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Post by carl on May 18, 2020 10:27:12 GMT -5
It’s hard to predict how the outcome is going to make me feel or whether my wife wants things to go in this direction. But what I do know is that it’s not right for me to allow a false marriage to continue. Marriage is based on a man and woman giving there bodies to one another. So why lie. I hope that my wife doesn’t have plans to move on and I hope she never will. She could only do society wrong.
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Post by Apocrypha on May 19, 2020 10:34:15 GMT -5
I agree turning a man into a slave is not going to guarantee a good sex life nor should it be necessary but I think this is where that thinking came from. Back in my day women were basically expected to do the cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, as well as primary child care regardless if she worked outside the home or not. And I can tell you I was both a stay at home mom and a work outside the home mom and either way you work damn hard. The thought behind most of those articles is by the time you have a time for sex the woman is too exhausted to care and if she gets no help may also feel disrespected and treated as an employee . And have a hard time switching from mom and house keeper to sexy goddess. So if the man looked at everything he was doing and everything she was doing and they were heavy on her side that he take on some of the things he can to better the odds that she isn't exhausted or pissed off. I think now days things are more evenly split. Anyway that's where that thinking comes from . This was bullshit excuse then and it is bullshit now. I'm not sure about this "back in my day" expectations stuff - I was born in '70 and you look younger than me. Western women and men could negotiate their own division of labour generally without sanction. There are a million people, including myself, who have flipped that script - acted as the breadwinner as well as primary caregiver and householder as their spouse retreated further and further - and still found themselves abandoned by their spouse and still wanting a sexually intimate relationship with their spouse, maybe to help make all the work worth it. Sex with someone you want is a restorative activity. Sex with someone you don't, depletes. There can be all sorts of ways people disconnect due to either not being invested in the household enterprise or not feeling generally supported as a person in their marriage, or not liking their partner or not seeing their spouse as a sexual partner any longer - I'd suggest this goes more toward resentment or a loss of respect of the person than it does to actually being tired.
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Post by Apocrypha on May 19, 2020 14:56:34 GMT -5
Apocrypha talks of both spouses suffering, but I'm unsure both spouses do. The refuser may be filled with ennui or abstractly discontented, but the sexless marriages is fully accepted at least some of the time. Perhaps both do suffer and the difference in magnitude seems insulting to the refused. "Acceptance" is one of baza's options, but given the refuser's lack of hunger/misery, some (most?) of them could go the duration to the finish line coffin and bathe in the accolades of having pulled off the "death do we part" marathon. It is important to pay attention to the language and the narratives we commonly encounter. Many of us write in here about being filled with a rage at encountering a spouse masturbating, or watching porn or just generally allotting their erotic energy elsewhere as a precious commodity wasted. But it isn't at all wasted or in short supply. It's just not for a person who they don't see that way. It's what a single person does. We also talk about "The Work" - working on it. This can go on for years - the "hard work" of working on your marriage. The hard work entailing either having sex with your spouse, or creating elaborate plans and contexts in which to find sex with a spouse to be an appealing thing. And we KNOW how hard that work is, because we ALSO know how hard it is to be married to someone who doesn't want to bang you. It's why it a spouse who seems to have abandoned the marriage thinks she's lifting a mountain on her shoulders and is the hero of the story just by sticking it out.
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Post by carl on May 20, 2020 0:04:52 GMT -5
There are no heroics in sticking out a marriage. The refuser is taking the status of marriage and deceiving every single person they know or meet. They lie constantly without even speaking. If they don’t want to bang their spouse then let them firstly take the status of divorced and then bear that weight which is theirs to bear. From my recent knowledge of divorce law it seems that in my part of the world most cases are steered towards a no blame situation and there is maybe a fairly standard stamp of conditions for each spouse. Apparently blame creates too many negative feelings post separation. So a man is expected to live by the understanding of divorce, which I will to the extent that my wife has lived by the understanding of marriage.
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Post by baza on May 20, 2020 0:59:51 GMT -5
In my jurisdiction (since 1975) the federal divorce law is no fault. The State is not the least bit interested in "why" you want a divorce (they figure that as an adult you have a good reason) All the State is interested in is an equitable split of the marital assets, and that the needs of minor children are met.
"If" (and it is a big if) you can let all the air out of the emotional balloon, and deal dispassionately with the matter, the divorce process may be a fair bit easier on you (and everyone else). That said, it IS an emotional time and it's a big ask to keep your emotions in check. But it's worth having a crack at it.
There's not a lot of point in blame apportioning or bagging out your spouses' behaviour as it won't advance your agenda at all.
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Post by Apocrypha on May 20, 2020 9:15:20 GMT -5
There are no heroics in sticking out a marriage. The refuser is taking the status of marriage and deceiving every single person they know or meet. They lie constantly without even speaking. Don't they both?
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Post by mesulina on May 21, 2020 23:17:40 GMT -5
I have been married a long time and the sex wa great between my h and I. We have explored differnet "things" together. but it all went to hell over the last 4 years. Because my h still loves me and I love him we just cannot take the time to love one another physically. I felt so hurt and betrayed when I caught him, taking care of himself. He does have ED problems and the bad habits (alcoholic and smoking) and he does not want to or take the effort to work on it with me. It hurts alot. Acrophya you hit the nail on the head with your response. Other than the no sex, we get along fine. But there are times when, I wish I had the guts to "outsource". But with technology there might be other ways for me. I would think my libedo would go down as I get older but it is still there and certain times of the month, I get extremly frustrated. Finding this site helps me express how I feel. Physical attraction and physical pleasure was the core of our marriage, but it has evolved. Yes, I miss it but we now have a different kind of marriage---sexless
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Post by ironhamster on May 22, 2020 4:29:36 GMT -5
I have been married a long time and the sex wa great between my h and I. We have explored differnet "things" together. but it all went to hell over the last 4 years. Because my h still loves me and I love him we just cannot take the time to love one another physically. I felt so hurt and betrayed when I caught him, taking care of himself. He does have ED problems and the bad habits (alcoholic and smoking) and he does not want to or take the effort to work on it with me. It hurts alot. Acrophya you hit the nail on the head with your response. Other than the no sex, we get along fine. But there are times when, I wish I had the guts to "outsource". But with technology there might be other ways for me. I would think my libedo would go down as I get older but it is still there and certain times of the month, I get extremly frustrated. Finding this site helps me express how I feel. Physical attraction and physical pleasure was the core of our marriage, but it has evolved. Yes, I miss it but we now have a different kind of marriage---sexless I'm sorry about your predicament, but, welcome to the club. Has your husband looked into medical options to fix his ED issue? It sucks, but it is pretty common in older men, but so are solutions. Testosterone, Viagra, Cialis, Lavitra, etc, and, as a last resort, implants. I don't know what you look like, but, that is not likely the issue. That being said, improving yourself will improve your confidence, and confidence is always sexy. If you choose outsourcing, this is pretty much a no judgement zone. It happens, and, ethically, if your husband is not meeting his marital obligations, he should not be surprised when you find another source for the service he promised to provide. Just know that an affair can spin the relationship in directions that you cannot control.
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Post by baza on May 22, 2020 20:33:29 GMT -5
I have been married a long time and the sex wa great between my h and I. We have explored differnet "things" together. but it all went to hell over the last 4 years. Because my h still loves me and I love him we just cannot take the time to love one another physically. I felt so hurt and betrayed when I caught him, taking care of himself. He does have ED problems and the bad habits (alcoholic and smoking) and he does not want to or take the effort to work on it with me. It hurts alot. Acrophya you hit the nail on the head with your response. Other than the no sex, we get along fine. But there are times when, I wish I had the guts to "outsource". But with technology there might be other ways for me. I would think my libedo would go down as I get older but it is still there and certain times of the month, I get extremly frustrated. Finding this site helps me express how I feel. Physical attraction and physical pleasure was the core of our marriage, but it has evolved. Yes, I miss it but we now have a different kind of marriage---sexless Although this is actually Brother carl 's thread, what you say is quite relevant Sister mesulina . Like a lot of stories in here, it reads like "the sex" is a symptom. The booze and the smokes appear to be the "the problem" and the tanking of the sexual component of the marriage is collateral damage. "If" those issues of the booze and the smokes was addressed (a pretty good thing to do irrespective of anything else going on) then mebbe the sexual component of your deal takes care of itself. Which leads to the next question of who can do something about his choice to embrace the Marlboro's and Jack Daniels ? One thing is sure .... that person, the one who could do something about theses matters, is NOT you. He fixes his issue, or no-one does. There doesn't seem to be much desire on his part to do anything about these matters, based on what you've written. Just out of interest, there's a live poll going on at the moment. It asks, if you've been a member for a while, if you still think that "everything is great bar the sex". The results so far are very interesting.
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Post by saarinista on May 23, 2020 0:36:24 GMT -5
mesulina I'll go with baza here. I think the apparent alcohol abuse is a more fundamental problem here than the lack of sex. Nicotine use isn't so healthy either. Have you considered going to Al-anon or even therapy to get some support? Al-anon is free, which is nice. Alcohol abuse messes up a lot of lives. I understand it killed my uncle prior to my birth. Might be a good thing to check into.
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Post by carl on May 23, 2020 1:04:14 GMT -5
There are no heroics in sticking out a marriage. The refuser is taking the status of marriage and deceiving every single person they know or meet. They lie constantly without even speaking. Don't they both? That’s why I have called my wife up on it and assured her I’ll not live her lie any longer. If someone mentions my wife then I mention briefly that she is cold, we’re not close at the moment and that I am considering leaving her. I don’t make a big deal but I say it because that’s the truth. I don’t feel I deserve to be mistreated like this and not telling anybody is wrong. I want my wife to be a wife to me as she vowed and if my words don’t make any difference then I will come to her with a friend to speak and then if not two friends and if not again then a lawyer.
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Post by worksforme2 on May 23, 2020 6:27:40 GMT -5
Hhmmmmm,....This is a new approach I think. Asking a friend(s) to accompany you when speaking to your W about the sexless issue in the marriage. I never though of it because I didn't want to embarrass my X. And I couldn't ask any of her sorority friends because they propped her up on the issue of being done with sex at our age. So it wasn't an option even if I had thought of it. Her daughter also had an extended sexless period but that was brought on by a sorry husband who would not keep a job if it didn't "challenge" him.
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Post by ironhamster on May 23, 2020 8:32:37 GMT -5
The idea of having a friend come along to rebuke bad behavior is a concept in Christianity, and likely elsewhere. I don't think my wife would have accepted it, though. Her level of narcissism was pretty high, and I am sure she could have found friends to back her lack of interest.
It's worth a try, but, the odds of turning things around are slim. I put a lot of pressure on my wife the last year in an attempt to change things. We had sex a total of eleven times, just breaking out of the clinical definition of a sexless marriage, but, when her response gave a cold sense of checking it off a list, it really wasn't at all the bonding experience sex within a marriage should be. I suspect the best case is, like my wife, she might have obligatory sex with you, akin to letting you masterbate in her, and that's really not going to be what you want.
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Post by csl on May 23, 2020 9:49:46 GMT -5
Hhmmmmm,....This is a new approach I think. Asking a friend(s) to accompany you when speaking to your W about the sexless issue in the marriage. I never though of it because I didn't want to embarrass my X. And I couldn't ask any of her sorority friends because they propped her up on the issue of being done with sex at our age. So it wasn't an option even if I had thought of it. Her daughter also had an extended sexless period but that was brought on by a sorry husband who would not keep a job if it didn't "challenge" him. Actually, it's a couple of millenia old: If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
~ Matt. 18:15.17
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Post by saarinista on May 23, 2020 11:05:16 GMT -5
Hhmmmmm,....This is a new approach I think. Asking a friend(s) to accompany you when speaking to your W about the sexless issue in the marriage. I never though of it because I didn't want to embarrass my X. And I couldn't ask any of her sorority friends because they propped her up on the issue of being done with sex at our age. So it wasn't an option even if I had thought of it. Her daughter also had an extended sexless period but that was brought on by a sorry husband who would not keep a job if it didn't "challenge" him. What the hell sorority was that? I was in one in college and I sure hope none of my sisters are like that!
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