I’m really curious about the definition of ‘sex’ for you all. I (M, 40s) am in a dead bedroom relatonship with my wife (F, 40s) for more than 10 years.
We both had pretty traumatic childhoods. I have been in therapy for 4 years. I’ve become a lot more confident about myself and have come to the conclusion that I’d rather have a life without my wife than continue having a sexless life for the rest of my days.
We have started couple’s therapy but it feels like we are at a stalemate:
* My wife blames our sexless life on me and says that I have ‘erectile dysfunction’. I counter that we both don’t want kids and that therefore the idea of having unprotected sex whilst she also is not on birth control, turns me off. My wife insists on no condom penetration for sex due to an allergy. (I have tried all sort’s of hypoallergenic condoms and she still refuses requesting unprotected sex.) In the past she was on birth control and we never had issues with my erections and I also have no problem getting aroused and a hardon.
* For her any other means of bringing each other to orgasm are not sex. She essentially says that handjobs and oral sex (and this is me offering, not requesting it) are not something she wants or feels is sex.
* When I try to initiate sex in any way she finds other excuses as well.
My argument is: *Sex is essentially not about how you please a partner, but about the fact that you show each other that you are comfortable being with them when experiencing intimate pleasure such as an orgasm.*
I’ve been able to bring her to orgasm in the past, but she never orgasms very strongly. Yet the very few times over the last few years she allowed me to try she asked me to stop within less than 2 minutes, without any guidance how I could make her feel more comfortable.
When she lectures me about sex it’s literally reading out from romance novels, often describing fairly submissive acts by the women (none of which she’d ever offer and I won’t push her without explicit consent) followed by essentially rape after (which I’d again only do with condom and consent). She has stopped talking about this since we started therapy and has denied that the way I interpreted her ‘lectures’ was correct.
It really feels that she is not comfortable enough with me to experience intimacy, not comfortable sharing her actual desires, and not comfortable compromising. It hurts and I’m at a point of making an ultimatum, that we can either start talking more openly about our needs, or should call it quits.
But is my definition of sex here wrong?
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(Apologies if I should have posted this elsewhere in a more relationship based subreddit, but I felt it may be too intimate for the latter.)
13 comments
The only thing I can say for sure is having a baby is not going to to fix your issues. You two have a lot of relationship baggage. If you are unable to work out your disagreements with this counseling then you two are pretty much done. Whatever you do don’t get her pregnant now. It will only make it worse.
Sex is a pleasurable experience between 2+ people – and includes anything more than kissing and basic touching.
My only advice for the rest is to choose yourself because it seems like your relationship isn’t working.
If you’re certain that you never want to have kids and birth control (or its lack) is an issue for both of you then you might consider getting a vasectomy. It’s relatively simple and a quick recovery, and never having to think about birth control is a great thing.
Good luck with the rest of it.
Get a vasectomy and go from there.
And it sounds like your wife want you to be dominant in the bedroom.
intercourse
Your definition of sex here isn’t *wrong*, but it’s not matching up well with your wife’s definition. If she says “I want sex, and that’s not sex,” we can quibble about whether it is or isn’t sex, but the crux of your feelings and hers is that what you find acceptable or satisfying, she does not. If she doesn’t think mouth or hand play are “sex,” it may just mean that she doesn’t find those activities sexually exciting or satisfying in the same way as genital penetration.
>It really feels that she is not comfortable enough with me to experience intimacy, not comfortable sharing her actual desires, and not comfortable compromising. It hurts and I’m at a point of making an ultimatum, that we can either start talking more openly about our needs, or should call it quits.
You should focus on your feelings and communication as a couple, not the definition of “sex”. You’ve been in therapy on your own for about 4 years, you said – I imagine that you grew a lot as a person through that therapy. I’m going to assume that you and your wife got married for a reason, and you were good partners to each other for where you were in your lives when your relationship started. Your personal growth through therapy seems to have put you in a position where you know what you want out of life, and are frustrated at your wife’s lack of open communication.
I think you need to talk about this with your wife, but you may not be best served by making it an ultimatum. I don’t know how long you and your wife have been in couple’s therapy, or if she’s been in therapy herself (or for how long), but consider that she may not have had the growth rate you did or the time in therapy that you have. I think if you communicate that you’re frustrated with her rate of progress, because you love her and want to sexually fulfill her, and that you feel like your own needs aren’t being met, you’re more likely to see her try to open up more in therapy.
I obviously can’t guarantee anything; you may be best served by finding a new partner. You definitely need to be with *someone* who can communicate better with you, and only you can really determine whether your wife should be that person, or if you will have better luck meeting other people.
Are you sure she doesn’t want to get pregnant
It sounds like she’s not comfortable with condoms. I don’t have an allergy but condoms irritate me and it’s unreasonable to expect her to go on birth control. The effects can be undesirable, both for her and your relationship. I agree that a vasectomy sounds like a good idea.
It’s also frustrating that she describes her perception of sex with you using romance novels. It sounds like she has some trouble expressing herself clearly or perhaps doesn’t want to for some reason.
I like your definition of sex minus the orgasm part. Both oral and manual sex can be sex too in **my** opinion. But even if PIV **wasn’t** sex, it sounds like she’d still be asking for it.
It sounds like there are more underlying issues in your relationship. I hope it works out with the sex therapist.
Sex is more than just putting your penis in her vagina. It starts with foreplay (kissing, dirty talk, hand stuff, oral, etc.) and can, but doesn’t necessarily need to, end with an orgasm for either/both parties. You can have sex without achieving orgasm. You can continue having sex after achieving orgasm. We literally have different terms for different kinds of sex (oral sex, anal sex, etc.). Even just fingering her to completion, or eating her out until she cums, should be considered sex, imo. It strikes me as unnecessarily restrictive to solely define sex as a single act done in a specific way. All of it allows you to connect with her romantically + sexually, and all of it allows you both to experience sexual pleasure.
In my opinion, sex can start hours before you actually take your clothes off and fuck. It’s highly psychological. If you’re walking around downtown with her, whispering into her ear all the ways you want to ravish her, occasionally pulling her aside to kiss her, and getting her all worked up – that’s all a part of good foreplay, which is to say that it’s a part of sex. You can spend the day laying in bed together literally just doing foreplay for hours, and I would still consider that to be part of sex.
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>When she lectures me about sex it’s literally reading out from romance novels, often describing fairly submissive acts by the women (none of which she’d ever offer and I won’t push her without explicit consent) followed by essentially rape after (which I’d again only do with condom and consent)
It sounds like your wife is very kinky, but doesn’t feel comfortable talking about her kinks in an open and straight-forward way. This also reads as very judgmental on your part, imo. I think that your wife is probably afraid to open up to you about her turn-ons, because she’s afraid that you’ll judge her harshly for them. Obviously, I”m lacking a lot of context here, but it sounds like you’re putting a lot of pressure on her without helping her to feel comfortable to express her sexual needs. She sounds very defensive, which is likely why she’s trying to shift blame onto you for your bedroom situation.
I think your stated question has been answered and isn’t really the issue. It sounds like she is setting up a situation, intentionally or subconsciously, to make sex fail. Clearly, under her very limited definition, sex is currently not workable for you as a couple… she doesn’t want kids, doesn’t want birth control, and thinks sex is only penetration. There is no room fox sex to happen under those constraints. At the moment, you two seem to be completely sexually incompatible because of that.
You two should continue to unpack this in couples counseling to get to the bottom of this. If sex is an important part of the relationship to you (it sure seems like it is), then you two need to get to the bottom of this. Hopefully there is something she needs that she hasn’t been able to or willing to express yet. At a certain point, if this can’t be resolved, you will need to figure out whether you can continue in a sexless relationship or if this relationship has run its course.
Technically, “having sex” can mean hand stuff, oral or intercourse. I consider all of those “having sex” of course probably most people think penetration but to me that’s just one way to do it.
Just to answer your title question, I define it as whatever both parties agree to define it as. My partner and I define it as penetration of any orifice. So pretty much almost things past kissing and touching.
I personally wouldn’t be able to continue with a sex less marriage. Been there….love or not it makes you feel pretty shitty about yourself and the relationship. The worst thing to do is to blame each other and make excuses. No chemistry = No chemistry.