We are both coming from a religious conservative family. I am in my early 40s and my wife is in late 30s. We have been married for 10 years. The last 4 years have been really devoid of sex in our life. I have tried a lot set the mood, take her on dates, paid for babysitters , but she just keeps avoiding sex. She is not talking to any male (or female) outside, so I know for sure that she is not having an extra marital affair. She just says that she doesn’t feel any sexual arousal at all nowadays. She has allowed me to meet escorts to satisfy my urge if needed, but I don’t feel comfortable doing that. (Plus the fear of STD and HIV are always there.). I was initially feeling grateful for having a wife who allows me to satisfy my sexual urges outside marriage, but I realized that I am mentally not prepared to enjoy sex outside. I went back to her and asked her to change her mind and have sex at least once a week or two. But we have really had sex only twice last year. It was initiated by me on both occasions and she acted so disinterested, I felt as if I am raping her. I could not really enjoy the sex both times, because of her “come soon quickly!” attitude. She does not want to work out or eat healthy. She uses her recent job as an excuse for increasing her stress and reducing her libido. But she does not respect my job responsibilities at work – I work from home but in a senior position in my company with serious responsibilities ; she still asks me to pick up kids and drop them and randomly dictate chores, taking away my time. She always was a hypocrite, but at least the sex kept us going. If we get into an argument, she would never allow me to finish my sentences and keep interrupting me with totally insane arguments for any reasoning that I provide for her previous argument. If she cant one up me on valid arguments, she would start shouting at me, making our entire neighbors in apartment know it. I have tried to explain to her to keep her volume low while arguing but she never listens. Regardless of all this, if I get mad at her, then she would play the victim card, but not before turning up my anger to the max level and making me to shout as well. She would never talk to others like how she talks to me, so people think that she is a quiet person to be around with. When I point it out to her she says that she is being genuine with me and feels its within her right “to be real” with her hubby. Sometimes she starts another argument to deflect this. I don’t know what to do. I am staying together only for our kids and being from a conservative background.
4 comments
1) the no sex is a symptom not a cause.
2) you have way too many issues from this post to even get started.
What you need is to find a good therapist for you both. I would say both seperate at this point.
Seems like there is a lot of resentment on both sides.
What a dumpster fire of a relationship. I think it would be easier to end the relationship and start afresh.
Are you only nice to her & doing nice things for her when you want sex? Are you generally affectionate and loving with her even when sex isn’t on the table? Is your idea of affection being a grabby groper?
You sound mean and resentful and childish. You have to participate in family life & that involves spending time with the kids and doing chores. You aren’t the king of the castle and your wife and kids don’t exist to serve you.
She can probably sense your resentment and contempt bc you are so mean in how you describe her and this situation. You seem to think you’re the victim. It sounds like you want to be a sugar daddy more than a husband and father.
“She just says that she doesn’t feel any sexual arousal at all nowadays. She has allowed me to meet escorts to satisfy my urge if needed”
This can be a trick statement. She likely knows you cannot tolerate sex with strangers and need the whole emotional component to go along with sex. As long as you are devoting your emotional love and attention to her, you basically can’t have sex with anyone else. So she wins either way. If you DO have sex you can’t get emotionally involved with escorts, so she keeps the emotional attention, and if you DON’T have sex she still keeps the emotional attention. It ALSO may be her way of laying in some blackmail in case you initiate a divorce. The fact that you did take her up on it is a problem, hopefully there is no financial tracking that can be pinned on you. For sure you should NOT be engaging in this.
“But we have really had sex only twice last year. It was initiated by me on both occasions and she acted so disinterested, I felt as if I am raping her. I could not really enjoy the sex both times, because of her “come soon quickly!” attitude.”
Obviously this was deliberate on her part to make you not ask again.
You need marriage counseling but you are going to have to go about this a specific way. You need to start with personal therapy, spend a lot of weeks talking to a therapist to make sure that you are indeed doing everything that you should be to be a good husband. You may need to change attitudes on some thing. At the same time work out or hit the gym or whatever to get your body in condition and tip top shape. The idea here is eventually you would transition personal counseling into marriage counseling. Work with your therapist on that.
If there IS some sort of problem that she is seeing that you are not, and if therapy does help make some changes and fix that problem, and she sees those changes, she may be willing to go to therapy with you.
But if she is NOT willing then ask your wife if she is OK with you having a long term affair with another woman. If she says YES then your marriage is finished, and you should just divorce. Yes, having the affair will allow you to enjoy sex but it eventually will get you emotionally separated and you will likely divorce. It’s a lot cleaner to just go to the divorce and then she won’t have an affair she can old over you in family court to obtain child support.