Never having sex again

[user043857398]

What age were you when you realised you never wanted to be touched by a man again and saw absolutely no value in a man choosing to be with you long-term?

I'm probably quite young to have come to this conclusion and the knowledge that I'll never have a romantic connection again fills me with joy.

Friends, my children, my home, my future all take my headspace up and it's such a beautiful contrast to spending my youth chasing men and hoping they would 'choose me'. It must all have been due to societal programming. I look back and realise I was always happier when I was single and not interested in someone romantically.

you give me hope, thank you!

I have doubts about how attractive my poor own body will be when I am 70, but I trust lingerie 😂 (some people are REALLY fit, but I know mine!)

Or maybe they're just not interested sex?

It sounds like you do need one? Nothing wrong with that, why deny it?

i thought i was there when i divorced aged 37... took a close friend and a hell of a lot of flirting, time, and feeling absolutely safe in a 'one off' to make me realise i wasn't done, i'm just.. very sporadic and need to feel safe/wanted, and not constantly harassed and moaned at. Anyone's vagina would clamp shut when a man can't leave you along and calls you a bitch when you say no.

i am still very done with the notion of getting married or ever living with a man again, i like my privacy, and my freedom to do what i like about my home, my bed to myself, and seeing who i like, when i like.

I have a very happy platonic relationship with a close friend, there is nothing physical between us, but we're as close as you can get and not be sleeping with each other.

i have another friend that for the last 3 years we've been having a bit of casual thing when we see each other, it suits us both and there are no strings, and its definitely fun.. but very much on my terms.

I get what i need with zero stress, zero drama, and zero any pressure on my time or attention beyond what i want to give.

Can't get better imho.

I'm early 60s and live with OH. We haven't had sex for about 3 years. It just kind of fizzled out and neither of us initiates anything.
As the OP said, I have enough in my life and can't be bothered with it any more.
No interest whatever but we still have a great relationship.

It was VA that put the kybosh on my sex life, but mostly because my then partner was so unconcerned about any pain I suffered. I'm now on topical oestrogen but for my own genital health not to enable sex, because the aversion I feel is linked to the pain I suffered then.

I think you’re my soul sister 😂
feel exactly the same as you do!
I feel insulted by people thinking I ‘need’ a man… people suggesting blind dates and dating sites…. I’m not the slightest bit interested.
I've been in 3 long term relationships of 3 years when I was 18, 5 years shortly after that one ended, then when we split I met & married my exh within 2 years…. And we were together 18 years…. Each relationship chipped away at a bit of me, each one ending took some of my self esteem … made me feel like a failure and not good enough… I’m a shadow now of that beautiful 18 year old that thought my first live would be my forever love!
I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to keep a man happy, putting my own wants and needs second…
Many people say that I just got bad ones and there are some good men still out there, but I’m honestly just not interested in it… I’m not interested in having to consider someone else, take on their kids or grandkids, having to consider someone else’s child and negotiate that is my biggest put off tbh… my DD comes first and reading threads on here where people say you should love your step kids the same as your own just puts me right off it all…. I don’t want to live anyone else like I do my own DD…. I don’t want to force her into blended situations …
I also like watching all the crap on TV I wasn’t allowed to watch before… I like being able to go to bed whenever I like without being accused of anything,
i like not having to go to the places he wanted to go to, then have to put up with him looking bored if we went somewhere me or DD wanted to go!
or having to cook for him…

I realised in my 40s that i never wanted to have sex with a man again. I thought for a long time that it meant I was asexual, but actually I was just a lesbian and didn't know!

Men consistently letting you down can permanently kill your sex drive dead. Who knows, if I had spent my life with a gorgeous, wonderful, kind, honest, funny, sexy man I doubt very much my sex drive would have died.

I have drummed it into my sons to be good men, good partners, good people and thankfully so far they seem to be. As long as they are not like their dad in relationships then all is good (so far so good).

Exactly..but I was just wondering what other people thought

Demisexual is the word you're looking for. It's on the spectrum within Asexuality. Grey-Ace is another that sometimes fits.

No attraction without emotional connection.

It's what i am. The person i do occasionally sleep with is one of my best friends, and it took about 3 years before we agreed to a one night thing, that turned out to work very well for both of us.

I've never understood 'one night stands' with strangers, i tried it once and hated it, it felt cold, and soulless, there was something huge missing, and i have never done it again.

I've slept with two people in 8 years, both were close friends who i trusted implicitly.

i could happily go without it and never think of it if there wasn't anyone i was close to.

Yes I totally get you and used to feel this exact way. That is why I like to discuss it because I think about it and find it very different to how I used to be. So it's very novel. But when I looked back over my life I realised that I was always happiest when single and not interested in someone romantically.

Then I start wondering how much I ever felt like you do and how much of it was just social programming.

I'm not having much sex at the minute,52 ,but not menopause causing issues
So it's an interesting thread

@T1Dmama Can I join your soul sisterhood 😁.

I get everything you are saying.

My partner and I haven't had sex for over 5 years, not sure how long actually. Im 56

Late 30's but I'd become widowed so not like it was through choice! But by then I had started to become, and still am, peri-menopausal. So I can't imagine being touched by anyone. Things might be different if I still had DH though, who knows.

Anyway I know lots of couples 40 plus where the romance is dead, if by what female work colleagues and friends etc that age tell me of their lives.

Yeah! Like the idea of a nice man is also offputting. I decorate how I want. If I wanna get up at 3am and have a cup of tea and finish Corrie I can.

And same, I love raising my kids. I love popping to a friend's, impromptu beer garden, cheeky pint on the way to somewhere, take a weekend away at a moment's notice.

I felt that way for several years, the last few years of my marriage and a couple of years after my divorce. Then i very sceptically started dating and bam, there was my sex drive again! Went through the roof when I started HRT too. I think it’s linked to how I feel about myself, and finally not feeling like sex was a chore I had to get out of the way, but something that was for my enjoyment, with no expectations. I’m 50 now and have a lover 😁 I feel very French!

Yeah believe me I've tried and tested it myself. I'm no prude in that regard. I never, ever get off unless I'm totally infatuated with the guy or see some kind of romantic movie style future between us. I can still appreciate men's looks though for sure. But I don't want them to actually touch me.

define "need"?

In the same way as you don't "need" friends? I can totally survive on my own, I don't need a man to do anything for me, but I like having one.

I don't "need" friends either in that sense, I can do everything I do without friends, but I don't want to.

So yes, maybe I NEED a man, but depends what exactly you mean by that. Not to pay the bills, not to fix things, not to carry stuff, not to do DIY or tax return.

I'm glad you figured that out. I've tried that too and I'm definitely not homosexual.

I've found it really really hard being in a marriage ..it didn't feel natural to me ..where having children felt like I was born for the role ,and incredibly fulfilled by motherhood ..
I didn't think things through properly before getting married,about what the expectations were on me
Definitely would not do it again

that's what I don't understand.

None of these things have anything to do with having a relationship or not, not being single doesn't mean I can't or wont' do any of these things, and even more so

I love popping to a friend's, impromptu beer garden, cheeky pint on the way to somewhere, take a weekend away at a moment's notice
it's a million time easier, or just possible full stop, for me to do that when their dad is around.

I can't imagine being in a relationship with no freedom.

I think it's fine to 'need' a man, romance. I need children. I need proper deep friendships to be happy.

But it's not that I don't need a man, or that I don't particularly want one or that I've given up looking etc. I'm emphatically happier without one is the thing.

For me, back in the 70s there was huge pressure in being in a relationship or risk feeling a failure. I remember my first job at 17 in an office, there were a lot of other teenage girls (and guys) around 18/19 who were engaged. It seems mad now that being engaged at that age was totally normal (more normal it seemed than not being engaged). On my first day they were all asking me if I had a bf and I felt mortified because I didn’t have one. I can’t imagine that scenario in an office today.

Looking back I feel I wasted a lot of time neglecting myself in pursuit of guys and that god forsaken ‘pick me’ dance. All girls should be educated in never taking part in such a dance. I could kick myself looking back.