Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Marriage is more than just sex.

Of course, marriage is about more than sex. So if your DH said to you, "I love you and want to stay married, but sex is very important to me. Since you decided it's no longer something you want to do, I'm going to find someone to satisfy me sexually outside of our marriage." That would be totally ok with you, right?

I am not who you are responding to, but my answer would be "yes." If I am done, I could care less where you get it. (Woman here) In fact, I said this to my ex spouse.

But he left you anyway, to find love and sex with the same person?

Actually, no, I’m the one who left him. He didn’t cheat, but if he did, I wouldn’t have cared. It was over from the very beginning.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Marriage is more than just sex.

Of course, marriage is about more than sex. So if your DH said to you, "I love you and want to stay married, but sex is very important to me. Since you decided it's no longer something you want to do, I'm going to find someone to satisfy me sexually outside of our marriage." That would be totally ok with you, right?

I am not who you are responding to, but my answer would be "yes." If I am done, I could care less where you get it. (Woman here) In fact, I said this to my ex spouse.

But he left you anyway, to find love and sex with the same person?

Actually, no, I’m the one who left him. He didn’t cheat, but if he did, I wouldn’t have cared. It was over from the very beginning.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would force my spouse into therapy to figure out what we could do to have sex again. Choreplay? Romantic dates? Hormone replacement therapy?

I’m female and wouldn’t be okay with my dh not having sex with me. Once a week is bare minimum.

Good luck with that. How do you force someone into therapy? And they can go there and play with their thumbs if they don't care. The problems are usually far beyond lack of sex.

When you are in an otherwise healthy and thriving relationship and your spouse notices the difference in sexual appetite, you wouldn't have to force them into anything. They'd be communicating things they have tried because they are concerned that you are not getting what you need.

When you feel like you have to tell them to seek remedies even though they clearly know you are going without and have not bothered to bring it up, there is already a deeper issue than sex.

Exactly. So just talk to your wife and get divorced. Clearly there’s not a sense of love and respect in a relationship as described above.

What’s the point of staying married and cheating when you could just divorce and date as much as you like without having to lie about what you're doing?

Anonymous wrote:I would force my spouse into therapy to figure out what we could do to have sex again. Choreplay? Romantic dates? Hormone replacement therapy?

I’m female and wouldn’t be okay with my dh not having sex with me. Once a week is bare minimum.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wild post.

You’re framing this like there are two equally sneaky contract violations happening:

Spouse A says, “I don’t want sex anymore.”
Spouse B says, “Cool, I’ll outsource it.”

And you’re asking why only #2 gets torched. Here’s why.

Refusing sex is about what someone does with their own body. Cheating is about what someone does with the **shared agreement** of the marriage.

No one is obligated to provide sex to keep their marriage valid. Full stop. Even in a perfectly healthy, boring, middle-class, carpool-driving life. You don’t get conjugal rights because you’re annoyed.

But you are obligated not to lie and sneak around if you agreed to monogamy.

Those are not parallel actions.

Now, if one spouse decides they don’t want sex ever again? That absolutely changes the marriage. It may be devastating. It may be unfair. It may mean the relationship can’t continue.

But the honest response to a deal-breaker is:
“I can’t live like this. We need to fix this, open this, or end this.”

Not:
“I’ll quietly violate the agreement and call it integrity.”

You’re also assuming that the person who doesn’t want sex has “broken” the contract and therefore must be the one to file. That’s not how this works. People’s libidos change. Bodies change. Trauma happens. Aging happens. Hormones shift. Desire is not a lifetime guarantee baked into the vows.

Marriage isn’t a sexual service subscription.

If sex is essential to you (totally valid), then you’re the one who decides it’s a deal-breaker and you leave. That’s not punishment. That’s agency.

And the “just sex fling that doesn’t threaten the marriage” line is classic DCUM magical thinking. Affairs absolutely threaten marriages. Secrets rot things from the inside. Even if you swear you’ll never leave.

If you want an open marriage? Negotiate one.
If you want monogamy with sex? Say so.
If you’re sexually incompatible? Divorce.

But the idea that someone “owes” you sex or else they should be the one to file is just resentment dressed up as logic.

No one owes sex.
Everyone owes honesty.

Yes, they are. Normal people would reject what you say in bold.

Agree. There is something called the consummation of marriage for a reason.

You can only consummate the marriage once. Nothing required after that.

Why do you consummate it? Because sex is expected in a marriage.

Was have sex forever whenever I want it in your vows?

It’s literally in the vows

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Marriage is more than just sex.

Of course, marriage is about more than sex. So if your DH said to you, "I love you and want to stay married, but sex is very important to me. Since you decided it's no longer something you want to do, I'm going to find someone to satisfy me sexually outside of our marriage." That would be totally ok with you, right?

I am not who you are responding to, but my answer would be "yes." If I am done, I could care less where you get it. (Woman here) In fact, I said this to my ex spouse.

But he left you anyway, to find love and sex with the same person?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jeez, wait until some of you get old. Does an 85 year old man get to leave his 85 year old wife high and dry with an at-fault divorce because she doesn’t want to sleep with him anymore?

God made teeth fall out at the same time lubrication dries up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jeez, wait until some of you get old. Does an 85 year old man get to leave his 85 year old wife high and dry with an at-fault divorce because she doesn’t want to sleep with him anymore?

God made teeth fall out at the same time lubrication dries up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would force my spouse into therapy to figure out what we could do to have sex again. Choreplay? Romantic dates? Hormone replacement therapy?

I’m female and wouldn’t be okay with my dh not having sex with me. Once a week is bare minimum.

Good luck with that. How do you force someone into therapy? And they can go there and play with their thumbs if they don't care. The problems are usually far beyond lack of sex.

When you are in an otherwise healthy and thriving relationship and your spouse notices the difference in sexual appetite, you wouldn't have to force them into anything. They'd be communicating things they have tried because they are concerned that you are not getting what you need.

When you feel like you have to tell them to seek remedies even though they clearly know you are going without and have not bothered to bring it up, there is already a deeper issue than sex.

Anonymous wrote:Jeez, wait until some of you get old. Does an 85 year old man get to leave his 85 year old wife high and dry with an at-fault divorce because she doesn’t want to sleep with him anymore?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wild post.

You’re framing this like there are two equally sneaky contract violations happening:

Spouse A says, “I don’t want sex anymore.”
Spouse B says, “Cool, I’ll outsource it.”

And you’re asking why only #2 gets torched. Here’s why.

Refusing sex is about what someone does with their own body. Cheating is about what someone does with the **shared agreement** of the marriage.

No one is obligated to provide sex to keep their marriage valid. Full stop. Even in a perfectly healthy, boring, middle-class, carpool-driving life. You don’t get conjugal rights because you’re annoyed.

But you are obligated not to lie and sneak around if you agreed to monogamy.

Those are not parallel actions.

Now, if one spouse decides they don’t want sex ever again? That absolutely changes the marriage. It may be devastating. It may be unfair. It may mean the relationship can’t continue.

But the honest response to a deal-breaker is:
“I can’t live like this. We need to fix this, open this, or end this.”

Not:
“I’ll quietly violate the agreement and call it integrity.”

You’re also assuming that the person who doesn’t want sex has “broken” the contract and therefore must be the one to file. That’s not how this works. People’s libidos change. Bodies change. Trauma happens. Aging happens. Hormones shift. Desire is not a lifetime guarantee baked into the vows.

Marriage isn’t a sexual service subscription.

If sex is essential to you (totally valid), then you’re the one who decides it’s a deal-breaker and you leave. That’s not punishment. That’s agency.

And the “just sex fling that doesn’t threaten the marriage” line is classic DCUM magical thinking. Affairs absolutely threaten marriages. Secrets rot things from the inside. Even if you swear you’ll never leave.

If you want an open marriage? Negotiate one.
If you want monogamy with sex? Say so.
If you’re sexually incompatible? Divorce.

But the idea that someone “owes” you sex or else they should be the one to file is just resentment dressed up as logic.

No one owes sex.
Everyone owes honesty.

Yes, they are. Normal people would reject what you say in bold.

Agree. There is something called the consummation of marriage for a reason.

If your entire argument rests on medieval property law and the word “consummation,” you might want to sit with that.

No one owes you lifetime sexual access. That's not what marriage is, full stop, and it disregards all of the very valid biological changes that happen as we all age that may impact someone's libido.
If sex is non-negotiable for you, you leave. You don’t outsource it in secret and call it moral high ground.

You're completely wrong, no matter how many times you use that idiotic phrase "full stop." You're morally wrong, ethically wrong, and legally wrong. What you're describing is literally grounds for at-fault divorce in every jurisdiction. It's called constructive desertion.

First, all 50 states and DC have no fault divorce.

Also, there is a lot more to the old timey contructive desertion claim. Otherwise, you could claim it when a spouse has erectile disfunction, or vaginal atrophy, or paralysis, etc. So no, it's not immoral or illegal to have limited or no sexual access.

Spousal rape, however, is very illegal.

Isn’t that what most of the people who stop having sex have? Something wrong with them that they refuse to talk to a doctor about.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am happy with my spouse regarding his parenting. I am happy about his sense of humor and his kindness. I am unhappy about his laziness and low energy generally. What if I want satisfying sex enough to cheat but not to give up the good part? This is why these issues are much more complex than people make them out to be. In my case, I settle for a vibrator and have for years but I can see other partners making different choices.

I can get off with toys too but nothing beats the feeling of being desired by someone. Oh well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Marriage is more than just sex.

Of course, marriage is about more than sex. So if your DH said to you, "I love you and want to stay married, but sex is very important to me. Since you decided it's no longer something you want to do, I'm going to find someone to satisfy me sexually outside of our marriage." That would be totally ok with you, right?

I am not who you are responding to, but my answer would be "yes." If I am done, I could care less where you get it. (Woman here) In fact, I said this to my ex spouse.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are a pig who does not understand marriage. Patience and understanding should be your response to the no sex request. That is not the end of a marriage, it is simply a phase. Your response to go involve a third party for sexual reasons is unfair to third party and devastating to your wife and children.
Don’t be a dick.
Grow up. Apologize to your wife and children for your ridiculous a&& clown behavior and start asking what you can to to be a better dad and partner.

Here we go

Here is how I tell you about my situation - I understand that patience and understanding is important but my ex-wife did not seek treatment and my patience was making her more relaxed and she stopped putting efforts. This is not just about sex but she has also gained weight, no exercise, type 2 and other medical conditions, and also reduced contributing in other ways. After understanding and patiences for more than 2+ years, I called it quits. I respect myself enough that I am not going to suffer because of someone else's inadequacies. Unless, there is a something serious going on, there is no reason for any of the partners to control sex. You do that, then you are already checking out of the relationship/marriage.