Stay comfortable but sexless for now or leave?

[ReySkywalker]

If I wasn't in a sexless marriage with him I would think DH is amazing.
My parents, sisters and friends adore him and how he takes such good care of us.
We live in his home country and we have 2 DC, one 8 and one 2.
I am a SAHM and he does more than half of housework, I get a lie in every second day, I get to go to evening activities twice a week and encouraged to go out whenever I like.
We're not rolling in money but he recently got a bit of inheritance from an aunt. He wants to spend half on the mortgage and the rest towards my going back to college and finishing my degree - dropped out of college years ago due to mental health issues and he knows it's one of my biggest regrets.
He is lovely to my family, genuinely likes them and would do anything for them.
He's truly a great father, all his time is spent on me or the kids, building cubby house with them, reading, playing, volunteering at their school.

But, we're never intimate. We've had sex 5 times in the last 2 years since our youngest was born and before that it wasn't any better. Apart from the first 3 months of our relationship, we'd be lucky to average once every 6 weeks. I'm only 33, he's 40. I can't go on living in forced celibacy. I've talked and talked to him about it over the last ten years and he's said he'll go to the doctors but he hasn't. He now tells me he's always had low libido but the first few years he said there was nothing wrong, making me feel it was me.

I get so sad when I see genuine affection in other couples and so jealous when I hear of their healthy sex lives.

I keep fit and relatively attractive and have a healthy sex drive and I'm heartbroken thinking I'll never be wanted or kissed or have passionate sex again in my life - because of his choice to not bother go to the doctors.

In my soul I know I have to leave, we're mismatched in an essential part and it won't get better but my question is this (after all that)

Would it be terrible to stay until my degree is finished and I'm in a job earning enough to give my kids an equal life to what they have now?

I'm not a citizen and if I left now, I couldn't finish my degree (wouldn't be eligible for student loan)

I feel guilty & selfish thinking this way but other times I get quite angry at his selfishness - he loves the way our life is and being sexless suits him, he can see how upset it makes me and only says he'll change when he sees I'm at the end of my tether, then 2 months later it's back to how it was. I feel tricked

I'm speechless at some of this advice! Yeah have a wank.. that will surely make her feel more desirable!

No one is talking about forcing anyone.

I have been there and there was something fundamentally flawed about the relationship. He cared about me, but things weren't right. And ultimately it made me feel shit about myself.

I thought you must be a joke account because of your advice that the OP should just have a wank.

If only life were that simple : just have a wank.

I think you should go ahead with the degree and use this time to plan for a new life. You've been honest with him, if he responds over this time then great, if not leave.

He has the problem, not you. It's not a low sexdrive it's non-existent.

OP

Your husband could do with reading the opening post on this thread. Not that I in any way agree or condone what the wife (in your position did)

www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=587807

Maybe a print out of it would get him to make a move.

Maybe if the op could basically have a wank as you put it, it would make her less frustrated and less demanding to her dp. It was just a suggestion which might help her.

If a man had a higher sex drive than his dp that would be what was suggested so why it is difficult to see the opposite pov.

I'm sorry to the posters who are in the same position but thanks for making me feel less alone.

When I think practically, I think get the degree, get a job then give it one last go - try and get us into counselling & doc.

If it doesn't improve after that we're all in a better position anyway and he'd still have had the marriage & relationship he wants on his terms.

If I left now it's be years before I could get enough earning power to match him, we'd have to sell and couldn't afford to live where we are. I'd never make enough money to bring kids to my country to visit family, we have no family on either side here. I don't want to do that to my kids when if I waited a few years I could make things better for them.

The pragmatic view is the right view IMO op. Go for it

Is it a very patriarchal country you are living in OP?

Jane are you actually a man? Or just a total dick?

She is not being frustrated or demanding. She is rightly trying to address a non existent sexlife by talking about it with her husband who is not bothered this is making her unhappy.

Were the OP a man my advice would be the same. We're not talking about a short period of time where her husband is perhaps tired or stressed and sex takes a back seat for a while. In that situation perhaps having a wank would help. We're talking about years with minimal sex.

OP you have my sympathy. I was you and I did try to address it with my partner at the time to no avail. It made me feel invisible / dowdy.

Can a doctor "cure" a low sex drive? I wouldn't have thought it was that simple

No, big macho culture but not patriarchal society.

To the advice of pleasing myself or having an open relationship, while I appreciate the advice my problem isn't needing sexual release but that I feel I've been tricked into w celibate relationship.

For years he swore he had no problem, fancied me and every now and then would initiate things but mostly reject me with some bullshit reason or get up out of bed if he sensed me wanting anything. Too humiliating to continue trying anything then and I felt repulsive thinking he says he likes sex just not with me.

Now he's saying he's always had a low libido and I'm so annoyed thinking you let me think it was me for all these years

Are you intimate in other ways? Cuddles, massages or whatever? Do you do romance? Or are you just like flatmates?
Maybe try and work on non-sexual intimacy, like dates, play together and try and reconnect. If you promise there's no sex on the menu it might take the pressure off enough to nurture intimacy.

Would he go to counselling, OP, as it seems to be mental rather than physical? I think men find it very, very hard to admit they have a low sex drive and I don't condone him putting the blame on you (or letting you think you deserved the blame) but I can also understand (again, without thinking it's fair) that he didn't want to confess it to his young wife who had expectations of him. You feel upset and bitter about your past (and I don't blame you) - that has to be affecting how things are now, in the present. So I'd say counselling for you, and the two of you, would help you work out whether there's a future in this or not.

I might have missed it but is he otherwise affectionate towards you? Do you hold hands/kiss/hug/cuddle? Because I could do without sex, I think, but not love.

He is affectionate, we do cuddle on the couch, kiss hello & goodbye etc but it's so platonic.

We're great friends and I've no doubt he loves me but I almost think he puts me on a pedestal.

I've suggested counselling so often, made an appointment even but we had to go home for a family illness and missed it. He was so brilliant with my family at the time, we had a big talk about how how much we loved being married to each other, how we can rely on each other and he promised to re book the appointment.

He didn't and two months later things were back to normal.

I'm honestly sick of being disappointed and rejected and don't want to try to find a solution. He knows how I feel and I've done enough trying, if he had wanted to try he would've done it by now.

He doesn't want things to change, this suits him and he doesn't care that it makes me unhappy.

What is his reason for not wanting it?

And was it ever frequent?

It used to be stuff like 'I do want it but not tonight, we will tomorrow' then when tomorrow comes he waits till I'm asleep before coming to bed and does that all week.

I used to get so embarassed that I stopped trying, rejection is breaking me and I've stopped risking it.

It was frequent at the start and in pockets when he realised I was at breaking point.

That would last about two months

I think one of the issues is his family.

They are extremely uptight.

When his brother came out as gay DH's mother stopped talking to the brother for years.

I think sex was seen as dirty in their family.

His parents have split and his Dad was a bit of a womaniser. Makes inappropriate comments about women, my friends, we rarely see him.

Does he show any kind of affection or is there nothing from him at all?

I don't think it's necessarily fair to stay with him to get the degree paid for etc then leave once you've got what you want and the guy's left wondering wtf happened there. It's being dishonest to him and faking marital bliss until you've got what you want then leaving is imo a bit cruel not just to him but also the kids.

He really need to know this is an issue that can break the marriage up and maybe counselling will help but what if he is asexual and has no desire to have sex with anyone, not just you? It doesn't mean he fancies you any less.

You seem to base your attractiveness on the need to be sexually desired. are there other ways he could confirm to you that he still finds you attractive without having to have intercourse? Are there other ways you could boost your self esteem without sex being part of it?

I'm sorry you find yourself in this situation OP, I don't mean to make any digs at you but society put so much emphasis on men having crazy sex drives and there's so much social pressure on them to perform sexually and want sex all the time that I feel we've created this unrealistic scenario. Dare I say societies attitude towards the male libido is a bit sexist.

My oh has a lower libido than I do, and I didn't think it was possible to be lower than me. It was bloody frustrating but I love him more than my need to have sex and I'm confident enough in myself and our relationship to know that not having sex is not about me but him. When we decided to ttc it became a big issue and fair play to him he has tried hard and it actually revitalised his waning sex drive but the conversations that led to us actually having more sex more often than not ended up with him in the huff and feeling inadequate etc. The more I went on about it the more I pushed him away. The more upset I got the more pressure he felt to perform.

Maybe he needs more understanding than just 'go see a dr' - it's very rarely a medical issue. I wish you both luck

Urgh, that sounds very disheartening OP.

I'm not sure what to suggest. For me it didn't get any better and got to the stage I really didn't want him any more.

Can you really push the counselling idea? At the moment you are accepting the status quo and it is making you miserable.

I think it is a little aunfair to imply it's the OPs self esteem that is the issue here.

Sexual desire from your partner of course affects how attractive you feel to your partner, it would be very odd if it didn't.

Do you think there is any chance he could be gay? It seems like your honeymoon period ended very quickly. I'm just wondering that his reluctance to see the Dr and the reaction of his parents with his brothers sexuality may be a reason why he is not addressing it.

If he won't do anything about it, perhaps some counselling for yourself may help. It may help you work out what is the best way forward.

A friend of ours had this and went to the Doc, turned out he was really low on testosterone. He had some treatment and his libido returned. Although of course it could be lots of other reasons, that may be a possibility if DH would look into it? Sounds like there's lots of good in the relationship so it'd be a shame for it to end if there are any ways you can both be happy.