I have two married friends who are both going through a similar situation in their lives. There isn’t any more sexual spark in their relationship with their spouse. Now when you’re single, this is no big deal. You discuss it, see if the other party wants to do something to change it and if they chooses not to, you leave. But when you’re married (particularly when you also have children) you can’t just get up and leave, you’ve made a “life” decision. And there’s a legal document. (Another reason I think marriage is a crock in our modern society… but that’s me.) So you want to try and “work it out.”
This is what I hear from my friends (who I love and adore by the way) “I’ve kinda lost interest in him sexually.” or “We never have sex anymore and if we do its bad.” or “His idea of making an effort is to touch my boob.” (btw… from my male friends I’ve heard, “I don’t think I’m monogamous, one woman isn’t enough.”)
Like any good therapist (cuz as a trusted friend who’s been through something similar, I’m somehow a good therapist lol) I ask a lot of questions before I open the discussion on solutions. The first one is… Have you talked to him about this? Particularly have you talked to him in a counseling session, because nothing gets resolved in a partnership unless their is talking, lots and lots of talking.
But before, if you can or during at the very least, the talking you have to be prepared for what you want to discuss. You have to ask yourself a lot of prep questions. Have you made a list of EXACTLY what you wish he’d change, with DETAILS?… cuz men need instructions… even though they “like figuring it out” they suck at it. And what are YOU willing to do to change if he needs it from you? How old are the kids? (cuz if they’re too little you may need him… but having them see a negative relationship as their example of marriage when they are past the youngest’s age of 5 is NOT doing them any good. Children are happy when their parents are happy… whether they are together or not. Its when parents are unhappy that is the most damaging for kids and I don’t know if parents together or apart is any different damage.)
A little back story…. My parents were not that happy together. But we didn’t see it as unhappy in their relationship.. we just saw unhappy parents. And that was because they also didn’t see their own unhappiness, nor the fact they were just mirroring the dysfunction of their own parents’ marriages. (Another reason to divorce… break the fecking cycle!!) When they finally realized it and divorced (not a pretty divorce either) us kids were 21, 19 & 16.
When I finally married past my 30’s (so old enough to know myself & be without “Disney Delusions” about relationships) I had no idea I would somehow STILL pick a man who put me into a marriage like my parents…. good friends, but not romantically there for each other. When my last kid was solidly in school I came up for air from Mommyhood & looked at my life. And didn’t love or respect my partner. So I asked myself all these LIFE questions… What did I miss in my life? What did I want my future to be? Could he give it to me? Was it fair to ask? And the ultimate question…. do I give up MY desires for the sake of staying together?
That is the hardest question, particularly for women & mothers. As self-sacrificial beings (which comes with Motherhood) we often just bury it and go on. THAT is what our mothers & grandmothers did. But today is a different world. Yesterday we NEEDED a man to support us and our children. Today that need is much, much less, cuz we have options, we can work, we can get legal support, etc. Yesterday you or your husband might die at 40 or 50… yea, not so much today! So as much as it feels like a betrayal to want out of a marriage or maybe into a different type of marriage, you must not deny your feelings out of guilt. Denial will not make them go away. Emotions are like garbage… burying it just makes it rot… but if you sort it, air it, recycle or reuse what you can & compost the rest you don’t get that smell.
Both of my friends have been dealing with these issues of theirs for some time.. one for years and the other for many, many months. But its come to a head for them both because they’ve met someone… and now suddenly the unhappiness is a huge, giant elephant in their room. Because they have something to compare their husbands to. And so they come to me. Because I took the step. I divorced. And because I’m Poly and more understanding of individuals and have practically a harem of “friends” and therefore will never judge a person for their decisions based on my own morality. Plus, I love them and will advocate FOR them.
Now lets set a truth here. Marriage is WAY different from courtship. Duh. Marriage after kids is ALSO one more step removed from that. Both our bodies change & desire may wane… worse.. some cannot reconcile the Mother/Father role we are now in with the Lust/Courtship roles of the early relationship. This is what happens. Sometimes is immediate and sometimes its over time. And add to that we also just get comfortable. But there is ALSO another factor in that comfort most people don’t perceive. We KNOW them so well there is no more excitement or new interest. THAT is the biggest lure of the “other man/woman”. Here is an individual who doesn’t know us. They aren’t so comfortable with us that they no longer SEE our sparkle, our specialness, our amazing value. THAT is the real lure… not necessarily the man or woman themselves.
When I was first coming into myself I met a man on a plane. David. The connection was bloody amazing. He was the first who saw “me”… the real me. Not the wife, mother, employee, daughter, etc., but the flirt with the sparkling humor barely containing the bold seductress. And he liked it. He more than liked it.. he was drawn to it. That was heady stuff. Suddenly my life was more exciting. Suddenly I had something to look forward to every day when I woke up. Would I get an email/letter/text from David. By comparison my husband was a lump in the corner of the room who’s idea of intimacy or affection was to put his nose to the top of my head, inhale deeply and announce “clean”. (and yes.. that is a sad true fact.)
But before I met David (and I while we shared a “wish things were different” long distance correspondence it never went beyond that)… I was already unhappy in my life. I tried diverting my unhappiness into writing and ended up writing a novel about a woman being single. (gee… duh.) My husband was very supportive. Everyone was… they all responded with a “Oh look, Heather is pursuing her bliss” attitude. Yet in trying to take the writing to the next step, publishing, I realized I missed the character and began to slowly transform myself into her. That was when I realized what I really missed was being single, LIKE her. So all my attempts at discovering why I was unhappy led me back to the fact I was married, or rather.. I was NOT single.
We did the counseling route for 6 months. It was expensive and it did nothing to lessen my desire to be single. It DID reassure me that my overly-dependent husband would survive without me… I mean, listen to all the self growth he was spouting that he was doing at the therapists!! (Which is why men shouldn’t lie in therapy! It can backfire! I think it was his way of showing how he’s changing to save the marriage. To me I just thought, “Yay, he’ll survive without me!”) My husband and I didn’t do that well in face to face therapy discussions as I tended to over-verbalize often repeating the point in a variety of versions trying to get feedback that he understood what I was saying and he’d quietly wait until I was done with a stoic expression before trying to respond. So we switched to emails which was surprisingly effective in the conversation as far as sharing our feelings went. I’d make my point… I’d do my best to answer his points and make sure I understood what he was trying to say. And he’d have the ability to take his time to formalize his thoughts into a reply. He’s a VERY smart man but not a “quick” thinker in conversation.
So when my friend told me how she and her husband had done SOME counseling but couldn’t afford it and how they’ve have sooo many times of discussing this subject of one’s sexual needs over the others I suggested she try the email system. For the passive personality “discussions” often seem like attacks and they shut down. That was the homework I gave her…start the discussions with emails. For my other friend, who is too far away to have a nice sit down… I give her this blog 😀
After all the stories and the discussions I put it out honestly for my friend. “If nothing changes, if the status quo goes on… do you see yourself staying with this man?” “No.” was her very sad reply (cuz she loved him very deeply but the lack of sex was making her hate him.) “If you have an affair with or without his consent, you have a 50/50 risk of destroying the marriage.” Then I laid the bombshell… “You have to be true to yourself, yes, but you also owe him honesty. Living a life of unhappiness for another isn’t honoring any vow. Tell him up front what you want and if he refuses to give it to you he must give you permission to seek it elsewhere or he’s just being selfish. And why stay with a selfish partner? If you do nothing the marriage will end… if you do something it also might end. Or it might not.”
The point I made to her was one I realized in my own marriage. Life is a growth process. Marriage is a HUGE growth process, as often your partner is your lesson! As you learn about yourself you share these insights with your partner, but if you don’t feel you can, or your partner doesn’t care or doesn’t understand these things you’re learning or doesn’t SHARE your enthusiasm, then your paths begin to grow apart and over time the gap becomes insurmountable. If you want to stay married it takes BOTH parties to work out these growing/learning moments. It takes honesty about yourself, valuing yourself and valuing the input of your partner. It takes knowing what you are willing to compromise on and what you are not.
Basically it takes discussion. Lots and lots of discussion.
I told my friend her own animosity to her husband was restricting his ability to get over his puritan-type raising. Making demands he can’t fulfill because she’s too mad will do nothing to mend the relationship nor get her needs met. She does have an “out” to slake her rising libido & release her tension. A safe one and I heard her desires to take the choice. I counseled her to take up the dialogue with her husband but not to put off her safe choice if its what she wants. She was already on this road… being honest with him was their only option to try and save the marriage while she walked it. I later told her to focus NOT on what her husband isn’t doing for her now… but to focus on how much she loves him. To dwell on THAT part of her relationship with him and outsource what he can’t seem to give her. If she truly wants her marriage to survive its growth she has to make loving him, the actually feeling of loving him, replace all the “I’m not getting this” unhappiness. And, sadly, part of that is getting that “I want this..” elsewhere so it ceases to be the elephant crushing the marriage. Will it survive? Who knows… only both parties together can truly save it.
As to my other friend, who I can’t sit with and have a nice 2 hour discussion on the subject, I can only say, talk, talk, talk. Talk with yourself about exactly what you feel you’re missing. Write up a list of what you think he did that was the “spark” of “before” and really look at it. Can he do this again? DO you still desire him? What can he change to fix that, what can you change to spark him? What is he open to doing to make both of you happy?
It’s not easy for a hedonist, for a highly sexual and open person to be monogamous. We can love wholeheartedly and singly but often looking, flirting, lusting… its part of our nature and to think we can box it up and set it aside for “monogamy” for “maturity” for other people’s concept of “right” well, it is unrealistic. If you are extremely lucky, like I am with my Sex God, you will find a partner who is just as hedonistic and sexual as yourself and on the same road in life. And you’ll both happily love and for us just as happily avoid monogamy. lol
This link was an interesting little take on the subject of Sexless Marriages.
A Sexless Marriage Is Not OK
