Anonymous wrote:I mean, isn’t that the whole goal of the uninterested partner?

"Goal" makes it sound premeditated. Often enough, the uninterested partner wishes she (usually, but not always a she) wanted to want sex more but just doesn't. But, because she's not interested, it's also not a priority to figure out why she's uninterested. Pressed for a reason, she can usually come up with something plausible - but it might be wrong or a half-truth.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m 5 months into married celibacy; I’m going to wait until it gets to a year then I will attempt to make myself happy. Five separate offers for counseling and I’ve done everything possible to clean up my side of the street but there’s no interest. 7 months to go!

Affair? Or divorce?

Affair usually indicates lying, I’m not going to lie, I’m not looking to hurt anyone by throwing it in their face but surely there is someone out there in the same predicament where life isn’t so horrible it warrants disrupting your children but it isn’t good enough to go on without change.

Huh? So you are going to tell your spouse, or not? That makes no sense.

If your partner is uninterested in sex, feel free to simply declare the relationship open and go meet your normal healthy sexual needs elsewhere. An uninterested partner gets no vote on this.

I tried this for a bit (we were early 40s with two kids). I was initiating a lot and I figured I'd stop to see how often she'd initiate. The answer was "some"...not as often as I'd like, but more than I'd feared.

If it had turned out that she never initiated then we probably wouldn't still be together.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m 5 months into married celibacy; I’m going to wait until it gets to a year then I will attempt to make myself happy. Five separate offers for counseling and I’ve done everything possible to clean up my side of the street but there’s no interest. 7 months to go!

Affair? Or divorce?

Affair usually indicates lying, I’m not going to lie, I’m not looking to hurt anyone by throwing it in their face but surely there is someone out there in the same predicament where life isn’t so horrible it warrants disrupting your children but it isn’t good enough to go on without change.

Hahaha! I had this EXACT same reasoning, and as an attractive woman, I found a man who appealed to me incredibly easily.

It was so terrible. I do NOT recommend. Tell your spouse you can’t go on like this and see if they still refuse counseling. Your integrity matters.

To the person suggesting they’d have an affair at the one year mark, don’t. Yes, there probably is someone who would like to have sex with you and not disrupt their family.. and it could work for a time. Plan on it going wrong, you start to want to be with this person on the daily and not just for sex. You like the sex but this person shows signs of things you don’t like like they want to meet the kids, they talk of moving to your area (which they are allowed to do) they decide or already coach or are involved in something your kids like, sex with another adult won’t barr them from starting or continuing them doing the same things you do, soccer, church, drums, the same things you may be doing. Your sex partner isn’t a plaything you can just put away when you’re done and never have them turn up again for nothing to do with you but in your mental state, you’ll see it as “they can’t let go” “they’re stalking me” “they might kidnap my kids” when all they want to do is live in an area with good schools same as you do. Try explaining to your wife and kids why you don’t want them taking swim lessons with Ms. Sally or why they can’t join chorus because when the answer is you used to bone the music teacher or still are. Remember that.


Plan on being branded a cheater, people are fine with divorce, they aren’t fine with cheating and nobody will ever believe your version that your partner didn’t want sex with you, or if they do, they’ll think “and if you’d been home with your spouse, you may have just gotten the sex you wanted”.

Secrets have a way of getting out. People see things, hear things, get a vibe something is going on, you aren’t the secret keeper you think you are, and people care way more then you think, at least when it comes to cheating.

Plan for your kids to find out and them being damaged in a way that only comes with cheating, dad screwed around on mom, he didn’t decide he didn’t like her anymore, and oh wait, did he miss my performance because he really did have to work or was he off with his girlfriend? Plan on people saying “You don’t cheat, you drag them to therapy” never mind that you can’t drag an adult anywhere and we don’t have a 911 for therapy. Maybe we should, maybe we do for self=harm but we don’t have it for “my wife won’t f**ck me, something is wrong with her”.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m 5 months into married celibacy; I’m going to wait until it gets to a year then I will attempt to make myself happy. Five separate offers for counseling and I’ve done everything possible to clean up my side of the street but there’s no interest. 7 months to go!

Affair? Or divorce?

Affair usually indicates lying, I’m not going to lie, I’m not looking to hurt anyone by throwing it in their face but surely there is someone out there in the same predicament where life isn’t so horrible it warrants disrupting your children but it isn’t good enough to go on without change.

I mean, isn’t that the whole goal of the uninterested partner?

Anonymous wrote:I’m 5 months into married celibacy; I’m going to wait until it gets to a year then I will attempt to make myself happy. Five separate offers for counseling and I’ve done everything possible to clean up my side of the street but there’s no interest. 7 months to go!

Affair? Or divorce?

I’m 5 months into married celibacy; I’m going to wait until it gets to a year then I will attempt to make myself happy. Five separate offers for counseling and I’ve done everything possible to clean up my side of the street but there’s no interest. 7 months to go!

Yup. I have. There was a period where it was incredibly frustrating. I gave up initiating. It wasn't and isn't ideal, but now that I (DH) am in my early 50s, my libido is decreasing and, while our sexlessness is still sad, it's not as big a deal as it used to be.

As best as I can tell -- and taking her at her word -- she's not resentful of me, she's not overworked, she still finds me as attractive as she finds anyone else, she just doesn't want to have sex. I think her natural libido level is fairly low plus she has some pretty significant body image issues. Therefore, we don't have sex.

We have kids, have been married for 20+ years, and are otherwise pretty content. So, porn is my friend, I guess.

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Slipped up literally this past weekend when we had a pretty big fight and I was going to sleep in the guest room. I really don't like sleeping near anyone I've argued with, and I've always had this issue. He said, "wow, you're going to punish me now?" I said, "tell me - literally, exactly, 1000% clearly - how is my sleeping anywhere else a punishment to you? Exactly?" He said nothing, of course.

Ehh you know what you were doing.

In my experience the lack of sex was symptomatic of other issues and it all came to a head eventually. I couldn’t just live without sex, and I am a woman. Marriage counseling helped a lot. Don’t give up.

Yup. Slipped up literally this past weekend when we had a pretty big fight and I was going to sleep in the guest room. I really don't like sleeping near anyone I've argued with, and I've always had this issue. He said, "wow, you're going to punish me now?" I said, "tell me - literally, exactly, 1000% clearly - how is my sleeping anywhere else a punishment to you? Exactly?" He said nothing, of course.

It’s so freeing. Why even bother if the other person doesn’t reciprocate? You’ll save your sanity. A state of indifference seems to be the easiest way. I mean, that’s if you have kids. If not, you should probably leave, but anyone married knows why I’m talking about. You can’t “just leave” a lot of the time until the kids are older. Anyway, kudos to those of you who have a partner with high libido who actually seeks out sex frequently and doesn’t treat it like a chore or a duty. Or rebuffs you when you try.