Almost 5 years of SM in a 13-year marriage. She avoids topic

Quoting part of your post here Brother coffeeachiever - "My commitment to her and the marriage is based on how she made me feel about her when we first got together"

It is not such a great strategy to base the choices you face today on the facts as they were at sometime in the past.

'Todays' choices need to be based on todays facts.

Hi Baza.
I appreciate your opinion.
Obviously (I hope it's obvious) when I refer to the love we had when we first got together - which did have all the dressings of strong friendship AND intimacy up until almost 5 years ago - I am saying that I wish to get some level of that back.
I mean - I wouldn't call it 'strategy" to say that there is a foundation of love and friendship in our relationship that stayed the same way for YEARS and that that is motivating me to consult with this forum and possibly elsewhere (therapy if I can afford it) to take a closer look at myself.  
Yep, things change - I took vows that I would do my best to get through the challenges.  This is one of them.

I think you'll find that the resentment levels a sexless marriage stirs up eventually poisons assorted aspects of the relationship.

Such as provoking arguements about inconsequential subjects - like a subject on the tv.

Or the resentment causing long awkward silences such as you describe.

The resentment levels will eventually torpedo the relationship.

I guess the question here is how far the resentment levels have reached in your situation Brother coffeeachiever .

Have the resentment levels passed beyond critical mass yet ?

The "Quote" button allows you to remind readers what you are replying to. 
Especially useful if several posts have been placed between your reply and the original reference.
The other thing it can do is focus on what you're replying to, explaining why your reply contains its contents.

I like to trim away the parts of the post I'm not responding to. Limiting repeats and emphasizing the more interesting (to me) portions of a person's post. The ones I'd like clarified or I can offer an analogous anecdote by another ILIASM member or a personal one. Perhaps with solutions to problems others have tried.

It's helpful to note that the forum software sometimes removes the reply space below the quote if you edit it. So, I like to add three carriage return lines (hit enter below the quote) three times before I start to trim text. Frustrating when  forget

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Nuts and bolts out of the way... 

CSL is a "unapologetic Christian" who posted a hefty supply of essays concerning sexless marriage in a Christian household.
Find them here:
curmudgeonlylibrarian.wordpress.com/sexless-marriage-series/

If reading time is tough to come by (maybe borrow some Bible study time to strengthen your Christian marriage?), some of his essays are recorded for the *REFUSED* podcast. You can download episodes and listen in the car.
refusedpodcast.com

Religious discussions happen not infrequently over on the "Off Topic" category at ILIASM. Not a small number of devout Christians here. I figure they're the folks less inclined to pull up stakes when sexlessness comes along. You have a number of folks like you. CSL provides a number of suggestions that shouldn't conflict with your views. The "Addressing Sexless Marriage" series has some anyone should give a try.


I'll toss aside turns-of-phrase and ask the question I meant.  Would divorce be an option if you discovered adultery? Or does it change nothing but your view of her?

On "Puritan" Christianity:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritans
In current English, puritan often means "against pleasure"... Puritans embraced sexuality but placed it in the context of marriage. Peter Gay writes of the Puritans' standard reputation for "dour prudery" as a "misreading that went unquestioned in the nineteenth century", commenting how unpuritanical they were in favour of married sexuality, and in opposition to the Catholic veneration of virginity, citing Edward Taylor and John Cotton.[14] One Puritan settlement in western Massachusetts banished a husband because he refused to fulfill his sexual duties to his wife.

Mosaic law, God's law in the time of Moses and all times B.C. (and after! Matthew 5:18, If Jesus is to be believed.)
David and Solomon had more than one wife.
Saul of Tarsus condemned that practice without scriptural justification except his views of devotion to the lord. Devotion to a wife distracts one from service to God. More than one wife, one assumes, would be all the more distracting. Yet we're to say that David was not as devout as you and I?
Wives of that era had not been exposed to Saul's views and perhaps did not feel it a religious duty to be intimate with their husbands of dozens or hundreds of years. (people lived very long lives, after all.) That's what new wives were for, perhaps?
So one asks, are Saul's recommendations to be heeded at the exclusion of the example of King David? They often are, and opinions will differ. Given the violation of vows in "forsaking all" rather than "forsaking all others", perhaps Saul's recommendation is only that. 
This allows you to stay in your marriage, you will not forsake your wife, you may merely add a subordinate wife who may be in similar need like ladies at ILIASM.
Yet Saul's words have been declared Devine by Jerome and Saul's recommendation (he recommends celibacy, not marriage, so you've already imperfectly executed his advice) has taken on equal footing with David. 

www.ehealthme.com/ds/tasigna/loss-of-libido/
Incidence of libido loss from Tasigna appears minimal and focused in males.
No mention of vaginal dryness in a cursory search. I may be wrong.
Are other medications in play? Cancer treatments may have made some permanent changes.

Your effusive praise for your wife and identification of her devoted service to you is what makes her "for you."
Now that sexuality is no longer part of her service to you, and she is still "for you", is the devotion she provides willingly insufficient? Or is acceptance of this subset the way to respond to this woman's changes? If she's no longer sexual with you, maybe that's how it's supposed to be? The assumptions of ideals and veiled predestiny are at cross purposes to your desire to share intimacy with her. The clash of her perceived imperfection and the previous ideal are a puzzle. Such puzzles can be disquieting.

As you may have gotten the impression, I support "Choosing to Stay", but question forced celibacy if monogamy is expected to be maintained. You may want to narrow your accepted outcomes from "Staying" further. Adding a Biblical, but not legal, wife may be an option you choose to exclude, despite Saul's observation that spouses are for the sake of avoiding fornication (including impure thoughts?). Perhaps you'll avoid fornication too, yet be wretchedly distracted from God's work by prurient cravings that go unslaked due to your wife's "defrauding" of your body.

If a second wife is out of the question, the options whittle down to
1) Convince wife to be one flesh.
2) Accept celibacy.

Fair assessment?

Baza - RIGHT on the money my friend!  This is the very struggle that defines me for a long time now.  
On one hand I'm resentful (I think it's more because she seems not to try to understand what I'm going through) and on the other I know she's going through a lot too and then I feel selfish.
When we argued the other day she threw out a bunch of things she's dealing with (work, depression, the neighborhood we live in and how she/we have been ostracized by the "mean girls", etc.) you name it...it's all weighing on her heavily.
So I feel like I'm a dick for wanting to be intimate or for wanting her to talk about what's  "going on" with her libido. 
I even make it CLEAR that if she would just talk about it with me...just TRY to put into words what she does know, it would help me support her and maybe be even more patient.
And AGAIN, at the same time that I know of the opposing forces mentioned above (resentment of her and shame for feeling selfish), I also know that she doesn't get to go around looking beautiful, sexy...shaking her hips once in a while, doing things near me or to me that are normally a part of relationship where it might lead to more later, etc.  I can't handle that - it's truly torture!  All that does is build resentment.
I told her she can't go "goosing" me for fun and think it won't make me want to do things back to her - not fair.
But when I tell her this, she has no real reply.
Then resentment builds again..and the rest of the time she is a wonderful wife to me and loving mother to our children.
?AAAARRGGGGGGG!!!!!!

Thanks and sorry I'm rambling.

Brother coffeeachiever .

If you were to google "mark manson resentment" it would take you to the blog of Mark Manson, and there you would see an article he's written concerning resentment.

It could be worth your while reading it, and seeing if there's anything helpful for you. "How To Forgive But Not Forget" is the header to this article.

Personally, I find this Mark Manson's writings on assorted relationship issues pretty good. That doesn't mean you will of course. You may not see any value there at all.

Thing is, if you (and your missus) can't deal with your respective resentments, then the future looks very very bleak indeed.

Mebbe this Mark Manson's writings might help you see the issue from a different perspective.

Anyway, the article is about a 10 minute read.