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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, the thing is, you have limited options.

1) Leave her. The marriage doesn't feel like a marriage to you anymore, and that's not what you signed up for. Fine. So leave.

2) Have an affair. Will solve your sex problem but loses you the moral high ground, even if some people think it's justified based on the "lack of sex" (note: once a month meh sex isn't a lack of sex, but whatever, it's your d*ck).

3) Accept reality, make peace, and carry on with your life, simmering in resentment.

You don't like those options. Your current apathy will absolutely ferment into resentment and then contempt. Your wife will know. She won't be your friend anymore. Your kids will know. You will feel like crap because you will know you're setting a lousy example for them.

So then what?

4) Talk to your wife, honestly. Either do it on your own, or go to therapy and do it there. The crying and talking about how she's not good enough - that's legit. It's true. She probably doesn't feel great about doing things that make you feel sad. But it's also a dodge if it's being used to shut down a frank conversation about a problem. Do not let it shut the conversation down. Be clear about what you need. Be clear about what "putting in an effort" would look like for her. Ask her to be clear about what "putting in an effort" would look like for you. Then...

5) Follow up. Try whatever plan for a month or two. Then talk about it again. I get the feeling from your posts that you are using "just don't really care" as a dodge to avoid actually doing anything to solve this problem. You think you've done things, but apparently, they are not the right things. If you really and truly think that you've done everything you can to resolve it and nothing has changed, then I will refer you to options 1-3, because they are all that is left.[/quote]

Declare Open Marriage. It's not an affair, it's a lifestyle choice. No loss of moral high ground at all.[/quote]

PP here. Look, I'm sympathetic to the OP's situation to an extent, but that is NOT the way that an open marriage works. An open marriage is something that both spouses agree on. If he says "I Declare Open Marriage!" and she doesn't agree, then he's just cheating and trying to justify it. If he asks for an open marriage and she agrees, then the next step is to talk about the rules of that arrangement. If OP thinks that's something his wife will agree to, I'm happy to talk more about what some respectful rules for an open marriage might be as I have one good friend with an open marriage and learned a lot about it, but without consent from both spouses for that arrangement, it's just cheating. Saying otherwise makes you look like an asshole.[/quote]

OP's wife did not come talk to him and ask him to agree to a sexless marriage. He is being an honorable man by giving her the choice between Open Marriage, or she can always divorce. It is not cheating, she is fully aware that their marriage is Open. She set the precedent for unilateral decisions about sex, he is only following the "new rules" that she herself established. He is no more an asshole than she is (for "declaring" sexless marriage without his prior agreement).[/quote]

Nope. A person has a reasonable expectation that their spouse isn't sleeping with other people, regardless of how much sex they are or are not having with the person they married. When one spouse has sex with someone they're not married to without the explicit permission of the person they're married to, it's called cheating. It doesn't matter if you provided advance notice that you were gonna cheat or not. It's still cheating.

Anyway, this isn't a sexless marriage. By OP's own definition, they have crappy sex once a month and he doesn't enjoy it either. You don't get to suddenly say it's okay for you to cheat because your spouse isn't having exactly the kind of sex you want as often as you want to have it. I'm sure my husband would love to have anal more often than we do. My unwillingness to do that every time doesn't make it okay for him to seek it somewhere else.[/quote]

No! It is NOT cheating if I inform my spouse that I will be going elsewhere for sex that he/she does not want. That is called an Open Marriage and this declaration is completely justified (and should be expected) if a spouse unilaterally decides to stop having sex.  There is literally no difference in a spouse making either of choices. If it's "suddenly OK" to decide not to have sex, it is equally OK to decide to go elsewhere. The spouse on the receiving end of such a decision is free to decide if he/she wants to stay married. Nobody can force you to stay in an Open (or a sexless) marriage against your will.

As to your husband's desire for more anal: that is a different matter. Start a thread.[/quote]

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