I Live In a Sexless Marriage
I've been reading the posts here for some time and it's been somewhat therapeutic to hear my own story echoed so precisely in the stories of others. I'm especially struck by the experiences of the female posters. Almost without fail I believe the author is male until I hit some gender specific passage that sets me straight. All of the feelings of hurt and resentment are so familiar to me. You all are describing my life. I guess it's hard to wrap my mind around the idea that there are men out there who do not want to have sex with their wives.
When I met my wife we had a normal flirtatious, sexual, affectionate courtship. We had sex pretty regularly. After living together for two years, the frequency had already dropped significantly. We could definitely go a week or two without it at that point. That was seldom enough that I knew in the back of my mind that something was wrong. I didn't listen to those thoughts, and we got married. We didn't have sex on our wedding night, despite having checked into a romantic hotel room with a big couples' tub and champagne for two. I was a little hurt by that but chalked it up to the exhaustion from a busy day.
There's no one moment I can point to where I realized I was living in a sexless marriage. It has been a slow death. The sex got less and less frequent, and the act, when it happened, became more and more perfunctory. There was a period, when we were trying to have our first child, that we had sex whenever my wife calculated that she was ovulating. This sex was deeply unsatisfying and emasculating. "Are you ready? Good.. can you be quick?". Once we had kids the sex became almost non-existent. We had "the talk", and that helped. She knew that sex was important to me and we started having sex once a month or so. Still, this was the "Don't touch me, just stick it in" kind of sex. It felt good, but left me profoundly sad. Even though our marriage wasn't absolutely sexless, I can't say when the last time we had real intimacy was.
My wife is a wonderful person. We have a nice life together and two beautiful children. She is a fantastic mother. She's kind, she's selfless, and we really get along. I don't have any desire to break up our family. At the same time, there's not a moment that goes by that I don't harbor a deep resentment over the sex issue.
I'm resigned to the reality that this problem will never be resolved happily. I appreciate having this forum to vent though.
When I met my wife we had a normal flirtatious, sexual, affectionate courtship. We had sex pretty regularly. After living together for two years, the frequency had already dropped significantly. We could definitely go a week or two without it at that point. That was seldom enough that I knew in the back of my mind that something was wrong. I didn't listen to those thoughts, and we got married. We didn't have sex on our wedding night, despite having checked into a romantic hotel room with a big couples' tub and champagne for two. I was a little hurt by that but chalked it up to the exhaustion from a busy day.
There's no one moment I can point to where I realized I was living in a sexless marriage. It has been a slow death. The sex got less and less frequent, and the act, when it happened, became more and more perfunctory. There was a period, when we were trying to have our first child, that we had sex whenever my wife calculated that she was ovulating. This sex was deeply unsatisfying and emasculating. "Are you ready? Good.. can you be quick?". Once we had kids the sex became almost non-existent. We had "the talk", and that helped. She knew that sex was important to me and we started having sex once a month or so. Still, this was the "Don't touch me, just stick it in" kind of sex. It felt good, but left me profoundly sad. Even though our marriage wasn't absolutely sexless, I can't say when the last time we had real intimacy was.
My wife is a wonderful person. We have a nice life together and two beautiful children. She is a fantastic mother. She's kind, she's selfless, and we really get along. I don't have any desire to break up our family. At the same time, there's not a moment that goes by that I don't harbor a deep resentment over the sex issue.
I'm resigned to the reality that this problem will never be resolved happily. I appreciate having this forum to vent though.
By:
guynamedjoe
Age:
41-45
,
Male
