Reply to Why isn’t divorce justified if my wife lets herself slide or withholds?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's wrong to feel entitled to somebody else's body for the sake of your own gratification. Also the reason you wife is "letting herself slide" and "withholding" is because she doesn't want to look cute for or have sex with somebody who feels entitled to her body for his own gratification. You're not treating her like her own person with her own desires, feelings, etc.

As for divorce being justified, I dunno. Depends on how many innocents will be hurt by the divorce. [/quote]

I’m a woman but I loathe this stance. Of course his wife should be treated like her own person, and likewise, she should be intimate with her husband; it’s part of marriage and if it’s not happening, it’s time for counseling. Nobody should be forced to endure a sexless marriage. And I say this as someone who lost my drive and struggle with this in my own marriage.

He may not be entitled to her body, but he’s entitled to divorce. The part about “letting herself go” does rub me the wrong way, though.[/quote]

Jesus you are ridiculous move to Missouri with the other hand maids [/quote]

DP and as psycho feminist as they come but I agree. No woman should be pressured into s3x. No woman should be forced into s3x. But those two central truisms are not incompatible with another truth, '[b]barring specific exceptional circumstances, people enter into marriage with the expectation of having regular s3x and not having s3x with your spouse will likely lead to a significant degradation in the quality of the relationship, up to and including divorce[/b]'.

'No one should have to endure a sexless marriage' is directly compatible with 'no one should be forced to have sex they don't want to have'. Both mean that both parties in the relationship have agency and can advocate for their own needs. Both mean that all relationships are voluntary, as they should be. [/quote]

I think if someone is unhappy in a marriage and you can't work out an acceptable situation with your spouse, you should divorce, so this isn't me suggesting someone unhappy in a sexless marriage should stick out out. I don't care if they do or don't.

But I disagree with the bolded "truth". Unless it's been made explicit in your decision/agreement to get married that one or both partners expects regular sex throughout the entire marriage, I think most people assume sex is going to drop off after kids and in middle age. Plus if this is your expectation, you better have a conversation about what "regular" means and see if it matches your spouse because there are lots of people who would consider once-a-month sex to be regular, where as there are other people who consider that basically sexless.

While some people do maintain frequent sex after kids and as they get older, most couples drop off considerably during this time. When I got married in my early 30s, I did not assume we'd be maintaining our level of activity in perpetuity for the rest of our lives, and indeed, we haven't. In fact, for periods when we had very young kids, I would say our marriage was basically sexless for several years (like fewer than 6x a year). But no one involved was like "What?! I didn't sign up for this!" even if we were a little surprised by the degree by which sex decreased, because it was so obviously explainable by the circumstances -- hard pregnancies, PPD, normal newborn sleeplessness, very typical exhaustion from babies/toddlers/preschoolers. There is a solid 2 years in there where I went to bed at like 9:30 pretty much every night and was still exhausted 100% of the time and it is actually impressive we had sex at all during those years.

Just the audacity of thinking you can commit to a LIFELONG relationship with someone and expect sex to maintain the same consistency the entire time, regardless of life circumstances. If that's your expectation, you should definitely discuss it up front because I think it's really unrealistic for the average couple.[/quote]

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