Long term marriage is like shagging your best friend

[Oneisnotamused]

……..or even worse, your brother or your sister 🤮. I think most long-term marriages end up with this problem - I know some people are still happily shagging after 30+ years but……..how do long-term marriages survive this particular ick?

Sorry OP this seems like a you problem and you're projecting it on to others.

I was trying to work out if you'd made a really profound comment! 🤣

@Iloveyoubut

You’re not daft. You’re performatively shocked and baffled.

🤣🤣🤣 Yes indeed are as most of the pearl clutchers on this thread

Its really not “a you problem”, or certainly not uniquely one, and it’s disingenuous and patronising to suggest that the OP is somehow unique in experiencing this.

Millions of people are in sexless or low sex marriages. There are posts about it on a daily basis on here.

Why do people feel the need to make OP feel that she’s particularly unlucky or that this is somehow her fault? Why can’t you at least acknowledge that everyone has a different perspective on this?

OP literally asked how long term relationships survive the particular ick after stating she believes that most end up with this problem. So those of us without the problem state we are the ones still shagging and how we have achieved this. I, personally, didn't post to make OP feel weird or shit or any negative thing.

🤣🤣🤣

I’m 40, husband 41. Been together 22 years. Definitely not in friend zone. We have a 3 year old and the first year or so felt like we were just getting by but since the. We have both made efforts to engage with each other. Making time and paying attention.

I think a lot of people on this thread are being deliberately obtuse.

Of course there are plenty of couples who are married for decades and still have regular amazing sex, and that’s great for them.

But it’s a clearly well established fact that for many couples, as the years pass, the spark dies. That doesn’t mean that love dies. It just means that after a day of dealing with toddlers, or seeing the GP about painful piles, or planning the kitchen extension, or sorting the broken boiler, or discussing adolescent truancy, or whatever….the sexual desire that existed at the start of the relationship has dwindled.

When you each know exactly what the other person likes, sex can become a bit formulaic, each doing the things they know will work, then it’s all over and you start talking about the kitchen extension again.

Loss of sex drive is very common. If it wasn’t, then there wouldn’t be so many women wanting testosterone and men wanting viagra.

Don’t really think it’s pearl clutching to say you’re weird for mixing up shagging your husband and your brother 😂😂 But you do you, queen

But surely you must at least be familiar with this phenomenon? Even if you haven’t experienced it in your own marriage?

I can understand people saying that the OP’s experience doesn’t align with their own but it is bizarre that people are trooping up to say they don’t recognise this idea even in theory and that this must be because she has a uniquely bad marriage? (Or in one charming example, that she is “deviant”).

Are you all really saying that just because you still enjoy sex with your husbands that you cannot conceive that anyone could have a different perspective?

It just seems bizarre and frankly unkind that people are talking to OP as if she had two heads for posing a question that millions of people have posed before.

We get it, you all love shagging your husbands. But if someone else doesn’t, it doesn’t mean they have a dreadful relationship or are “deviant”.

wow

"are you a man" is the only thing you can come up with? Because I am not going into the argument you are trying to start? 😂

You are the one very creepy here, but of course I am not a man. Some of us women do have an opinion and can stand up to the likes of you. And we also enjoy having sex with our husbands, the horror.

I will politely hush you as much as you need to be hushed my dear.

Quite 😂😂

Or pearl clutching because some women (whispers) like to have sex with their partner! Faint in horror and disbelief!

(Pretty sure even in the Handmaid, June enjoyed having sex with her lover, and that seems to be the reference for some posters on here 😂😂)

No it’s absolutely not the only thing i can come up with but what I believe right now is that regardless of what your feelings are or opinions are on anything on this thread so far, I don’t believe anyone wouldn’t think that your post isn’t deeply unhinged and concerning, your post is misogynistic and actually quite threatening. I believe this post has been hijacked. I won’t report you at the moment so that hopefully other posters can see what’s going on here

the OP was I think most long-term marriages end up with this problem

and the answer really is, of course not MOST long-term marriages. It's the over-the-top reaction to anyone having different experience that is puzzling, and frankly sometimes unhinged.

I know what you mean, OP. Some very odd replies on this thread that totally miss the point.

“WhAt’S wRoNg WiTh ShAgGiNg YoUr FrIeNd?!”

Nothing. If you fancy each other. But most people don’t fancy all their mates, they just have a platonic friendship with them and the idea of sexual activity with them would feel quite offputting. Seeing someone in a sexual way is very different from a loving friendship with a good mate.

I also understand how this happens in relationships, and honestly there’s been hundreds of threads on here about it happening in one way or another! The classic one being “DH wants sex but I don’t, I just don’t like it anymore and that’s that!” Yet two weeks after the split they are shagging like a horny dog because they hadn’t “gone off sex” at all, they just didn’t fancy their husband anymore or the passion/lust had gone. It is so common.

It happened for me with an ex, I found him attractive but I guess I’d never been utterly blown away by him sexually, so after 11 years, as much as I loved him, I found sex with him very difficult. So sadly it was time to end the relationship. Things with current DP are very different, and a huge amount of lust was there from the start.

After 35 years I love him more and think he is even more sexy.
Never bored in that department.

I'm surprised you know the details of all your friends sex lives! Most of my friends don't talk about their sex lives. I have no idea what is considered average for couples in very LTR.

Sounds like you prefer Tinder and serial shags. Each to their own.

Can no one else see that half the replies on this thread seem coordinated. It happens all the time on here and no one says anythng

I do think that unless you absolutely fancied the pants off your partner when you first got together, the sexual attraction will inevitably fade iver time. This was the case with my longterm ex. I never really fancied him in the first place tbh. It fizzled out very quickly for me and I just had the absolute ick for a very long time (that coupled with him being emotionally abusive....) until I was brave enough to leave. I just couldn't face never having passionate sex ever again from my early 40s ffs!
My now husband and I have an amazing sex life! I absolutely fancy the pants off him and still cant believe how lucky I am! We are very much over familiar with each other's habits (toilet in front of each other etc) but I think that makes me love him even more. I'm so confident around him that I think it really solidifies our relationship

My best friend is a woman so not not really!
And no, even if the passion has faded it certainly is not like shagging your brother! That’s a different kind of thing altogether. Doesn’t the added years of closeness and shared life experience just make it more intimate? I do know plenty of women who say they’d be happy to never have sex again but I don’t think it’s because they look at their partners differently just they don’t have much energy for it any more!

@mondaytosunday

I do know plenty of women who say they’d be happy to never have sex again but I don’t think it’s because they look at their partners differently…..

Hmmmm - I bet if you scratched below the surface it’s 💯 because they look at their partners differently

I think the problem with this thread and why it’s become so heated is that instead of the heading being:

Long term marriage is like shagging your best friend

it should’ve been:

MY Long term marriage is like shagging your best friend

The OP has taken her own experience and wrongly assumed that everyone else in a long term relationship must be in the same boat as her, and feel like they are “shagging their brother”.

That’s actually quite a strange thing to assume. I’m still extremely happy in my long term relationship but I wouldn’t start a thread with:

Long term marriage is so wonderful - being this happy after 25 years and still at it like rabbits!

It’s interesting how the responses have divided into two clear camps - the cohort of people who are super quick to reassert their sexual promiscuity within their long term marriages (emphasis on the swiftness of assertion which is in itself interesting) and those who accept the realities of what I’m saying and can address the issue with depth.

Very interesting