never get back.
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Post by Handy on Mar 10, 2020 16:27:51 GMT -5
Northstarmom What would it take for you to give up that hope and realize that your spouse will never be the sex partner you want?
This isn't exactly the answer you asked for but I gave up hope with my W years ago.
My current situation is I would consider a relationship with a different woman but I don't bring up the subject with anyone.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2020 16:49:43 GMT -5
The secret is letting go of that false hope (this site showed me that) and then making some decisions. I'm staying and that's ok but I no longer hope for the impossible.
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Post by Apocrypha on Mar 10, 2020 17:38:27 GMT -5
Thinking back to my SM in which the last 8 years were completely sexless and at least 8 others were either completely sexless or included only once a year sex, I wonder why it took me so long to accept the reality that if I were to have a great sex life again it wasn’t going to be with him. Out of my SM now for 7 years and in a sexually satisfying relationship I don’t understand the long time it took me to give up on having sex in my marriage. This brings me to the folks here who’ve been years in long marriages that may never have had good sex or may not have had sex for years. If you are still hoping your spouse will turn into an eager sex partner with you, why? What would it take for you to give up that hope and realize that your spouse will never be the sex partner you want? What do you get out of clinging to hope? What I got was wasted years that I will never get back. I think when I was stuck in the loop, I was trapped in the way I framed the problem. I had posed it as "Marriage vs Sex" I valued my marriage, children, home, past and future and felt it was something I balanced against having sex. When I put it that way, what wouldn't I trade? But as it slowly began to eat away at me over years, I gradually came to view it a completely different way, to save my sanity. I viewed it as having a marriage (in which sex was evidence of an invested, romantic attraction, alongside other evidence of that) vs simply running a household but posing it as a marriage and lying about it to myself and others. It was exhausting. The lack of sex was evidence to me that she was not attracted to me, which meant that calling it a marriage wasn't bringing much to the table.
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Post by mackowitz on Mar 10, 2020 18:04:39 GMT -5
Thinking back to my SM in which the last 8 years were completely sexless and at least 8 others were either completely sexless or included only once a year sex, I wonder why it took me so long to accept the reality that if I were to have a great sex life again it wasn’t going to be with him. Out of my SM now for 7 years and in a sexually satisfying relationship I don’t understand the long time it took me to give up on having sex in my marriage. This brings me to the folks here who’ve been years in long marriages that may never have had good sex or may not have had sex for years. If you are still hoping your spouse will turn into an eager sex partner with you, why? What would it take for you to give up that hope and realize that your spouse will never be the sex partner you want? What do you get out of clinging to hope? What I got was wasted years that I will never get back. It took me years of reading others' stories here and on other forums to figure out my wife would never be the sex partner I want. It was a slow process to even realize we were sexless. I wouldn't say we ever had sex as much as I would like, but figured the cliche about men having higher libido was true. Then realizing it wasn't, I spent a long time trying to fix things, then trying to fix different things, getting angry, arguing about it, having a reset, realizing the reset was fake, arguing some more, counter-refusing, etc. I have given up hope. There is a sad liberation in that.
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Post by baza on Mar 10, 2020 22:07:56 GMT -5
I'm looking at this from distance (I got out in late 2009) so apply appropriate discounts. I "knew" that my deal was a dead duck in about 2005 ... though I had suspected it for several years before that. But that didn't mean that I was prepared to get out, but it did get me seeing a lawyer and developing an exit strategy - in theory. From that point onward, it was only a matter of opportunity presenting itself (or for me to force the issue aggressively - which I wasn't prepared to do) Like you Sister northstarmom , I don't really know why I stayed as long as I did.
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Post by michael on Mar 11, 2020 6:56:41 GMT -5
I was hoping to get a girlfriend, but no one wants to be with a married man. I even went on a dating site with no luck. Life sucks.
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Post by bozodeclowne on Mar 11, 2020 12:26:59 GMT -5
With us, we had a very good sex life initially. I find it difficult to reconcile the spouse I have now, who has no desire for sex/intimacy of any kind, with the young woman that frequently chased orgasms into the double digits. The change was gradual at first, but then kind of fell right off the cliff. We're 30yrs together now. With the benefit of hindsight, it seems clear my wife lost desire for me (possibly scratching that itch elsewhere) at some point, and now post-menopause & with some health issues has lost that desire completely.
Why did/do I stay? At first it was hope that we could turn things around. Children, financial entanglements and declining self-esteem piled on top of that, but hope still remained. Now, that hope is long gone, replaced by a certainty that life on my own carries some challenges I did not properly prepare for over the years. Am I up to them at this age? There is also the folly of truth-chasing. I want to know why we ended up in an SM. If she was unfaithful, I want to know the truth. I'm like the old man shaking his fist at the sky. Logically, I know those answers are never coming, but dammit - I want them! If I am to go, I'll need to get past all of that.
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