My story... I don't know where I go from here...
May 10, 2023 7:39:43 GMT -5
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Post by exhaustedandhurtmb on May 10, 2023 7:39:43 GMT -5
Hello everyone.
I'm Finn, 38.
This is my story... I've broken it down into digestible chunks, but I appreciate it's a long post, so thank you for taking the time to read and offer your advice/condolences.
My wife and I met when we were 15 and 16 years old, and we've been together ever since, married for almost 14 years with two brats who we both love dearly. Most of our life together has been by clinical definition 'sexless'. If you hadn't guessed, she is the refuser. Unfortunately for me I have very high desire.
A bit about me:
Very laid back, easy going and patient (though a little less patient these days with kids). I'm a bottler, bit of a people pleaser (thought in recent years have learned to begin saying no - the irony) and generally kind hearted person who largely keeps themselves to themselves. I'm introverted but can handle myself in groups when necessary, even though internally I struggle a lot in social situations. I'm physically in good shape and while a little on the short side, I would say I'm not too bad looking - I play tennis and a female opponent from another club recently told me I looked like Jason Statham which I took to be a compliment.
About my refuser:
Quite tightly wound to the point I wonder if she has a medical condition, which allows her to be calm and nice one day and short tempered the next. Kind of like bi-polar, but less extreme and fluctuating more regularly than I think bi-polars do. She has been on 'the pill' since we met at 15 years old, taking a small break from it when we decided to have children and she came off it to conceive. She eventually went back on the pill. I mention the pill because I think it's largely responsibly for her non-existent sex drive.
History:
When we first met and quickly became boyfriend/girlfriend, her mom insisted she went on the pill for obvious reasons. Avoiding pregnancy was not the only reason for using the pill, since it also supposedly helps with acne and bad skin (this is the reason why my wife still takes the pill today). When we were both old enough, we became sexually active though from what I recall it was reasonably infrequent, even though it was on my mind 24/7 - She was responsive to my advances, and even when it didn't always result in intercourse, there was still sexual intimacy in other ways which was ok to get by.
When we were old enough to leave school or stay on for further education (17 years old), we both stayed on, and continued living between parent's houses. Her father worked in the city and would often be home late so we typically had the house to ourselves a lot until later in the evening. After our school day had finished we typically went back to her house and spent time together, sometimes sexually, but most often not. I would often stay over and being respectful of her father, would sleep in the spare room. Naturally and understandably, while he was home there was little sexual activity of any kind, but I would go to bed frustrated nonetheless.
At the age where we were leaving school (20, 21 years old) and deciding whether to attend university, sex had become a rarity. I would always pursue it, but continuously be given excuses or the promise of "tomorrow" - of course "tomorrow" never came. My sexual frustration was through the roof, and my patience would began to waiver and I would express how frustrated I felt, and that's it's not fair to keep saying "tomorrow". Usually at this point she would offer an alternative, HJ or BJ. I would always say "If you're willing to that, why not just have sex?" which was a fruitless argument. I would accept the HJ or BJ and forget about it until next time the routine came around. Keep in mind at this time we were both young adults, so this lack of interest in sex for her has been deep rooted for a long time...
Moving on, after finishing school and both applying to the same universities in order to stay together. We accepted our offers to the same University (different courses) and lived together. At this point sex was something that was almost never happened. In the three years of living together at University, I recall us having sex twice (pathetic I know). As a night owl, I would often stay up late working on my various projects and as such I slept in my own room on a single bed, while she had the double room. I would often work till 3am, so it seemed fair and absolutely normal to sleep in my own room so as not to disturb her sleep - she had a more demanding course than mine - she had lots of lectures, mine was very practical and work from home on computer, so sleep was important for her and always has been. She did not enjoy living away from home, and would often travel back at weekends to be around her family, while I stayed at our house at University. In case you're wondering, I don't believe this was to get away from me... she was close to one particular family member who was the main reason she would visit home. She would even stop by and spend time with my family without me being there, such was the closeness of us and our families.
Ok so to recap, this relationship so far has never been the passionate, sexual relationship that I would have dreamed of. However, at our young age we wanted to be together. Coupled with my immense patience and ability to bottle up the daily frustrations ever more, I somehow never strayed from our relationship. I don't have it in me to cheat, but I have daydreamed about being "free" many times. Unfortunately my "people pleaser" part of me has never had the heart to break up with her.
An aside:
During university years, I created and owned a consumer reviews website. For some reason, contraceptive pills started being reviewed regularly. At that point in time, I used to manually approve all reviews before they were published on the website, to ensure no spam was posted live. As a result, I read countless horrifying stories about how contraceptive pills can cause absolute chaos on a women's body and even their mental health, to the point of destroying relationships. For example, any given pill might cause unwanted hair growth, deep depression and the mental state of a raging bull - there was a recurring theme amongst particular pills where one in particular made many women absolutely psychotic, and unfortunately this resulted in breakups where the woman only realised what had caused everything, after it was too late. I digress, but the point I wanted to make, is that I discovered that the contraceptive pill is so frequently a cause of either reduced libido, or the complete and utter decimation of it. I soon came to believe that my girlfriend was lacking any sex drive thanks to the pill she was taking, which was started taking as soon as we got together...
Timeline is now post-university, we've been together say, 8 years, and sex is a constant desire that very rarely ever happens - the same old "tomorrow" excuse is prevalent.
We finish University and decide to start saving for a house together... exciting! Fast forward approx. 1 or 2 years and we move into our first place. With the privacy and freedom of having our own space, we certainly did have sex occasionally, but it would have been at intervals that would be considered a clinically sexless partnership. I would have taken as much as I could get, but sadly, it was still the same battle that was I was used to.
At this stage of our lives, approx. 24 years old, I think the constant expectation of rejection and feeling frustrated started to overcome my desire to even ask. In the end, I think I subconsciously without even realising it, stopped pursuing sex or any kind of sexual activity. I would busy myself in personal projects. If I did have moments of sexual frustration, I would definitely channel that negative energy into my projects and distract myself with work, though generally I think I just forgot about sex and it stopped being something that I even considered.
Enter marriage:
So back before we bought our place together and we still lived with our parents, we'd been together for so long that at a party, her cousin said "when are you two getting married?" to which I didn't have an answer. The cousin said "Give him a deadline, that's what I did and it worked"... Well, soon after I was given a deadline, with the suggestion that if I haven't proposed by then, we'd split up. In honesty I don't believe this deadline was "real" but marriage was something I've never even thought about before. I thought to myself, we're practically married already having been together so long, so why not?". I proposed on the day of the deadline and she accepted.
Flash forward a bit, and we've moved into our place, and some time later, we're married.
The wedding night:
No sex on our wedding night. Maybe it's cliche to expect to consumate the marriage on the night, but I did expect we would. I remember feeling frustrated, rejected and cheated that we were back together in our wedding night bed and just going to sleep. Granted, it was a long evening and we were tired, but still, it was extremely hurtful and I can feel that hurt when I look back on it, even now.
Following that night we returned to our place as a married couple. When we were home I couldn't keep this one bottled up, and suggested we have sex to make up for last night. It was a flat no (no different to times gone by really, so it's not like she had me married/trapped and now she can say no - she said no just like she always has done)... Well, feeling betrayed at this we had our first argument as a married couple, the day after our wedding. I just couldn't fathom how she can say no to sex like this, even immediately after getting married. What she said to me next was extremely hurtful and utterly confusing:
"I don't mind if you sleep with prostitutes"
That left me shell-shocked. How could she say this to the person she just married? For one, how could she be willing that I have sex with anyone else? Two, how could she be ok putting me in that kind of legal danger, or even a danger from a health perspective. I think she thought she was doing me a favour suggesting that, or maybe she knew I'm not the kind of person to take up such an offer. I didn't of course, but I have wondered ever since "if you're ok with me having sex with a prostitute, then why not someone else who's willing, maybe some nice lady in a similar predicament to me?". For the record I've never outsourced.
Kids:
As mentioned before, we have two kids and we both love them dearly. Not much to say on this, other than that of course we had sex in order to conceive. To do this, she had to come off her birth control pill for a few months, and we had sex when the time was right to start trying. It didn't take long before conceiving. Unfortunately for her, coming off the pill meant her skin conditioned worsened and acne came back. Eventually, she went back on the pill to combat this after our second child was born. Whilst not on the pill we had sex but presumably from her perspective, not for any reason other than to conceive - not for her personal desires or for my benefit.
Fast forward to ~2020:
Sex is once again something I don't even think about anymore - the constant rejection and feeling of frustration, shame etc, meant that I was switched off from her completely. Why set myself up for pain by asking, when I already know it won't happen. At this time she is extremely irritable, and we bicker over everything. We can't have a conversation about anything because she puts me down at every opportunity, behind closed doors and in front of other people - especially in front of other people I'd say. We became stuck in a rut, arguing all the time, generally living in a bit of a toxic relationship. By this point we'd moved house to somewhere bigger due to our second child having been born so a lot had happened (new child, new house that needed work doing to it). One week she was particularly closed off and cold, and barely spoke to me the entire week. At this time, I'd been watching 13 reasons why, a show about a girl who is depressed and winds up killing herself - I was affected by this show and it left me in a pretty depressed state after watching it, and at that point it dawned on me how cold she had been towards me this week. For the next few days I was more aware of it and started to see if I could explore what was happening...
A few more days of completely shutting down from me, and for seemingly no particular reason, I started looking for answers. I went through her phone for any evidence that she's unhappy with me (you might think of this as a betrayal but I needed answers, where I knew I wouldn't get them by simply asking). I found notes on her phone listing all the problems with me, almost like she was weighing up reasons to stay or leave, but hadn't yet made the list of reasons to stay. I then wondered if another man might be involved, and I had a peek in messages. She did indeed have another man messaging her, the father of another kid at school. They were/are just friends, and although I have a small niggling doubt in my mind, I do believe nothing happened between them. The messages were nothing particularly suspicious, though they were more flirtatious from him, which she didn't seem to reciprocate...
...I confronted him in a peaceful way over a drink. He said they were just friends and doesn't want to get between anyone's marriage, and would walk away from the friendship if it was driving a wedge. I didn't want this, because I don't think it's for me to determine who she can be friends with. Flash forwards and they're best friends to this day. I don't really like it, but I've learned to accept it, and it bothers me less as time goes by. He's friendly towards me, though I can't bring myself to let go of the possibility of what could have happened between them, however unlikely that might be. Remember, she's been sex averse for most of our lives together - why would she suddenly cheat with someone else when she's not into sex?
I was suspicious of what was happening in our relationship so one day decided to leave my PC running and recording audio through the microphone, just to see if her friend would be over while I went to work, and if so, is she complaining about me all day to him. During the working day I called her on my lunch break and she yawned, telling me she'd just been working from home. When I returned home that day and checked the PC recording, I found that she'd actually left the house (door slam) and hadn't retuned home until after school pickup time. Therefore, she had lied about being home working, so of course I wondered why she should have reason to lie...
Next day I set a recording going again... This time, her friend was over and things were said, including "it's just easier while the kids are still young"... that was just about everything I could make out because my youngest was around making a lot of noise. I know what she meant "It's easier to stay together while the kids are still young". With that information I knew I had to confront her.
We ended up having a deep and serious discussion about our relationship that last for hours. I heard "I feel so guilty", "I love you, I just don't think I'm IN love with you" and "I'm sure you'll find someone else"... these three things have stuck with me ever since, and while I write this, I'm astonished that we're still together. Our chat ended with us deciding our marriage is worth fighting for, and we would seek marriage counselling with a sex therapist...
Counselling:
We ended up having marriage counselling with someone who claimed to be a sex therapist for a reasonable length of time, but what started out as counselling regarding our missing sexual intimacy, turn into sessions for my wife to nitpick on everything I did or said wrong in the last week, rather than addressing the real issue for which we took counselling for. No session was about the lack of sex, but rather our relationship in general. I know a good relationship is part and parcel of having desire, but it seemed like we were going nowhere with counselling and after about 6 months, the councillor even suggested we might stop meeting with her, to which I agreed.
What we discovered during counselling having taken a series of quizzes, is that my love language is mixed, but primarily is led by touch whereas touch was not even a factor of hers.
Fitness:
I noticed in a recently taken photograph that I looked fat - probably looked fatter in the photo than I actually was, and I decided that I feel like I've let myself go a bit. I didn't feel close to my wife, and came to the realisation that maybe it was because I'd let myself go, which I had a bit. I joined a gym and found passion in getting into shape and to this day I really enjoy the gym. I went from fat to muscly over the course of 1 year and what a transformation!
With my new level of fitness and muscly body, I found that my desire for sex came back. I don't know if this is something that happens when your body changes in this way, but I started asking my wife if she was like to have sex again, after years of not bothering to ask. We actually did have sex more regularly than ever, but still at most twice a month, for about a year before it began to taper off again. This time though I wasn't ok with bottling things up, and began to be more vocal about the need for sex...
Timeline: 2021...
By chance, I found a recent medical report wedged under a folder in our bedroom which stated that my wife has contracted HPV, a sexually transmitted disease. Knowing we hadn't had sex in a long time, and when we did, we used condoms (even though she's on the pill) naturally I began to think she must have had an affair (with her friend). I couldn't keep this to myself, so I mentioned that I had found this report, and to please explain because it looks like she's had an affair. She said "This is why I didn't tell you about it, because I knew you'd assume that"... I said "tell me how you contracted a sexually transmitted disease, if not through sexual activity. I've looked it up and HPV is contracted through skin to skin contact via genitals"... she said that it's possible either I gave it to her (ie. I had cheater, and passed it on when we last had protected sex a long time ago) or she contracted it at birth since her mum had it, and it laid dormant in her system until now.
I looked up the possibility of this and found an article which suggested it's rare, but possible. To this day, I'm not sure what to believe. All I can say is that ever since contracting HPV, and going through subsequent procedures to burn off possible cancerous cells, we have had sex one just one occasion, which I would discount, because we stopped halfway through, because she was uncomfortable. Frankly so was I, because it was like she wasn't even there - it was like having sex with a corpse.
Flash forward to today, and it's now almost 2 years since I last bought condoms, and we've used 1 (the time we stopped half way through). Prior to buying more condoms I think we'd had sex once in many, many months.
This week I made the brave attempt to ask if we could have sex, and she simply said she doesn't feel like it. "Ask me again next month" was her suggestion. I went on to ask calmly, why would next month make any difference. She said "I don't know how I'll feel next month"... I said "I feel like I know how you'll feel. Why would next month be any different, when it's been years!?"... she simply said "I can't give you an answer because I don't know"... I went on to tell her that I don't feel like I have a wife. I feel like she's just a roommate. She said she would understand if I did want to split up, but she doesn't want to be alone [tears]. I can't help but feel like she actually would like to split up, but doesn't want to be the one suggesting it, and is putting it on me to be the bad guy, but I don't know.
Aside:
Many times through our lives together I have pleaded with her to consider coming off the pill, because I believe it's a leading cause of sexual dysfunction and dimished libido. However the suggestion of doing this causes an argument every time, because she sees the pill as too important in helping her combat her skin condition / acne. She would rather take the pill to help a little with acne, than to improve her marriage.
I suggested she might try taking a supplement designed to boost female vitality and libido. She agreed, but didn't take it regularly and in the end, didn't really bother.
Additionally, I suggested taking a hormone blood test (you simply take blood at home and send it off to be analysed) to find out if she's missing something that might give her some libido. She agreed to do this which I was grateful for. However, it took 4 months from receiving the kit to actually bother to do it (after me hinting for months that she needs to get on and do it before the 3 month subscription auto-renews). Eventually she did it, but the blood sample was no good (she'd squeezed the blood too hard out her finger that it ruined the sample apparently). They suggested getting the sample by vein at a certain chain of pharmacy, to which she said she would. Flash forward to 6 months since ordering a kit and guess what... still hadn't done it... I cancelled the subscription and cried with frustration that night.
So this concludes my story, hopefully it's not all over the place because I tried to cover the last 24 years together from the beginning, with any significant points of interest along the way...
TL;DR - sucker (me) has been with the same person since we met aged 15 and 16 despite spending a lifetime of being rejected, feeling tormented by sexual frustration, generally unhappy and feeling very much unloved for most of our lives together. Despite knowing full well how it makes me feel, she doesn't seem willing to do anything to improve her libido for my sake. At various times over the last 24 years I've busied myself to distract from the reality of my situation, but I'm now more aware of how I feel than ever before, and I have only really just started exploring that there's other avenues out there I could take, if I'm brave enough - I.e separation and divorce. It's not what I really want, but it might be what we both need. What I want, is to feel loved by my wife but that's something I've longed for, for too long already and nothing has changed.
Where do I go from here?
I'm Finn, 38.
This is my story... I've broken it down into digestible chunks, but I appreciate it's a long post, so thank you for taking the time to read and offer your advice/condolences.
My wife and I met when we were 15 and 16 years old, and we've been together ever since, married for almost 14 years with two brats who we both love dearly. Most of our life together has been by clinical definition 'sexless'. If you hadn't guessed, she is the refuser. Unfortunately for me I have very high desire.
A bit about me:
Very laid back, easy going and patient (though a little less patient these days with kids). I'm a bottler, bit of a people pleaser (thought in recent years have learned to begin saying no - the irony) and generally kind hearted person who largely keeps themselves to themselves. I'm introverted but can handle myself in groups when necessary, even though internally I struggle a lot in social situations. I'm physically in good shape and while a little on the short side, I would say I'm not too bad looking - I play tennis and a female opponent from another club recently told me I looked like Jason Statham which I took to be a compliment.
About my refuser:
Quite tightly wound to the point I wonder if she has a medical condition, which allows her to be calm and nice one day and short tempered the next. Kind of like bi-polar, but less extreme and fluctuating more regularly than I think bi-polars do. She has been on 'the pill' since we met at 15 years old, taking a small break from it when we decided to have children and she came off it to conceive. She eventually went back on the pill. I mention the pill because I think it's largely responsibly for her non-existent sex drive.
History:
When we first met and quickly became boyfriend/girlfriend, her mom insisted she went on the pill for obvious reasons. Avoiding pregnancy was not the only reason for using the pill, since it also supposedly helps with acne and bad skin (this is the reason why my wife still takes the pill today). When we were both old enough, we became sexually active though from what I recall it was reasonably infrequent, even though it was on my mind 24/7 - She was responsive to my advances, and even when it didn't always result in intercourse, there was still sexual intimacy in other ways which was ok to get by.
When we were old enough to leave school or stay on for further education (17 years old), we both stayed on, and continued living between parent's houses. Her father worked in the city and would often be home late so we typically had the house to ourselves a lot until later in the evening. After our school day had finished we typically went back to her house and spent time together, sometimes sexually, but most often not. I would often stay over and being respectful of her father, would sleep in the spare room. Naturally and understandably, while he was home there was little sexual activity of any kind, but I would go to bed frustrated nonetheless.
At the age where we were leaving school (20, 21 years old) and deciding whether to attend university, sex had become a rarity. I would always pursue it, but continuously be given excuses or the promise of "tomorrow" - of course "tomorrow" never came. My sexual frustration was through the roof, and my patience would began to waiver and I would express how frustrated I felt, and that's it's not fair to keep saying "tomorrow". Usually at this point she would offer an alternative, HJ or BJ. I would always say "If you're willing to that, why not just have sex?" which was a fruitless argument. I would accept the HJ or BJ and forget about it until next time the routine came around. Keep in mind at this time we were both young adults, so this lack of interest in sex for her has been deep rooted for a long time...
Moving on, after finishing school and both applying to the same universities in order to stay together. We accepted our offers to the same University (different courses) and lived together. At this point sex was something that was almost never happened. In the three years of living together at University, I recall us having sex twice (pathetic I know). As a night owl, I would often stay up late working on my various projects and as such I slept in my own room on a single bed, while she had the double room. I would often work till 3am, so it seemed fair and absolutely normal to sleep in my own room so as not to disturb her sleep - she had a more demanding course than mine - she had lots of lectures, mine was very practical and work from home on computer, so sleep was important for her and always has been. She did not enjoy living away from home, and would often travel back at weekends to be around her family, while I stayed at our house at University. In case you're wondering, I don't believe this was to get away from me... she was close to one particular family member who was the main reason she would visit home. She would even stop by and spend time with my family without me being there, such was the closeness of us and our families.
Ok so to recap, this relationship so far has never been the passionate, sexual relationship that I would have dreamed of. However, at our young age we wanted to be together. Coupled with my immense patience and ability to bottle up the daily frustrations ever more, I somehow never strayed from our relationship. I don't have it in me to cheat, but I have daydreamed about being "free" many times. Unfortunately my "people pleaser" part of me has never had the heart to break up with her.
An aside:
During university years, I created and owned a consumer reviews website. For some reason, contraceptive pills started being reviewed regularly. At that point in time, I used to manually approve all reviews before they were published on the website, to ensure no spam was posted live. As a result, I read countless horrifying stories about how contraceptive pills can cause absolute chaos on a women's body and even their mental health, to the point of destroying relationships. For example, any given pill might cause unwanted hair growth, deep depression and the mental state of a raging bull - there was a recurring theme amongst particular pills where one in particular made many women absolutely psychotic, and unfortunately this resulted in breakups where the woman only realised what had caused everything, after it was too late. I digress, but the point I wanted to make, is that I discovered that the contraceptive pill is so frequently a cause of either reduced libido, or the complete and utter decimation of it. I soon came to believe that my girlfriend was lacking any sex drive thanks to the pill she was taking, which was started taking as soon as we got together...
Timeline is now post-university, we've been together say, 8 years, and sex is a constant desire that very rarely ever happens - the same old "tomorrow" excuse is prevalent.
We finish University and decide to start saving for a house together... exciting! Fast forward approx. 1 or 2 years and we move into our first place. With the privacy and freedom of having our own space, we certainly did have sex occasionally, but it would have been at intervals that would be considered a clinically sexless partnership. I would have taken as much as I could get, but sadly, it was still the same battle that was I was used to.
At this stage of our lives, approx. 24 years old, I think the constant expectation of rejection and feeling frustrated started to overcome my desire to even ask. In the end, I think I subconsciously without even realising it, stopped pursuing sex or any kind of sexual activity. I would busy myself in personal projects. If I did have moments of sexual frustration, I would definitely channel that negative energy into my projects and distract myself with work, though generally I think I just forgot about sex and it stopped being something that I even considered.
Enter marriage:
So back before we bought our place together and we still lived with our parents, we'd been together for so long that at a party, her cousin said "when are you two getting married?" to which I didn't have an answer. The cousin said "Give him a deadline, that's what I did and it worked"... Well, soon after I was given a deadline, with the suggestion that if I haven't proposed by then, we'd split up. In honesty I don't believe this deadline was "real" but marriage was something I've never even thought about before. I thought to myself, we're practically married already having been together so long, so why not?". I proposed on the day of the deadline and she accepted.
Flash forward a bit, and we've moved into our place, and some time later, we're married.
The wedding night:
No sex on our wedding night. Maybe it's cliche to expect to consumate the marriage on the night, but I did expect we would. I remember feeling frustrated, rejected and cheated that we were back together in our wedding night bed and just going to sleep. Granted, it was a long evening and we were tired, but still, it was extremely hurtful and I can feel that hurt when I look back on it, even now.
Following that night we returned to our place as a married couple. When we were home I couldn't keep this one bottled up, and suggested we have sex to make up for last night. It was a flat no (no different to times gone by really, so it's not like she had me married/trapped and now she can say no - she said no just like she always has done)... Well, feeling betrayed at this we had our first argument as a married couple, the day after our wedding. I just couldn't fathom how she can say no to sex like this, even immediately after getting married. What she said to me next was extremely hurtful and utterly confusing:
"I don't mind if you sleep with prostitutes"
That left me shell-shocked. How could she say this to the person she just married? For one, how could she be willing that I have sex with anyone else? Two, how could she be ok putting me in that kind of legal danger, or even a danger from a health perspective. I think she thought she was doing me a favour suggesting that, or maybe she knew I'm not the kind of person to take up such an offer. I didn't of course, but I have wondered ever since "if you're ok with me having sex with a prostitute, then why not someone else who's willing, maybe some nice lady in a similar predicament to me?". For the record I've never outsourced.
Kids:
As mentioned before, we have two kids and we both love them dearly. Not much to say on this, other than that of course we had sex in order to conceive. To do this, she had to come off her birth control pill for a few months, and we had sex when the time was right to start trying. It didn't take long before conceiving. Unfortunately for her, coming off the pill meant her skin conditioned worsened and acne came back. Eventually, she went back on the pill to combat this after our second child was born. Whilst not on the pill we had sex but presumably from her perspective, not for any reason other than to conceive - not for her personal desires or for my benefit.
Fast forward to ~2020:
Sex is once again something I don't even think about anymore - the constant rejection and feeling of frustration, shame etc, meant that I was switched off from her completely. Why set myself up for pain by asking, when I already know it won't happen. At this time she is extremely irritable, and we bicker over everything. We can't have a conversation about anything because she puts me down at every opportunity, behind closed doors and in front of other people - especially in front of other people I'd say. We became stuck in a rut, arguing all the time, generally living in a bit of a toxic relationship. By this point we'd moved house to somewhere bigger due to our second child having been born so a lot had happened (new child, new house that needed work doing to it). One week she was particularly closed off and cold, and barely spoke to me the entire week. At this time, I'd been watching 13 reasons why, a show about a girl who is depressed and winds up killing herself - I was affected by this show and it left me in a pretty depressed state after watching it, and at that point it dawned on me how cold she had been towards me this week. For the next few days I was more aware of it and started to see if I could explore what was happening...
A few more days of completely shutting down from me, and for seemingly no particular reason, I started looking for answers. I went through her phone for any evidence that she's unhappy with me (you might think of this as a betrayal but I needed answers, where I knew I wouldn't get them by simply asking). I found notes on her phone listing all the problems with me, almost like she was weighing up reasons to stay or leave, but hadn't yet made the list of reasons to stay. I then wondered if another man might be involved, and I had a peek in messages. She did indeed have another man messaging her, the father of another kid at school. They were/are just friends, and although I have a small niggling doubt in my mind, I do believe nothing happened between them. The messages were nothing particularly suspicious, though they were more flirtatious from him, which she didn't seem to reciprocate...
...I confronted him in a peaceful way over a drink. He said they were just friends and doesn't want to get between anyone's marriage, and would walk away from the friendship if it was driving a wedge. I didn't want this, because I don't think it's for me to determine who she can be friends with. Flash forwards and they're best friends to this day. I don't really like it, but I've learned to accept it, and it bothers me less as time goes by. He's friendly towards me, though I can't bring myself to let go of the possibility of what could have happened between them, however unlikely that might be. Remember, she's been sex averse for most of our lives together - why would she suddenly cheat with someone else when she's not into sex?
I was suspicious of what was happening in our relationship so one day decided to leave my PC running and recording audio through the microphone, just to see if her friend would be over while I went to work, and if so, is she complaining about me all day to him. During the working day I called her on my lunch break and she yawned, telling me she'd just been working from home. When I returned home that day and checked the PC recording, I found that she'd actually left the house (door slam) and hadn't retuned home until after school pickup time. Therefore, she had lied about being home working, so of course I wondered why she should have reason to lie...
Next day I set a recording going again... This time, her friend was over and things were said, including "it's just easier while the kids are still young"... that was just about everything I could make out because my youngest was around making a lot of noise. I know what she meant "It's easier to stay together while the kids are still young". With that information I knew I had to confront her.
We ended up having a deep and serious discussion about our relationship that last for hours. I heard "I feel so guilty", "I love you, I just don't think I'm IN love with you" and "I'm sure you'll find someone else"... these three things have stuck with me ever since, and while I write this, I'm astonished that we're still together. Our chat ended with us deciding our marriage is worth fighting for, and we would seek marriage counselling with a sex therapist...
Counselling:
We ended up having marriage counselling with someone who claimed to be a sex therapist for a reasonable length of time, but what started out as counselling regarding our missing sexual intimacy, turn into sessions for my wife to nitpick on everything I did or said wrong in the last week, rather than addressing the real issue for which we took counselling for. No session was about the lack of sex, but rather our relationship in general. I know a good relationship is part and parcel of having desire, but it seemed like we were going nowhere with counselling and after about 6 months, the councillor even suggested we might stop meeting with her, to which I agreed.
What we discovered during counselling having taken a series of quizzes, is that my love language is mixed, but primarily is led by touch whereas touch was not even a factor of hers.
Fitness:
I noticed in a recently taken photograph that I looked fat - probably looked fatter in the photo than I actually was, and I decided that I feel like I've let myself go a bit. I didn't feel close to my wife, and came to the realisation that maybe it was because I'd let myself go, which I had a bit. I joined a gym and found passion in getting into shape and to this day I really enjoy the gym. I went from fat to muscly over the course of 1 year and what a transformation!
With my new level of fitness and muscly body, I found that my desire for sex came back. I don't know if this is something that happens when your body changes in this way, but I started asking my wife if she was like to have sex again, after years of not bothering to ask. We actually did have sex more regularly than ever, but still at most twice a month, for about a year before it began to taper off again. This time though I wasn't ok with bottling things up, and began to be more vocal about the need for sex...
Timeline: 2021...
By chance, I found a recent medical report wedged under a folder in our bedroom which stated that my wife has contracted HPV, a sexually transmitted disease. Knowing we hadn't had sex in a long time, and when we did, we used condoms (even though she's on the pill) naturally I began to think she must have had an affair (with her friend). I couldn't keep this to myself, so I mentioned that I had found this report, and to please explain because it looks like she's had an affair. She said "This is why I didn't tell you about it, because I knew you'd assume that"... I said "tell me how you contracted a sexually transmitted disease, if not through sexual activity. I've looked it up and HPV is contracted through skin to skin contact via genitals"... she said that it's possible either I gave it to her (ie. I had cheater, and passed it on when we last had protected sex a long time ago) or she contracted it at birth since her mum had it, and it laid dormant in her system until now.
I looked up the possibility of this and found an article which suggested it's rare, but possible. To this day, I'm not sure what to believe. All I can say is that ever since contracting HPV, and going through subsequent procedures to burn off possible cancerous cells, we have had sex one just one occasion, which I would discount, because we stopped halfway through, because she was uncomfortable. Frankly so was I, because it was like she wasn't even there - it was like having sex with a corpse.
Flash forward to today, and it's now almost 2 years since I last bought condoms, and we've used 1 (the time we stopped half way through). Prior to buying more condoms I think we'd had sex once in many, many months.
This week I made the brave attempt to ask if we could have sex, and she simply said she doesn't feel like it. "Ask me again next month" was her suggestion. I went on to ask calmly, why would next month make any difference. She said "I don't know how I'll feel next month"... I said "I feel like I know how you'll feel. Why would next month be any different, when it's been years!?"... she simply said "I can't give you an answer because I don't know"... I went on to tell her that I don't feel like I have a wife. I feel like she's just a roommate. She said she would understand if I did want to split up, but she doesn't want to be alone [tears]. I can't help but feel like she actually would like to split up, but doesn't want to be the one suggesting it, and is putting it on me to be the bad guy, but I don't know.
Aside:
Many times through our lives together I have pleaded with her to consider coming off the pill, because I believe it's a leading cause of sexual dysfunction and dimished libido. However the suggestion of doing this causes an argument every time, because she sees the pill as too important in helping her combat her skin condition / acne. She would rather take the pill to help a little with acne, than to improve her marriage.
I suggested she might try taking a supplement designed to boost female vitality and libido. She agreed, but didn't take it regularly and in the end, didn't really bother.
Additionally, I suggested taking a hormone blood test (you simply take blood at home and send it off to be analysed) to find out if she's missing something that might give her some libido. She agreed to do this which I was grateful for. However, it took 4 months from receiving the kit to actually bother to do it (after me hinting for months that she needs to get on and do it before the 3 month subscription auto-renews). Eventually she did it, but the blood sample was no good (she'd squeezed the blood too hard out her finger that it ruined the sample apparently). They suggested getting the sample by vein at a certain chain of pharmacy, to which she said she would. Flash forward to 6 months since ordering a kit and guess what... still hadn't done it... I cancelled the subscription and cried with frustration that night.
So this concludes my story, hopefully it's not all over the place because I tried to cover the last 24 years together from the beginning, with any significant points of interest along the way...
TL;DR - sucker (me) has been with the same person since we met aged 15 and 16 despite spending a lifetime of being rejected, feeling tormented by sexual frustration, generally unhappy and feeling very much unloved for most of our lives together. Despite knowing full well how it makes me feel, she doesn't seem willing to do anything to improve her libido for my sake. At various times over the last 24 years I've busied myself to distract from the reality of my situation, but I'm now more aware of how I feel than ever before, and I have only really just started exploring that there's other avenues out there I could take, if I'm brave enough - I.e separation and divorce. It's not what I really want, but it might be what we both need. What I want, is to feel loved by my wife but that's something I've longed for, for too long already and nothing has changed.
Where do I go from here?