Sexless-ness is an acceptable negative outcome from marriage

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

In my experience, most men are very resistant to the idea that they need to change their behavior if they want sex. Which kind of boggles my mind - obviously most understand that if they want sex with a woman they just started dating, they need to have acceptable behavior. That seems to go out the window once they're married.

I would think that it's way easier to just alter your behavior in your marriage, rather than go through a divorce, lose money/assets, lose time with your kids, and likely face a reality that other women don't want to have sex with you, either. Either way, you'll have to start behaving in a way that's attractive to women, so why not just do it within your own marriage.

When a woman decides she is no longer attracted to you, you are done. This won’t change no matter what you do. Get in shape, buy better clothes - she won’t even notice.

In fact, if your goal is sex, it is way easier to get a divorce and date other women than to try and regain the interest of a wife who got bored with you. “face a reality that other women don't want to have sex with you, either” is not a reality at all. Just the opposite. Most divorced men discover that it is incredibly easy to find women who want to have sex with them even if they don’t change their behavior much at all. Ask me how I know!

You're halfway right. If there are deeper problems, yes, buying new clothes won't help. You're thinking like a man. Women aren't as visual.

But if you fix the underlying problems, yes, attraction can be regained. You need to build connection besides just sex.

Maybe you're the exception, but most divorced men I know aren't desirable and aren't getting laid regularly, or they do but are still miserable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think men just tend to believe the world revolves around them and cant understand how a woman has the audacity not to cater to them when THEY WANT TO HAVE SEX!!!!!! It's an entitlement, petulant child thing. But anyway...just ignore.

Yeah, imagine the nerve of these guys, agreeing to sexual exclusivity, then not getting any sex, then getting mad about it. 🙄🙄🙄

Right. Sexual exclusivity is not "sex whenever I want it". That's not what exclusive means.

Who is talking about “sex whenever I want it” because I must have missed that post.
Agree exclusivity is NOT “whenever” but it IS “frequent enough to meet normal needs”.
If you can’t commit to that you better be flexible on that exclusivity part.

You aren't committing to eternal sex in marriage. You are committing to a person, for better or worse. Sometimes "worse" means they no longer have a sex drive or that part of the body stops working. Are you still committed to your spouse or not? If not, you should not get married, because for the vast majority of people this will happen eventually -- and it may be you who's bits stops working.

Sometimes "worse" means beating someone to death. You know what I heard from a counselor that I once worked with in my church? There was an experience of a wife in an abusive situation. She was counseled to honor her vows, and she was killed. Since then, this person doesn't make statements of what anyone should do in their marriage. Instead, this person counsels on her interpretation of what literature says about the circumstances presented.

We don't get a vote on who will be Canada's president. Because we are Americans, we don't live in the country, dont pay taxes in that country, dont have a linked heritage to the land there as a private resident.

Likewise - No one outside of my marriage gets a vote on my marriage. Because it is my marriage. It is no one else's business what why or how you do it. Right, wrong, or indifferent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think men just tend to believe the world revolves around them and cant understand how a woman has the audacity not to cater to them when THEY WANT TO HAVE SEX!!!!!! It's an entitlement, petulant child thing. But anyway...just ignore.

Totally! When I sleep with my husband once every 2 months, after we we had tons of sex when we were dating, he’s such a pig about it!!!!! I mean it’s as if he got married partially expecting the sex to be frequent! So gross!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Liken it to Idris Elba doing all the above and tell me what woman is going to go sexless with him.

I read that he’s rather large downstairs so most women probably wouldn’t be interested.

I can't believe the printed that. Well, one woman's pain could be another woman's pleasure. I'll bet there a lot of women that would be willing to roll the dice on that one and find out. I'm teasing. Kinda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Another thing I find odd is when people say "we had kids and then never had sex again." I think in many cases men get frustrated when sex doesn't return to its previous frequency quickly enough after children come along. Men seem to think things can be back to "normal" within a year or less. This reflects the very different levels of parenting responsibility men and women have, especially for young kids.

I dare men in this situation to spend a week doing as much caregiving as their wives do and then see what happens to their sex drives. For me, it didn't come back until kids were in school. That was how long it took before I started to feel like I could be an independent person again. Before that, I was so tired all the time from work and childcare, and my kids just seemed to need so much from me physically and emotionally. Sex was a really difficult thing to add to that mix. Once a month, if that. But once the kids were in school? Back to normal. Maybe even better than normal. It wasn't a blip but it wasn't the end of our sex life either.

This is a bunch of bullshit. Ask any man who has multiple kids. Somehow, when she wants to get pregnant with kid #2/3/4, she doesn’t care about being “tired” and doing “more caregiving”. Nope, then it’s “get in here and f*ck me, buster!” In short, when she wants to have sex, she will find a way, and at other times she’s just making excuses.

This is funny because it’s true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP Here. Thanks for the responses. As a single woman, I meet divorced men from sexless marriages.

I meant to add that many are really emotionally damaged from being in sexless marriages.

I used to think that way before I was married. Poor guys! It’s not fair they were denied sex, sex is awesome!

Then I got married and I understand it now. It’s not that these women are secretly horny and denying their husbands as punishment, or that they consciously flip the off switch.

Sex is just as much of a biological drive for women as it is for men - but works the opposite as it does in men since the consequences (pregnancy) are much greater. For most of human history, women who got pregnant from men who were poor partners couldn’t care for the child alone, and the child would die. Several months or years of a woman’s fertile years would then be wasted, while a man could impregnate dozens of women in that time, and odds are one child would survive.

So the female brain looks for reasons NOT to have sex. It pays to be very picky about who you sleep with. Even though we now have birth control and resources for single moms, our biology is still the same.

Every single woman I know who lost interest in sex (including me) did so because their body recognized it wasn’t safe. Their husbands were poor fathers, emotionally unavailable (which makes the bonding aspect of sex painful), abusive, entitled, etc. Once they get out of that relationship and into a good one, sex drive comes roaring back.

When I dated divorced men after my own divorce, every time a man has mentioned his wife lost interest, I could immediately see why. Most left their kids to pursue their career or lifestyle (seriously....one guy abandoned his kids so he could live somewhere with snowboarding). Or they let most of the childcare fall on their wives and couldn’t even feed a toddler. Or they didn’t respect boundaries, or had a drinking problem, or couldn’t control their temper.

Unfortunately we’re socialized to believe that men are entitled to sex (every woman I know has put out on a date because she felt obliged, not because she wanted to). But we’re not taught that it’s a two way street, and that men need to meet women’s needs as well. If you talked to those men’s’ wives, you’d find that the men contributed very little to the health of their marriage.

FYI....I’d be very cautious dating a man who blames his ex wife for the end of their marriage, and especially any man who claims to be emotionally damaged. Healthy people recognize the role they played in ending their marriage and they address their emotional issues in therapy. It’s not your job to heal their wounds.

I am not going to disagree with anything you've just said. In fact I will double down and say you are 100% correct on all points.
My sole criticism is that you stopped without saying what it means once the sex stops: it means get out because the marriage itself is over!

Wives who do not want sex: file for divorce immediately.
Men whose wives don't want sex ... yet there you are STILL MARRIED: your wife, knowing the marriage is over, has chosen not to divorce and wants to stay together as platonic room mates, which means you are free to date and pursue sex elsewhere.

Kind of proving the point that there are many reasons to stay in a marriage besides sex. If that were not the case, you'd just divorce. Not stay in the marriage and sneak around . . . . So, well done proving the OPs point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

In my experience, most men are very resistant to the idea that they need to change their behavior if they want sex. Which kind of boggles my mind - obviously most understand that if they want sex with a woman they just started dating, they need to have acceptable behavior. That seems to go out the window once they're married.

I would think that it's way easier to just alter your behavior in your marriage, rather than go through a divorce, lose money/assets, lose time with your kids, and likely face a reality that other women don't want to have sex with you, either. Either way, you'll have to start behaving in a way that's attractive to women, so why not just do it within your own marriage.

When a woman decides she is no longer attracted to you, you are done. This won’t change no matter what you do. Get in shape, buy better clothes - she won’t even notice.

In fact, if your goal is sex, it is way easier to get a divorce and date other women than to try and regain the interest of a wife who got bored with you. “face a reality that other women don't want to have sex with you, either” is not a reality at all. Just the opposite. Most divorced men discover that it is incredibly easy to find women who want to have sex with them even if they don’t change their behavior much at all. Ask me how I know!

You're halfway right. If there are deeper problems, yes, buying new clothes won't help. You're thinking like a man. Women aren't as visual.

But if you fix the underlying problems, yes, attraction can be regained. You need to build connection besides just sex.

Maybe you're the exception, but most divorced men I know aren't desirable and aren't getting laid regularly, or they do but are still miserable.

I am telling you a man's experience. And it is precisely because "women aren't as visual" that it is much, much harder to "rebuild the connection" with a woman who has lost attraction to you than it is to have a new woman become attracted to you. A woman who has lost attraction to you has to "un-see" and forget all the things that made her unattracted, and the majority of women simply can't do that.

I am not an exceptionally attractive man, in my opinion. I have attractive qualities - e.g., I am tall and intelligent - but I am no Brad Pitt. Nonetheless, after the divorce, when I went online, it was a snap to find women who wanted to have sex with me. The other divorced men I know aren't having any trouble either, although most of them are in too much of a hurry to lock down a new woman, in my opinion.

"most divorced men I know aren't desirable" -- that's not desirable TO YOU. If they did the work they would find a woman who found them desirable.

"and aren't getting laid regularly" -- I don't even know how you would know this. I certainly don't discuss my sex life with my women friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

In my experience, most men are very resistant to the idea that they need to change their behavior if they want sex. Which kind of boggles my mind - obviously most understand that if they want sex with a woman they just started dating, they need to have acceptable behavior. That seems to go out the window once they're married.

I would think that it's way easier to just alter your behavior in your marriage, rather than go through a divorce, lose money/assets, lose time with your kids, and likely face a reality that other women don't want to have sex with you, either. Either way, you'll have to start behaving in a way that's attractive to women, so why not just do it within your own marriage.

When a woman decides she is no longer attracted to you, you are done. This won’t change no matter what you do. Get in shape, buy better clothes - she won’t even notice.

In fact, if your goal is sex, it is way easier to get a divorce and date other women than to try and regain the interest of a wife who got bored with you. “face a reality that other women don't want to have sex with you, either” is not a reality at all. Just the opposite. Most divorced men discover that it is incredibly easy to find women who want to have sex with them even if they don’t change their behavior much at all. Ask me how I know!

You're halfway right. If there are deeper problems, yes, buying new clothes won't help. You're thinking like a man. Women aren't as visual.

But if you fix the underlying problems, yes, attraction can be regained. You need to build connection besides just sex.

Maybe you're the exception, but most divorced men I know aren't desirable and aren't getting laid regularly, or they do but are still miserable.

I am telling you a man's experience. And it is precisely because "women aren't as visual" that it is much, much harder to "rebuild the connection" with a woman who has lost attraction to you than it is to have a new woman become attracted to you. A woman who has lost attraction to you has to "un-see" and forget all the things that made her unattracted, and the majority of women simply can't do that.

I am not an exceptionally attractive man, in my opinion. I have attractive qualities - e.g., I am tall and intelligent - but I am no Brad Pitt. Nonetheless, after the divorce, when I went online, it was a snap to find women who wanted to have sex with me. The other divorced men I know aren't having any trouble either, although most of them are in too much of a hurry to lock down a new woman, in my opinion.

"most divorced men I know aren't desirable" -- that's not desirable TO YOU. If they did the work they would find a woman who found them desirable.

"and aren't getting laid regularly" -- I don't even know how you would know this. I certainly don't discuss my sex life with my women friends.

That hasn't been my experience with myself or my female friends, but it sounds like that was the case in your marriage. I'm sorry to hear that, although it does make me wonder how bad your marriage was that your wife was unable to "un-see" whatever it is you did.

You proved my point - that getting laid is work. Either that work is with your wife, or it's with other women. If you choose other women, fine. But a lot of men want to choose their wives (and vice versa).

Marriages are between real people with real feelings and real pain. A blanket solution of "just get divorced as soon as things start to head south! She'll never want you again anyway! He's never going to change!" isn't helpful, nor practical, and not based in real life. Most people want to fix their marriage, not bail at the first sign of trouble. The problem is that the ideas about relationships that circulate our culture aren't useful, and often destructive. The best we can do is promote the things that DO work and support those who need it.

Learn about relationships. Learn how men and women work. Learn how women's sexuality works. Commit to connecting with your partner and meeting his/her needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one thinks they’re going to get everything.

Religious take: marriage literally is a bond between two people, cemented by sex. The same God who ordains marriage and considers fornication a sin, also urges couples to have sexual relations often to stay emotionally and physically in desire of one another.

Non-religions and basic humanity: committing to share every financial resource, loyalty and risk as a couple includes vows that should not be violated.

Denying sexual connection is just as much of a cheat (short on what is owed by not following the rules) as seeking sex outside of the vow you gave not to.

You should not expect getting more, but you shouldn’t advocate for accepting less than the conditions that established the initial trust and bond between you as a family.

And demanding that somone who does not want to have sex with you provide a sexual connectioon will break that trust/bond.

There are no simple/right/wrong answers here. Don't try to make it simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never understand how these threads go on for pages upon pages

Sex is a need. If your spouse isn't interested, you will find it with someone else, eventually.

People just talk past each other. It's about sex on demand. The guy isn't doing enough work. Once a week should be enough. Once a month should be enough. If they ever have sex, it's not sexless. The wife can turn her desire on and off. It's a bait and switch. She's lying about why she doesn't want to have sex. She just doesn't want to have sex with you. DECLARE OPEN MARRIAGE!

[Anonymous]

That hasn't been my experience with myself or my female friends, but it sounds like that was the case in your marriage. I'm sorry to hear that, although it does make me wonder how bad your marriage was that your wife was unable to "un-see" whatever it is you did.

You proved my point - that getting laid is work. Either that work is with your wife, or it's with other women. If you choose other women, fine. But a lot of men want to choose their wives (and vice versa).

Marriages are between real people with real feelings and real pain. A blanket solution of "just get divorced as soon as things start to head south! She'll never want you again anyway! He's never going to change!" isn't helpful, nor practical, and not based in real life. Most people want to fix their marriage, not bail at the first sign of trouble. The problem is that the ideas about relationships that circulate our culture aren't useful, and often destructive. The best we can do is promote the things that DO work and support those who need it.

Learn about relationships. Learn how men and women work. Learn how women's sexuality works. Commit to connecting with your partner and meeting his/her needs.

Our marriage was not "bad" in that there was no addiction, abuse, or adultery. There was fault on both sides, but we became indifferent to each other. After we had kids, I stopped paying much attention to her, and totally focused on the kids. I wasn't fat, but I was definitely lazy and boring. Did not treat her like she had value (nor did she treat me like I had value).

You are missing my point that it is a lot more work to regain the attention of a bored wife than it is to gain the attention of a new woman. (This is one reason men cheat. I didn't, but I very easily could have. Married women came on to me all the time when I was married.) The only thing offsetting this is that if you have kids, a divorce will hurt them. I would have divorced my wife in 2016 instead of 2019 if we hadn't had kids. Sadly, my efforts to regain her attention proved futile. It certainly could not be said that I "bailed at the first sign of trouble" - though if you don't have kids, that really is the way to go.

I know how women's sexuality works. That is why I will never get married again. Once you get married, it's only a matter of time before she is bored with you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one thinks they’re going to get everything.

Religious take: marriage literally is a bond between two people, cemented by sex. The same God who ordains marriage and considers fornication a sin, also urges couples to have sexual relations often to stay emotionally and physically in desire of one another.

Non-religions and basic humanity: committing to share every financial resource, loyalty and risk as a couple includes vows that should not be violated.

Denying sexual connection is just as much of a cheat (short on what is owed by not following the rules) as seeking sex outside of the vow you gave not to.

You should not expect getting more, but you shouldn’t advocate for accepting less than the conditions that established the initial trust and bond between you as a family.

And demanding that somone who does not want to have sex with you provide a sexual connectioon will break that trust/bond.

There are no simple/right/wrong answers here. Don't try to make it simple.

By your own advice if you don’t want to have sex with your spouse anymore, leave. Sounds like you’re backpedaling on an argument that was addressed ad nauseam through this thread by multiple posters. We can agree to disagree here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

That hasn't been my experience with myself or my female friends, but it sounds like that was the case in your marriage. I'm sorry to hear that, although it does make me wonder how bad your marriage was that your wife was unable to "un-see" whatever it is you did.

You proved my point - that getting laid is work. Either that work is with your wife, or it's with other women. If you choose other women, fine. But a lot of men want to choose their wives (and vice versa).

Marriages are between real people with real feelings and real pain. A blanket solution of "just get divorced as soon as things start to head south! She'll never want you again anyway! He's never going to change!" isn't helpful, nor practical, and not based in real life. Most people want to fix their marriage, not bail at the first sign of trouble. The problem is that the ideas about relationships that circulate our culture aren't useful, and often destructive. The best we can do is promote the things that DO work and support those who need it.

Learn about relationships. Learn how men and women work. Learn how women's sexuality works. Commit to connecting with your partner and meeting his/her needs.

Our marriage was not "bad" in that there was no addiction, abuse, or adultery. There was fault on both sides, but we became indifferent to each other. After we had kids, I stopped paying much attention to her, and totally focused on the kids. I wasn't fat, but I was definitely lazy and boring. Did not treat her like she had value (nor did she treat me like I had value).

You are missing my point that it is a lot more work to regain the attention of a bored wife than it is to gain the attention of a new woman. (This is one reason men cheat. I didn't, but I very easily could have. Married women came on to me all the time when I was married.) The only thing offsetting this is that if you have kids, a divorce will hurt them. I would have divorced my wife in 2016 instead of 2019 if we hadn't had kids. Sadly, my efforts to regain her attention proved futile. It certainly could not be said that I "bailed at the first sign of trouble" - though if you don't have kids, that really is the way to go.

I know how women's sexuality works. That is why I will never get married again. Once you get married, it's only a matter of time before she is bored with you.

That’s the right answer. If sex is important to you - don’t get married. Sex is best in the first months anyway. When you get to an age where sex is no longer that important, then get married.

Men should be taught this at a younger age because its certainly not what they expect. I think women are ahead of the curve maturity-wise in this area. They often get married because they’ve had their fill of banging hot guys and are ready to settle down. Guys think “Oh-boy, I’m getting married and I can kock down this great sex for a lifetime!”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

That hasn't been my experience with myself or my female friends, but it sounds like that was the case in your marriage. I'm sorry to hear that, although it does make me wonder how bad your marriage was that your wife was unable to "un-see" whatever it is you did.

You proved my point - that getting laid is work. Either that work is with your wife, or it's with other women. If you choose other women, fine. But a lot of men want to choose their wives (and vice versa).

Marriages are between real people with real feelings and real pain. A blanket solution of "just get divorced as soon as things start to head south! She'll never want you again anyway! He's never going to change!" isn't helpful, nor practical, and not based in real life. Most people want to fix their marriage, not bail at the first sign of trouble. The problem is that the ideas about relationships that circulate our culture aren't useful, and often destructive. The best we can do is promote the things that DO work and support those who need it.

Learn about relationships. Learn how men and women work. Learn how women's sexuality works. Commit to connecting with your partner and meeting his/her needs.

Our marriage was not "bad" in that there was no addiction, abuse, or adultery. There was fault on both sides, but we became indifferent to each other. After we had kids, I stopped paying much attention to her, and totally focused on the kids. I wasn't fat, but I was definitely lazy and boring. Did not treat her like she had value (nor did she treat me like I had value).

You are missing my point that it is a lot more work to regain the attention of a bored wife than it is to gain the attention of a new woman. (This is one reason men cheat. I didn't, but I very easily could have. Married women came on to me all the time when I was married.) The only thing offsetting this is that if you have kids, a divorce will hurt them. I would have divorced my wife in 2016 instead of 2019 if we hadn't had kids. Sadly, my efforts to regain her attention proved futile. It certainly could not be said that I "bailed at the first sign of trouble" - though if you don't have kids, that really is the way to go.

I know how women's sexuality works. That is why I will never get married again. Once you get married, it's only a matter of time before she is bored with you.

Getting laid is work. Easy if you know women And aren’t lazy. Hard if you don’t value women and you are lazy. Even harder if the woman you marry isn’t valued, and you’re lazy. And the advice to overcome that so work isn’t hard, is also still too diffuse, because you’re lazy. Glad your expertise can be bequeathed to the world. I trust you more than any research or social studies in the matter. Thanks, Anon.

Should I just out you? We can go blow for blow, pound for pound. Because the last thing you will do is stalk me and then try to permeate every single Damon thread and discussion I have to keep sanity in my life. Move on. Focus on your children. They should be doing homework now. I’ll be calling shortly.

[Anonymous]

Is the idea of sex in marriage as optional a millennial or gen Z thing? Gen X here and I don't know anyone who entered marriage thinking sex was as optional as SUV v Sedan