I am a long-time lurker on Mumsnet, and the brilliant sensible advice I read on a regular basis has made me hope someone can advise on my situation.
OH and I are in our early 50s, married for nearly 20 years and together 10 years before that. No children by choice. I think it is a good relationship. We love and respect each other and are affectionate, have lots of both shared and separate interests, make each other laugh, are reasonably secure financially, all the positive usual stuff apart from one thing: no sex, for about 2 years now.
We never had as particularly active sex-life, once or twice a month, and neither of us has been that bothered. It was always me who had the higher sex drive but not THAT much higher. We have also never been particularly sexy around each other. No toys, games, movies, dressing up etc. For about 10 years he experienced erectile problems on and off. I persuaded him to go to the doctor who prescribed Viagra which certainly worked when he took it (and he didn?t always need it). For me (and this may be part of the problem) sex does mean full penetrative activity, and I know to some extent I blame him for the problems we have been having.
I went through the menopause about 3 years ago, and my sex drive has certainly diminished since then, but now I?m starting to worry we?ll never have sex again! For a while we went through a horrible period of me waiting for him to initiate and him not doing, building up to a row (when we were far too tired to have a proper discussion), shouting, tears, sex (sometimes successful sometimes not) a few days later, and then nothing until the whole sorry cycle started again a few weeks later. It sounds mad, but at least that is not happening any more.
He does recognise it as a problem, and we can talk about it, but I know we are brushing it under the carpet most of the time. We both work full-time with long commutes and the usual domestic stuff, family obligations etc but I feel we use tiredness as one of the excuses for not getting this sorted. I think he somehow thinks that when we retire and get more time, are not so tired etc, it will all miraculously work out. But we could be a good 10 years older by then!
He refuses to go and see a counsellor. We have both successfully had counselling separately for other issues in the past, but I think he?s afraid of what we might have to reveal and might be told (split up? It IS all his fault? I don?t know). I am prepared to give it a go because I veer between not minding, sadness and sheer panic that this stalemate will go on for ever. We did work through a Relate book on sex in long-term relationships, and the exercises and activities certainly brought us closer together but still ? no sex. I really don?t feel I can jump his bones. ? it has gone on too long for that, and I know he won?t approach me.
I am not afraid of him having an affair, and I am certainly not interested in sex per se, just sex with him. I don?t think it will split us up, but I don?t want to live like this for the rest of my life. I am not sure what advice I am looking for: validation that this is an OK way to live and it won?t harm our relationship? How to get him to counselling? How to move away from penetrative sex as being the only sort worth having? How to approach him about it again without going round in the same old circles?
With the usual apologies for this being so long, if anyone does have any ideas about how we can move forward or similar experiences to share (with positive or negative resolutions) I would love to hear them.
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody
Relationships
Long-term relationship; no sex. Does it matter and what can we do about it?
4 replies
Tagetes · 21/10/2012 09:03
OP posts:
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.