Long relationship heading sour

[Limelight12]

Ok, I am at a bit of a wits end and its my first time on here....so treat me gently.

Some background:
Married 35 years, known each other nearly 40
Both 59, active, retired, feel about late forties. My wife is slim, attractive, glamorous and really looks after herself
Both been retired for 4 years or so, we travel for around 10-12 weeks a year, gradually working our way round the world
Lovely home, lovely daughter, vintage Jaguar
I am a photographer in my spare time (Fashion, portraiture and travel) My wife is member of 2 book groups, active gym member and gardener of our large gardens
Sounds ideal.

But its all going a bit pear shaped........

I feel a bit put upon ( I do all the boring stuff).

Our sex life is not great ( We have very differing tastes: She: very vanilla, Me: dressing for sex) we don't seem to be able to get a balance that works for both of us. Consequently the bedroom is a battlefield.

As a photographer I have a strong interest in fashion: I occasionally buy my wife clothes and luxury items that she would not buy herself. Clothes from Net a Porter, shoes from Louboutin, casuals from Uterque and Misha collection. These are always on mail order, so a chance to refuse. She never does. Expresses delight and off they disappear to one of her 7 wardrobes, very rarely seeing the light of day. I feel a bit disappointed.

Her Gym and book club commitments are sacrosanct: to the point that "us" time is squeezed to the limit. We have even tried diarising "time for sex" but that seems to defeat the point and usually ends in disaster.

It's not all one way traffic. I have issues with depression and anxiety, I am on a strong cocktail of drugs. Grey winter light only makes it worse. The consequence is that I have mood swings.

Additionally I have had a prostate operation, which now means I can no longer ejaculate and my physical Libido is depressed.

I have recently returned from 8 weeks in the Caribbean restoring coral (my wife joined me for the last 3 weeks) I returned feeling the best I have felt in 10 years ( and looked it). Since then its just been a running battle.

Help

Gosh I'm well jel! I'll swap with your wife! You feel taken for granted and you're a bit low after the op and your physical changes and you need to feel wanted and loved but she's too busy to notice. Schedule a chat and sit down and tell her how you're feeling?

Well thank you. We have tried talking, but it usually ends up in me getting angry.

Issue feels to me (this is my view and I may be wrong....) that other things are always a higher priority than our relationship and me in it.

I have been told that if I want her to dress for sex, I have to ask her and to lay out the clothes. I have never been given a blow job, but my wife loves oral sex for her which I always oblige.

We are meant to be off to Sri Lanka for 23 days followed by a week in the Maldives in a month or so. I have arranged the whole trip (inc private guide). My wife has never shown any interest in talking about the itinerary. Again I feel a bit put upon.

@BackInTheRoom you are jealous, I find the whole thing a bit creepy. It reads like someone who is into cross-dressing to me and wants to live out those fantasies on his wife. Nothing wrong with that of course if you are both into it and can discuss it openly.

Interesting response.
What am I meant to be jealous of?

Do does the cleaning, shopping, laundry?

You sound as if you are craving admiration which is unhealthy. Your focus is also on "stuff" and image and not a real connection with your wife.

I think after so long together the list of gripes is pretty tame..If the sex was better would you be happuer?Diarised sex can be helpful if you both lead busy lives, doesn't make it boring.

What are you do about your moods?

Yes, stuff doesn't cover up all the cracks in a relationship. You sound very disconnected as a couple. What do you actually want from the relationship and what are your red lines?

Not quite sure how it works if you can't ejaculate any more, and your physical libido is depressed. Doesn't this mean you don't want sex any more anyway?

I agree you sound disconnected as a couple with your wife in her routine of her interests and you organising the holidays. Can you have more shared interests?. Perhaps she can book the next holiday?

You need to tell her how you feel in a calm and measured way without getting angry.

Perhaps you need to be more romantic?

We have tried talking, but it usually ends up in me getting angry.

That's extremely interesting language. "We have tried talking" as if talking isn't something you usually do.

How often do you have intimate conversations about your feelings and hers?

What do you get angry about?
What would she like to see change in the relationship?

Issue feels to me (this is my view and I may be wrong....) that other things are always a higher priority than our relationship and me in it.

At this stage of a relationship when you've had several decades together, it's normal and actually pretty healthy not to be each other's first priority. You should have enough confidence in each other that you can have relatively little face time but still know you love each other and are each other's safe space.

Is she your safe space?

Are you her safe space?

If you become frail and ill, would she be your comfort and port in a storm? How do you expect she would react if you had a sudden reversal of Fortune?

You describe her appearance early on in your post... What would happen if she put on weight? What about if she got, say, a colostomy bag, and found travel too taxing so stopped taking trips with you? What if she wanted to stop having sex altogether? What would happen in the relationship then?

Bored to death reading this

If she doesn't like dressing up, wearing clothes you buy, or giving blow jobs at 59, she doesn't. Are you happy to be with her how things are now, or do you want to leave?

And did something precipitate this feeling? Often it's wives, who have spent decades building a life and are happy with it, their husbands retire and expect their wives to drop everything and entertain them. Is it that?

Wives 'often' maybe .. but not always

Hence "often".

Have you read up on the menopause? Are you familiar with what women go through? Have you and your wife chatted about it.
I am in the same age bracket.
I would take the Maldives bit but otherwise would hate your wifes live. My dh and l potter together, go for long walks, chat, drink coffee out and generally have peaceful life together. Its very low key but happy. I am far more involved in stuff than him but he is happy to see me enjoying myself.
Often depression causes people to shift blame onto the other person , thinking if only this happened l would have a great life.
Stop living in a fantasy world and appreciate all the positive things in your life. Or seek medical advice if depression is serious. As we age its the intimacy we have built up together that keeps us connected. Sex is important but you sounds like you have your own issues here so persuming your wife is accepting those so why don't you accept hers.
In sickness and in health, you know!
You are making your wife the scapegoat here, l feel. Work on your own issues becoming the best you can be. Cherish her and ask her what she would like and make it your goal to please her. That way happiness lies.

I'm in the early part of "early onset menopause" (Thanks Santa!) and quite frankly want to kill everyone I come into contact with on hormonal days.

Being brutally honest, can you see your relationship surviving into pension territory?

I get a sense that you both maybe lived out a fantasy, and maybe she's still living it with her no responsibility lifestyle. And this was enough for you both but now the real world has entered your non real world. Your health has declined and you are vulnerable. You both maybe don't have the tools or the experience or the intimacy to pull each other through suffering because maybe you haven't experienced it until now (wild generalisation!)? Your 'need' is great now and you are starting to view her in a more critical light? But maybe she's feeling that her needs haven't been met either and she immersed herself in other pursuits to cover her emptiness? Maybe that's why the clothes don't mean anything to her? If they did, she'd be stoked about them but she isn't bothered?

Your anger probably isn't helping OP. I get that you're angry but you don't own the right to be angry. And it hasn't got you anywhere with it has it. Sounds like you're in the Drama Triangle. I'll post some links.

The Drama Triangle:

Transactional Analysis

The 5 Love Languages

A lovely daughter AND a vintage jag? Awesome.

Is this post real or a wind up?
Just asking.
It's full of boasts and materialistic nonsense.
OP..Can't you see how this comes across to people who have REAL problems?

You sound like you're into all the surface things. You mention how you both look, a naice car, the clothes you dress your doll, I mean wife, up in. Etc. It sounds all very shallow. She is probably well aware of all this, and to top it off you want your doll to be dressed up for YOUR lusty pleasure for you to use as your personal sexy wank sock. There is no talk in your words of your actual feelings for your wife - it's all about the stuff, looks, holidays, etc. In addition, you say you have "mood swings" - you think a woman will want to sleep with someone who treats her as a thing to dress up (and that she should be grateful for that that you do that for her) but has mood swings, etc?

Do you actually LOVE your wife? What do you do for her that has actual meaning? Not "stuff" things like clothes etc?

Well, what a collection of responses. Thank you all. Lots of questions, some appropriate to answer, other I sense are for me to ponder.

So here goes with some straightforward responses:

'Stuff': well that depends on your view of what stuff is. Not sure that we are addicted to stuff, unless you define stuff in dressing fashionably and smartly. We only replace stuff at home when it doesn't work any longer!

Moods: I suffer from depression and anxiety and take a strong cocktail of drugs to control it. I suffer also in winter light, hence 8 weeks in the Caribbean

Chores: Cooking, shopping, cleaning, ironing etc. Well in general these are meant to be split equally, though in practice I tend to do more. I have always cooked more than my wife and have always done both my own ironing inc the household ironing

Lifestyle: Frankly that's a matter of choice. We both retired in our early 50's and did so to travel widely. I am not dissing "pottering around" but that is not for either of us at this stage of our lives

Junebithdaygirl: thank you for you very constructive observations. I think you have hit the nail on the head. Thank you

Backintheroom: thanks for the links . I'll need to look at these in detail, but they seem on first view to be very constructive.

I know it's stating the obvious but getting angry won't help and you really need to work on that. What's actually been said when you have talked about this, before you've got angry and it's broken down?

You're not listening, OP.