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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hey folks, weekly sex, which was the case for OP, is not the same thing as a sexless marriage. Nor did it sound like the husband expressed disappointment or frustration about it..instead both parties allowed intimacy (which goes beyond sex)  to dwindle, but only one spouse started an affair.

OP, the issue truly is not the sex, but whether you can believe him in the future, and that depends on whether he is capable of radical self honesty (takes a lot to.maintain the level of deception) and whether he is capable of dealing with stress, disappoinment neediness in appropriate ways.

Agree that you should for now see individual therapists, and consider post nuptial agreement. You do not have to make any decisions about the marriage now, not should you even feel pressured to declare that you are willing to work on it or stay in it. Just give yourself some time and space....[/quote]

OP here.  I make myself available for sex, but I've resigned myself to not really enjoying it.  I play along because I don't want to deprive him, but while once weekly maintenance sex is fine with me, apparently it is not fine with him.  He says he feels we lack chemistry, and he doesn't feel emotionally connected to me.  Having said that, neither of us have taken the initiative to spice things up.  In the past year, my warm gestures have been met with brush-offs or sarcasm.  I had assumed that since he wasn't chasing me, flirting with me or seducing me, that his drive was simply lowering due to aging.  I tell him I want to start anew, I'm willing to see a sex therapist, but I wonder if it will ever meet his expectations.

Yes he used a condom with her, and no, they did not have a sexual affair until very recently.  I know this because of the geographic distance. She has a foreign service type of life, with long stretches of living so far away that they could not have gotten together until recently when we started seeing more of them while living on the same continent.

He told her he wanted to stay with me and our family, and that she should make her life decisions independent of him.  They have not communicated in a month.  What I keep coming back to is the weakness and selfishness of what he did.  He has now damaged or killed three of his most important relationships.  He lost his buddy, he strained our marriage, and clearly he will need to cut off his friendship with her.  But I know it's foolish to apply logic and reason to these things.

[/quote]

OK, you say yourself that you "made yourself available for sex,"  but "resigned myself to not really enjoying it."  For how many years has this gone on?  Has DH every tried to address the different degree of importance each of you assign to a healthy sexual relationship?  "Playing along" and not being honest about how you feel or taking any action -- even knowing it's important to DH -- sounds like you (or both of you) brushed a critical issue under the rug for way too long.  Sex holds different degrees of importance to people.  Some are very sexual and see sex as an extension of intimacy.  Others don't assign sex as much value and see themselves as showing intimacy in other ways.  The issue here seems to be the long-term difference in sexual appetites and importance and which, by extension, affected your emotional intimacy.

You don't enjoy sex -- you said it yourself.  He does and presumably wants it more frequently.  I  could furthermore surmise that DH has been sensing for years that you weren't enjoying yourself OR interested in sex, so he shut down.  Armchair psychology here, but that's what I'm reading.[/quote]

Men, as well as women, crave intimacy as well as sex. When sex has degraded to the point of being an emotionless, robotic act, there are huge problems. I am a sensual woman, fully functioning woman who requires a man to be in tune with my needs.  If not, I have to move on. [/quote]

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