I'm new to this forum and have joined specifically because I would desperately appreciate any advice from anybody who has experience with this sort of thing. Depending on how much time you have, I've written the full story or a short version.
Short story:
I'm 26, my husband is 29. We have been married nearly three years and together for just over five. Since fairly early in the relationship there have been serious problems with sexual compatibility but we were so head over heels in love, and continue to be so compatible and well-suited in every other respect, that I believed the issues could be fixed with time. In the last two and a half years the problem has mostly manifested in what appeared to be an almost complete lack of sex drive on his part. I have worked incredibly hard to try to fix the problem but unfortunately in the last three months have succumbed to the pressure of a serious attraction to a new colleague. In the last week my husband has admitted that the actual reason behind our problems is that he has been addicted to watching porn since he was 11. The association for him between porn and sexual gratification is so strong that he actually finds it almost impossible to get turned on by anything other than being left alone with a computer.
I have told him about the bare bones (excuse the pun) of my relationship with my colleague but he does not know the gory details. He says he would rather excuse an indiscretion than have me leave him, and thinks he can sort out his issues This is unfortunate timing as I have been waiting years for him to admit and address the real underlying issue, and am now struggling to give up the new-found sexual thrill of flirting with somebody else. Can anybody suggest a plan of attack for us to try and address this, get our sex life back on track, and rescue our marriage?
The (very, very) long story:
I met my now husband when I was 21; I am now 26 and we have been married nearly three years. He is three years older. We met online, which was a new experience for me. We fell in love very quickly. It was a real meeting of minds. I like and respect him more than any other man I've ever met. He is clever, funny, well-educated, extremely compassionate and shares most of my outlooks on life. We remain best friends, enjoy a nice life doing lots of things together, very rarely argue, and the emotional aspect of our marriage has been, until very recently, almost perfect. Initially our sex life was as you'd expect for a new couple - we had sex regularly and it was light-hearted and fun. However, as we started to commit emotionally and got engaged etc, I began to feel concerned and at times disturbed because the sex we had still seemed to always be very impersonal and at times I felt quite demeaned. He seemed to find it impossible to engage with me at all, and I often felt as if I could just be anybody, or even not there at all. To put it bluntly, I began to get upset that he was just fucking me and never making love to me. I expressed my concerns to him in what I hoped was a sensitive manner and for a very short while he seemed to make an effort, although to be honest his attempts at looking at me or talking to me during sex were often more disappointing than before I'd said anything. However, not long after this, our sex life began to tail off abruptly to, relatively speaking, almost nothing.
There have been peaks and troughs over the last four years, but mostly we have been in a situation where if we would have sex, we could easily go several weeks before it happened again. Inevitably he finishes extremely quickly and the sex itself is disappointing, which does not help encourage repeat episodes. For the vast majority of this period he has maintained that he simply has a low sex drive and does not know why. There have been countless promises to try and change/improve the situation, with occasional bouts of very short lived success, eg having sex twice in a week, before reverting to the norm. Initially I tried on my own to pinpoint what could be causing this low sex drive. We have no children, no pets, no dependent family members, no more stresses or money worries than the average couple our age, and of the two of us I am the one who works long hours with emergency, on call and night duties. I have tried everything in terms of the way I look, to try and increase his attraction to me. I have been curvier than usual, slimmer than usual, and now have settled on simply concentrating on being happy with myself, so I eat healthily and work out several times a week. My hair has been long, short, dark, blonde and every shade in between, trying to find a style he fancies more. I shave my legs, my bikini line is immaculate, I always wear nice matching sets of underwear and dress carefully. I am not particularly confident in my own looks but the point is I make a massive effort for him, and I figure I am not going to get any better looking than I am now as I grow older and have babies etc!
I have looked at ways I could be a better partner, I have asked him if there is anything in the way we interact that puts him off sex. I have asked him if it is confidence in himself that's lacking. I cook him healthy meals and try to encourage him to exercise. I have had him checked for all possible medical issues and he came back from the doctor with a very expensive prescription for medication to treat erectile dysfunction. That put us in an even stranger position because I assume the way to use that medication is wait til you're in the mood then take a pill - however because the issue seemed to be libido rather than a mechanical problem with 'getting it up' it was impossible to plan. I didn't feel particularly sexy saying "why don't you take a pill?"!! He took one and the rest remain untouched in our medicine cupboard. I tried literally hundreds of times explaining to him that the fact he didn't seem to want to sleep with me made me feel as if there was something wrong with me, that he didn't love me. I told him time and time again of the loneliness and isolation, the humiliation of not being able to tell anybody because I was so embarrassed, when everybody around me complained about having to pretend to be asleep or other ways to deflect their partners' constant demands for sex. I have told him how upset it makes me that I don't know how we could possibly hope to conceive, let alone what would become of our almost non-existent sex life once a baby or babies come along. I used to feel so excited at the idea of starting a family with him, but now it fills me with dread and anxiety. Nothing has changed.
The turning point has come in the last three months. I finally grew exhausted of trying to solve this problem on my own, feeling as though I was getting no help, and mostly of being starved of the feeling of being sexually attractive. I started a new job just before Christmas and from January onwards have been working with a colleague with whom I have sexual chemistry. Initially we were just very friendly, but I found myself pouring out all my troubles to him. His total bafflement at how I could have found myself in this situation stroked my ego massively and eased some of the stress of keeping this huge secret to myself. At first he was very respectful of the fact that I was married and really kept his distance but it was like something in me finally snapped and I am ashamed to say that following encouragement on my part, we have ended up spending two nights together. There is no great future in it emotionally and I am not in love with him, but the sex was eye-wateringly good and our flirty texting is like a drug to me that I am finding really hard to consider giving up. I have told my husband that there is something going on with this other guy, but I have not told him all the gory details. He is obviously not happy, but says he would rather excuse an indiscretion than have me leave him.
Unfortunately, my husband has picked the last week to finally admit to me that the real underlying issue in our own relationship is an addiction to porn. He was raised by a strict Catholic mother who taught him that sex was dirty and shameful. In rebellion against this, he has been looking at internet porn since he was 11 and now finds it almost impossible to become turned on by anything 'in real life'. He only finds himself getting in the mood once he is alone in the house with access to a computer. Doubly unfortunately, many years of trying to find new material to keep him entertained has inevitably led him to some very extreme, quite violent and very demeaning material, which sits badly with me as I was raped when I was 16. This means that normal sex with a normal person who wants him to look in her eyes and touch her, speak to her and engage with her as his loving partner holds absolutely zero appeal, and when he tries to do those things rather than just shut his eyes and think about things he's seen online, it results in him losing his erection. Naturally this makes me feel horrendous about myself and it has got to the point where between his admissions and my relationship with the other guy, I can't even bear the thought of my husband touching me.
Nevertheless, my husband now thinks that as he has admitted the real issue to both himself and me, he can get help to solve the problem. I do not want to split up, and I would love to get the marriage back on track, but I am finding it very hard to give up my secret life on the side (I am aware that is unacceptable regardless of the circumstances). If anybody has any words of advice or wisdom I would be desperately grateful. If anybody has actually read all this I am really impressed!!