# What we bring to the table.



## Sanity (Mar 7, 2011)

Posting this on the men's forum first to get your take on a conversation I had with a friend of mine going through divorce. This is strictly from a male perspective, but women feel free to chime in. 

I was talking to a friend of mine at my son's birthday party the other day and I asked him how was his family. He sadly told me that his marriage was soon coming to an end. I know them both so its sad to see this happen. I asked what was going on and he opened up some personal things that got me thinking how as men we view sex and its role in keeping the marriage together. He told me that things were doing fine for years until she decided that sex was no longer important to her and started denying him sex. They both went to counseling and she basically said that she loves him but just doesn't want to have it anymore. I don't know if she has seen a doc, didn't ask. They are both in their late 40's, two teenagers. Good kids. 

Here is the statement from him that got me thinking, he then tells me (paraphrasing) "for years she has been cold and frigid and now with little to no sex in the equation her usefulness in my life is done. Kids are getting older, getting ready to go to college and I still have needs." We changed the topic but it got me thinking how a person can mentally reconcile their decision to divorce over something so inherently simple and easy as sex. Is he throwing it all away because of sex or the lack of it just clears the love tank so bad that there is no hope to reconcile. Personally my own troubles with my EX STARTED as soon as she decided to cut me off sexually. It really opened my eyes. 

If you look at the female side of things, I have known couples that divorced that loved each other very much but the husband could not hold a job so she divorced him because he was "useless" in her mind. No Job = Useless

So in short, is it fair for a man to say, "Well honey, you are cold, frigid, unstable AND on top of that I get no sex. You are no longer useful to me." just like some women would tell her perpetually unemployed husband "No job for 3 years? You are useless to me." No Sex = I have no need for you. Fair? Discuss.


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## LovesHerMan (Jul 28, 2011)

We all marry in order to get our emotional needs met. Two of those needs are financial security and sexual fulfillment. Each person must decide when the pain of not having their needs met exceeds the desire to stay married. I would agree that a sexless marriage in which the spouse refused to address the issue, is indeed grounds for divorce.


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

My STBXW and I have no longer any plans of reconciliations, our passionate romance which has lasted continually and kept alive by waves of hot makeup and wild sex did not contribute to any longetivity when it comes to our marriage. Sex is a killer, whether too much or too little, its a mutual need but when there is an imbalance it can cause a TON of issues.

Right now my wife isn't someone that I would want to get back with, not to mention my sexual attraction for her has diminished also admittedly due to the fact of her doing nothing and just laying about at home and eating... munchy munchy... She still doesn't have a job FFS, like WTF seriously, you're a single parent now, GET A FKING LIFE AND LEAD OUR DAUGHTER BY EXAMPLE

BAH! Co-dependency at its best and she's now going cold-turkey and lacks the confidence to even attract other men. Sad, depressing, and NOT what I wanted my daughter to see. But forget all that, going back to sex - YES its a dealbreaker.

Is your friend's marriage common? YES
WHY THE F-CK ARENT WE TAKING THE REALITY OF IMPORTANCE OF SEX SERIOUSLY IN THE 21ST CENTURY? Fk if I know, but we've learnt, and personally I feel we should pass this knowledge to our children in hopes that they won't repeat our mistakes as parents.


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## Woodchuck (Nov 1, 2012)

What baffles me about our society today, is that we as a people are able to talk about any degree of sex on TV, but there is little talk about it between so many people before they get married.....

I think todays young people belive bullsh1t like Jersey shore is real people, and if someone looks hot they are hot.....

I am an extremely HD male, and I know it would be totally impossible for me to stay married to a LD woman......

I was 19 when I met my wife, and knew we were great in bed, but at that age, I could just as easily hooked up with someone that was much less sexually oriented, In fact, my wife was very proper and demure and required a lot of coaxing, I thought the great time we had in the sack was due to my virtuoso lovemaking....When in fact it was as much due to the extremely
hot and sensuous nature she was hiding so well..... 

I could have hooked up with a shy and demure popsicle of a woman, and might have married her before I caught on to it....Call it dumb luck, I call it devine intervention....

There should be some type of manditory testing to determine if a couple is sexually compatible.....It would probably put a lot of divorce lawyers in the bread lines...:smthumbup:


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## Lyris (Mar 29, 2012)

There are plenty of women who have left marriages due to their husbands withholding sex.

Sex is part of marriage. It's what makes marriage different from other relationships. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that anyone, man or woman, would choose to divorce because of a lack of sex.


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## Cosmos (May 4, 2012)

IMO, sex is the cement that holds a relationship together. If sex has been out of the equation for a long time (along with demonstrations of love and affection), other aspects of the relationship have probably come unstuck, too, and your friend probably feels disconnected from his W. I don't think it's the lack of sex alone that will break up a relationship, but rather the damage that it causes to the people involved.


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

I reckon society at large just outright still considers sex as "unclean" hence as a topic it is mostly avoided and personally I feel this is just foolish. The Swedish (my wife's/daughter's heritage) are rather liberal in this regard and I personally feel many other nations, like here in Australia we should follow their example and be much more liberal in regards to sex.

Keeping it an "adam's apple" is just means for a fking disaster and quite frankly it shouldn't be this way in my opinion. I already cope enough **** with my mentalities and attitudes in regards to FWB arrangements (EVEN THOUGH I HAVE NOT ****ED ONE WOMAN EITHER THAN MY WIFE FOR THE LAST FKING 4-5 YEARS AND NOT EVEN NOW)

I may not be getting sex but that is my choice as I have no interest in it, but I believe that traditional/religious/cultural focuses have had a negative impact on marriages but not only that but it has influenced negatively the attitudes of people we see today.


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## Amplexor (Feb 13, 2008)

I think useless is a pretty strong term in describing a spouse that no longer provides for an important need of the other. My wife and I have had a number of years in struggling with a HD/LD match up. Even a two year patch where the marriage was completely sexless. But I would never have considered her useless in the marriage. She was an excellent mother and we relied on each other in parenting decisions. She contributes 1/3 of our annual income and is very good about managing money. She was supportive on many of my needs outside of sex. We share household duties on a some what traditional line but is an excellent cook and house keeper. She was far from useless. I think what your friend is experiencing is frustration with his wife's downright refusal to meet his needs in a specific area. That to me is a complete lack of respect for his needs and IMO an issue that would be grounds for divorce. Secondly part of the process of R for my wife and myself was to reintroduce sexual intimacy at my insistence if we were going to fully recovery. While skeptical, my wife agreed and it had a significant impact on her emotionally reattaching to me, something she had struggled with for some time. In our case sex had a great impact on both of our emotional stakes in each other.


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## 3Xnocharm (Jun 22, 2012)

I dont think its fair to tell her she is "useless", but I think a man (or woman!) would be perfectly within their right to end a relationship where the other partner has decided they are done with sex. 

On the flip side...I didnt learn this til recently. But, my aunt and uncle who always had the most amazing relationship, I found out, that she had told him DECADES ago that she no longer wanted to have sex. She told him that she would like to stay together with him, and that he could have his needs met elsewhere, as long as it stayed a purely sexual relationship. He loved her and agreed to this, he had sex outside the marriage and they stayed married til they both passed away. 

I had decided in my first marriage that I was not going to have sex with my husband any more. I never came out and said those words to him, but I avoided sex with him at all costs. I would have understood and probably been happy had he said that the lack of sex was a deal breaker.


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## Wiltshireman (Jan 23, 2013)

Cosmos said:


> IMO, If sex has been out of the equation for a long time (along with demonstrations of love and affection), other aspects of the relationship have probably come unstuck, too.



Cosmos is the only one to mention it so far on this thread but I think an important part is "along with demonstrations of love and affection".

If there are medical problems (physical or emotional) that leave one partner unable to have a full sex life then their partner will be more able to live with that if those other "demonstrations of love and affection" are still strong and present. I know that some people would say that a total lack of full sex for whatever reason would for them be grounds to end a relationship but that is not true for all. 

I think that whilst an active sex life is important to a relationship it need not be essential. The more important thing is how couples communicate their wants to each other and deal with the different priorities that each have.


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