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Post by mirrororchid on Jul 12, 2021 6:06:34 GMT -5
“ But I think the females needs after any change in hormones is over looked as having an impact of the guy in the relationship.” That’s how your wife is responding to your needs and her lack of libido. When my libido dropped in perimenopause I didn’t feel like a woman so I started taking supplements to increase my libido even though my husband was a refuser. Similarly, when post sm lover’s t level dropped he told his doctor and started t shots. He did this because he didn’t feel like a man. He wasn’t even in a relationship then. For some people having a libido is important. I just turned 70. I do whatever it takes to have a libido because otherwise I don’t feel like myself. I've speculated that libido, the drive to procreate, gives our bodies a sense of purpose which registers in the mind as our selves having a purpose. Absent libido, this lack of purpose could have our minds saying, "Why am I even here?" This has the flavor of clinical depression. In the animal kingdom, males that fail to attract a mate can be seen demonstrating listless, solitary behavior. They almost sulk. Some depressed people may not see an absent libido as related. Perhaps it is though. I could understand how a depressed person would see a libido as a demand on one's time that one is well without. Perhaps the opposite is true. Fulfilling this simplest primitive function may provide a sense of accomplishment. Our higher faculties see such a thing as foolish, but can we not take advantage of our primitive animal natures when it can yield results?
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Post by worksforme2 on Jul 12, 2021 6:12:46 GMT -5
apocrypha, I think, has the right take on this. In my own SM I came to the conclusion it wasn't the missing sex that ended the relationship, it was the missing intimacy and respect that ended things. Sex is important as the glue that helps hold things together, but without intimacy and the feeling that your partner wants to be there for and with you, then the relationship can't be really called a marriage. It's just an arrangement for cohabitation and perhaps procreation and child rearing. When my X finished menopause our sex life was pretty much finished also. It dropped down to quarterly, mostly as a reset tactic to keep me around. You don't even have that. Perhaps it's time for a really open and honest conversation with your W about the state of the marriage and where you see things headed if something doesn't change. You might be surprised to learn that she isn't adamantly opposed to ending the marriage when the chicks are out of the nest. She may even be willing to go along with a don't ask don't tell arrangement. But without the honest discussion you can't kwon exactly where she stands.
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Post by mirrororchid on Jul 12, 2021 6:15:24 GMT -5
There are some interesting thoughts there all. Thank you. I have some things form this I need to sit down and analyse for myself and maybe act upon. I think I have tried my hardest to make our relationship work recently more so than ever before. I feel tired of trying now though. Given what I said before, I think the more I look into the relationship the more I believe I am there for my duty as farther and the expected husband roles. This is not ideal way of putting it as I am sure the feminist society will disagree, but that seems to be what I believe to be. Baza's advice of planning for and taking non-destructive steps towards divorce seems similar to what I did when opening my marriage, I didn't open my marriage, but the planning stages and setting up a profile lifted much of the depression. The helplessness is a huge part of the misery. I've felt happiness is largely tied to improvement in one's life. That's why setbacks aren't permanent. You may never get back to your height, but as long as you're getting better, happiness is not uncommon. Lab rats in experiments that can control outcomes stay engaged and active. Rats given no choice in their lives' outcomes grow listless. If you finish all Baza's steps and you have a trigger you can pull, you are less trapped by a sexless marriage than you are accepting one. The latter condition is a choice, the former is a sentence. You seek divorce (or opening your marriage) not necessarily to get one, but to put the option within reach and provide yourself keys to freedom that you never need to actually use. A caged person with the key to the door has little reason to despair.
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Post by northstarmom on Jul 12, 2021 8:32:11 GMT -5
Mirrorchild fwiw I have had chronic major depression most of my life though since accepting meds some 13 years ago, I rarely get symptoms. Stil, having a libido and sex was important to me . When I didn’t have a libido I wanted one.
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Post by Handy on Jul 12, 2021 13:47:25 GMT -5
NorthstarMom When I didn’t have a libido I wanted one.
Wanting a libido is a good thing. It causes some people to seek a solution. OTH, I suspect some LD partners are OK with the way they are and don't want a libido or are not willing to look for a solution.
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Post by Apocrypha on Jul 15, 2021 12:18:37 GMT -5
NorthstarMom When I didn’t have a libido I wanted one.Wanting a libido is a good thing. It causes some people to seek a solution. OTH, I suspect some LD partners are OK with the way they are and don't want a libido or are not willing to look for a solution. I have found, the most common story in the world among the divorcees I have dated, is that when they changed the partner or the foundational circumstance of sex with that partner, the "libido" miraculously returned. And my last gf, who was a bit more honest with herself about most things, said she always maintained a high libido, but didn't want to have sex with her husband.
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Post by Handy on Jul 15, 2021 16:08:42 GMT -5
Apocrypha she always maintained a high libido, but didn't want to have sex with her husband.
I suppose your last GF resented her H for something he did or didn't do. I pick up that vibe from my W.
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Post by northstarmom on Jul 15, 2021 17:55:48 GMT -5
Handy: "I suppose your last GF resented her H for something he did or didn't do. I pick up that vibe from my W."
Of maybe she never was sexually attracted to him but was with him because she thought he'd make a good provider and father. Or maybe she lost her sexual desire for him.
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Post by ironhamster on Jul 15, 2021 20:26:56 GMT -5
Welcome to the club, stu. It doesn't matter where you are. The reality is universal.
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Post by worksforme2 on Jul 16, 2021 6:49:23 GMT -5
Welcome to the club, stu . It doesn't matter where you are. The reality is universal. And it doesn't matter who you are or how much money you have. The latest example of this being Bill and Malinda Gates. While he didn't specifically state his marriage was sexless he did speak about there being no intimacy. I would translate this to mean basically sexless. And since that revelation we have learned of Bill pursuing office romances and his having nude pool parties. We have also read here about clergymen seeking sex outside their marriage. So there seems to be no sure fire preventative mechanism out there that will keep the specter of a SM away.
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Post by catlover on Jul 16, 2021 13:34:05 GMT -5
Intimacy and physical affection make a world of difference, sadly, I have neither
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Post by Apocrypha on Jul 16, 2021 13:50:53 GMT -5
Handy: "I suppose your last GF resented her H for something he did or didn't do. I pick up that vibe from my W." Of maybe she never was sexually attracted to him but was with him because she thought he'd make a good provider and father. Or maybe she lost her sexual desire for him. In that case, she was very sexually attracted to him and also had - generally - a high libido. They divorced. The turn off, in her case, was that due to a set of mutual behaviours that resulted in her attraction to him being destroyed - and in her seeing him as not a romantic partner. He likely also had his own issues with her. But I've seen many variants on this story. The common thread in all of them being - when sex disappears in a marriage - it often seems to be the eventual and irrevocable result of something that happened much farther upstream (possibly decades ago) that is likely beyond addressing. Something of such scale that an attraction is destroyed. Might be something about the person and might be something about the circumstance of being married to the person - hard to say. But by the time it gets to the point where a partner has a sex drive but doesn't want to explore it with the person they live with and who wants them, that's a dire circumstance - end stage cancer.
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Post by mirrororchid on Jul 19, 2021 5:00:21 GMT -5
The common thread in all of them being - when sex disappears in a marriage - it often seems to be the eventual and irrevocable result of something that happened much farther upstream (possibly decades ago) that is likely beyond addressing. Something of such scale that an attraction is destroyed. Might be something about the person and might be something about the circumstance of being married to the person - hard to say. But by the time it gets to the point where a partner has a sex drive but doesn't want to explore it with the person they live with and who wants them, that's a dire circumstance - end stage cancer. That old saw of "Don't go to bed mad" may need a tweak. "If you go to bed mad, get a therapist, next day." If you don't, whatever it is you don't sort out may become that thing you never forgive and it wrecks your feelings permanently. If it has already wrecked things, better to know now.
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