Reply to Told the wife she has no right to demand an answer...

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My AP and I both have reasonably comfortable partnership-like marriages where there is zero sex or even physically intimate contact.

Divorce would be tough for both of us. Sexless life was unbearable.  We didn't ask their permission to live normal lives again. In both marriages, once counseling failed to bring sex back both of our spouses realized they held the cards in a certain way. We didn't want to break up our lives and homes and couldn't do anything to make sex come back.

So after years of friendship, including during the sexless phases of our marriages, we solved the problem.

And I've no interest in our spouses' input. They didn't seek ours in ending sex. [/quote]

Do they know?[/quote]

They may not know other than that they're just not interested anymore, which is a pretty normal biological response as women age and hormones change. The consequence of it gets magnified, though, when a woman feels pressure not just to have sex when she could take it or leave it, but also to fake a high level of engagement and enjoyment. It's exhausting. But sex that is more "taking one for the team" isn't acceptable for many men, so there's no compromise that gives men the type of sex they expect without a whole lot of work on their part of their wives. And it's not like it's work that's even really appreciated, men don't treat that as an act of love their wives do for them that perhaps should warrant equivalent gestures of love back, many men see enthusiastic sex as a right they are entitled to demand of their wives, one that means their wives are failing in their marriages if they don't provide it.

But if, as a woman, you actually voice all of this to your husband, you have now utterly failed in your role as sex provider because you have destroyed the illusion that the sex you are having is work rather than something you are ecstatic about. So there's no honest conversation to be had on this issue, and women end up falling back on being "busy" or "tired" because those aren't as much of a threat to their husbands' egos/their marriages as "I just don't have much of a sex drive anymore."[/quote]

That's really not true. When women of any age avoid the sex part it's more often to do with unresolved issues, and resentments.  Those make a spouse very unappealing.  [/quote]

You're disputing basic biology of aging? Sure, it can be what you described, but it also can be decreasing sex drive due to biological changes (and the unacceptability of that to some men). It's a well-documented medical phenomenon, hormone changes as women get into perimenopause (which typically starts in a woman's 40s but can start earlier and can last for years before a woman reaches actual menopause) cause changes to the vagina that make sex itself less pleasurable, and reduce the hormones that trigger sexual desire in women. Reduced sex drive is one of the classic symptoms of perimenopause.[/quote]

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