I honestly think you're wrong Tony that my wife had or is having an affair. Believe me, that thought has crossed my mind but quite honestly I know my wife and I know that she's better than that. Besides, I don't think you can say that when a woman loses her desire for sex (with her husband) that she must be having an affair. Maybe the low desire wives on this post can provide some insight.
Sooner, I honestly thought I was wrong too! I thought I knew my wife too after 30 years together! She's 53, but it happened, the exact same way yours is happening. Now she is dumping me for the OG!
You're absolutely right, sooner. You cannot make the assumption a woman is having an affair just because she loses her desire. In fact I used to test myself and try to fantasize about other men to see if I could generate some sense of desire. Zippo. Nada.
Now on the subject of needs getting met. I'm actually suggesting eliminating the concept of "getting needs met" as a central core to making a relationship work. I'm suggesting focusing on your enjoyment of the other person. My h and I have had discussions about getting needs met throughout our marriage. Looking back on them, it was mostly me talking about my needs. They seem rather monotonous and similar now after our more recent conversations about our relationship. Our recent conversations have focused more on enjoying each other and talking about ideas, thoughts, plans. We do things for each other now not to just fulfill a need the other person has, but because we just love doing it for the other.
This time around, I really have a much stronger sense of real, significant change in our relationship compared to my feelings after the previous, old, boring conversations about needs (my needs.) Now that my eyes are really open to seeing my h again, I'm learning so much from him. (And that's really sexy!) He says he doesn't see me as a "fulfiller of his needs." He sees me as his partner in life. I'm working as hard as I can to be more like him in this way.
He just came home and read what I was writing. He says he just loves me and not to stress over it too much.
My sitch is pretty much the same as Jen381's. I realized I missed the intimate relationship we had. Not having sex for so long kind of developed into a habit for me. A habit that needed to be broken especially since my H moved out and this being part of the problem. I wanted to save our marriage. My H, like you are fearing, I'm sure was driven to ow by my behavior. I don't know exactly how far their relationship went but if they had not had sex yet it was pretty darn close. We talked one night and I stated very, very strongly (which is a 180 for me) that I wanted her out of the picture and that she was a bigger problem then just sex. He had been sharing all his thoughts and feelings with her instead of me for a long time. I was feeling very shut out. To which he responded with an "I have to think about it". Much to my surprise, she was gone the very next day!
I knew I had to act fast. I did a 180 and invited him to go away for the weekend. I acted "as if" I were the sexist woman alive. I brought lingerie, books, candles, you get the picture. This is something I (or either one of us) have never done before in 13 years of marriage. It turned out that he brought a few of these things too. I felt a little uncomfortable at first because it had been such a long time. I could have very easily dodged sex, which I thought about because I was so uneasy. I forced myself to get the ball rolling. After a while, I really was in the mood and it was pretty good. We even talked about sex (which we had never done either) by reading some of the books out loud. This was also uncomfortable for me because I wasn't used to it. But I just bit the bullet and talked and you know what? Both doing it and talking about it got easier and easier. Now I have to make sure that I can keep it up (no pun intended) and don't fall back into the no sex habit. My H is moving back in this weekend and we will keep working on the r.
The moral of my story is that maybe your wife has fallen into this same habit which is very hard to break. With out my crisis I'm not sure if I would have done it either. What my H could have done if I had not taken charge was to not put any pressure on me to have sex-that only drove me further away. Be more romantic without the expectation of sex. What does it for me is when he does things for me that are totally unexpected and thoughtful-being very sweet. Heck, taking out the trash without being asked can be a turn on. You sound very thoughtful, just put some of this into action without expectations and maybe she will come around.
A change of scenery is great, and I agree, being somewhat direct about what you want is good too-ask her if she is in the mood instead of touching since that is uncomfortable for her. If she says no, be patient and maybe suggest that just cuddling would be ok with you tonight because you want to be close to her. And most of all keep letting her know how much you love her.
I hope any of this is useful to you. Maybe knowing that your lack of sex is not necessarily her lack of desire for you but a lack of practice might help.
Guts mess up in military, some days good, some days bad. So it affected love life. And no you can't have either number. I haven't totally givnen up like you. HA HA!!!
I think you're correct that my wife has fallen into the habit of not having sex and that it's a very hard cycle to break. The fact that you were uncomfortable with both having and talking about sex sounds a lot like her. Even when she was comfortable having sex she was never comfortable talking about it. She's never been open to telling me what feels good, what turns her on, etc. which is frustrating because even if I find something that seems to work once, the next time it will be completely different. She acts like talking about it takes away the romance and that I should just know what she wants at any given time. Unfortunately I don't, and I especially don't now that we've gone so long with so little sex. I feel like we don't know each other physically anymore. And by the same token, since she's uncomfortable talking about sex I never tell her what I like because I'm afraid that I'll hurt her feelings or make her feel like she's doing something wrong. Guess I've gotten off on another subject, but as long as I'm on it I'm wondering if the sex-starved marriage has had the following effect on anyone else.
Even though it hasn't deterred my desire one bit, I have a lot of anxiety about sex that I didn't used to have. This anxiety seems to manifest itself in "less than spectacular" perfomance. On the rare occasions that my wife and I have had sex over the past few years, I'm always worried that if she doesn't have an orgasm she'll have even more of a reason not to desire sex. Instead of just being able to enjoy making love to her like I used to, this is all I can think about - and as you might guess I often don't last quite as long as she would like. Of course it doesn't help that my wife is no longer interested in foreplay - it's like she just wants to get it over with so that she can go several more weeks or months before having to do it again. Certainly doesn't do much for the male ego. I honestly think this is strictly a psychological problem that would quickly go away if sex became relatively frequent. It was never a problem in previous relationships anyway. Nonetheless it bothers me a lot and I don't know how to fix it.
Back to your post - it scares me a little that you said without the crisis of your husband leaving you for another woman, you're not sure if you'd have done anything about the lack of intimacy in your relationship. I don't want to have to leave my wife or have an affair before she'll take this problem seriously. But unfortunately that often seems to be the only thing that works. Is there anything your husband could have done or said, besides moving out and finding someone else, that would have convinced you to work on your intimacy problems? If I could get the magic answer to that question I think I'd have this problem licked!
Thanks for your response and please keep me in mind if you think of anything that might help.
Sooner, I don't know what it takes to get the low desire spouse to wake up. I don't want to confirm your fears, but for me I am certain nothing would have changed if I hadn't been ready to walk out the door. I had spent the last 8 years afraid of divorce. My wife had threatened it numerous times over the years and played that trump card to get her way on the big arguments. When I decided 2 months ago that I was no longer afraid of the "big D" (after all I survived it once before) it was very liberating to me. I really didn't want a divorce since that wouldn't be a good thing for the kids, but if that's what it was going to come to then so be it. The way it seems to me, the fact that I could walk away gave me the strength to make our R much better than it had ever been. Kind of the "negotiate from a position of strength instead of weakness" philosophy. I'm not claiming success yet but it seems to be working so far.
As for the performance issue, I think that's another thing the low desire W doesn't understand. When its been so long, and you are thinking to yourself "I can't believe this is finally happening!" its pretty difficult to have any staying power.
The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
Hi there, I've been thinking about your situation a lot. I have so much empathy for you and your W. I have a few things I want to share with you. Please take it with a grain of salt.
When I read through your posts you sound almost obsessed with finding a way to change your W. If you have the same intense words, thoughts, emotions, vibes when around your W as you do here, I am pretty sure it may be pushing her further away. Desperation for another person to change is not attractive.
I am guessing that your W knows that she is not all you hoped for sexually. When we LD's know we are living up to our loved ones sexual expectations it is a painful place to be in. It is easy to become defensive and shut off. Also to feel like we are not good enough.
Knowing that we are not fullfilling our spouses needs and doing something about it are 2 completly different things. Although I knew what my H wanted I was still not able to give it to him. It was not on purpose, or because I didn't love him, or for some vendictive motive. I just couldn't. My heart and body would not allow me too. I don't know why. But I can tell you I felt horrible. And I carried a great burden on my shoulds of guilt, fear, anxiety. I wanted to be all I could for him but I just couldn't. Maybe your W feels the same.
You see, there is nothing, absolutly nothing that my H could have done to change me. I am changing now because I decided to change for myself. I wanted more passion. But the key is: I decided.
I hope this doesn't sound harsh but there may be nothing you can do to change her. You may driving yourself and W crazy looking for answers when there are none.
One thing I have decided to do is give my husband what "he" needs to feel loved. And to quit worring about my own needs so much. I have decided to love and accept him just the way he is. I have decided to quit trying to change him and start to change myself. I am asking myself and him what he needs to feel loved. And working my hardest to give it to him.
Maybe your W will never change. Can you love her for who she is? Can you accept her "as is". Have you asked her directly what you can do to love her the way "she" needs to be loved?
I'm not saying ignore your own needs. This weekend I made a very clear list for my H. In detail of my "emotional needs". Maybe he didn't know. Just like I didn't understand his. But I have decided to communicate as crystal clear as I possibly can what I need from him. I have also decided that if I don't get a thing from him I am still going to give him what he needs. I have decided that is my job, to make him feel loved, accepted, and cherished, however he needs me to.
Do you think you W feels 100% accepted, loved, cherished just the way she is? Do you think that you do truly love and accept her just the way she is? Have you made your needs crystal clear for her?
We can't change the way other people behave or think. We can only change our own behaviors and thoughts. Happiness doesn't come when others do what we want. It comes when we give of ourselves and expect nothing back.
Hope this is not too abrasive. These are just things that I have recently discovered for myself and thought I would share.
ny 
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