Don't know what to do. Is my marriage over?

[Santasfuckstick]

I don't know what I want or expect from this post except somewhere to get my feelings out.

I think my marriage is over.

I deeply love my husband but we have a practically sexless marriage.

He absolutely adores me and has always had a much lower sex drive than me but the last year or so it's been pretty much nonexistent.

We have discussed it but nothing changes. We've been intimate maybe 5 times in the last year.

Truth is I absolutely love sex. He does when we do it but it doesn't seem to cross his mind otherwise.

The subject has come up time and time again and things may change temporarily but not long term and when we do have sex it's at my instigation.

It just makes me feel shit and I'm becoming resentful of it. It makes me feel like I'm bullying him.

I've read many a similar thread and the suggestion of an open marriage comes up but there's no way he'd accept that. And I'm not 100% sure I'd want to do that either tbh.

The annoying thing is in every other way he's the perfect man. And he really is. And a fantastic father to our 4 DC. And it seems such a trivial thing to separate over but it can't be that trivial if it's upsetting me this much can it?

It just doesn't seem to be something we can mend.

I just need to get the words out, even if it is to a nest of vipers

The problem has been on and off for years and I always push the feelings aside and think with my head that the marriage is brilliant in all other ways.

But how can a marriage be brilliant when one partner is so desperately unhappy?

We've been together since approx 20 and now we're late 30s.

I want to be married to him. I really do but we can't get past this can we?

Not without me making such a big sacrifice?

How exactly do you explain "I left your father and broke apart our family because I wasn't getting enough sex"?

You don't have to justify ending a relationship to anyone. If you don't want it, you don't want it. End of.

If you felt like you wanted to explain to your dc, you'd just say something like 'I love your DF v much but we were better as friends and our relationship was more like that of friends than husband and wife'.

How exactly do you explain "I left your father and broke apart our family because I wasn't getting enough sex"?

It’s not even “not getting enough sex” though, as OP’s DH is happy to have sex if she initiates. It’s more “I could have plenty of sex but had to initiate it, so wasn’t feeling desired enough”. Honestly, OP, given how good you say things are in other respects, and given you have DC, I think you’re very unlikely to be happier alone (or find someone else who ticks all the DH boxes and this missing one).

It sounds like there's so much that is good that it would be a mistake to end it over that. From the other extreme you could be in an amazing sexual relationship with everything else being rubbish. It sounds like you have so much, it's worth trying to fix it it compromise somewhere. Sex counsellor, GP, talking to him, excellent sec toys etc etc

I don't disagree @GeorgiaGirl52 - in fact I feel the same as you. But let's not forget men do this ALL THE TIME(and of course suffer the consequences in terms of how their children regard them)