Anyone else just stop initiating or asking for sex from their partner?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your partner is uninterested in sex, feel free to simply declare the relationship open and go meet your normal healthy sexual needs elsewhere. An uninterested partner gets no vote on this.

Can it, Zippy. Your opinions on the subject are already well known.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m 5 months into married celibacy; I’m going to wait until it gets to a year then I will attempt to make myself happy. Five separate offers for counseling and I’ve done everything possible to clean up my side of the street but there’s no interest. 7 months to go!

Affair? Or divorce?

Affair usually indicates lying, I’m not going to lie, I’m not looking to hurt anyone by throwing it in their face but surely there is someone out there in the same predicament where life isn’t so horrible it warrants disrupting your children but it isn’t good enough to go on without change.

Hahaha! I had this EXACT same reasoning, and as an attractive woman, I found a man who appealed to me incredibly easily.

It was so terrible. I do NOT recommend. Tell your spouse you can’t go on like this and see if they still refuse counseling. Your integrity matters.

I’m sure there are limitless possibilities to have an arrangement like this blow up in your face but what was it specifically that made it so terrible?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your partner is uninterested in sex, feel free to simply declare the relationship open and go meet your normal healthy sexual needs elsewhere. An uninterested partner gets no vote on this.

Can it, Zippy. Your opinions on the subject are already well known.

You should be more supportive because the only other alternative (secret affairs) is horribly dishonest yet far more common.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Slipped up literally this past weekend when we had a pretty big fight and I was going to sleep in the guest room. I really don't like sleeping near anyone I've argued with, and I've always had this issue. He said, "wow, you're going to punish me now?" I said, "tell me - literally, exactly, 1000% clearly - how is my sleeping anywhere else a punishment to you? Exactly?" He said nothing, of course.

Ehh you know what you were doing.

Of course I knew what I was doing. I didn't accidentally say anything. I had just vowed to myself I wouldn't bring it up anymore, and hadn't in about a year. That's the slip, not my vey intentional, very specific wording.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my experience the lack of sex was symptomatic of other issues and it all came to a head eventually. I couldn’t just live without sex, and I am a woman. Marriage counseling helped a lot. Don’t give up.

I agree it’s likely to be a broader symptom of something else. I have little desire for sex these days. It’s hard to feel attracted to my husband when I am serving as both the main breadwinner and the main caregiver to our children, and my husband refuses to compromise about doing unpaid volunteer activities that take up his entire weekends 7-8 times a year. I can only do so much and I constantly feel overwhelmed and overloaded. He is all about having fun and doesn’t give any attention to the “hard stuff” in life - pushing for raises, saving for retirement/college, saving in general. I often feel like the only adult in the relationship so it’s hard to feel attracted to him.

I don’t know how to spell this out to him without hurting his feelings but he really doesn’t not seem to get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Slipped up literally this past weekend when we had a pretty big fight and I was going to sleep in the guest room. I really don't like sleeping near anyone I've argued with, and I've always had this issue. He said, "wow, you're going to punish me now?" I said, "tell me - literally, exactly, 1000% clearly - how is my sleeping anywhere else a punishment to you? Exactly?" He said nothing, of course.

Ehh you know what you were doing.

Of course I knew what I was doing. I didn't accidentally say anything. I had just vowed to myself I wouldn't bring it up anymore, and hadn't in about a year. That's the slip, not my vey intentional, very specific wording.

Any idea why he doesn’t want to have sex with you? You mention that you haven’t brought it up in about a year which makes me think that there was a period where you were not happy and maybe trief to change things, did anything work or did you just give up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Slipped up literally this past weekend when we had a pretty big fight and I was going to sleep in the guest room. I really don't like sleeping near anyone I've argued with, and I've always had this issue. He said, "wow, you're going to punish me now?" I said, "tell me - literally, exactly, 1000% clearly - how is my sleeping anywhere else a punishment to you? Exactly?" He said nothing, of course.

Ehh you know what you were doing.

1000% she clearly knew what she was doing was dishing out a punishment. and the reason he said nothing is that he, of course, learned the lesson of not arguing with stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m 5 months into married celibacy; I’m going to wait until it gets to a year then I will attempt to make myself happy. Five separate offers for counseling and I’ve done everything possible to clean up my side of the street but there’s no interest. 7 months to go!

Affair? Or divorce?

Affair usually indicates lying, I’m not going to lie, I’m not looking to hurt anyone by throwing it in their face but surely there is someone out there in the same predicament where life isn’t so horrible it warrants disrupting your children but it isn’t good enough to go on without change.

Hahaha! I had this EXACT same reasoning, and as an attractive woman, I found a man who appealed to me incredibly easily.

It was so terrible. I do NOT recommend. Tell your spouse you can’t go on like this and see if they still refuse counseling. Your integrity matters.

I’m sure there are limitless possibilities to have an arrangement like this blow up in your face but what was it specifically that made it so terrible?

Well, what is interesting I guess is that it did not really blow up in my face, but I still think it was a terrible thing to do and a terrible experience. The emotional turmoil was too much.

For one thing, I could not handle the guilt. I felt what I was doing was wrong but the validation I got from the other man was so addictive. I had rationalized that we both deserved some happiness from each other. The high was like being on drugs I think. But I constantly felt terrible about it. There was no way for me to know that he and his wife were in a sexless marriage, even though I was. He was lying to her, why wouldn’t he lie to me? And then breaking up with the other man was so terrible. I was falling in love with him and imagining a life with him, and I knew that could never happen. I still have lingering feelings for him and fantasize about him. It was all so so stupid.

DH forgave me and we are working on our marriage. There was no blow up or humiliation. We have sex a lot now: But I hate that I did something like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yup. I have. There was a period where it was incredibly frustrating. I gave up initiating. It wasn't and isn't ideal, but now that I (DH) am in my early 50s, my libido is decreasing and, while our sexlessness is still sad, it's not as big a deal as it used to be.

As best as I can tell -- and taking her at her word -- she's not resentful of me, she's not overworked, she still finds me as attractive as she finds anyone else, she just doesn't want to have sex. I think her natural libido level is fairly low plus she has some pretty significant body image issues. Therefore, we don't have sex.

We have kids, have been married for 20+ years, and are otherwise pretty content. So, porn is my friend, I guess.

NP. Your situation sounds very familiar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your partner is uninterested in sex, feel free to simply declare the relationship open and go meet your normal healthy sexual needs elsewhere. An uninterested partner gets no vote on this.

Agree. Do what you need to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Slipped up literally this past weekend when we had a pretty big fight and I was going to sleep in the guest room. I really don't like sleeping near anyone I've argued with, and I've always had this issue. He said, "wow, you're going to punish me now?" I said, "tell me - literally, exactly, 1000% clearly - how is my sleeping anywhere else a punishment to you? Exactly?" He said nothing, of course.

"Never go to bed angry" is a key to a successful marriage. Going to bed angry is like going to bed with an open wound.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Slipped up literally this past weekend when we had a pretty big fight and I was going to sleep in the guest room. I really don't like sleeping near anyone I've argued with, and I've always had this issue. He said, "wow, you're going to punish me now?" I said, "tell me - literally, exactly, 1000% clearly - how is my sleeping anywhere else a punishment to you? Exactly?" He said nothing, of course.

"Never go to bed angry" is a key to a successful marriage. Going to bed angry is like going to bed with an open wound.

There’s no one truism that works for every marriage. Sometimes DH and I need a cooling off period overnight. Our marriage counselor has said we have a very strong core in our marriage. Some marriages are happy with a ton of sex, some with no sex, most in between, some people are happy to debate and argue with their spouse, some would hate that. I’ve just never found any one thing that works for everyone.

[Anonymous]

I still have sex with my husband a few times a week but my libido in menopause fell off a cliff. I would rather just go to sleep. However, I want to keep my marriage together and I would like to have a relatively happy spouse so I have sex when I don't want to. I want my libido back and I've sought medical treatment and other tricks. etc. Some have helped but it sucks. I understand both sides of this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my experience the lack of sex was symptomatic of other issues and it all came to a head eventually. I couldn’t just live without sex, and I am a woman. Marriage counseling helped a lot. Don’t give up.

Once they gained weight, stopping picking up after themselves, came home from worked & napped, snored like a truck, ignored the kids, house, personal emails & me, and started going to bed at 8 or 9pm and waking at 5am, they just weren’t attractive nor considerate.

[Anonymous]

Whenever DH says he's not interested, I just start taking care of myself next to him. It almost always gets him interested.