To think it's crazy that we hang our stability on sexual attraction?

[NoisyDenimShaker]

This post is about being married (or as good as married).

As I've aged, and seen entire lives blown up over sex, it's occurred to me how completely crazy it is that we organise our entire lives around something as fleeting, whimiscal, and delicate as sexual attraction.

Our life's finances, our children's sense of home and stability, our mental health, our very home, which should be our sanctuary, is all ultimately hung on sexual attraction.

It's. Crazy.

And I don't have a better idea. That doesn't mean our species' way isn't INSANE.

I know people might say, well it begins with sexual attraction but it develops into something more, a shared history, being family, being best friends, deep love. I agree wholeheartedly with that, and it's my answer, too. I'm someone who was made for commitment, and I get more bonded and interested in my partner as time goes on. I'm not someone who gets bored with commitment.

However, after many years together, my husband did not feel the same. The lure of the big wide world beckoned, other women seemed more attractive, and off he went. And he used to be so in love with me. The same thing happened to a good friend of mine. Her husband adored her, until he decided more sex was more important and went off seeking it.

And we've all seen the threads on here about runaway husbands.

YOU might be comfortable with longterm married/committed love, but we really don't have much control over the possibility of a restless or unfaithful partner. And so our entire lives can get blown up, easily, over sex.

The truth is that all our security and stability is hung on sexual attraction, and I think it's utterly insane.

I have no answer, but it does occur to me that the aristo way of doing things - marrying for business reasons - might be more sensible than our way, which is to organise things around often-fickle hearts.

I'm getting divorced after a very long separation and I'm determined that my home and security will never depend on a partner's sexual attraction to me again, so I guess I'm heading for a LAT relationship if I find someone I really like. (Living Apart Together.)

I really miss not having a life partner, but on the other hand, I'm glad that the stability and security of my home isn't built on the bedrock of marriage, which is - according to a divorce lawyer who wrote a book entitled IF YOU'RE IN MY OFFICE IT'S ALREADY TOO LATE (or something) - well, according to him, marriage is all about sex. I had thought sex was a part of it, but he reckons marriage is all about sex.

Well, I don't want my security and stability to be tied to sexual attraction. It's too fleeting.

Sorry for the essay. What are your thoughts?

I’m getting divorced. I am driving it. I am sure that my husband thinks that it’s because my head has been turned. It is actually because I realised that we didn’t have the partnership I wanted - too much resentment and unkindness. For me it broke 6 years ago when he blamed me for something relatively small to the children, and then I felt really guilty - only to later find out it was him - at which point he blamed me for another aspect of it and I thought fuck this and asked for a divorce. He didn’t want a divorce so we hung on until I pushed for it this summer. He very much thinks this is because I am having an affair.

I know this isn’t adding to your discussion at all - but I think people change over the course of their life so much, marriage will always be a gamble - it might be sex, it might be something else, so I think the stability has to come from you - life is fragile too

Yes, because what you're attracted to might not make a good partner/co-parent.

Someone solid and reliable might not be what you're attracted to.

So we're back to what the op said and I described upthread, a "living apart together" arrangement. Separate homes and finances but partners in life goals, mutual support etc. If either of us end it the only thing that will change is us not seeing each other. No moving house, no untangling of possessions etc.

Read a very good book The Five about life for people at the time of Jack the Ripper. Only the relatively small upper middle class bothered actually getting married - so if they owned property. Most working class people were in couples simply for their own survival. Life was tough men and women needed each other to survive. No safety net (or the one there was was unpleasant - the work house)

OP I think you had it right when you mentioned the aristocracy, who've had millennia to work this out while the rest of us were working the fields and too sick and exhausted to think about it.

Basically, marry someone 'suitable' in terms of financial stability and values (this is what most women are attracted to anyway). Produce an heir and a spare if you want kids, then have a tacit understanding that in later years there might be some discreet 'stepping out' of the marriage but it will never actually threaten it - loyalty is always primarily to the spouse and children.

Even now they enforce this socially and they also have much larger and tighter communities than the average Joe, which makes them less dependent on only one another.

Money helps obviously, if the wife is drowning in childcare, domestic work and is also holding down a job then asymmetries start to creep in - which is perhaps the real problem here. In these cases, it's far more likely to be the man who strays and I personally think there should be far more financial responsibility on fathers to compensate for that.

Ha this reminds me of a wedding I went to where the groom announced the bride was looking "beautiful and slim" 🫣 many of the women guests were cringing.

Yeah you don’t get young men falling over themselves to marry the kind fun successful girl who looks like the back end of a bus. It’s a cruel world.

In all honesty I think its very rare anyone actually leaves just for sex. They may take risks that lead to the end of the marriage for it, but that's because they imagine they'll get away with it and actually want the marriage and the sex.
Where people leave for someone else, there will almost certainly be more than sexual attraction. The new person will be meeting wants and needs that at least at the time are more important than the benefits of the marriage. Whether that's a genuine wish to be with the other person, flattery, re living youth, or simply an escape from a life grown dull and responsibility they don't want.
If a man tells you he is leaving for sex with lots of other women, then he's not just talking about a physical act. He wants freedom to live away from his commitments and obligations and sex with whomever he pleases symbolises that.

I lived apart from my partner for a long time and we grew to hate it. I was single for a long time before I got involved with him and I wholeheartedly agree about women having independence and not relying on a man for fulfilment. I swore I would never. I also think we would survive a sexless relationship if it came to it. For us, sex is a lovely added bonus but it is not what the bones of our relationship is built on

Why should we look at Mrs Rieu?

I was friends with my husband for years before we became a couple. Thought we shared the same values, and he was my best friend. Didn't stop him leaving after 20 years together. It's been difficult to get a proper answer as to why. I think he got to his mid 40s and decided life wasn't as exciting as he'd hoped, perhaps it was stressful and mundane. I'll admit to being surprised by how driven he is by sex, possibly me being naive, but I think being free to (legitimately) go off and sleep with other women was a big part of it. We're lucky we both earn well and financially are fine, but I still look at how much more difficult he's made life as it's easier faced as part of a team. That's what I thought we were, and even after 10 or 15 years together I wouldn't ever have expected to be in this position. A couple of years down the line I'm doing well, better than him I think and I just look and think, how has his life improved. Really don't think it has, and all because he thinks with the contents of his pants.

I think that’s exactly it. It’s a bit like that TV show Traitors.

everyone likes to think that they’d be able to spot it but it’s notoriously difficult to tell when someone isn’t who they say they are. And if we try to, we end up second guessing ourselves.

sorry that happened to you. I think this is the problem with relationships- the success of them doesn’t rely simply with your behaviour- You are relying on someone else working with you…and them always making the right decisions over years.

It sounds like your ex made the wrong decision but sadly it’s not just him who has to deal with the consequences.

and it comes back to the sexual attraction thing. How sexually attractive someone is bears no resemblance to how good they are at decision making.

on the bright side, you are doing well now and you did have a very successful relationship for years. But it shows you can never really tell how someone will pan out as a partner

That's really splitting hairs. Sex generally follows from sexual attraction. They're part of the same whole.

@NoisyDenimShaker I don't agree, Yes, sex usually follows from sexual attraction or desire, but these things are not the same and interchangeable.

Most people can continue to have sex with their partner, even if not sexually attracted to them. Conversely, if someone still desires their partner, then the relationship can usually survive a period without sex.

People don't leave relationships just for sex. They might cheat for sex, but that's different. If they choose to leave a relationship, then something a lot deeper has shifted.

I think that both men and women, who think that they can just let themselves go and that it's not going to affect their relationship, because their love is special and unconditional, are very naive.

I'm not saying that it has to be about looks either. Lots of women have been known to leave their partner for a man who is more successful or charismatic or whatever than their partner. But would you say that they are just leaving for sex? It comes down to attraction and desire. These things can sometimes work differently in men and women, but it's the same thing.

At least he was honest and just left though. It sounds like he didn't cheat and lie and string you along for years which would have been a lot worse. It sounds like he got to a point where he was no longer feeling it, and that's ok (although no doubt difficult to deal with).

If you cheat on yourself, you'll only have yourself to blame! 😂

Couldn't agree more.
Here's an article that makes some good points about why this is;

https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/living-alone/#:~:text=The%20study%20found%20that%20unmarried,the%20happiest%20population%20of%20all.

Historically too, the vast majority of marriages were arranged. Marrying because you are ' in love' or sexually attracted to a particular partner ,is a relatively new phenomenon, having started only around one hundred or so ago.

Sexual intimacy is only as important as it is to individual people. Some of the most successful marriages I know are between 2 asexual people who have never or very rarely had sex.
I’d say sexual compatibility is the key.

Yours is hung on sexual attraction. Mine didn’t even start that way. Mine started with a friendship that became more - while sex is nice it’s really not very high on our list of priorities. Never has been.

Well fundamentally we're animals and people tend to forget that, we haven't really evolved fast enough for the society we live in

We are animals at the end of the day. I think it's a mistake to seperate the concept of love though, as if its a higher, evolved feeling and sex drive is a low one. The concept of "love" and even the concept of friendship - they are just another animal feeling stemming from our biology as mammals. Those feelings have evolved as we have survived better living in groups.

DD’s “dad” split when she was one. I had a couple of flings in her early years (like 2-5) but nothing whatsoever now for years (she’s now 13). I’m happy as I am. Now and then I do miss sex but not enough to bother with anyone new or old. DD is autistic and very volatile now and I wouldn’t have anyone to mind her so I could get out of the house anyway.
Pretty sure that’s the way it’ll play out for me for the foreseeable future. Unless some rockstar falls in my lap 😂 I’m okay with it. I’m 35 and that’s it now 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well shouldn't grown women stand on their own 2 feet, a man is not a plan

May sound cliched but true