There really had never been a time when we were having great sex. Even in the begining. And then it just fizzled to nothing. My fault. I'm just not interested and I think it's just with her. I see women all the time and I think how I would love to have sex with them. But don't all married men think that?. I tend to lose interest when we get to know each other well, so maybe it's an intimacy thing. I don't really know and at times I don't really care. The real question is.. Do I really want to have sex with my wife? Do I ?? The answer now is no, I don't really care but I don't want to get a D because I liked the rest of our life. Although that's been put on hold now too, so.... What to do?
How do I view sex. I used to love it. When I was dating other women, we would go to dinner or whatever and my goal was to get her back to my place. If I really don't want to have sex with my wife then shouldn't I get a D and let her have the rest of her life back. Even though I'm 52 and she's 51. Why get a D at this point in our lives?? Should she be more understanding? She says no! She's put up with it for years and if I don't do something, then....
I think you would find it very worthwhile to explore these issues with an individual counselor... truly, these are huge, life-altering questions that certainly can't be dealt with in any thorough way on a message board such as this one.
I think I do know what you mean about when you were dating, you really wanted to get the woman to come home with you. I have the feeling sometimes myself that the sex really isn't about sex, it's more about validation that someone would WANT to have sex with me. It's almost as if I know they WANT to, then we don't actually have to do it. I get the points, as it were, from knowing that he wants me.
I don't know if all married men think about having sex with other women. That's the popular idea, but I don't know if it's universal. When you see an attractive woman and think about having sex with her, do you think about the actual sex act, or do you think how cool it would be if you could get her attention and be so attractive or do all the "right things" so that she would want to have sex with you?
Didn't mean to imply you don't think about sex....but since you say now that you do think about it....just with women other than your W DANG...you sound so very familiar to my H....so I'm going to respond further.
I'm going to ask you something flat-out...don't mean to be insulting, just trying to gather info k?
Do you view sex as something you do with someone you don't respect...or more to the point, you don't have to get emotionally tied up with or close to? I'll bring up something you mentioned earlier again...you'd rather have sex with someone you don't know, than with your W. That comment once again....resounds of you having trouble being "intimate" with someone....being truly vulnerable to her.
Due to a revelation this past Feb. I found out that my H has something commonly known as Whore/Madonna syndrom. Basically (if you aren't familiar with this already)...that means he didn't view me as the type of woman he'd have sex with...I'm the type of woman he'd marry. Yes, he loves me...there's no doubt about that, but...like you, he'd seek out his sexual gratification in other ways with women that were complete strangers...women he didn't know, women he didn't respect. We are currently in the process of really doing the work to get past this issue.
The main reason I began responding to you is that some of what you are saying is sounding just so very terribly and painfully familiar to me. Whore/Madonna syndrom often happens in men (from my research, and not trying to diagnose you either...just explaining some similarities I'm seeing) where their role models were the type where not much affection was shown among the parents (or outwardly to the children), sex was an off-limits thing to talk about, IOW...a healthy ideal of what a loving/intimate relationship should be...was never instilled....he never had the opportunity to really learn how to be intimate. As a result he pushed women away, never got intimately close to them. It also explains why he's had so many failed R's prior to me.
My H was raised in a strict home. Both of his parents love each other dearly (they're both great people)....but no affection is ever shown between them to outsiders. Their version of showing affection is mock-fighting. They never kiss, never hold hands, never hug (unlike my parents)....and my H's mother gets a shocked look on her face if the subject of sex is ever remotely approached around her (she'd even change the channel on Will & Grace etc). So...my H's role models taught him that sex is off limits....sex is something the woman you marry really doesn't want (you get that from sluts...basically...or you take care of yourself).
When I first started bringing up this issue in our M to my H 3 years ago....his response to me for the longest time was "I just don't think about sex." Of course he thought about it, just as you do....but in his mind it was kinder/easier to tell me he didn't...rather than tell me he did, just not with me....he knew that would hurt me. So he told me he didn't think about it. In reality constantly being ignored, rejected, neglected....hurt much deeper.
Later on down the road things started eeking out through therapy. This past Feb. I started acting on what my gut was telling me and started doing some checking....found out my gut was telling me the truth, that yes he thought about sex and was acting on his urges in some manner (online). I cannot tell you how bad that hurt to confirm. I don't know if your W knows you MB & look at some porn, but if she doesn't....she's very likely to be quite hurt by that knowledge. I had been telling him this was an issue....and he continued to take care of himself...and ignore me. No offense, but that's essentially what you are doing too. YOU have the power to turn your sexual urges toward your W, but for you it's going to have to be a concious effort on your part....until it's no longer such an effort for you.
If this sounds familiar to you....you are going to need help working past this. I'm sorry if you have already answered this question, but have you considered talking to a therapist? There is absolutely no way my H would be at the point he is now...if he didn't have a good therapist to help him understand why he behaves as he does sometimes.
If your W is being ignored sexually by you....chances are she's not going to really care how you go about getting yourself in the right frame of mind to be with her....just that you do get in that frame of mind.
I cannot tell you how many times I've told my H I don't care what he does to prime himself for me...just that he does it and I reap the benefit.
Oh and....your W is your W....but in your M...she is also a sex object. The two are not mutually exclusive. That statement just reiterated to me the whore/madonna thing. I'm becoming more and more convinced that this is the frame of thinking you have.
The night I found out what my H was doing (when I confronted him about it) I flat-out told him. What he was looking at online....was me. Those women are no different than me in the respect that, I'm looking for the same type of attention that they are...only from my own H.
Photoguy....your behavior is effectively suppressing a side of your W (if she's anything like I am.) Often when we feel neglected, ignored, rejected etc. Parts of us go into hiding. I felt I had to suppress a very sexual side of myself from my H for the largest part of our M, because I was ignored etc (I felt he found that unattractive about me, or that it was pressure). The fact of the matter is that he is married to a woman that can curl his toes and rock his world.....but he discouraged me from that behavior. He was married to a woman that could easily outdo some of the women in the webcams and videos he'd seen....but he wouldn't allow her to come out.
It's very possible....you have the type of woman you are looking for under your own roof, but because she feels so painfully hurt she doesn't let that side out now. (just guessing on this from my own experience).
Out of curiosity....how do you think you would feel if you could somehow take your wife and the women you find sexually attractive....and put them into one woman? It's very likely that woman already exists right under your roof.
You sure do sound a lot like my H. He has often said that he doesn't feel/experience the connection between love and sex. Feelings of love towards me don't cause or combine with feelings of sexual desire and vice versa. However, I think that if you were to concentrate on the feelings generated by the question Cobra asked "Would it bother you if your wife had sex with another man?" you might begin to see that there is some overlap in your feelings of love and sexual desire, even if right now they only exist as a small negative feeling of jealousy. Otherwise, why wouldn't you simply suggest to your wife that you carry on as a happily, platonic couple and you'll look the other way when she discreetly takes on a lover or lovers. I'm not actually suggesting this as a practical solution but just sort of a mental exercise that will allow you to see the ways in which you really might want to maintain an exclusive, loving sexual relationship with your wife.
Heck, I'll even take it as step further. You said your wife has moved out. Imagine that she stops at the grocery store this evening. A genial reasonably attractive man with a high sex drive in his late 50s asks her advice about his produce purchase. They discover a mutual interest and start chatting. Your W has been dreading another night alone in her apartment, so she responds positively when he asks if she'd like to have a coffee. One thing leads to another and there he is in her apartment looking at your wife's naked breasts. What cup size is she? What color are her nipples? Can you even remember after five years? Well, new guy doesn't need to rely on memory because he's looking right at them and now he's touching them and moving right on to the action. How does your wife like it? Rough? Gentle? Top? Bottom? Whatever way she likes it, that's just how he's doing it. How does this make you feel? Jealous? Aroused? If so, why is it that you are able to feel aroused as the voyeur at the peephole rather than the man at the center of your wife's sexual fantasy? Don't you think that you deserve to be the man?
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
We don't get many LD men in this forum. Let us not dump on him. Mojo - your post could be interpreted as venting your frustration.
Photoguy - I have to admire you. Unlike so many Low Desire people you have actually looked at your actions and your feelings and tried to understand them. You've also tried to understand them in the context of your marriage. You also appear willing to work within your situation to make things better.
I'm also envious. I wish I had as much control over my marriage or that my spouse were as desirous of me as your spouse is of you.
I hope you figure this one out and are able to put the bliss back into your marriage.
__________________________________________________________ The rest of the stuff we do together is always fun and as far a s I know we both enjoy it. We went to Paris two years ago and had a great time. And, no, there was no sex. Yes, I know not even in Paris. __________________________________________________________
This would have cut me to the quick. I think I would have come back from a trip like that simply knowing that it was over. When you were there in Paris, did it occur to you that your W might want sex? Did you consider giving her sex as an act of love even if you weren't so interested. Is it possible that having sex with your W more regularly would build your interest.
Please excuse us for being so prying but the HDW's here know exactly how hurt your W must be and want desperately to understand how their H's can love them and not want them.
Is it normal for people married 10 years to see someone else and feel sexually interested. Certainly. However, that same interest can be turned into your own R with a little cognitive effort. Mmmmmmm - that lady in the denim shorts looks hot....wonder how my W would look in a pair of shorts like that or I remember when W used to have a pair of shorts like that.... See what I mean?
It does go back to the Madonna/Whore issue. I often think that is exactly what my H has against kissing me passionately. You don't kiss the Madonna like that. You give her a nice chaste peck to demonstrate your respect. Those of us who are forced into the position of Madonna get awfully resentful and some of us have acted out at least in part because of it. If you want your wife back things need to change.
Where have you and she left things? Have you discussed with her a willingness to see a Dr and a sex therapist? Have you told her you don't want to lose her?
I realize that you are in pain too. Many people are able to come back from this pain and change their M into more than they ever thought was possible.
Quote: Let us not dump on him. Mojo - your post could be interpreted as venting your frustration.
You could probably say that about 99% of my posts in general. (LOL) I admit I was trying to shock the guy into action. His situation is pretty serious. His wife has already moved out. She is a woman who wants sex and hasn't had any in 5 years. If she is reasonably attractive and not positively mired in a pit of low self-esteem due to her SSM, a scenario like that I have described could happen quite easily. It seems to me that PhotoGuy is mired in a Walter Mitty fantasy land of women he would like to have sex with precisely because he can't or hasn't yet had sex with them. I am definitely in the "takes one to know one" category when it comes to active fantasy lives so I was just trying to give PhotoGuy a sort of reality check. Though of course I did this by projecting a fantasy life onto his wife based on the assumption that any woman who is willing to leave a relationship due to lack of sex certainly must have a sexual fantasy life. PhotoGuy does not seem to be completely cognizant of this since he said that he believed that she had simply sublimated her sex drive into her business life.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Photoguy, I have to admit that I suspect you are a troll due to the incongruence of your thoughts/posts.
Here's what's buggin me:
Your choices are 1) Begin sex therapy ASAP and deal with ALL of your issues; or 2) Get okay with being divorced.
The fact that you are not being pro-active and trying to effectively 'win' your wife back--which is what most spouses do who have been left--tells me that you either don't care about her absence or you are just yanking our chain.
You know you have problems with intimacy so why not start therapy?
Or is it your intention to be single (and ML to pornographic images) for the rest of your life?
