About 18 months ago I left my husband for exactly the reasons outlined in the original post and it’s follow ups. I wish I’d read these threads at the time, they would’ve helped me. 18 months ago, and meandering up to the decision of leaving, I felt like I was the only person in the world feeling the way I did.
From my position now, all that has been written here further reaffirms what I now think and feel about love, lust and relationships. I guess I still must have some doubt over making the leap from my comfy picture perfect life otherwise why would I have happened upon this original post....
I had what appeared to be the perfect life from the outside. All my friends looked at me like I was the one who had everything sussed out. I also had a smugness about me because I too felt like I had it all sorted! My friends all married earlier than me, churned out a ton of kids and then we’re navigating divorces while I was with my first love.
I dated my childhood sweetheart for 18 years, married for 2 years. I was annoyed that we didn’t marry sooner, perhaps that may have helped. He was my best friend and a good person. Stable. I was sexless, disinterested and towards the end, repulsed by his advances. I identified myself as asexual. As did he. I truly believed it. I didn’t look at other men in a lustful way and I didn’t masturbate/fantasise. For my husband, it was probably more palatable to believe I was asexual. I pitied him for having to put up with me. Every now and then I’d try to have sex with him. Try to make the effort for him but I would find it painful (because I was tense and dry as a bone!) The negative reinforcement didn’t help for the next sexual encounter! He loved me. I loved him. So I didn’t understand why I had such issues around being intimate with my husband.
Then I got talking to an old acquaintance..... uh oh I hear you cry!! I had zero interest in him in that way as we shared a drink together one afternoon during a mini break with our friends , our mutual friends had retired for the night, but we hadn’t felt ready. My husband had no interest in going out to socialise and drink, he didn’t get on with this group of friends and he’d decided not to come away with me, so I was left to my own devices.
This guy was a mutual friend, I’d only ever been aware of him from a distance. He was the kind of guy who appeared to be a perpetual fuck up from the outside. He’d had many women over the years, never settling down, smoking pot etc etc. I’d never bothered to properly speak to him. Why would I? He was always too drunk to talk to! We appeared polar opposites. I was goal driven, I had boxed off the career, car, house and husband pretty swiftly while he was shagging his way around the world seeming aimless! Anyway, I obviously needed to share my problems that night and supposed he could not meet them with judgement given his reputation. I told him that I should be feeling happy, I’d only recently married, but that I wasn’t. He was a great listener. We drank, and drank some more, while talking about just anything and everything. I felt alive! For the first time in many many years. Something just seemed to click. He kissed me. It wasn’t magical. By this time we were both pretty smashed! But, what was magical was being able to speak freely and being understood completely. There was no judgement from him. I remember sitting across from him and thinking that I should be married to somebody who was more like him. That shocked me.
I had spent years thinking that the problem was solely me, not about ‘us’ as husband and wife. I suddenly saw a new life for myself with somebody different, perhaps not this man, but that there was somebody out there who made me feel like this gave me optimism. But also filled me with dread. I’m 35 at this point. My biological clock already feels clunky. That smugness about bagging my husband 18-odd years ago is fading quickly! I felt so vulnerable, and stupid to have kidded myself about my husband being the one. All my asexuality was a reflection of my lack of desire towards my husband. And following our marriage this was also absolute fear that is was expected to get pregnant any time now to him! I didn’t want his baby. Again, I had beaten myself up for years that perhaps I didn’t want children and it was that fear of pregnancy that stopped me wanting to have sex. But, now I had found myself looking across at another guy, almost yearning to drop myself into his life, have his kids. WTF!?! How on earth was my mind wandering off on such tangents?!
We both felt it. It shocked us both. I told him that nothing could happen between us and we needed to forget about this (wonderful) evening.
My heart felt sad, but also I felt new. Reinvigorated. A zest for life, I even felt better about my job. Just more optimistic.
I thought about that night and him all the time. Wondered if he was thinking about me. Then, weeks later, I heard he was out in Eastern Europe on a stag do and going AWOL from his friends most nights, reportedly with a different girl each time. I felt foolish and angry at romanticising about our encounter. I would’ve just been another notch on the bed frame! But, I wasn’t justified in being angry at him, I was clear that we had no future. But, I was gutted. Although I still felt hopeful about there being a truer love out there for me.
I tried to put my new found optimism into my marriage. Could it work? Like others have said, I found my husband’s scent to be noticeably different, always had done. His skin smelt so different to mine. When this other guy had kissed me, his skin smelt like my own. I know that sounds weird, but it brought with it a familiarity. I now noticed my husbands scent more so. It was jarring.
I was torn between the idea of leaving him and ending up a 35 year old childless/divorced mess, leaving out beautiful home, carving up our possessions. It seemed an awful option. But he deserved better as well. I also felt like it was now or never.
I did it. I left. I reconnected with the other guy. He had never felt so strongly towards somebody either. He was unfulfilled by his wanderlust and bedhopping ways, we have been together for over a year and it is all I had hoped. We live together, so I see warts and all, although I have an absolute rule that the toilet door stays shut! I don’t think that helped me and my husband sexually at all! Anyway, the divorce was painful. But I know it was the right thing to do.
I’m in an intimate, loving relationship and i am no longer terrified of becoming pregnant. In fact, I hope to be someday soon. I was just with the wrong person. Looking back, the love I had for my husband was like a love for a sibling or family member, so no wonder I was conflicted.
I still worry that the way I feel may come crashing down. But both of us are intent on trying to keep romance and intimacy alive and to talk freely to eachother. I have optimism now and I am older starting this relationship. I may be relatively inexperienced re:partners and sex etc, but I feel that I can muffle through just fine with my new man and that I am fully honest and open to myself as well as him.