Am I being selfish?

[andrew279144]

My partner had stage 4 cancer two years ago - liver and bowel - four months to live. I nursed her through all of it, and thanks to wonderful Southampton General, she is, after colono-rectal surgery and stoma, now free of it. But we had a great sex life up until her surgery. Now, of course that has ended. But I miss it. Am I being unreasonable in wanting some kind of sex life, I'm sure many will label me as just a typical man wanting sex. Tired of masturbation. What should I do??

I don’t understand why you are getting such a hard time OP. It does seem that rather than talking to your partner and try to work through the issue you are leaping to considering having an affair though.

Putting that to one side it’s my understanding that it’s perfectly possible to continue to have sex after a stoma, albeit some positions are ruled out.

Therefore this comes down to your DP. Talk to her.

Find out if a) she wants to have penetrative sex again but her feelings about the changes to her body are getting in the way or b) she doesn’t have any desire to have penetrative sex ever again - she is just totally not into sex any more.

If it’s A you can work on that by making her feel loved, valued and beautiful. She should work on it and consider counselling and there are numerous support groups and charities that can offer practical advice. What won’t work in scenario A is you having an affair/seeking to open up your marriage. All that will do in this situation is reinforce her negative feelings about herself and sex.

If it’s scenario B - and truly scenario B as she may be tempted to say it is this when really it’s scenario A because she is feeling so negative about herself - then that is of course her choice. However it’s also your choice whether you stay in a relationship you know will be sexless. Sure in this situation you can ask to open up the relationship, it works for some people. However personally if someone I was in a relationship was able to have sex with me they just didn’t want to I would class that relationship as over.

I really wish society/people would stop pretending/claiming that relationships are about ’love’.
And be honest that it only means sex.
Would be much less heartbreak.
I don’t think most people even understand what love is.
So sad.

He siad they haven't had sex in two years so it is clearly about something more than sex as that hasn't even been part of their relationship. If it was only about sex, he would have been gone two years ago.

I think you’ve had great advice from Vretz and some others.

@Vretz has utterly nailed it.

@OP read it, read it and then read it again

This is very hard on you. I don't think you are being selfish at all. But you do need to talk with your wife about possibly opening things up, and it might take longer to resolve than you think. I'm going to give a perspective purely from YOUR side as lots of posters have weighed in saying that for your wife's best interests you should invest all your energy into the sex life at home, limited though it is.

If you open the marriage, with her knowledge, without doing the emotional work you'll nees to do, it makes her feel more unattractive and worried and unsure of you. Then that will wreck your marriage in other ways and the sex (that you might be getting, somewhat transactionally, and in a very boundaried way) will not make you happy anyway because your life will be more tense.

If you both do the emotional work on being open, great. But can she take that on right now? It is a lot to ask if she's recovering, and it may not be what she is able to process. But if she's really uninterested in sex at all over the long term, this might be something she comes to as she loves you and wants your marriage.

Third option is you saying to yourself look, I don't want to put this on her now, I'll find a discreet fuck buddy and keep myself compartmentalised. That honestly could work and you will likely still be a caring and attentive husband. But it's a bit short term and you will likely feel shit in other ways and it will on some level corrode your closeness with your wife. Also it's worth doing some checking with yourself- you may think you want the escapist release of sex, but is it also that you want to be seen, known, nurtured and cared for, after such a long time as a carer (twice with your previous wife too?!). That is a powerful need and it leaves you vulnerable to other love affairs , so you may need to think about how to handle that.

So I'm afraid no easy answers. I'm really sorry for the situation you are both in.

Some topics on MN are really supportive and helpful. Some topics are dominated by shouty, man hating posters. Do try specific cancer support sites. Lots of men and women on these sites. They are so kind and helpful.
Bowel Cancer UK never let's a post go unanswered. The mods welcome you to the site. The carers/ partners area lets you voice fears that you would never want your partner to read.
MN can make me think that the world is full of judgemental, spiteful posters. The Cancer support sites have such wonderfully supportive posters. The mods are saintly in their determination that no poster is left alone to worry. Ditto Macmillan.
A worry shared is a worry halved etc.

Having said that, I have been married for forty odd years and I love my husband more than anything. I can do without anything if I have him by my side.

You have to ask yourself what is penetration actually about for you. It sounds like you have a very rich sex life with your partner already. More than most couples. So why throw that away, what is going on? Your replies so far don't show much introspection or self awareness on that. It's coming across like a mental checklist of acts to be performed and you're unhappy that 1 act isn't being ticked off. Which is pretty superficial. The throw away comment that you'll get another partner purely to tick off that one act is what's causing the vitriolic responses.

Imagine in the future you get a new partner, able to tick off the full list of acts with penetration etc. Then you get ED. Doesn't respond to treatment. After a while, new partner says well penetration isn't happening so I'm going to get another partner for that. Would you be happy and supportive of your partner doing that? Probably not.

Take responsibility for your own priorities, but first do some introspection to understand what you actually want out of life. Penetration probably isn't it.

Look up tantric sex. It’s more about mindset and really feeling and stroking.

I don't hate men. Far from it.

What I do hate though are arseholes. Which unfortunately usually happen to be men.

Any 'man' who can actually say to his partner, (who is recovering both physically and mentally from a very serious illness, who feels very self conscious of her body and is no doubt suffering with low self esteem and all sorts of emotion) that would she mind if he got himself another woman to stick his dick into, because he has suffered enough looking after her......
ISN'T a man. It's an arsehole.

Just because you are a man and women call you out on shitty behaviour, does NOT make us man haters.

Perhaps consider if the shoe was on the other foot. How would you feel if you were recovering and felt absolutely unattractive and fragile and your wife said, well, i'm off to find myself a little fuck buddy because you are not enough for me now?

Support your wife emotionally. Its literally your job as a devoted husband. It shouldn't even be 'effort'. It should be the basic bog standard minimum. As she would do for you. There is help out there in many forms, for both of you. Perhaps look there, get help for both of you, instead of thinking first about your penis.

@Bookworm, not wishing to derail the thread but I saw a documentary many years ago about a long stay medical establishment in Sweden I think. It was for people who had had very serious strokes and were paralysed. Staff there talked about how families stuck by them or didn't stick by them. Parents always visited and remained in close contact. Older, long married couples visited regularly. Younger partners by and large walked away, which is understandable I suppose.
In my limited experience I know of a chap with Parkinsons ( unusually diagnosed in his forties). His wife walked away and has since remarried. She did not want to become a carer.
It is easy to blame partners of either sex but I don't think until you have walked in those shoes you have the right to be so dismissive. Particularly when the OP has already been through this. There are also lots of posters who are championing their husbands care of them. Being so very dismissive of someone in such a difficult situation is very hard.
There are also lots of threads in the older parents section, realising that when an elderly father dies the family suddenly realise the extent of Mum's dementia. Men tend to die before women. Women are more likely to develop dementia than men. It is unkind and unnecessary to generalise about the way carers react in impossibly difficult situations.

I don't understand why MPs are going on about a "sexless marriage" or "dead bedroom". The OP clearly stated that he and his wife are still having sex, just not PIV.

OP, I think you need to reframe what sex means to you. There are such a wide variety of pleasurable acts that people can to with each other, PIV is just one. You've framed PIV as "normal" but it doesn't have to be.

Coming up with the idea that you could find another women to penetrate is selfish - by the sounds of it, that kind of 'solution' would break your wife's heart as well as treating the other woman as just an object to use. Is PIV with a random woman more important than your wife's heart, and the dignity of yourself and the other woman? How does your wife feel about it?

*why MPs, not MPs

But you are still having sex? Just of a different kind. Unless your wife wants an open marriage with you I don't think you should seek an additional sexual partner.

@Comfortablechairs and also not to derail the thread. You are talking of people who walked away.
Not started cheating on their partner because they didn't get the type of sex they wanted. OP even sounded like he was considering paying for sex. Hardly the same.

I feel for anyone in a carer situation, it must be very hard. However ripping out your wifes heart just to get your penis serviced (and he isn't choosy who by, it seems) as soon as she is starting to recover is the actions of an arsehole. Just because he perhaps helped Julie down the road with her garden fence or took a cat to vet that he saw had been run over, or generally does not go around murdering people, doesn't make someone a 'good' person.

@Bookworm20
It's his partner not his wife and the OP was previously married until his wife died of cancer. He has had two years of caring for his current partner and seeing her from Stage 4 to remission. Many would not blame him for now walking away. He is not going this. He wants to be there for his partner. He must have had a really tough time.
It's easy to pontificate from a distance. Hard to deal with the reality. That is why I suggested the cancer support forums which are so supportive and non judgemental unlike some posters on MN
Do you really think being so aggressive towards him with your posts will change his mind? The OP hasn't been back so I think not. A non judgemental supportive site such as Macmillan where he can un load his fears will probably be far more effective.

I think it's more the fact you want to go find a surrogate sex lite!

That is an affair! No matter how you paint that picture. Which will break your partner who's already feeling pretty broken.

It's not her fault your previous wife died of cancer. It's not her fault she has cancer.

With stoma bag she probably IS self conscious. I'm not sure why you think sleeping with someone else is the answer here?

Thanks for all the useful suggestions on here - there have been some comments that have been really helpful, and I will follow them up. Just to be clear, I have a partner not a wife - she asked to move in with me during Covid, and I agreed and things have worked out OK and she has stayed. I have no intention of leaving her, or seeking an 'affair'. I lost my wife to cancer (double mastectomy, followed by liver cancer) some years ago, having stuck by her solidly for 10 years, and seen the worst that cancer can do, believe me. Anyway, thank you to the enlightened members on here for listening and being helpful. No more from me.

Best of luck OP. Fwiw I would not see you as dodgy or immoral at all if you were to seek some comfort for a time. "There is more to marriage than sex" works both ways.

@EthicalNonMahogany
You have an interesting username because it's obviously a play on words of ethical non Monogamy but you always seem to endorse non ethical non monogamy ie. cheating.

Do you know if your wife would hope to return to sexual intercourse? Is the stoma likely to be reversed at some point?
It's easy for people to say you should not be thinking this that or the other. Your reality is you have already nursed someone through terminal cancer.
I think my suggestion would be firstly to seek some counselling support for yourself. Would Macmillan Nurses be able to offer advice and guidance to you both re ways to progress to intercourse again or is that not going to be an option?

The OP is not married! His wife died of cancer a few years ago. He and his partner agreed to share his house during Covid. She has not left. He has supported her during her cancer treatment. He is finding it hard.
OP sign up to Bowel Cancer UK forums. The posters there are saintly and so supportive, night and day. No post ever goes unanswered. It is not a financial enterprise like MN. It is a charity with trained staff on hand.

This.

The OP is 'thinking about finding some kind of surrogate partner'. He is thinking about it. He is not doing it. It does not make him a cheater and he is not having an affair. He has challenges and difficulties and he is trying to find a way to get through it.
OP I hope that you can find contentment in your partnership without seeker another person for sex. I don't have advice on how to do it. But please remember your partner will be really hurt if you have sex with another person.