To ask have you ever felt like this and how do I get over it??

[dryjanuarycandoone]

Name changed because this is embarrassing but I've been here a long time.

I want to preface this by saying I love my DH and I would never cheat on him. He's a wonderful Husband and Father, we've had 15 happy years together and in that time it's never crossed my mind to stray. I know I'm lucky to have him...BUT...

Over the past few months I've increasingly found myself thinking about the fact that I'm never going to experience being 'intimate' with anyone for the first time again. I find myself having ridiculously elaborate fantasies about being with someone (almost anyone!) new, thinking about men I knew in my late teens/early twenties who I could have slept with but didn't and then feeling weirdly sad/regretful. This has never bothered me before, I've never been someone who wanted to play the field even when I was young and, as I said, I wouldn't want an affair (I can't think of anything more stressful!) so why suddenly at the age of 37 is my brain so preoccupied with this?? What's going on with me?
Could it be hormonal, is this the onset of peri-menopause or something?? It's definitely more intense when I'm ovulating.

DH is very good in bed, so it's not that he's doing anything 'wrong' in that department. We have two small children, demanding jobs and are knackered a lot of the time so it doesn't happen as much as we'd like right now, when we do have sex it's still good, so I don't think it's that. It's not even sex with someone new that I'm obsessing about necessarily, I think it's more the sexual tension that comes before, the possibility of it if that's makes sense? But I don't know how to get a grip and stop thinking about it!

Posting in the hope that someone else has felt like this and it's not just me going completely mad!

Nope, you're not alone!

I know exactly what you mean. I came off the pill a while ago and my libido came flooding back with vengeance. The result isn't necessarily more sex with DH but simply more time spent daydreaming about scenarios in which I'm flirting with someone "new". Ex-boyfriends, strangers in the street, imaginary scenarios in which I run into attractive male celebrities in the pub And the fantasy isn't about sex itself, purely the build up. The wanting and being wanted. The idea of being so desired by someone that they find it almost unbearable to be near me. The thrill of what could happen, if we let it....

Like you, I wouldn't cheat on DH in real life!

Don't know what to suggest but I don't think it's bad per se! I enjoy luxuriating in the daydreams and I think it's just escapism really. It's the new, the unknown, the uncertainty of whether the other person feels the same that's so irresistible. A make believe reality in which someone can barely stop themselves from crossing the line, when the reality is just a very happy but quite ordinary marriage! Full of love and mutual respect, but that kind of intense sexual chemistry is often incompatible with the familiarity that develops with marriage.

Rattanrivers that is exactly it, you've articulated it all much better than I could! I do enjoy luxuriating in the fantasy as you say and I know a bit of escapism is fine but it's getting to the point I can't concentrate on anything! I feel like a hormonal teenager, it's ridiculous.

HORMONAL!

mistletoe if it is hormones then I hope I'm not going to be like this until the menopause. I'm pretty sure I'm ovulating at the moment and found myself having a very inappropriate fantasy about a work colleague earlier during a zoom meeting. I suddenly snapped out of it and realised I hadn't heard anything anyone had said for most of the meeting! I hope I didn't miss anything too important. He's not even that attractive, we're both happily married with kids and if he actually tried anything on in real life I'd be mortified.

Just wanted to let you know you’re not alone op, but I’m now 44 and still stuck like this. The vivid dreams started where my brain very clearly explores the possibilities, you may be in it for a while no sign of let up here yet.