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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Jump ship - is it really worth it?

14 replies

DisenchantedOldHector · 06/02/2013 18:35

DW and I been together a long time, 2 DC (11, 14). DW and I have zero physical relationship. Noone particularly to blame (no affairs etc). Drifted out of intimacy post-kids and never really got it back. However, I am the only one who ever tries to fix it and I've tried a lot. She won't really discuss it or prevaricates, e.g. "Oh, all couples end up like this." Basically we're totally sexually mismatched. She is content with the platonic relationship (or certainly seems to be). I'm not. When pushed hard she'll say she does want to be with me but "doesn't know" what the sexual problem is. So, I've tried and I don't think the problem is fixable - I'm resigned to that. So I ought to leave - right?

However, wind the clock forward a few months and what do I find? I'm most likely on my own in a 2-3 bed flat instead of our family house. I see much less of the kids. Everyone's life is massively disrupted. The kids would utterly hate it (I know kids are resilient and they'd get over it, but they'd really, really hate it). Meanwhile what's the upside - I'm free to pursue a relationship elsewhere. Everybody gets fucked around bigtime so I can attempt to morph from being Sir Wankalot into someone who actually has a sex life. Seems a high price to pay.

Right now we have a really good family unit. Kids are very happy: doing well at school, good friends, good hobbies. DW and I get on OK. There's no bad atmosphere in the house. We actually enjoy each other's company. The sexual incompatibility is awful (or is for me anyway) but I don't resent her for it. Well, maybe deep down I do, but it doesn't affect us day-to-day. However, I absolutely don't want to spend the rest of my life living with a "good friend".

What to do? Bite the bullet and leave? Wait till the kids are older / more independent? That could be quite a long wait. I'm not really expecting someone to sort this out for me - I'm a grown up and the choices are pretty clear and I need to make my own decisions. However, this scenario must be played out in hundreds of thousands of homes. What do people do?

OP posts:
Dryjuice25 · 06/02/2013 18:39

You are only together for the kids. You are not happy. The spark is gone. It sounds like it's totally dead. I would leave but continue to be the great dad you can be and be civil with each other.

SolidGoldBrass · 06/02/2013 18:46

Have you discussed with her the possibility of you seeking sex outside the marriage? FWIW if she doesn't want to play with it, what right has she to object to someone else doing so?

Some people have very low libidos and are content to live without sex indefinitely. This does not make them morally superior to people who like and want sex more regularly. It can mean that a couple are sexually incompatible, but compatible in other ways.

If you and she are otherwise content, you like and respect one another and your life together is good in other respects, it's worth discussing this with her. Such an arrangement can work as long as the rules are mutually agreed and people abide by them (eg, that you do not start or seek a sexual relationship with anyone your wife knows socially/you do not bring sex partners to the family home). Sometimes such an arrangement only works for a little while but a marriage or relationship where one partner wants sex and the other really, really doesn't is likely to collapse anyway.

Stropzilla · 06/02/2013 18:48

Well she's wrong not all couples get like that! Does she know its a deal breaker for you? If she does and expects you to give up a sex life and not discuss it, I wouldn't be happy either. Is there physical affection otherwise? If she doesn't understand it's important to you, can you explain and suggest some couples therapy?

DH and I went through something similar due to having had kids and no time or energy for each other. Now we have an amazing sex life but we both had to want it.

MamaFab · 06/02/2013 20:31

You say she wants to be with you but doesn't know what the sexual problem is....do u mean she wants to be intimate but can't, and if so, is she willing to get help to determine why?

Or do you mean that she thinks there isn't a problem? Is so then I'm with solid. If you're both happy to stay as you are, but in a platonic relationship, what's wrong with getting it elsewhere? Do u still sleep in the same bed? Would it be less frustrating if u agreed u were now just friends and had separate rooms?

Walkacrossthesand · 06/02/2013 21:38

Picture the scenario. Wife agrees to husband getting needs met elsewhere. Husband falls in love with need-meeter. Wife reneges on agreement, vilifies husband for breaking up marriage. Grief all round. Do you 'fancy' your wife, Hector? could you woo her?

Walkacrossthesand · 06/02/2013 21:42

PS I'm in my fifties, single, independent - but I wouldn't get involved with a man who lived 'a separate life' with his wife. Sorry Hector - I don't think I'm helping much, am I?!

worsestershiresauce · 06/02/2013 21:45

How old is your wife? Could she maybe be peri-menopausal? Would HRT help? I don't for one minute suggest you wade in and say this to her straight out. If sex is uncomfortable or sore it would be understandable for her to avoid it.

I think you need to have a proper cards on the table discussion about this, so she knows exactly how close you are to leaving.

Charbon · 06/02/2013 22:06

There are some other options and I'm not going to make the assumption that you personally can have meaningless sex that wouldn't involve feelings and emotions, so the 'getting sex elsewhere' option might not actually meet your needs and could be a threat to a marriage you'd prefer to stay in.

So you could speak to your wife and explain why sex is so fundamental to your happiness in the marriage and that you don't accept that every couple ends up this way, because of course they don't. However, what's more important is that you don't want to end up this way and so something needs to change. If she realises how imperilled the marriage is, she might open up and even agree to go to counselling, either standard couples therapy or pyscho-sexual therapy if the issue is psychological.

Or there's the option that you leave the marriage but instead of seeing less of the children, you work towards equal or shared parenting in your respective (possibly new) homes.

It's true that some people have non-existent or low libidos but physiologically, there are no real differences noted between men and women. Psychologically, there are often real differences however. Some women go off sex because they have an unequal workload domestically and this leads to resentment towards a partner, some women with young children feel 'touched out' by the physical demands of cuddling children and some women have tremendous difficulty viewing themselves as being a mother and a sexual being at the same time.

DisenchantedOldHector · 06/02/2013 22:54

Thanks for the replies. I think DW just has very low libido coupled with longstanding issues with intimacy. My impression (I can't be certain of course but I'm fairly sure) is that she is happy enough being with me but wouldn't be that bothered if she never touched me again. Discussions on the subject are difficult - she's very good at stonewalling and/or derailing them. Maybe my approach is misguided - I keep trying to find out what's wrong and possibly she finds it intrusive (I am aware this sounds a bit odd). A more blunt, "this is a deal-breaker" approach might work better but actually I don't really want the deal to be broken - I'd much rather it just worked. Like I said in the OP - a whole load of the peripheral stuff around the relationship works very well so I suppose I'm worried she'll call my bluff.

There may be some issues regarding age, domestic workload, peri-menopause etc but I doubt very much they're at the root of the problem, which has been going on for many years now.

I'm really surprised at the suggestion of "permissible" extra-marital sex. I'd be lying (and noone would believe me anyway) if I said this had never occurred to me but the thought of discussing it with DW hadn't. Naturally as a bloke with a high sex drive who isn't getting any this initially seems an attractive option but there are some problems, the most obvious being, who with? Prostitutes (surely not?!), women in same position as me (hmm - serious danger of screwing up someone else's relationship), single women ("Hi, I am married with kids but the wife is totally cool about me fucking around....").

OP posts:
Charbon · 07/02/2013 01:24

Can you define what it is you miss about sex?

For many people, that simple three-letter word encompasses a whole range of needs. For others, it is simply a biological release and quite functional.

For people in the first category, it is not just the sex that is missed. It is the feeling of being attractive and desirable to a partner and as a human being. There is also a loss of associated sexual affection, such as passionate kissing or intimate touching and stroking, out of bed. If there is little non-sexual affection too such as hugs and cuddles, there is a sensory loss of touch. There are also psychological needs that are unfulfilled, especially if having sex is associated with being loved and admired. Negotiating sex outside of a relationship that is sought to be maintained can cause difficulties for people in this camp, because there is a great risk that they will fall in love and want to leave the old relationship - and if the new relationship is with someone of the same ilk, that this person will get hurt too.

For people who are easily able to divorce sex from monogamous emotions such as attachment, need for exclusivity and romantic love, sex outside the relationship if openly accessed without deceit, is less problematical, as long as the sexual partner chosen is also of the same ilk and her emotions are similarly containable.

However, bringing a third party into a relationship to prop it up is fraught with human difficulty and is always a risk. Even if people enter into a relationship like this with a promise to contain emotions, they are not always easy to control and that risk is clearly mathematically doubled because it requires two people to keep their emotions in check.

I'm hoping you are more ethical than to consider paying for sex, so hopefully you don't consider that a realistic option.

If you still love your wife and desire her - and you are clearly good co-parents and companions - I think your best bet is to have a different conversation. Not in a threatening punitive 'I'll leave you if this doesn't change' way, but in a manner that communicates your unhappiness and which points out that if she loves you as much as you love her, she might want to help you address your sadness and how this is making you feel as a person.

Do some research on counselling (including pyscho-sexual) and if the conversation runs aground as before, ask her to go with you because it sounds as though you need help communicating, apart from anything else.

I understand why your wife might baulk at the 'what's wrong with you?' approach because her defences will go up and one of those is clearly to believe that the situation is 'normal' for couples at your lifestage. A third party who can dismantle this with skill, without making your wife feel abnormal, might be very productive.

Some of your wife's possible other issues are more easily remedied. If you aren't pulling your weight with the children or housework and your wife is expected to remember everything about the way the household runs and important family dates, this can often lead to a mother-child dynamic, which is the enemy of sexual attraction. If you have ever been guilty of effecting an air of learned helplessness about any of these tasks, make some changes and introduce more equality into your relationship. Listen more than talk. Try to find out your wife's hopes, dreams and aspirations and encourage her to think of herself as an individual and not as a mother and wife. Just those simple but basic changes can promote more individuality in your wife and encourage her to think of herself as a sexual woman, just as she might have done before settling down.

SolidGoldBrass · 07/02/2013 01:39

It's certainly true that if you are not doing your share of domestic work, that will be the main reason why your wife is less interested in having sex - it's hard to feel desire for someone who clearly considers you an inferior and a servant.

I would suggest you consider that first and address it, if you need to.

However, not everyone considers sex and 'deep' emotion to be inseperably connected; lots of people are happy to have sex with strangers or near-strangers without gagging for or demanding any kind of commitment beyond goodwill and good manners and (despite all the cultural propaganda to the contrary) such people are neither victims nor monsters. Marriage is a social and legal and cultural construct and as such it can be adapted to suit the participants.

Yes, there is a risk that your marriage might break up even if your wife does agree that you can seek sex with other people: you might 'fall in love' with someone else, she might find that she becomes too jealous to allow the arrangement to continue.

But that might happen anyway when you are living in a sexless marriage within which one partner still wants sex.

Right now, you are in a situation where you would like to have sex, and your wife would rather not bother. You could spend the rest of your lives in an unspoken 'battle' or 'game' of you trying to bring sex back into the marriage and her trying not to, and both of you end up hating each other but not wanting to 'lose' by being the one to call time on the marriage.

Or you could decide that you can't live in a sexless marriage and leave.

Or she could decide that she doesn't want to live in a marriage with someone who is never going to stop hoping that sex will take place.

Or she could decide that she would like to regain her libido and take steps to do so. (unlikely, by the sound of it)

Or the two of you could agree that you can look for NSA sex and it could all go wrong and the marriage ends.

Or one of you could just meet and fall in lust/love with someone else.

There are no guarantees of happiness OP. What you have to do is try to work out the best compromise that will do the least damage but which involves everyone making some effort to accomodate the other person's wishes, needs and wellbeing.

greeneyed · 07/02/2013 08:36

Charbon, excellent post, thought provoking for me...

DisenchantedOldHector · 07/02/2013 09:58

Some excellent feedback here. Thanks again.

Charbon what I miss about sex? A bit of everything you mention - it doesn't neatly fall into one camp or the other for me (does it for anyone?). Probably what I want most is the feeling of being loved, the physical closeness, intimacy, passionate kissing etc. However, we also have a building block of testosterone so the biological urge is very strong too. If I'm being honest - if I had the opportunity for uncomplicated NSA sex with zero danger of being found out I'd take it like a shot. (The main thing that would dissuade me is the thought of one day receiving a text from DS similar to the ones the lovely Mr. Huhne did - there is no reward on earth that justifies paying that price.)

Regarding the dynamic between us in other areas - on the whole it's good. I'm certainly not terrible in taking on a share of chores and general household/kids stuff (I'm pretty sure DW would concur). I'm attentive to her and give her plenty of space to talk about how she feels about herself, her hopes, her interests etc. We talk a lot - we have good conversations. A few years ago we changed our lives fairly dramatically purely so that she could pursue a "dream" of hers. I always make efforts to make her feel good about herself (you won't be surprised to hear that this is an area where she struggles). I am (maybe the last year or two) not particularly romantic or affectionate but that's because romantic and affectionate gestures just don't get reciprocated so I've given up offering them. That's the problem - if the relationship was generally crap I'd have no problem ending it. But it isn't - we're good together and the family functions very well. It'd just be helpful if she fancied shagging me now and again.

I'll research psycho-sexual counselling - that's a good suggestion.

OP posts:
Charbon · 07/02/2013 14:26

Your latest post conveys a belief that men possess an entirely different sex drive to women because of testosterone, which is a myth. And yes of course for most people, sex means different things at different times. I wasn't suggesting that complex human beings want sex in the same context every time.

Saying you're 'not terrible' at chores also fails to convey that you are taking a proportionate share of them. It's also common for the person who does the least to have a poor assessment of what is required to be done - or is done by the other partner. For example, 'doing the laundry' could mean 'putting clothes in a machine', or 'sorting, washing, drying, ironing, folding and putting it away'. There are often other extremely time-consuming tasks that get missed out, such as remembering important events, buying presents and cards, dealing with school communications. These are daily tasks and responsibilities, but they often fall on one person's shoulders.

Likewise, 'giving someone space to talk about how she feels' isn't always the same as 'asking open questions and listening actively. Paraphrasing what you've heard and checking out understanding, focusing on what's being said and not bringing the topic back to one's own self.' Real listening is a vastly underrated skill in communication, especially in romantic relationships. You mentioned that your wife stonewalls and derails conversations about sex. It could be that your communication as a couple in face-to-face interactions needs improving generally. If you both routinely followed a simple template of asking eachother open questions and listening actively, the conversation about sex should be no different.

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