# Lack of sex, porn, and resentment



## arrrgman (Mar 10, 2011)

Here comes yet another thread about a lack of sex in a marriage. Alas, the situation is kinda complicated, and I just don't know how to handle it. In fact, I fear there is no way to resolve it. 

Background: When my wife and I first got together, I had an addiction to porn. It almost killed our relationship. But we worked through it, and now we are married with two kids, a 2.5 yr old daughter and a 9 yr old step-son from her prior marriage. However, since having our daughter, her sex drive has completely died. We go months between sex, and then half the time when we do do it, it feels like "chore sex" just to get it over with, which is not emotionally satisfying in the least. On those rare occasions we do do it, it has to be under the covers with the lights off, following one of two scripted routines. She is adverse to changing it up. She dislikes oral, giving or receiving. So even on the extremely rare occasions sex does happen, it just isn't exciting.

Unfortunately, this is leaving me feeling very alienated and sexually frustrated, and I am regressing on my porn addiction in order to get some relief. My wife has told me she doesn't think she could handle it if I went back to porn, and would probably leave me if I told her I had, so I feel that I absolutely cannot tell her I am struggling with this, so I'm have to fight this addiction entirely alone, with no other sexual release, and it is making me very depressed.

I have tried everything I can think of to try to put that spark back into our relationship. I tell her thank you daily for cooking, ironing my cloths, and everything else she does for me (she is a stay-at-home mom). I flirt with her. I tell her I love her every chance I get. When I get home from work I give her a big hug and a kiss. I try to just talk to her about random things. I rub her back at bedtime. No dice.

She still tells me she loves me, often gets me little goodies when she goes grocery shopping, so I don't think she is trying to distance herself from me. She just has absolutely no desire to have sex with me at all.

My wife is the first and only woman I have had sex with, a fact I am ordinarily proud of. I am far from her first. I have an adventurous personality, love variety, and get bored with having the same anything over and over again easily (food, sex, whatever). With what little sex we have had being so plain, and following a scripted routine, even when it does happen I find myself getting bored with it. This results in me not really getting into it, which results in less satisfaction for both of us, and means I don't get or stay as hard during the act, either, which probably feeds her insecurity. She does have self esteem issues (but what woman doesn't?), which is probably why she insists on missionary, lights out, under the covers, with little to no foreplay.

We are both 34, too young I think to simply give up on sex for the rest of our lives.

Alas, the fact that I didn't have sex until later in life, have only been with my wife (who was already pretty experienced when we got together), and she isn't meeting my sexual needs, is actually beginning to make me resentful of the fact that I didn't decide to become sexual active earlier in life and have more adventures and experiences when I still had the opportunity and freedom to. And since she was evidently much more sexual adventurous when she was younger (and even still was to a degree when we first started dating) means that it isn't some psychological hangup she has about sex. Which makes me sometimes feel that since I was less experienced, I just don't satisfy her, so maybe that is why she doesn't desire me?

As an added irony, before we got married, she used to own porn herself.

Any attempt to discuss my dissatisfaction, no matter how delicately I try to put it, triggers her insecurity and results in an emotional "I am such a terrible wife, why did you even marry me?" melt-down, which results in me apologizing for how I feel, which in turn makes me feel even more depressed since I have been made to feel bad that I feel bad.

Recently I decided to try a different approach, and rather than bringing up sex directly, I went the route of telling her that I have been feeling depressed, and that I feel an emotional gap growing between us that I want to heal. She responded with "what? why? I don't feel that at all! Why would you be depressed? What I am doing wrong? I thought we were doing good!" I was dumbfounded that I can be so unhappy, and she so happy. Ironically, I suppose my attempts to show appreciation for her and put some romance back into things may have resulted in her getting the attention she needs, even though I don't. Anyway, when I tried to bring up salvaging our sex life, she immediately responded with "no, and I don't want to discuss it", and the entire discussion on how I feel was abruptly ended. She won't even tell me why not. I tried to ask why she is unwilling to even discuss attempting to salvage our sex life, that if there was something specific wrong that I just wish she would tell me so we could work through it together, even if the problem was just that I suck at it, and once again I got shut down with "no, and I don't want to discuss it".

So what now? I don't know if I can successfully fight both the porn addiction and my depression at the same time on my own without any help, and without any other form of sexual release. But my wife has made it crystal clear she is not willing to discuss any of it.

To be honest, from my point of view, it looks like the only answer is for me to have an affair and just get it somewhere else. I know that is wrong, I don't want to cheat on her, but I just don't know what else to do. I can't fix our marriage alone, especially if she stubbornly won't even concede there is a problem! I love her and I just want us to be happy together. Am I doing something wrong? Is there something going with her that she won't tell me? Is it unusual for a mid-30s guy to have a high sex drive? Is it normal for women or couples to go without sex for a few years after the birth of a child?


----------



## MarriedWifeInLove (May 28, 2010)

NO - it's not normal.

I also had issues with my husband concerning sex.

It took me a while to figure it out - but it appears that he was withdrawing because he didn't feel an emotional connection with me. He loved me and wanted to be married to me, but somehow the emotional connection was lost.

He/I have recently been motivated to re-establish that emotional connection and lo and behold - the sex came with it. We've been intimate 3 times this week - a big deal considering it was at a once a month pace before.

I know you love her, but perhaps you need to set some boundaries and ultimatums yourself. She has said she might leave you over use of porn, well maybe she needs to know that you could also leave her over lack of a sex life. Let her know that you WILL NOT live in a sexless marriage. That she may be able to do without, but you cannot. Since she won't discuss it face-to-face, have you tried sending her an e-mail or a giving her a letter that explains your feelings, without pointing any fingers?

I find that sometimes it's easier to pour my feelings out on paper than try to discuss them with my husband - he's just not that comfortable with discussing feelings face-to-face.

Good luck - a lot of us here know how you feel.


----------



## PBear (Nov 16, 2010)

In my opinion, you owe it to both of you (and the kids) to have some uncomfortable talks about how the lack of sex is affecting you. If you don't, you'll be having even more uncomfortable talks in the near future about you either having an affair, going back to porn, or wanting a divorce. Not talking about it now is NOT going to fix the problem. 

As my counsellor says... You can pay the price now, or you can pay it with interest in the future... Which one do you prefer? And in a case like this, I suspect the interest will be high.

For me, the breaking point in my marriage was the fact that my wife acknowledged a number of issues, things that she wanted to address about herself. But she never would. Wouldn't accept help from me on them, wouldn't seek help from outside, would only make [email protected] efforts on her own. After years of this, I could see that things weren't going to change, and my choices were to accept the way they were, or hit the reset button on my life. I couldn't "fix" her if she didn't want to be fixed, even if she acknowledged the fact that she was "broken". I chose the reset button, as I couldn't accept the current situation. Our sex life was part of it, but not the only part.

Oh, and wanting sex more than once a month (or longer) is NOT a "high sex drive"!  And going for years without after giving birth is not normal in my books... 

Good luck, and I'm sorry I don't have any good suggestions for you.

C


----------



## Chris Taylor (Jul 22, 2010)

A few points...

First, if she owned porn herself, she shouldn't object to you looking at it.

Second, if her response to a discussion about sex is "no, and I don't want to discuss it", that should be your response to the discussion regarding porn.

Third, if she is unwilling to engage in a real sexual relationship, she can't object to your use of porn.

Personally, I can't engage in the non-sexual intimacy with my wife if there is no sexual outlet at some point in time. She likes back rubs, hand holding, cuddling but I I just come away from those with an erection that I can't do anything about, I will start avoiding those situations.

You can't back down from having the discussion because she doesn't want to talk. What I did was get my wife in the car and when we were far enough away from the house so that even if she said "I want to go home" after I started the discussion we would still be 30-60 minutes from home and brought it up. 

She didn't want to talk about it so she had no choice but to listen.


----------



## blackalice82 (Mar 11, 2011)

Nope,it is not normal.


----------



## Syrum (Feb 22, 2011)

Going back to porn is the worst thing you could do. What you are doing is breaking her trust just as if you are cheating, and i am sure you can get off without watching porn. Plenty of men masturbate without it.

Other then that, yes it is a very fair expectation that you have a close intimate sexual relationship as well as emotional.

Is she tired? having a child is exhausting. Do you make sure she gets time out , to rest and sleep as well? Do you help around the house? maybe she is exhausted. So that is one thing you can help combat.

Does she feel different about her body now she's had a baby? Not feeling sexy can make things very difficult.

I would write her an email or letter expressing your need to be intimate with her (since she won't discuss is), tell her you think it is essential to your relationship, and having a happy loving marriage. That you understand she might sometimes not want sex, but you need to tackle this so that you both are interested in having regular sex.

Ask her if there were things that would make her want to have sex again, what would they be? Then you could work towards having those things in place.

Give her time to digest it and then say I will be discussing this with you on _______ (name a day and time). So she knows when and can't keep putting it off, then insist on discussing it. Tell her that it is important to you and you won't have her sweep your needs under the carpet. I would also suggest counseling if things don't improve.


----------



## seahorse (Apr 10, 2010)

Let's start with the obvious: your wife is controlling you. She needs to grow up and quite reasoning like a 13-yr old. 

Second: when both people have their needs fully met, it's pretty difficult NOT to experience genuine passion and sexual excitement, especially at your age (absent some medical or psychological condition).

My advice is to be direct, and firm. Tell her the time for games is up. Sexual refusal is understandable when needs aren't met, or as a couple is working through a rough point. But to further exacerbate the issue by refusing to communicate and guilt-tripping the vulnerable party? I'm sorry but that is passive-aggressive. If my wife was like that, I would question her motives and emotional balance. 

Be it far from me to suggest "getting aggressive." Rather you need to be firm and decided. Keep taking blame/guilt like that and you will always be her whipping boy. You might counter with a threat to move out. A lot of couples do this in an attempt to discover how they feel about each other after a little time away.

About the affair: PLEASE DON'T. You will be inviting hell into not only your own life, but everyone else's as well. It's a mistake.


Good luck, friend
-seahorse




arrrgman said:


> Any attempt to discuss my dissatisfaction, no matter how delicately I try to put it, triggers her insecurity and results in an emotional "I am such a terrible wife, why did you even marry me?" melt-down, which results in me apologizing for how I feel, which in turn makes me feel even more depressed since I have been made to feel bad that I feel bad.
> 
> Recently I decided to try a different approach, and rather than bringing up sex directly, I went the route of telling her that I have been feeling depressed, and that I feel an emotional gap growing between us that I want to heal. She responded with "what? why? I don't feel that at all! Why would you be depressed? What I am doing wrong? I thought we were doing good!"


----------



## arrrgman (Mar 10, 2011)

Thank you all for the feedback. I jokingly poked fun at our sex life last night, repeatedly, every opportunity I got, trying to see if a less serious approach might make more ground. Well, she seemed to take the hint, and commented that I must be feeling sexually frustrated, and we did have sex last night, but her attitude towards it seems to be "now you should be good to go for another few weeks". She doesn't seem to get that a handful of times a year just isn't working for me. My top love language is physical affection. I'm guessing hers is acts of appreciation.

This morning I chatted with her on messenger and tried to tell her how much our lack of a sex life has been depressing me, and use some positive reinforcement by telling her that I felt much better today. Unfortunately, she has a temper, and doesn't take any form of constructive input well, so it resulted in me getting yelled at for about an hour, including being told my need for more frequent sex was "f***ing insane" (direct quote), and that getting so depressed about it was not normal, and I just need to get over it. I held my cool, never yelled back, never cussed, avoided saying "I" or "you" and stuck to "we" to make it seem like a team effort.

Maybe some good did come of it. During her ranting she zeroed in on two topics that she says are affecting her happiness. One is how often I argue with our oldest son (which we are already working on), the other is that she feels fat and does not feel sexy because of her weight. Alas, I already knew that. She has been trying to lose weight since our daughter was born. Mind you, she still is nowhere close to becoming overweight, but I understand her obsession with it since her entire family is overweight, and she is determined not to be. I told her I understand she is not happy with her body, but that she never has been, and her target goal keeps moving. How long until you finally decide you are happy enough with yourself to resume sexual activity? Another year? Two? Five? The day will never come until she decides to accept herself how she is, and that I find her sexy as she is now.

I'm hoping that if she listened to anything I said (and truthfully I do not feel she did), it's that the "benchmark", the goal for what I feel is a satisfying sex life, is more than once every few months. And I wasn't brave enough to bring up the porn or spicing up the sex life. One battle at a time.

Unfortunately, I feel that the conversation highlighted a recurring issue in our marriage: she has no interest in how I feel. She never has. As long as we have been together, any attempt by me to discuss how I feel about something simply results in me being told I'm stupid for feeling that way, or that I am being selfish by trying to burden her with my issues. She told me that again today. She loves to call other people selfish if they don't agree with her. I don't think it is intentional. She herself is not generally a selfish person. She always wants to help other people. I think the problem is she simply lacks the ability to see anything from any point of view but her own. If something doesn't bother her, she simply cannot wrap her head around why it would bother someone else.

I dunno what to think. I just don't know.


Actually re-reading and reflecting on our conversation and my post, I'm starting to come to a realization. I think my sexual dissatisfaction may be an extension of my needs feeling trivialized in general. I work, she is a stay-at-home mom, but she was a book-keeper professionally, so she handles our finances. I'm not given any say in it. I have to ask her permission to spend even a single dollar. About two weeks ago, I suggested the possibility of taking just a few dollars out of each paycheck for each of us to be able to carry a few bucks in our wallet so we could have a little independent spending money, so if I wanted to go to lunch some place inexpensive with co-workers every other week or so, I could do so, or if I wanted to get a drink and a bag of chips from the gas station on the way to work, I could, and the suggestion was flatly denied. She makes all the parenting decisions. She gets mad at me for not taking a more active role, but every time I do, I get yelled at and told I am wrong. I zeroed in on the sex issue because I am a pretty easy going person. I can deal with the rest if I at least feel like I am getting the affection I need. But I'm not.

And she definitely is completely baffled by how I am not happy. But I think that is because she is probably expressing affection to me the way she wants, by ironing my cloths, cooking dinner, she has won a few iTunes gift cards she has given to me. So it probably goes back to that inability to perceive something from another perspective. To her, it may be "I did something for you, doesn't that make you happy? Why do you still need sex?"

And to be fair to her, its not like she isn't putting any effort in. This week, since the last time we fought about our relationship, she has tried harder to have the house chores done and the kids occupied when I get home so I am not so overwhelmed walking in the door (usually, I come home and then help finish the dishes, laundry, pets, whatever else still needs to be done, etc). It's just...the things she is "fixing" aren't addressing my biggest source of pain (my sexual frustration, which is leading to me struggling over the porn again). So I suppose she feels like she is putting in effort to "fix" things, and is then confused about why I'm not getting happier. I just wish she would listen to me when I try to tell her.

Sorry about the long post. I'm just trying to reason things out and try to understand.

Wonder if I should just point her here and say "read this thread".


----------



## Kobo (May 13, 2010)

arrrgman said:


> Thank you all for the feedback. I jokingly poked fun at our sex life last night, repeatedly, every opportunity I got, trying to see if a less serious approach might make more ground. Well, she seemed to take the hint, and commented that I must be feeling sexually frustrated, and we did have sex last night, but her attitude towards it seems to be "now you should be good to go for another few weeks". She doesn't seem to get that a handful of times a year just isn't working for me. My top love language is physical affection. I'm guessing hers is acts of appreciation.
> 
> This morning I chatted with her on messenger and tried to tell her how much our lack of a sex life has been depressing me, and use some positive reinforcement by telling her that I felt much better today. Unfortunately, she has a temper, and doesn't take any form of constructive input well, so it resulted in me getting yelled at for about an hour, including being told my need for more frequent sex was "f***ing insane" (direct quote), and that getting so depressed about it was not normal, and I just need to get over it. I held my cool, never yelled back, never cussed, avoided saying "I" or "you" and stuck to "we" to make it seem like a team effort.
> 
> ...



You need counseling. Marriage and individual. If you're struggling with your addiction then discuss it with the individual counselor. Invite your wife to marriage counseling and see if she'll go along. If not you know where you stand with her so just do it for yourself. Since she has a grip on the money, open a separate account another credit union and change your direct deposit to allocate funds to that account. You can use that to pay for counseling.


----------



## SaffronPower (Mar 6, 2011)

Wow..yeah counseling...please quick! Go yourself if she won't. And I have to wonder if a little porn is really an addiction or if somebody was just labeling you. Sex is good! Living like brother and sister is bad and sad.


----------



## Runs like Dog (Feb 25, 2011)

Kobo sing it brutha! My wife I think does not entirely recognize there are even other people in world. None of us matter we are on this planet to service and serve her. She's not indifferent to my feelings she's unaware that my emotions exist. Anyone wants to provoke her into a cold fury just speak without being spoken to. What I or anyone says unasked will be shouted down as a personal attack on her. Paranoia aside, she might be a psychopath.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Blanca (Jul 25, 2008)

My H is a lot like you, including the porn issue, the lying, the lack of sexual experience, and the resentment. 

My H agreed to my demands because he felt guilty for his actions and wanted to make me happy. Of course that never works. 

Before you agree to something think about it first. Is that something you really want to do? Is it something you think you can actually do? If you dont really want to quit looking at porn, especially when being deprived of sex, then dont agree to it. If you agree to it because her temper scares you well, that's a bad excuse. 

You say you are a laid back guy, but you are actually a guy with extremely poor boundaries. you'll have to work on standing up for what you really want instead of being a bobble head that nods whenever she opens her mouth. Assert your needs. If she gets angry and starts becoming verbally aggressive, or even abuse, limit the conversation. Let her know you'll talk to her when she can be calm. 

You dont need to confess to her that you've been looking at porn. But you do need to tell her that you will meet your needs. It doesnt have to be a threat. its out of respect for yourself.


----------

