I Don't Live In A Sexless Marriage...

I'm very sorry for your loss. It's difficult to see any semblence of love in some of these posts. Most people are asleep...... for those few awake, are in a constant state of amazement.

Wow! I missed this post initially! If I had any sense I'd go straight on past it now . . . !

Queenv, your marriage appears to have been a happy one and you have my sympathy at the tragic early loss of your husband.



I am interested to know if your husband ever knew that you really weren't into sex very much and that you only had sex to please him. I ask because this is very important aspect that many who are not interested in sex do not ever realise is missing . . .



I'll explain what I mean. I am not interested in mountain climbing. Nor am I more than mildly interested in Scottish Country dancing. And I could not care less if I never ate another artichoke. And I would actually prefer to never eat another Brussel Sprout.



And I can CHOOSE to avoid these things or to not take part, because my choices affect only ME! My partner likes Brussel Sprouts. I cook them for him, and I have peas instead . . . .



But SEX is another matter. If I choose to not have sex, it does NOT only affect me. It affects the person I gave myself to in marriage. I'm deciding for him (or her) that he (or she) may never have sex again. Does that not strike you as unfair?



Now you are not very interested in sex and can live without it. At the risk of offending you, I suggest you have NO real idea of the true depth of a sexually intimate relationship. What we on this forum miss is NOT just the mechanics of sex, but the deep and soul connecting experience that genuinely great sex provides.



If you participated in sex to keep your husband happy, you deserve recognition for being a good wife. But it seems likely you never experienced the depth of connection or the genuine pleasure and intense intimacy that can be the gift shared by two people equally "into" sex with each other.



As such, it seems to me that you cannot understand us because you have NO idea what we are talking about. You cannot imagine what we are missing because you have never experienced it to miss. . . .



This is why I ask you about your husband. Did he ever voice any concern about your lack of enthusiasm? Was he ever disappointed that you were not "into" sex? Or was he just like you?



There is nothing "wrong" with being only slightly interested in sex - or not interested in sex - PROVIDING your partner feels the same way. Sadly, people such as you may never know what they are missing. . . .



The essential difference between you and the rest of us here is that you have no understanding of what we are talking about. And if you DO understand, you cannot relate to it. It would be like me listening to avid mountain climbers who are trying to convince me to join them in their assault on Mt Everest. I could hear about it. I could try and understand that THEY thought it was a great idea. But I could never understand really why anyone would acually WANT to do it, or DREAM about it, or YEARN for it . . . ,.



Now I have NO right to tell mountain climbers that they are risk taking idiots because I don't share their inspiration. (I might even believe this to be true!) But I don't have any right to try and get others to "do as I do" - and not climb mountains.



The same applies to you. If you are happy as you are (and it seems you are) then that is FINE! But you have no right to tell others how they should - or should not - live their lives.

Your grief at your husband's death may or may not be sincere but if you just pretended to engage in sex merely as an accommodation and for the sole purpose of child bearing made your marraige a charade. If your husband was aware of your feelings that is one thing. However, if he was not it makes you less the loving wife you purport yourself to be and more the hypocrite.

I fear you will feel that this a rebuke and judgemental and that may be true to some degree but your coming here to make a pronouncement of your life as being the norm and expecting others here to accept it as such is ludicrous.

Response to both zorbas: I engaged in sex not really as an "accommodation". It was because it made my husband happy, and the fact that it made him happy made me happy. Some of the time, it was for childbearing, but since we had only two children during our seventeen year marriage, because two was all we wanted, and there was a planned five year gap between them, and the second one was born eleven years before my husband died, most of the sex we had was definitely not for procreative purposes. My husband was not aware of how I felt about sex. He believed that I got something out of it physically, though I never really did. I disagree that this made my marriage a charade. We were very mutually happy together. He was happy with all aspects of me, he loved me for myself and he enjoyed sex. I loved him for him, and I didn't mind having sex. He never felt it was a charade, I never felt it was a charade, and what we felt is really all that matters. I knew that I was just not that sexual a person, that I would not be with anyone (and this has been proven very true since he died), but that was no reason that either he or I should forgo a marriage that would make us both very happy. There was no reason for me to say, "I will never get married and never have a family because I don't care for sex." No reason for that at all, I knew that I could participate in a sexual marriage and I was more than willing to do it. But I don't claim it's the norm. I never thought it was the norm, I just thought that people should appreciate things about marriage other than sex, it seemed that they were not, but I didn't understand that most of them are complaining about a lot more than that.



Reply to enna30: It's funny you comparing a lack of sexual desire to climbing Mount Everest, because that's exactly how I feel about it. Many people don't care for many things, so they don't do those things, and nobody insists that they must be unfulfilled because they don't participate in something that they don't care for. I feel the same way about sex. Why must I be unfulfilled because there's something other people enjoy that I just don't enjoy? I agree that it's something I just don't understand. To answer your question, no, my husband never knew that I never got anything physically out of sex. It didn't matter to me, and there was no reason it should matter to me, therefore, there was no reason he should know. It made no difference. We had an active sex life, he was happy with it, and I wasn't unhappy with it. There was just no reason. It did not matter to me. I felt no desire whatsoever to seek sex with someone else, because I felt that I was missing nothing, and I knew that it would be no different with anyone else. We were happy. That's all that mattered. He never showed disappointment at my "lack of enthusiasm" because there WAS no "lack of enthusiasm". I showed plenty of enthusiasm. I just didn't really feel the enthusiasm. But I showed it. He showed no disappointment that I wasn't "into" sex, because I gave every indication that I was "into" sex. I did that for him. He meant that much to me.



That would not have been true for everyone, and the situation I'm now in proves it. My on-again, off-again relationship is on again. But there's a problem. First off, I do not love this man the way I loved my husband. Secondly, I've noticed since I've gone through menopause that I don't have the tolerance level for sex that I once did. Thirdly, this guy is excessive in his demands. He wants sex every single day, two or three times a day, and will ask for it again twenty minutes after we've done it. I can't take this anymore. I do not have the feeling for him that I did for my husband, so I'm not willing and I'm not able to show enthusiasm I don't feel for him, and so I've told him he needs to go find someone else to have sex with, and I totally and completely mean this, he's cheated on me anyway and I know it and I've cheated on him anyway and he knows it, we've sort of always had an open relationship, so he needs to go find someone else, but he won't do it! Aaaarrggh. Well, thanks for listening, felt good to get that off my chest.

Very intelligent post. Thanks.

This really should be transfered to the I Am Asexual group. It is not really appropriate here.