Reply to Would You Remain Married If You Didn't Have Kids Together?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]A lot happens. How old are you?[/quote]

I'm 45 and my DH is 51.  We've been together 25+ years with 4 grown kids (well, one is off to college in 2 years).  I guess it's not that I can't understand the occasional marriage sputtering, but to see the extent to which it seems to be occurring to people on this board--that's confounding to me (and sad).  My parents have been married for 55 years, and while I know they've had ups and downs, they're still loving partners every day.  They go to museums and concerts and dinners, and I can tell you that the companionship is essential in your eighties in a way that it might not be in your forties/fifties when the dating world appears open to you.

[quote]I get what you are saying - marriage is more than just sex. But without a healthy and mutually satisfying sex life, you aren't really a married couple - you are basically good friends who aren't providing and indeed denying your spouse the chance for a full blown romantic and sexual relationship. Without sex, it's marriage in name only.[/quote]

I happen to think that marriage is as much about mature companionship than sex, but I'm flashing forward to that time 30 years from now when those posters who want to jump from sexually exciting relationships to the next one (which is surely easy enough to find at our ages) are alone.  Because sexual passion fades in every relationship.  How do you decide which relationship endures after the sexual glow fades?  Do you just figure that whomever you have crazy sex with in your early sixties is the one to stick?  Or are those of you who want regular awesome sex planning on being happy as a single person in your eighties and nineties?

[quote]But your point about needing to work on a relationship is why I am also would probably leave DW if we didn't have kids. Why would I want to work on my relationship with my wife, "the talk", therapy, asking for more intimacy, etc. when I could find that quite easily in a new relationship. But for kids, when the sex/inimacy dies down in any other relationship, it's a sign that it's time to move on.[/quote]

Every relationship needs work (though not the early sunshine-y ones, which is what makes dating exciting & fun), and would you be happy bouncing from new relationship to the next one?  Isn't there something about one particular partner (her intelligence, sense of humor, curiosity, kindness) that would make it worthwhile to stay even if the passion dies down?

I hear you on the intimacy, though.  I think sexual passion does die down, but intimacy should remain.  [b]I have regular sex with my DH[/b], but even when we couldn't always have regular sex (i.e., when I was on bedrest with my twin pregnancy), we remained intimate with our communication.  We're the only ones who know everything about each other, and I could never find someone who would have that sort of connection to the person I was in my twenties and thirties and forties.

[/quote]

That is why you don't see the issue.  You have regular sex.  With respect, you don't know how miserable it is to live without regular sex.  I would much rather have a string of sexual fulfilling relationships with people and die alone in my 80s than live in the state of sexual boredom with a spouse that has lost interest in sex.  Unfortunately, I have to choose between keeping my family intact and remaining married to an asexual wife or divorcing.  Without the kids, there would be nothing left to consider.

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