Long post but need to share important context information. Please bear with me.
My wife (LL 36f) and I (HL 36m) have been in a relationship for 15-16 years and married for 8. We have never had sex and I still remain a virgin. I have gone through several cycles of denial, shock, acceptance, trying to communicate, trying to fix things and just live with it until everything comes back. There were many issues in our marriage early on, primarily due to living in a joint family, but we got a seperate living unit from the family that addressed the privacy concerns and eased up issues in our marriage. Things have gotten much better between us but no sex. The biggest bottleneck is no communication around this topic. If I try to get into it, there’s a complete shut down discussing what she things is creating discomfort for her and she says let’s do it. When we actually get to it, she doesn’t even move and has a blank expression on her face. I almost get a feeling of raping and have to quickly stop. I have tried everything I have come across on this sub for the past 5 years to resolve the situation and try not to go for a seperation. But now, I don’t think I am able to carry on like this. This has broken me down and it doesn’t even register to her as an open issue.
What I need today: Advice on how to initiate a divorce conversation basis the following scenario.
Things as they stand:
1. I had stopped trying quite a while ago due to how much it impacts my mental well being. I feel resentment. The feeling of getting rejected by your partner is just extremely invasive. In all these years, she has not initiated even once.
2. Our last real conversation and attempt was towards the end of 2020. She doesn’t think it’s an open issue in our marriage anymore but it’s eating away at me. Having the divorce conversation will feel like dropping an unknown bomb to her.
3. We have no kids. I always wanted kids and she had agreed in these conversations before our marriage. Then there was a complete silence on this topic and I also felt it wasn’t the best choice to bring kids into the picture as I did not feel confident about our future. I took the brunt of making this choice infront of our families. I made peace with it earlier but now I really feel it’s an extremely important part of my life that I am giving up along with intimacy.
4. I have also spent time again in the last two weeks meeting new set of lawyers and therapists with the following objectives
– Lawyers: To understand what’s the best strategy to divorce in this case. TLDR is that it has to be a mutual divorce and I can’t go to a scenario where this is a contested divorce. If she takes me to court, my life is done with. Non consummation of marriage for annulment can’t really be proven with burden on proof on me. She can put fake cases, which is very normal in Indian scenario, to stretch the case for years and finish any hope for my future. It takes anywhere between 5-15 years for these matters to close with usually the guy at the losing end both in terms of time and money. All potential strategies focus on minimising monetary impact but it’s almost a 100% surety for other things to happen. In addition, she has additional rights as she belongs to a scheduled backward caste. Ideally she shouldn’t use it, but if she does, aggressive criminal cases can be brought on me and my family.
– Therapists: I have spoken to three. All of them, including the older ones are all pro marriage and are pushing me to communicate with her and bring her to the table. I have tried everything and it doesn’t work. She doesn’t want to go to a therapist.
5. I do not want to reconcile. Even if she says she will fix it or work on it, I don’t want it. I am so damaged that I know the only thing I will feel is not love or intimacy but fear and rejection. I do not want to give it even one more shot. I am done.
6. I am ok to do this amicably and provide a fair share as a part of our separation. She earns her own decent money, which I have never asked for so she does her own expenditure, savings and investments. She doesn’t contribute to the household financially. I am ok giving up my entire savings and investments to her, which should be enough to cover for a decent sized new 2BHK house in a good city, in addition to all the jewelry we gave her during the wedding and all belongings in the current residential unit (some of which she brought as gift. Please note that it wasn’t dowry and we had explicitly refuted accepting them but gave in on her insisting. Total worth is <$3K). We live in our ancestral house which belongs to my father and I don’t want her going after them.
Please help me with what could be ways to break this decision to her, leaving now ambiguity around the possibility of a reconciliation and amicably transition into individual lives.
TL;DR: Wife no sex in 8 year long marriage. Virgin husband needs advice on how to ask for divorce.