Am I to Blame

I have been in a sexless marriage for 4 years. I have expressed my concerns to my husband and he ignored them continually. I reconnected with my high school sweetheart which was a big mistake. He gave me what I longed for, passion and attention. It was lust, not love. I only wanted that from my husband of 25 years. Now my husband says it's over but he is not making any moves to leave. I need to make a move if he is not. I refuse to remain in a stagnant relationship without poassion and intimacy.

Do you ever just wonder - Why the hell am I even asking myself this question. What if 5 years ago I had said that saying NO to sex is NOT an option. We either both make this work, or I am outa here? That's what I should have done. Now I am getting it everywhere under the sun except at home.... Still not the way to go

warwick, I agree with you on your comment. I should have been more direct years ago about with I wanted sexually in my marriage. Now, 17 yrs into it, she is content with it being like it is. No am not and getting more resentful year after year. Now when she does initiate it, few and far between, I have so much anger and resentment toward her it usually doesn't go very well. It is more like an act that we both are just going through, but lack the passion and intimacy we once had. Now I am to the point in my life where I am looking for new things to replace the excitement I lack in my marriage. Not a healthy relationship at all....

warwick, I agree with you on your comment. I should have been more direct years ago about with I wanted sexually in my marriage. Now, 17 yrs into it, she is content with it being like it is. No am not and getting more resentful year after year. Now when she does initiate it, few and far between, I have so much anger and resentment toward her it usually doesn't go very well. It is more like an act that we both are just going through, but lack the passion and intimacy we once had. Now I am to the point in my life where I am looking for new things to replace the excitement I lack in my marriage. Not a healthy relationship at all....

I don't know if blame or fault is the right way to look at it. I know that, in my case, my wife's refusal to have sex results from our loss of general intimacy. Lets face it, guys tend to be able to have sex at the drop of a hat and in my case sex leads to intimacy instead of the other way around. Our loss of general intimacy comes from some of my behaviours that many would find pretty harmless. However, my wife is dealing with some issues of her own from childhood...my behaviors put her into a position where she hasnt felt completely safe with me. Is it reasonable for me to expect her to be sexually attracted to me when she is in fear? Obviously not.

So am I to blame? No. I don't look at it that way.

She and I are in pretty heavy counseling now and we are learning to become more intimate. I hope desperately it leads to resuming our sexual relationship also.

We have both played a role that has led us to where we are now. If we continue to work together and love each other we may salvage our marriage. Perhaps not though....releasing the outcome really frees a person up to explore the possibility.

It is your fault for not divorcing her the first time she refused you three times in a row. If you tolerate mistreatment, you'll continue to receive it.

My wife and I average maybe 5 times a year. Married for 27.

I can not get that hard any more plus my **** is only 4" hard and is as skinny as a pencil. I *** in under 10 seconds. I can see why she does not want sex with me. I tell her to find a stud to give her an ****** Just don't do it behind my back.

Sh is thinking about it. We do love each other very much.

It's 2 am here. Sorry for the eaten words and mistakes. ;o)

"I am new to the site so please EXCUSE any confusions on my part. "

Hello ;o) I am new to the site so please any confusions on my part. I will post my story soon enough, but it's kind of late here so probably tomorrow.



On who's to blame. I believe two people start this thing and two people should resolve it/end it. I've been on both side of the fence. I am now on the fence still ;o) And I felt blameless both times. To cut long stories short - I had a relationship for 2 years with a Narcissist. (I diagnosed him ;o))) online, but then I did diagnose myself on a number of occasions quite correctly again online). I loved how clever and witty he was, and how he teased me to long for him... After living with him I reallized that the lies won't stop (he just wasn't able to tell the truth about nothing, it meant revealing himself), the teasing that made me want him sexually was just teasing to make me ... love him, beg him, provide services for him etc. I realized I wasn't loved but he actually loved what I did for him. So I stopped. (I was a model house-wife without being married or getting anything in return as a matter of fact. I was also the one that brought home the money. I did everything.) I realized that there is something very wrong with him. He really WASN'T like anyone I know. I googled refusal for sex, lying, abusing (verbally, into doing things I don't want to do) and in the first 1-3 sites I DID find my answer. A long description of what Narcissist is. It explained everything, it fitted perfectly. I gave him the text. He reacted just I expected. We weren't going to make it after all. So after two years I left. With low self esteem, feeling like a doormat, exhausted. I began a very active life after I picked myself up. Then I met my husband through work. This is the other story. ;o)

I am usually very sexual and I have always been. Usually I am the pursuer (in a womanly way). I like someone, wind them up, then wait for their move. (After all it is all about two people making it work). Actually now that I got myself thinking I am probably good at this. I've always had success and I have never been alone eversince I started dating for real. So I got things started with my husband, we really hit it off and by the end of the first month together we were alreadly planning a baby. ;o) Needless to say we were very thorough while trying to concive, we didn't leave a day to chance. ;o)) However it didn't work. We had lots of problems. He went to checks, I did too. Then I had very serious health problems for a year in which he really looked after me. We went through hell and back, and we loved eachother more and more. Sex was wild. We did it everywhere and all the time. Then the pregnancy came and sex started dying with it. Hormones or what I don't know. I felt sexless and sex never entered my head. I guess some couples experience it like this - the pregnancy, so I wasn't too bothered and he wasn't too much. But the baby was born and now a year later things are really not getting better. After I stopped breast feeding - like a month ago or something, I got some sex drive back. So I guess not all hope is gone. But with him is - hey, let's have sex. Ok -no? Whatever.

I appreciate him being direct about it, but I feel so ugly, fat, streaked all over the belly (with a large belly!! ;o((), with lumps of cellulite on my legs, and even if we ignore this, I really do appreciate some romancing. With women is no just about hopping into bed. If before it took one look so that we jump in bed, now is a different situation and is normal to react differently. If it was just like before- I would have DONE like before. Before I felt very sexy and manly, now I feel terrible womanly and vulnerable, and I just don't know how to handle this. And when I look at him I don't see my beloved, I see my baby, poop, cleaning, chores...endless list... how can anyone think of all that and fell like sex? It just plainly brings me down more and more. I feel inadequate that I can't give him what he wants. I've tried explaining, but for now it doesn't seem to work. I've asked him to relieve me of some duty - just to come home not too late and play with the kid, so that I have an hour to cook something rather than starting to do it at 10 pm (or him making dinner). He just won't do it. He come a little early the first month after our son was born and that was it. Now he comes at the last possible minute, just before bathing. And I feel angry about that. I feel that he is making an escapade, which I can never make. Moreover I am caged, while he's out there playing with the children (so to speak). He's lost nothing of his previous life. While mine changed completely. I am a 24/7 slave of two, and I feel like crying most of the time. Usually about something silly like I haven't showered for a week!! ;o((( And the shower thing annoys me. For him is normal to take one shower per week. I tottaly don't understand this, but now he does even less often. As a last resourt to make him shower I told him that we will have sex when he showers. But he still showers twice a month. Well, that was not the point, but he expects that I will do everything and be in the appropriate mood (without him doing anything) in these two days... Huh?? And we used to do everything together, and had all this fun, and SEX... What the hell happened?



So who's to blame? We are to blame.

One thing though - I didn't see many people actually talking with their partner. Many say that he/she is afraid of what they will say... This sounds very wrong to me. You should be able to talk to your partner. This is what I'll do and I won't let go until we get to the bottom of this and reach together a solution that suits us both.



To the person with the green card - gosh she kept the act toghether for long?!! ;o) I don't feel you have a green card issue here, I'm sorry. See what else changed during that time. Send her back to work. This will pump some new blood into her. I tell you almost 2 years home and from the brainiest person around, I've turned into a mosquito head. And I have no will to do anything. I do what I do, but because I have to. I don't have interests, I don't have sex, I don't have time, I have chores and duties... How sexy is that?

As a woman of the person who is not feeling loved or desired I can say that it is never just one persons' fault, but I have talked to my husband many times how I feel about feeling lonley and maybe we should seperate

I'm positive it's me. Maybe if I were better looking or more in shape. If I were more athletic and cut. Maybe if I were smarter and never made mistakes. If I were more like her ex who beat her and abused her. Maybe if I wasn't too nice. Maybe if I was a 10 instead of a 7. Maybe if I was perfect. Maybe if I didn't give her 2 wonderful children. Maybe if I didn't make enough money so she doesn't have to work and the kids still go to daycare. Maybe I wouldn't be called an ******* for asking for 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep.



Been close to 6 months since we had sex. The sex is the same every time, too... 4/10. I won't cheat for some reason. Still trying to figure out why.



I am 100% sure it's my fault. Awesome.



We had a great sex life. She was in America on a working Visa, so she had to work in order to stay in the country. We got married, sex life still awesome. Had our first child, sex slowed down, as expected. Sex picked up, had a second, same deal. Then I had a brilliant idea...let's get her green card. I sign a waiver to support her, she gets a green card, and I can count on both hands how many times we have had sex since (two years), and she doesn't work.



I might be the smartest man alive. This is why it's my fault.



Is it weird to look for medication that lowers your libido?

I have done a lot of reading on this topic. To start even though I am a man I believe I understand the dynamic between a man and a woman where she is the refuser better then the dynamic where he is the refuser.



I love understanding people, I also love numbers. So this is how I frame the question when I wife is the refuser. Ask the wife two questions both rated on a -5 to +5 scale.

1. How important is her husbands happiness to her?

2. How much does she enjoy/dislike sex with him?



I think you will find that the sad answer for the sexless marriages with refuser wife, the only possible answers are ones where her "sexual aversion" is higher then her love/desire to please her husband. This is not about fatigue, the kids being up etc. This is true "sexual aversion".



Does it "start" like that or just sometimes "end" like that. In many cases I don't think it starts that way. I think there is some desire, certainly at least a low positive number on the sex scale in the beginning. But the man has the higher drive and he starts getting rejected. And some men, when rejected, there response comes across to the wife as "weak".



Or maybe it is not about sex. Maybe he just gradually becomes fully domesticated, she gets him to the point where he is agreeable and just goes with the flow. He tries to please her because he loves her. And this behavior begins to seem weak to her so she cuts back on sex.



I am not saying it "is" weak, I am saying it is perceived as weak. Like when denied sex maybe he sulks for an hour but then does a bunch of stuff clearly designed to obtain her "approval" over the next few days. That seeking "approval" behavior makes it seem like "he" needs to "earn" the sex, because he is not deserving of it simply as a matter of being in a marriage. Then when he formally states "I will do more laundry, more cooking, in fact I will do a totally disproportionate amount of work in the relationship since I am not worthy of equal treatment - in the hope that you will give me some sex" now he looks really weak and things go from bad to worse.



A part of me sees this female behavior as sadistic. And it is sadistic to respond to the husband saying "I am frustrated at the lack of sex" - to respond by saying "I am frustrated you don't do more housework". Because the one will not lead to the other. But the MAN needs to stand up early and not allow this type of precedent to be set. He needs to say: "Are you saying you desire me, but are just angry I am not doing my bit and if I do we will have sex once or twice a week"? Because when he asks that the answer will almost always be "that isn't what I mean". And this is where the sexless marriage and the marriage with sex diverge. In the marriage "with" sex, the man says, "this is a basic part of marriage. We need to come to an agreement that is acceptable to both of us. If you truly don't think sex is an important part of marriage or worse, you find me unattractive, then lets agree that (1) you are in severe breach of your vow to "love" me and (2) don't insult me by saying this is about housework or romance or any of that, I am plenty loving this is about your lack of desire for me plain and simple. Not something that will be fixed by random acts of kindness as I am already kind to you. But until this is resolved all the "above and beyond" stuff I do for you is over. I feel very unloved and until you address that, I am not going to continue to be the "model husband". And then it steadily escalates from there until your spouse is feeling the same way you are at which point amazingly - it suddenly becomes a priority to them. Because now they feel unhappy to and they realize the connections between their happiness and yours.



I am not suggesting for a moment that any of this is easy. It is incredibly hard. Brutally hard. I am just saying that in some ways it is quite a bit simpler then people realize.

For years I blamed myself. I apologised for whatever it was that I had done wrong. I apologised for not being better. I lost weight, I gained weight. I tried the lingerie, I tried everything, and he just wasn't interested.

I've stopped accepting the blame. I really did all I could do, and now I'm tired of trying.

i too am in one, wife went thru menopause, shouldnt it be menoSTOP, in her early 40s and lost all interest, its been years now, and my fear is that should I leave, and that is closer every day, I'm ruined sexually



just dont know what to think anymore

I am a wife in an almost sexless marriage, I try but he has no interest--I take care of myself and work out daily, wear sexy stuff, give him lots of attention--nothing. I have recently taken a lover and actually that helps a little--it makes me less frustrated and unhappy. In a strange way it is helping our marriage because I am not bugging him for sex, and he is happy to be left alone.

Wow add me to the team from a man who's now married to a "Nun" Nun in the morning, Nun at night and Nun at all! Its hard (no pun intended) going through this because before the shutdown we were very active and after so many ways of trying to get the fire to re-ignite I took up golf to keep my mind off it. It may sound funny but I wished I learned to play this game when I was a young buck, but I have a passion for getting better and improving at the game, so now my mind set is if she doesn't make a move or advance towards me for a intimate encounter its oh well, whatever, because if it wasn't for golf, the other options were to do things i would really hate doing that can or will end the marriage because I know Im not good at playing those games, too easy to get caught up with extra marital affairs, so thank God for Golf!!

I'm constantly told that it isn't anything I've done that's leading to our lack of sex, but I cannot help but feel that something has to be wrong with me. We used to have sex a lot.

baker 998 and wolf 1013. Totally with you guys! I also have tried cooking, cleaning, everything else. Still made to feel like a pevert when I ask for sex or talk about it in anyway. Her favorite two words are "John don't".

Last time Jan 13, 2009.

feel your pain baker998, i feel as if i tried all these also with the same responses. dont you hate it when they try to make it seem as if your overreacting for wanting it. or like its wrong to mention it or that maybe theres a problem?

Now I am going to change my mood settings...

In my case...I put all the blame on here. I did everything and more...to contribute to my marriage. I tried EVERYTHING. I cooked...cleaned ...made sure she had her nights out when she wanted. I looked after the kids. I did all the shopping . Took care of all apointments. She refused to learn to drive.



When it came to intimacy..I was turned down...pushed away... She was allways too tired... or the kids might hear... or whatever BS excuse she could think of.



Do I sound Bitter...Angry.. Resentful...neglected. Damm Rights I do...because I AM

I suppose we could all do more to fix the problem but I would blame yourself unless you said nothing or caused a situation that triggered. It is often outside of your ability to fix it. It takes two to fix the problem

Like previous respondents, it is dependent on your situation. However, I know that I have contributed by action and inaction. The whole thing can snowball into a blur of blame. At any point, both partners need to accept responsibility to fix it or forget it. With 50% commitment it goes nowhere.

jane66 you too said it well, it all depends on the situation of the couple and at the same time, it is not easy for anyone. Life really does suck sometimes..

Heywood, very well said, VERY WELL SAID.

I agree with jane66. Very eloquently stated. It really doesn't matter who is to blame, I think that point is how can it be corrected. That is extremely difficult if you are the only person wanting to fix the problem. It took 2 to get to this problem, and it will take 2 to fix it.

Yes I am partly responsible for allowing the cycle in my marriage to form they way it did. I should have been more firm and stood up form my needs years ago.

Coldshower, why does anybody have to be to blame? It's doubtful that this is a thing that either of you would have chosen. It's something that's happened to you. Don't make it worse by beating yourself up.

There is a certain ebb and flow in the relationship. It cannot be blamed on one person alone.



In the first part of our relationship I was very selfish. For the last 5 years, I can say she has been the selfish one.



We have a lot of hurt to unravel and address. I hope we can. It does take atleast one selfish person but let me tell you that witholding intimacy is not selfish but uncaring. It takes one person who does not care to wreck a relationship

In my situation I know we are both to blame. Neither one of us initiates sex anymore...and I sincerely think it is an insecurity issue as well as neither of us getting the reassurance we need to be confident and outgoing enough to jump one another's bones. We used to be inseperable and now I think we're caught in a rut and even though we both know, in our heart of hearts, this sexless marriage is NOT a good thing, we've not come together as a TEAM to take the steps to fix it. I have to laugh cuz when we do have sex we both enjoy it and it is good...we just hardly ever get around to doing it. :(