losing interest in spouse in sexless marriage

[Anonymous]

work on your marriage, the sex will come. (pun intended).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I am thoroughly confused.

Have you had zero sex for three years, very little sex or just "not enough" sex?
What happens when you initiate at what seems to be a good time (e.g. kids in bed, things relatively peaceful)? Has she ever initiated?
What happens when you specifically ask her to do [something relatively vanilla]?
If you ask about other problems in the marriage, e.g. sources of resentment, what does she say?

I guess it is unclear from your PPs (or maybe you do not know) whether she is openly "rejecting" you, or checked out, or avoiding sex, or just not particularly enthusiastic, or doesn't get off, or is turned on by different things, or is angry about something else? How you will proceed sort of 100% depends on knowing the answers to this.

OP here, thank you all for the responses.
Have you had zero sex for three years, very little sex or just "not enough" sex?-We have had actual sex 3 times since 12/14 (Last time there was any degree of frequency was before that-once every 2 months maybe). Maybe 4 reluctant at best BJ's in that span.

What happens when you initiate at what seems to be a good time (e.g. kids in bed, things relatively peaceful)? Has she ever initiated? There is never a good time. Always something that makes it not a good time. The only time she seems even remotely interested is when we go to the beach. So once a year. She has initiated in the past, though not for a long time and not nearly as much as I did.

What happens when you specifically ask her to do [something relatively vanilla]? She says no. If we get to that point and I ask to do something different she says it doesn't feel good (before we do it) and that she has a specific way that it feels good to her. Looking back she has never asked me what feels good to me that I am aware of.

If you ask about other problems in the marriage, e.g. sources of resentment, what does she say? She says she is 100% happy with our marriage, and I think she is. She says she knows sex is important and wants to work on it but does zero towards that end. Whenever we have talked about our sex life she ends up crying saying she is a bad wife etc. We can't even really talk about it anymore, which is why I have pretty much given up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Something else is going on here.

Did having kids take a toll on your marriage and romantic relationship? Is she upset about you or something else?

Sex is psychological for women, not mechanical. How can you romance her brain? Listen, empathize, let her have a girls weekend away, slow track increased romance/date nights. Conversate about travel, restaurants, books, charity events -- not office work or family. Plan a trip to look fw to.

It will take time.

OP here-Thanks, have done all of this. Kids take a toll for sure, and have scaled expectations to really almost no expectations at all. i don't think she is upset with me, we get along good in all other aspects of our marriage except for sex. She is fine with that and happy with the way things are. Its not even about the sex really for me at this point, its more about feeling like I have a lover and romantic partner, not just a woman that I live with, that is the real problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I am thoroughly confused.

Have you had zero sex for three years, very little sex or just "not enough" sex?
What happens when you initiate at what seems to be a good time (e.g. kids in bed, things relatively peaceful)? Has she ever initiated?
What happens when you specifically ask her to do [something relatively vanilla]?
If you ask about other problems in the marriage, e.g. sources of resentment, what does she say?

I guess it is unclear from your PPs (or maybe you do not know) whether she is openly "rejecting" you, or checked out, or avoiding sex, or just not particularly enthusiastic, or doesn't get off, or is turned on by different things, or is angry about something else? How you will proceed sort of 100% depends on knowing the answers to this.

OP here, thank you all for the responses.
Have you had zero sex for three years, very little sex or just "not enough" sex?-We have had actual sex 3 times since 12/14 (Last time there was any degree of frequency was before that-once every 2 months maybe). Maybe 4 reluctant at best BJ's in that span.

What happens when you initiate at what seems to be a good time (e.g. kids in bed, things relatively peaceful)? Has she ever initiated? There is never a good time. Always something that makes it not a good time. The only time she seems even remotely interested is when we go to the beach. So once a year. She has initiated in the past, though not for a long time and not nearly as much as I did.

What happens when you specifically ask her to do [something relatively vanilla]? She says no. If we get to that point and I ask to do something different she says it doesn't feel good (before we do it) and that she has a specific way that it feels good to her. Looking back she has never asked me what feels good to me that I am aware of.

If you ask about other problems in the marriage, e.g. sources of resentment, what does she say? She says she is 100% happy with our marriage, and I think she is. She says she knows sex is important and wants to work on it but does zero towards that end. Whenever we have talked about our sex life she ends up crying saying she is a bad wife etc. We can't even really talk about it anymore, which is why I have pretty much given up.

Interesting that the beach vacation gets her motor running. Maybe she has a Vitamin D deficiency. Or maybe she's too tense ordinarily and the beach relaxes her. Anyway, that situation really sucks, but appears to be common.

[Anonymous]

OP, not to scare you, but my former AP was in the same exact situation, except his situation has been going on for 15 years. We were together a few times but he couldn't handle the guilt and broke it off. Then he asked her for an open marriage, and she said if he did that then there would be no chance she would ever rekindle again. So he stays.

The very best thing you can do for yourself is to go to therapy and work on why you are trying to make yourself ok with this. My former AP was a close friend and co-worker, and he did the exact same thing you are doing - trying to reconcile himself with the unreconcilable. He's still doing it even though his youngest is 21. And he's still staying. Do you really want that to be you 12 years from now? He literally has not had sex with her in at least 15 years, and there is no intimacy, and he talks about the gifts with no thought, etc. He tries to paint it as no sex but it is really no intimacy of any kind, nothing that shows she thinks about him other than as a live in handy man and meal ticket.

Please don't let this be you. Our affair ended 8 months ago, to the extent you want to call it that (it was more like we kept trying to stop and then would end up in a work situation with alcohol every 6 months or so, and oops. The full on part of it had been over for some time.). I really loved the guy and had known him for years and was recently separated when this went down. It was heart breaking when it didn't work out for us. But I told him I didn't want to be a mistress and that he had to make a choice. He did - to stay in the sexless marriage. Now I am watching it slowly destroy him and make him into someone I don't even recognize - someone who feels his life is over.

Don't let it be you, OP.

[Anonymous]

Maybe she likes sex on vacation because, like so many women, she feels the burden of everyday responsibilities are heavy and exhausting, so her sexual side is pushed to the backburner. Do you do enough in the partnership and household, OP? You probably think you do, but you could go the extra mile. And don't make it about bartering. That makes women feel pressured and like prostititutes.

And if she doesn't want to do things sexually that don't feel good to her, who can blame her? You're a million times easier to please than she is. I get a sense that she feels sex is just one more demand on her, one more way to feel inadequate, and that you make it too much about you and you don't make it worth her while. You shouldn't have to guess whether she enjoys it.

If sexual enjoyment was limited for you, and you had no satisfaction or enjoyment from 99 percent of the activities your partner wanted to inflict on you, and then they begrudged you the one way you could get off, and you were exhausted and overextended on top of it, yet they made you feel like a failure and bad partner, yeah, you'd cry too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about your marriage makes you describe it as good?

She works, so she's bringing in money. She cooks and cleans. She grocery shops. She cares for the kids. Etc.

So, it's sort of like having an Alice or living with your mom.

If this was OP, there's your answer. She's got too much to do, you don't do enough, plus you're not that great in bed, I bet. Keep finding excuses to blame her and make her feel bad, though. Always a recipe for success in relationships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she likes sex on vacation because, like so many women, she feels the burden of everyday responsibilities are heavy and exhausting, so her sexual side is pushed to the backburner. Do you do enough in the partnership and household, OP? You probably think you do, but you could go the extra mile. And don't make it about bartering. That makes women feel pressured and like prostititutes.

And if she doesn't want to do things sexually that don't feel good to her, who can blame her? You're a million times easier to please than she is. I get a sense that she feels sex is just one more demand on her, one more way to feel inadequate, and that you make it too much about you and you don't make it worth her while. You shouldn't have to guess whether she enjoys it.

If sexual enjoyment was limited for you, and you had no satisfaction or enjoyment from 99 percent of the activities your partner wanted to inflict on you, and then they begrudged you the one way you could get off, and you were exhausted and overextended on top of it, yet they made you feel like a failure and bad partner, yeah, you'd cry too.

OP here. Thanks. I do as much if not more of the the responsibilities at home and with the kids. Honestly the only thing I don't do is the laundry, becuase I always seem to do it wrong. I do cooking and most clean up, equal share of childminding. I don't want her to do things that she doesn't want to, that isn't the point. I have tried all the ways I can think of to NOT make it about me but about us, but it doesn't matter. I have never begrudged her about wanting it one way, just that there are other ways that I would want to do it. I have tried every way possible to make sex about her, but she won't allow me to. I always asked what I could do, is there something you want me to do or stop doing and its always I don't know or no.

I get and fully expected that sex falls on the back burner when you are married and even further back when you have kids but I did not ever imagine it would just die. I would be fine with 1x a month or even less, if she would just engage me like my wife. That is all I want really. She does in the ways that satisfy her, cuddling, talking, holding hands, but won't physically. I don't want her to do anything she doesn't want to, it just kills me inside that she no longer wants to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, not to scare you, but my former AP was in the same exact situation, except his situation has been going on for 15 years. We were together a few times but he couldn't handle the guilt and broke it off. Then he asked her for an open marriage, and she said if he did that then there would be no chance she would ever rekindle again. So he stays.

The very best thing you can do for yourself is to go to therapy and work on why you are trying to make yourself ok with this. My former AP was a close friend and co-worker, and he did the exact same thing you are doing - trying to reconcile himself with the unreconcilable. He's still doing it even though his youngest is 21. And he's still staying. Do you really want that to be you 12 years from now? He literally has not had sex with her in at least 15 years, and there is no intimacy, and he talks about the gifts with no thought, etc. He tries to paint it as no sex but it is really no intimacy of any kind, nothing that shows she thinks about him other than as a live in handy man and meal ticket.

Please don't let this be you. Our affair ended 8 months ago, to the extent you want to call it that (it was more like we kept trying to stop and then would end up in a work situation with alcohol every 6 months or so, and oops. The full on part of it had been over for some time.). I really loved the guy and had known him for years and was recently separated when this went down. It was heart breaking when it didn't work out for us. But I told him I didn't want to be a mistress and that he had to make a choice. He did - to stay in the sexless marriage. Now I am watching it slowly destroy him and make him into someone I don't even recognize - someone who feels his life is over.

Don't let it be you, OP.

I literally laughed out loud at this. OP, this lady is being played her situation is an illusion of lies told to her by a cheater. Most APs say they are not getting sex at home but they are.

OMG lady, stop giving other people advice. Get your shit together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she likes sex on vacation because, like so many women, she feels the burden of everyday responsibilities are heavy and exhausting, so her sexual side is pushed to the backburner. Do you do enough in the partnership and household, OP? You probably think you do, but you could go the extra mile. And don't make it about bartering. That makes women feel pressured and like prostititutes.

And if she doesn't want to do things sexually that don't feel good to her, who can blame her? You're a million times easier to please than she is. I get a sense that she feels sex is just one more demand on her, one more way to feel inadequate, and that you make it too much about you and you don't make it worth her while. You shouldn't have to guess whether she enjoys it.

If sexual enjoyment was limited for you, and you had no satisfaction or enjoyment from 99 percent of the activities your partner wanted to inflict on you, and then they begrudged you the one way you could get off, and you were exhausted and overextended on top of it, yet they made you feel like a failure and bad partner, yeah, you'd cry too.

OP here. Thanks. I do as much if not more of the the responsibilities at home and with the kids. Honestly the only thing I don't do is the laundry, becuase I always seem to do it wrong. I do cooking and most clean up, equal share of childminding. I don't want her to do things that she doesn't want to, that isn't the point. I have tried all the ways I can think of to NOT make it about me but about us, but it doesn't matter. I have never begrudged her about wanting it one way, just that there are other ways that I would want to do it. I have tried every way possible to make sex about her, but she won't allow me to. I always asked what I could do, is there something you want me to do or stop doing and its always I don't know or no.

I get and fully expected that sex falls on the back burner when you are married and even further back when you have kids but I did not ever imagine it would just die. I would be fine with 1x a month or even less, if she would just engage me like my wife. That is all I want really. She does in the ways that satisfy her, cuddling, talking, holding hands, but won't physically. I don't want her to do anything she doesn't want to, it just kills me inside that she no longer wants to.

any chance she was molested as a child?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about your marriage makes you describe it as good?

She works, so she's bringing in money. She cooks and cleans. She grocery shops. She cares for the kids. Etc.

So, it's sort of like having an Alice or living with your mom.

If this was OP, there's your answer. She's got too much to do, you don't do enough, plus you're not that great in bed, I bet. Keep finding excuses to blame her and make her feel bad, though. Always a recipe for success in relationships.

Hi, OP here. That was not me. What makes my marriage good is everything except sex. We get along well outside of this issue, I love her, I am actively engaged in our life etc. If we had sex I would say I am very happily married. But I read a quote in some article on the subject that says sex is 5% of a marriage when you are having it and 95% when you are not. That is how I feel now. I am happy with our marriage but this issue is painful enough that it is eroding all of the things I am happy with. I am not blaming her, it is what it is at this point. I am just looking for ways to try to live through it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she likes sex on vacation because, like so many women, she feels the burden of everyday responsibilities are heavy and exhausting, so her sexual side is pushed to the backburner. Do you do enough in the partnership and household, OP? You probably think you do, but you could go the extra mile. And don't make it about bartering. That makes women feel pressured and like prostititutes.

And if she doesn't want to do things sexually that don't feel good to her, who can blame her? You're a million times easier to please than she is. I get a sense that she feels sex is just one more demand on her, one more way to feel inadequate, and that you make it too much about you and you don't make it worth her while. You shouldn't have to guess whether she enjoys it.

If sexual enjoyment was limited for you, and you had no satisfaction or enjoyment from 99 percent of the activities your partner wanted to inflict on you, and then they begrudged you the one way you could get off, and you were exhausted and overextended on top of it, yet they made you feel like a failure and bad partner, yeah, you'd cry too.

OP here. Thanks. I do as much if not more of the the responsibilities at home and with the kids. Honestly the only thing I don't do is the laundry, becuase I always seem to do it wrong. I do cooking and most clean up, equal share of childminding. I don't want her to do things that she doesn't want to, that isn't the point. I have tried all the ways I can think of to NOT make it about me but about us, but it doesn't matter. I have never begrudged her about wanting it one way, just that there are other ways that I would want to do it. I have tried every way possible to make sex about her, but she won't allow me to. I always asked what I could do, is there something you want me to do or stop doing and its always I don't know or no.

OP here. I don't think so. Nothing about abuse that I can tell. If there was though, and I am not minimizing that at all, not sure why it was fine for years and then slowed down and then stopped.

I get and fully expected that sex falls on the back burner when you are married and even further back when you have kids but I did not ever imagine it would just die. I would be fine with 1x a month or even less, if she would just engage me like my wife. That is all I want really. She does in the ways that satisfy her, cuddling, talking, holding hands, but won't physically. I don't want her to do anything she doesn't want to, it just kills me inside that she no longer wants to.

any chance she was molested as a child?

[Anonymous]

My DW has "friends" like your wife OP (I say "friends" because they once were but now it's just fb). Once they had kids they cut off their hair, started wearing sweatpants and reading the bible. No sex except to have more kids.

They act like a couple in public, but there's no intimacy between the dh and dw. I pity the poor bastards that are happy with it. You married a selfish dud.

You are completely unhappy and "feel dead inside." Dude, it's time to change your life. Get separated. Get divorced. Spend some time learning what it's like to be alone and happy. Then start dating and find a woman who not only values sex but also agrees that it's about two people pleasing each other and enjoying the sexual bodies that life has given us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about your marriage makes you describe it as good?

She works, so she's bringing in money. She cooks and cleans. She grocery shops. She cares for the kids. Etc.

So, it's sort of like having an Alice or living with your mom.

If this was OP, there's your answer. She's got too much to do, you don't do enough, plus you're not that great in bed, I bet. Keep finding excuses to blame her and make her feel bad, though. Always a recipe for success in relationships.

Hi, OP here. That was not me. What makes my marriage good is everything except sex. We get along well outside of this issue, I love her, I am actively engaged in our life etc. If we had sex I would say I am very happily married. But I read a quote in some article on the subject that says sex is 5% of a marriage when you are having it and 95% when you are not. That is how I feel now. I am happy with our marriage but this issue is painful enough that it is eroding all of the things I am happy with. I am not blaming her, it is what it is at this point. I am just looking for ways to try to live through it.

How do you connect with her other than sex? Do you have shared hobbies? Do you do date nights? A good marriage isn't just an absence of fighting, or about being good roommates to each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she likes sex on vacation because, like so many women, she feels the burden of everyday responsibilities are heavy and exhausting, so her sexual side is pushed to the backburner. Do you do enough in the partnership and household, OP? You probably think you do, but you could go the extra mile. And don't make it about bartering. That makes women feel pressured and like prostititutes.

And if she doesn't want to do things sexually that don't feel good to her, who can blame her? You're a million times easier to please than she is. I get a sense that she feels sex is just one more demand on her, one more way to feel inadequate, and that you make it too much about you and you don't make it worth her while. You shouldn't have to guess whether she enjoys it.

If sexual enjoyment was limited for you, and you had no satisfaction or enjoyment from 99 percent of the activities your partner wanted to inflict on you, and then they begrudged you the one way you could get off, and you were exhausted and overextended on top of it, yet they made you feel like a failure and bad partner, yeah, you'd cry too.

OP here. Thanks. I do as much if not more of the the responsibilities at home and with the kids. Honestly the only thing I don't do is the laundry, becuase I always seem to do it wrong. I do cooking and most clean up, equal share of childminding. I don't want her to do things that she doesn't want to, that isn't the point. I have tried all the ways I can think of to NOT make it about me but about us, but it doesn't matter. I have never begrudged her about wanting it one way, just that there are other ways that I would want to do it. I have tried every way possible to make sex about her, but she won't allow me to. I always asked what I could do, is there something you want me to do or stop doing and its always I don't know or no.

OP here. I don't think so. Nothing about abuse that I can tell. If there was though, and I am not minimizing that at all, not sure why it was fine for years and then slowed down and then stopped.

I get and fully expected that sex falls on the back burner when you are married and even further back when you have kids but I did not ever imagine it would just die. I would be fine with 1x a month or even less, if she would just engage me like my wife. That is all I want really. She does in the ways that satisfy her, cuddling, talking, holding hands, but won't physically. I don't want her to do anything she doesn't want to, it just kills me inside that she no longer wants to.

any chance she was molested as a child?

Having kids can trigger something. 1 in 3 women are raped so its not out of the question. The crying and saying she is a bad wife is a little bit over the top and makes me think, shame of self. It's a little odd.