Have name changed.
Have been married a long time with grown up dc . Am 59 , dh 60 .
we get on really well , we laugh, give each other space to peruse interests, both work pt. We have days out together , same values .
very sadly i was sexually abused as a child and i think it affected my confidence as well as ‘ permission ‘ to be sexual .
when i first met my husband i was quite out their sexually , which is common with people with my experience
he didnt like this as he is private and didn't want me to be flirty with others . I remember feeling shame and i became sexually shy with him.
Over the years i tried to be sexual but quite often i just didnt want to be .
At times he got cross as frustrated and also i think that he didnt try to push me too much as he was sensitive to my experience . It was a very difficult thing to manage over the years. We did have relationship counselling. I was told there that sexual energy is a good healthy thing , but by this time it didn't feel ok and i saw sex as physical not connecting by now.
Added to this my dh looked at porn .. which i understand.. but freaked me out as i felt it was objectifying young women and that was too close in my mind to my exploitation as a child . - using a female for pleasure .
we worked through this and i do get why he did it .
So here you see a complex past . I hate that my relative has affected our marriage . However, at this age i don't know what to do .
my dh no longer tries to have sex and i think it makes him sad . He says he has trained himself not to think about it now .
we get on so well. He says i look pretty.. and he looks good but it feels like the past really taken its toll and we both now wouldn't know how to change it . I want to make his life better.. ( i cd happily not have sex) he seems happy in all other ways. He never discusses sex now .
But he always was a sexual person .
is it time to grieve about all this , give totally up, and just stay as we are?
he loves me and i love him.
i feel i let him down i sometimes wonder if he didnt leave as he didnt want another male to hurt me . We are not doing further counselling.