If you don't want sex, then shouldn't YOU be the one to leave and divorce?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wild post.

You’re framing this like there are two equally sneaky contract violations happening:

Spouse A says, “I don’t want sex anymore.”
Spouse B says, “Cool, I’ll outsource it.”

And you’re asking why only #2 gets torched. Here’s why.

Refusing sex is about what someone does with their own body. Cheating is about what someone does with the **shared agreement** of the marriage.

No one is obligated to provide sex to keep their marriage valid. Full stop. Even in a perfectly healthy, boring, middle-class, carpool-driving life. You don’t get conjugal rights because you’re annoyed.

But you are obligated not to lie and sneak around if you agreed to monogamy.

Those are not parallel actions.

Now, if one spouse decides they don’t want sex ever again? That absolutely changes the marriage. It may be devastating. It may be unfair. It may mean the relationship can’t continue.

But the honest response to a deal-breaker is:
“I can’t live like this. We need to fix this, open this, or end this.”

Not:
“I’ll quietly violate the agreement and call it integrity.”

You’re also assuming that the person who doesn’t want sex has “broken” the contract and therefore must be the one to file. That’s not how this works. People’s libidos change. Bodies change. Trauma happens. Aging happens. Hormones shift. Desire is not a lifetime guarantee baked into the vows.

Marriage isn’t a sexual service subscription.

If sex is essential to you (totally valid), then you’re the one who decides it’s a deal-breaker and you leave. That’s not punishment. That’s agency.

And the “just sex fling that doesn’t threaten the marriage” line is classic DCUM magical thinking. Affairs absolutely threaten marriages. Secrets rot things from the inside. Even if you swear you’ll never leave.

If you want an open marriage? Negotiate one.
If you want monogamy with sex? Say so.
If you’re sexually incompatible? Divorce.

But the idea that someone “owes” you sex or else they should be the one to file is just resentment dressed up as logic.

No one owes sex.
Everyone owes honesty.

Yes, they are. Normal people would reject what you say in bold.

Agree. There is something called the consummation of marriage for a reason.

If your entire argument rests on medieval property law and the word “consummation,” you might want to sit with that.

No one owes you lifetime sexual access. That's not what marriage is, full stop, and it disregards all of the very valid biological changes that happen as we all age that may impact someone's libido.
If sex is non-negotiable for you, you leave. You don’t outsource it in secret and call it moral high ground.

You're completely wrong, no matter how many times you use that idiotic phrase "full stop." You're morally wrong, ethically wrong, and legally wrong. What you're describing is literally grounds for at-fault divorce in every jurisdiction. It's called constructive desertion.

First, all 50 states and DC have no fault divorce.

Also, there is a lot more to the old timey contructive desertion claim. Otherwise, you could claim it when a spouse has erectile disfunction, or vaginal atrophy, or paralysis, etc. So no, it's not immoral or illegal to have limited or no sexual access.

Spousal rape, however, is very illegal.

All states still have at-fault divorce too, dipshit. No one is talking about spousal rape. And the premise of the conversation was willful denial of sex with the other spouse. That is absolutely grounds for divorce.

Is it hard to prove? Certainly. Just like adultery is hard to prove. But it is still grounds for divorce.

No-fault is just one method for divorce and makes divorce easier to obtain, but is hardly a default.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No matter who decides, the marriage is over so, really, who gives F who "decides"??

That's true. But the person who asks is often the fall guy for the marriage falling apart.

Worrying about blame when a marriage falls apart is childish. In most cases, both parties are at least partially to blame. You, your kids, and your community will all be better off if you let go of the need to assign blame (or to absolve yourself of any blame) and just focus on making the divorce and subsequent co-parenting as amicable as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wild post.

You’re framing this like there are two equally sneaky contract violations happening:

Spouse A says, “I don’t want sex anymore.”
Spouse B says, “Cool, I’ll outsource it.”

And you’re asking why only #2 gets torched. Here’s why.

Refusing sex is about what someone does with their own body. Cheating is about what someone does with the **shared agreement** of the marriage.

No one is obligated to provide sex to keep their marriage valid. Full stop. Even in a perfectly healthy, boring, middle-class, carpool-driving life. You don’t get conjugal rights because you’re annoyed.

But you are obligated not to lie and sneak around if you agreed to monogamy.

Those are not parallel actions.

Now, if one spouse decides they don’t want sex ever again? That absolutely changes the marriage. It may be devastating. It may be unfair. It may mean the relationship can’t continue.

But the honest response to a deal-breaker is:
“I can’t live like this. We need to fix this, open this, or end this.”

Not:
“I’ll quietly violate the agreement and call it integrity.”

You’re also assuming that the person who doesn’t want sex has “broken” the contract and therefore must be the one to file. That’s not how this works. People’s libidos change. Bodies change. Trauma happens. Aging happens. Hormones shift. Desire is not a lifetime guarantee baked into the vows.

Marriage isn’t a sexual service subscription.

If sex is essential to you (totally valid), then you’re the one who decides it’s a deal-breaker and you leave. That’s not punishment. That’s agency.

And the “just sex fling that doesn’t threaten the marriage” line is classic DCUM magical thinking. Affairs absolutely threaten marriages. Secrets rot things from the inside. Even if you swear you’ll never leave.

If you want an open marriage? Negotiate one.
If you want monogamy with sex? Say so.
If you’re sexually incompatible? Divorce.

But the idea that someone “owes” you sex or else they should be the one to file is just resentment dressed up as logic.

No one owes sex.
Everyone owes honesty.

Yes, they are. Normal people would reject what you say in bold.

Agree. There is something called the consummation of marriage for a reason.

If your entire argument rests on medieval property law and the word “consummation,” you might want to sit with that.

No one owes you lifetime sexual access. That's not what marriage is, full stop, and it disregards all of the very valid biological changes that happen as we all age that may impact someone's libido.
If sex is non-negotiable for you, you leave. You don’t outsource it in secret and call it moral high ground.

You're completely wrong, no matter how many times you use that idiotic phrase "full stop." You're morally wrong, ethically wrong, and legally wrong. What you're describing is literally grounds for at-fault divorce in every jurisdiction. It's called constructive desertion.

First, all 50 states and DC have no fault divorce.

Also, there is a lot more to the old timey contructive desertion claim. Otherwise, you could claim it when a spouse has erectile disfunction, or vaginal atrophy, or paralysis, etc. So no, it's not immoral or illegal to have limited or no sexual access.

Spousal rape, however, is very illegal.

All states still have at-fault divorce too, dipshit. No one is talking about spousal rape. And the premise of the conversation was willful denial of sex with the other spouse. That is absolutely grounds for divorce.

Is it hard to prove? Certainly. Just like adultery is hard to prove. But it is still grounds for divorce.

No-fault is just one method for divorce and makes divorce easier to obtain, but is hardly a default.

But at-fault divorce only comes into play if only one party wants a divorce or if there is a big battle over alimony. Both of those circumstances are rare because divorce has been normalized (people are way less likely to fight a divorce these days), and because alimony is increasingly rare (and when granted, usually it's temporary).

Most of the time, sane people opt for no-fault divorce because it's faster and less expensive and usually less contentious (and thus easier on kids). Even in states where you can so for at-fault divorce, it's unlikely because you will lose more than you gain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wild post.

You’re framing this like there are two equally sneaky contract violations happening:

Spouse A says, “I don’t want sex anymore.”
Spouse B says, “Cool, I’ll outsource it.”

And you’re asking why only #2 gets torched. Here’s why.

Refusing sex is about what someone does with their own body. Cheating is about what someone does with the **shared agreement** of the marriage.

No one is obligated to provide sex to keep their marriage valid. Full stop. Even in a perfectly healthy, boring, middle-class, carpool-driving life. You don’t get conjugal rights because you’re annoyed.

But you are obligated not to lie and sneak around if you agreed to monogamy.

Those are not parallel actions.

Now, if one spouse decides they don’t want sex ever again? That absolutely changes the marriage. It may be devastating. It may be unfair. It may mean the relationship can’t continue.

But the honest response to a deal-breaker is:
“I can’t live like this. We need to fix this, open this, or end this.”

Not:
“I’ll quietly violate the agreement and call it integrity.”

You’re also assuming that the person who doesn’t want sex has “broken” the contract and therefore must be the one to file. That’s not how this works. People’s libidos change. Bodies change. Trauma happens. Aging happens. Hormones shift. Desire is not a lifetime guarantee baked into the vows.

Marriage isn’t a sexual service subscription.

If sex is essential to you (totally valid), then you’re the one who decides it’s a deal-breaker and you leave. That’s not punishment. That’s agency.

And the “just sex fling that doesn’t threaten the marriage” line is classic DCUM magical thinking. Affairs absolutely threaten marriages. Secrets rot things from the inside. Even if you swear you’ll never leave.

If you want an open marriage? Negotiate one.
If you want monogamy with sex? Say so.
If you’re sexually incompatible? Divorce.

But the idea that someone “owes” you sex or else they should be the one to file is just resentment dressed up as logic.

No one owes sex.
Everyone owes honesty.

Yes, they are. Normal people would reject what you say in bold.

Agree. There is something called the consummation of marriage for a reason.

You can only consummate the marriage once. Nothing required after that.

Why do you consummate it? Because sex is expected in a marriage.

Traditionally consummation was required to ensure the marriage was capable of producing an heir. Not because everyone believed that once people were married, the couple would continue to have sex regularly for the rest of their lives. They might, they might not, society didn't much care. But society had a heavy investment in marriage producing children in order to maintain property and inheritances.

At one point it was even possible to get an annulment after consummation if sex didn't result in pregnancy. Because, again, the interest was not in the sex itself but in children (and also ensuring the children were the actual offspring of the man, again for property and inheritance reasons).

But also, none of this has much to do with modern marriage, which completely voluntary and has very few formal requirements beyond paperwork. It's legal to cheat. It's legal to lie. It's also legal to get divorced for any reason from "my wife won't sleep with me anymore" to "I've decided I don't want to be married to anyone who watches reality television." You can have whatever kind of marriage you and your partner want to agree to. And there are absolutely marriages where the couple never has sex, not even once (e.g. lavender marriage, but also marriage where one partner is disabled in a way that makes sex impossible).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But I’m sure he’s obligated to open his wallet for you, right ladies?

What year are you living in? The ladies have their own wallets. Most of us are "opening our wallets" to our husbands every day, weirdo.

I'm sorry you think of marriage as a transaction where the man pays with money and the woman pays with vagina access, but the rest of us are not broken in the way you are.

[Anonymous]

Marriage is more than just sex.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Marriage is more than just sex.

Of course, marriage is about more than sex. So if your DH said to you, "I love you and want to stay married, but sex is very important to me. Since you decided it's no longer something you want to do, I'm going to find someone to satisfy me sexually outside of our marriage." That would be totally ok with you, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But I’m sure he’s obligated to open his wallet for you, right ladies?

What year are you living in? The ladies have their own wallets. Most of us are "opening our wallets" to our husbands every day, weirdo.

I'm sorry you think of marriage as a transaction where the man pays with money and the woman pays with vagina access, but the rest of us are not broken in the way you are.

In addition, plenty of women are living in involuntary sexless marriages too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Marriage is more than just sex.

Of course, marriage is about more than sex. So if your DH said to you, "I love you and want to stay married, but sex is very important to me. Since you decided it's no longer something you want to do, I'm going to find someone to satisfy me sexually outside of our marriage." That would be totally ok with you, right?

If my spouse told me he wanted to have sex with people outside our marriage, I would tell him that wasn't okay with him, but if that's what he really wanted, then we could get divorced.

Look, if you are unhappy with your sex life in your marriage, you have three options:
(1) Divorce
(2) Discuss opening the marriage with your spouse, and do that if you both agree
(3) Accept it

These might fee like inadequate solutions, I get it. But those are really the only ethical options. Some of you seem to think there are additional options, but sorry, these just aren't ethical. These are:

(4) Cheat
(5) Somehow force your partner to have sex with you?? I never understand this.

The rest of us are never going to condone 4-5, sorry. 1-3 are all fine with me, do whatever makes the most sense for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But I’m sure he’s obligated to open his wallet for you, right ladies?

What year are you living in? The ladies have their own wallets. Most of us are "opening our wallets" to our husbands every day, weirdo.

I'm sorry you think of marriage as a transaction where the man pays with money and the woman pays with vagina access, but the rest of us are not broken in the way you are.

In addition, plenty of women are living in involuntary sexless marriages too.

Then GET DIVORCED. See above regarding having your own wallet. I don't understand this whole "involuntary sexless" thing. You have free will. Exercise it.

A lot of you are acting like your marriages just happened to you, and need to grow up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Marriage is more than just sex.

Of course, marriage is about more than sex. So if your DH said to you, "I love you and want to stay married, but sex is very important to me. Since you decided it's no longer something you want to do, I'm going to find someone to satisfy me sexually outside of our marriage." That would be totally ok with you, right?

If my spouse told me he wanted to have sex with people outside our marriage, I would tell him that wasn't okay with him, but if that's what he really wanted, then we could get divorced.

Look, if you are unhappy with your sex life in your marriage, you have three options:
(1) Divorce
(2) Discuss opening the marriage with your spouse, and do that if you both agree
(3) Accept it

These might fee like inadequate solutions, I get it. But those are really the only ethical options. Some of you seem to think there are additional options, but sorry, these just aren't ethical. These are:

(4) Cheat
(5) Somehow force your partner to have sex with you?? I never understand this.

The rest of us are never going to condone 4-5, sorry. 1-3 are all fine with me, do whatever makes the most sense for you.

But you said "marriage is more than sex." So sex is important enough to you that you'd divorce over it, but it's selfish if your husband wants to stay married to you but also fullfil his sexual needs. So which is it?

[Anonymous]

If a spouse doesn’t want sex but is getting what they want out of the marriage, why would they initiate a divorce?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Marriage is more than just sex.

Of course, marriage is about more than sex. So if your DH said to you, "I love you and want to stay married, but sex is very important to me. Since you decided it's no longer something you want to do, I'm going to find someone to satisfy me sexually outside of our marriage." That would be totally ok with you, right?

If my spouse told me he wanted to have sex with people outside our marriage, I would tell him that wasn't okay with him, but if that's what he really wanted, then we could get divorced.

Look, if you are unhappy with your sex life in your marriage, you have three options:
(1) Divorce
(2) Discuss opening the marriage with your spouse, and do that if you both agree
(3) Accept it

These might fee like inadequate solutions, I get it. But those are really the only ethical options. Some of you seem to think there are additional options, but sorry, these just aren't ethical. These are:

(4) Cheat
(5) Somehow force your partner to have sex with you?? I never understand this.

The rest of us are never going to condone 4-5, sorry. 1-3 are all fine with me, do whatever makes the most sense for you.

Did you even read what I wrote? Asking your spouse to open up the marriage is one of your solutions, yet somehow, you'd divorce over it. Make it make sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But I’m sure he’s obligated to open his wallet for you, right ladies?

What year are you living in? The ladies have their own wallets. Most of us are "opening our wallets" to our husbands every day, weirdo.

I'm sorry you think of marriage as a transaction where the man pays with money and the woman pays with vagina access, but the rest of us are not broken in the way you are.

In addition, plenty of women are living in involuntary sexless marriages too.

Then GET DIVORCED. See above regarding having your own wallet. I don't understand this whole "involuntary sexless" thing. You have free will. Exercise it.

A lot of you are acting like your marriages just happened to you, and need to grow up.

Oh I already said upthread that I would. I was responding to this "But I’m sure he’s obligated to open his wallet for you, right ladies?"

[Anonymous]

If you don't want to commit to the emotional work it takes to get your partner wanting, then shouldn't you be the one to leave and divorce?