Sexless-ness is an acceptable negative outcome from marriage

[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.

You admit you were a bad partner, stopped paying attention to her, and treated her like she had no value.

Yet you still keep claiming women just "get bored".

You still don't get it.

And then you divorced knowing you were a crappy husband and messed up your kids' lives forever.....All because you wanted to get laid and finding a new woman was "easier" than putting any real effort into your marriage.

The only silver lining here is that your wife and kids are way better off without you. No one needs that kind of selfishness and entitlement in their lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Being denied sex and intimacy is a form of abuse, just as bad as being cheated on if not worse. Not surprised that men (or women) who emerge from these have trouble trusting again.

It is a form of neglect, not abuse.

But you can't force people to have sex they don't want. That is rape.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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!

The spouse doesn’t want an open marriage. Or a divorce. Continue to commence the crazy cycle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Being denied sex and intimacy is a form of abuse, just as bad as being cheated on if not worse. Not surprised that men (or women) who emerge from these have trouble trusting again.

It is a form of neglect, not abuse.

But you can't force people to have sex they don't want. That is rape.

Negligence is a form of abuse. And yes, that is cause for difficulty in trusting someone.No one is suggesting that anyone take sex by force. No one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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!

The spouse doesn’t want an open marriage. Or a divorce. Continue to commence the crazy cycle.

A spouse who has already declared sexless marriage does not get to vote on the open marriage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Wait, you mean when a woman wants to have sex, she does, and when she doesn't want to have sex, she.... doesn't? What voodoo is this? Ladies be crazy.

Wanting to have a kid is a valid reason to have sex. Being tired is a valid reason to not have sex. This isn't complicated.

After our first child was born, my husband thought our sex life would be the same as before, including the fact that before we had kids we regularly stayed up until midnight or later and still had sex before going to sleep. After we had a kid, it took him literally 2 years to figure out that if we didn't have sex before 9pm, it wasn't going to happen. It took him this long, despite me telling him, repeatedly, that I wanted to have sex I just couldn't stay up that late anymore because the kid was wearing me out.

Now we have sex at 8pm after the kid goes to bed, before we even eat dinner. But boy did it take him way too long to latch onto this idea. For months I almost felt as if he didn't want to have sex anymore because it was SO bizarre that he kept insisting on trying to have sex at like midnight when I was catatonic. I thought, what is going on? Can't he see I am literally asleep? What is going on?

Nope, turned out he did want to have sex. He's just really set in his ways, and doesn't always listen very well when I tell him things. Oh well, still love him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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!

The spouse doesn’t want an open marriage. Or a divorce. Continue to commence the crazy cycle.

A spouse who has already declared sexless marriage does not get to vote on the open marriage.

Of course they do. Men need to stop acting like women not having sex with them is committing some mortal sin. It's so shockingly immature and tantrum-y and manipulative. It's not a cute look (maybe that explains the lack of sex)

[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.

And we are telling you the woman's experience. I hate to tell you, cause I know you dont want to listen, but we get a say in it too. Women are "visual creatures"- arguably more so than men, given how much more we tend to care about things like home decor and clothes. But yes, we also care about emotions, about how you're treating us. So many men are almost pathologically selfish and self centered and then act shocked when we get turned off by it. Hello! You've been acting like a douche and the attraction is gone. Why is that so hard to figure out?

Of course you can find sex online- women can go online and have literally THOUSANDS of options- many more than you, as a man, will ever ever ever have. But how is that relevant? It's not about doing the easy thing, it's about doing the correct thing, unless you're just lazy beyond belief.

And I am a single woman and ITA that divorced men arent desirable. In fact most of them give off a very sad vibe that most unmarried women, except the desperate ones, really want to avoid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

But how many people, both men and women, would commit to a sexless marriage? Who would still get engaged and walk down the aisle knowing a sexless marriage was on the other end? Probably very few.

Literally anyone who is getting married is committing to that probability? Just like you comitt to "in sickness and in health, in better and worse" and all the things that covers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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!

The spouse doesn’t want an open marriage. Or a divorce. Continue to commence the crazy cycle.

A spouse who has already declared sexless marriage does not get to vote on the open marriage.

Of course they do. Men need to stop acting like women not having sex with them is committing some mortal sin. It's so shockingly immature and tantrum-y and manipulative. It's not a cute look (maybe that explains the lack of sex)

It’s not a crime for a wife to not want sex. It’s not a crime for her husband (who does want sex) to get that elsewhere. How immature for you to think your disinterest means he goes without.

[Anonymous]

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.

So you proudly sleep with emotionally damaged men. You sound insecure.

[Anonymous]

It wasn't acceptable to me. I'm the ex-wife. No way.

[Anonymous]

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.

This whole comment is so accurate (especially the bolded part). Thanks to the author for articulating it so well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Wait, you mean when a woman wants to have sex, she does, and when she doesn't want to have sex, she.... doesn't? What voodoo is this? Ladies be crazy.

Wanting to have a kid is a valid reason to have sex. Being tired is a valid reason to not have sex. This isn't complicated.

After our first child was born, my husband thought our sex life would be the same as before, including the fact that before we had kids we regularly stayed up until midnight or later and still had sex before going to sleep. After we had a kid, it took him literally 2 years to figure out that if we didn't have sex before 9pm, it wasn't going to happen. It took him this long, despite me telling him, repeatedly, that I wanted to have sex I just couldn't stay up that late anymore because the kid was wearing me out.

Now we have sex at 8pm after the kid goes to bed, before we even eat dinner. But boy did it take him way too long to latch onto this idea. For months I almost felt as if he didn't want to have sex anymore because it was SO bizarre that he kept insisting on trying to have sex at like midnight when I was catatonic. I thought, what is going on? Can't he see I am literally asleep? What is going on?

Nope, turned out he did want to have sex. He's just really set in his ways, and doesn't always listen very well when I tell him things. Oh well, still love him.

Voodoo is an African religious system. Let's not use it as denigrative slang term.

[Anonymous]

Neglect and indifference leads some spouses to not want sex or intimacy from their spouse. I think there are very few if any couples where physically nothing is wrong and the relationship is kind and caring and healthy yet is sexless.