NC, been here 5+ years under various usernames.
DH and I have been together for 12 years, no DC and happy that way. Our sex life was brilliant to start with, but within a couple of years it dwindled significantly. We didn't have sex for four years, until last year. I have brought this up many times, suggested ways for us to improve the situation, explained that I need to feel wanted and desired, but nothing much changes. In November last year, I said I wanted a divorce, which prompted him to open up a little about the reasons behind the lack of sex from his POV, which made me want to stay to try to work through it. He told me a lot of it is to do with performance issues, which stem from childhood trauma. I suggested a therapist. I’ve been seeing a therapist since November, which has helped me hugely. He said he would also see a therapist, had one session, said it wasn’t the right therapist but didn’t try again with anyone else.
Over the past eight months there have been very occasional, sporadic attempts at intimacy. Mainly focused on me. I haven’t necessarily always enjoyed it. I think that is partly because I’ve begun to feel a lot of resentment towards DH. I’m at a point where I find everything he does irritating, but I do wonder if that is simply because I’m so irritated by the situation.
On Saturday, after much deliberation and discussion with my therapist and some friends, I told DH I want to separate. Yesterday evening he told me all the factors involved in why our sex life died a death, including:
- A lack of confidence on his part, about his appearance, his job, his “man points” (he sometimes feels emasculated because at one point I was the breadwinner, I contributed more to the house purchase, I bought the car etc.)
- Runaway thoughts when we are intimate, flashbacks to childhood trauma, wondering if I’ll be telling my friends that we finally had sex, etc, which leads to performance issues
- Him not wanting to have sex when we lived in certain flats in case the neighbours heard us through the walls/ceiling
Part of me is angry that he has deprived me of a fulfilling sex life for ten years for these reasons. Some of them are stupid in my opinion (the noise), and some of them are not stupid but probably could have been alleviated if he’d talked to me about this stuff at any point, or seen a therapist. Part of me is sad that he felt unable to talk to me about any of this until November/now (some of it came out in Nov, some yesterday). Why am I not enough for him, enough for him to want to share this in order to combat the issues? He says he’ll do anything for me, but evidently that’s not strictly true.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know whether to stay, and help him regain his confidence, and encourage him to see a therapist, and get back the man I love and the sex life that was so good. Or to leave, because if he hasn’t done anything to improve things in ten years, and more specifically since he told me some of this stuff in November when I said I wanted a divorce, then why would he start now? A lot of my therapy has been about my sense of self-worth, and I know I’m worth more than this, I deserve better, I deserve a fulfilling, satisfying sex life.
I don’t know what to do. Obviously there’s more to a marriage than just sex, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life not having any. I have a faulty gene that means I will probably develop a condition that leaves me in a wheelchair, and I don’t know how long I’ve got left – my mum has the condition and had to give up on sex at a certain point.
YABU: stay and help him regain his confidence to get your sex life back on track, it’s still doable
YANBU: leave so you have the opportunity to meet someone else one day, who could offer you more fulfilment