SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm the BS. Married to a recovering SA.

Who has lied to me for most of our relationship.

I don't have sex if I'm not feeling safe.

But we did it backwards...the first 10 years of our relationship it was just sex..no emotions. I won't go back to that again. And that's still half of the years, now we've been having sex.

Now, we have some emotional intimacy. But if I feel the need to cry at any point, it's not a safe activity. So we abstain.

Of course I want and need sex. But my need not to feel sexually used and cheap trumps an orgasm, for me.

We are one year out from his relapse.

Fender guy,

I feel you. I get the duty sex as well. Once a month perhaps. And, you know what? I don't care. Don't care about the sex at all. Have sex, don't have sex; whatever.

Would I like to have a fulfilling sexual relationship with someone? Absolutely. But its just not in the cards for me. What is in the cards? Two children who are well adjusted, smart and wonderful to be around. My wife is a good mother and a decent partner.

But the attraction is gone. The interest is gone. The intimacy is gone.

So, whats a guy to do?

I stay because I will not make the children pay for the sins of their mother.

I am a child of divorce. A son of a man who had an affair and married his AP. My life as a teenager was hell. I will not put my children through the same thing. So I stay.

I stay so i don't lose half my shit that I have worked 40 years for.

I stay.

Yeah, its a TJ. But Fenderguy, I get it.

My hat's off to you Otto. I think you are a man worthy of praise.

I am 5+ years out. We had a great sex life before and during his affairs. Discovering the betrayals poisoned our sexual relationship for me. His putting on 50 pounds after the year of false R didn't help. The message to me was that he really didn't care about being attractive to me anymore. He is trying to change things but I think it is too late.

I don't think our sex life will recover. So we live together as friends, and very occasionally have okay but unemotional sex.

Unfortunately, it also destroyed my confidence that I could inspire romantic love in someone. Because obvious, my belief that he felt that for me was utterly mistaken.

I think I am ruined as a sexual person for any man, so any desire to leave and find another relationship seems rather hopeless.

I am glad for those whose sex life has recovered. But sometimes it is just over, and thems the breaks.

But please know that this didn't happen overnight. This was over a period of years. I would say HB lasted about 6-7 mos, then struggles began, then it became all about me, and my needs/wants for another year or so before we really reached a place of comfort, and making it about pleasing each other, and trying new things.

Thank you, Tush Nurse. You put into words exactly what was happening to me.

HB last for a while and things were great. I had very little to no mind movies during sex. Then, after that period was over I was crushed because my libido dropped suddenly and mind movies were catastrophic. At one year out I am still struggling (although it is somewhat better).

I have to concentrate during intimacy with the power of an Olympic athlete to make it through love making now. If I allow a single, tiny thought of anything other than what I am engaged in at the moment...everything comes down like a house of cards and I wind up sobbing.

Do any of you guys who were cheated on (long term) but found yourself unable to leave and also that your wife was not interested in sharing a more passionate and exciting sex life with you that she had in her affair, have you tried sex with another person to see what you have been missing or thought about doing?

Otto I just want to say I'm a woman who feels the same as you. Thank you!

I get alot that because I'm the woman even though my partner betrayed me I should try harder to meet his needs (yes even on this site unfortunately).

I want the marriage for all the reasons you listed. My WH is a GREAT Dad, that enough reason for me to love him but the attraction is just gone.

From a "non-traditional" women's perspective I always wanted sex more. To find out his reason for not wanting to was because of <all the reasons I'm here> was a total killer for me. I have the female version of erectile dysfunction I think (ha!! Funny not funny). I used to feel that "connection" before all my d-days. He told me he felt used and wanted "someone to talk to" that's why he strayed. It kills me. I had this guy's 3 babies!

Now he wants it more and has even gone as far as to tell me if I don't work on it he can't live with it and wants to D?

I wish I had advice but mostly just know you're not alone.

Do any of you guys who were cheated on (long term) but found yourself unable to leave and also that your wife was not interested in sharing a more passionate and exciting sex life with you that she had in her affair, have you tried sex with another person to see what you have been missing or thought about doing?

I had several opportunities to get back at my WW. One of them was one of her ex-girlfriends who I was not aware had harbored a secret crush on me for years. She was a fine looking woman and it would have been enjoyable, but then I thought how it would bring me down to my WW's level, and I didn't want to compromise myself that way.

My WW, not unexpectedly, even offered to get another woman for us to have a threesome with at one point, thinking it would help me heal. I quickly shot that notion down. I don't have anything to prove to myself or her.

Revenge affairs, hall-passes, whatever you call them, do not "level the playing field". All they do is strip the marriage of the last vestiges of boundaries that were already sorely lacking in the first place. They help nothing.

Revenge affairs, hall-passes, whatever you call them, do not "level the playing field". All they do is strip the marriage of the last vestiges of boundaries that were already sorely lacking in the first place. They help nothing.

How do you know that?

You missed the first part of my question. Things were shared between WW and OM that BH was not getting pre-affair and post-affair the WW has completely shut down any ideas about performing them with BH. The BH is driven by jealousy and rage and feeling utterly inadequate (due to both thoughts of how WW was not giving him the same treatment as OM pre-A or during A and not even after discovery of A). How do the BH gets to experience those passions from a woman which his WW won't give him even after such magnitude of injustice?

Mancunian,

I won't step out of my marriage, period.

And, I won't lower myself to her level. Ever.

Life isn't fair and yes, I felt wholly inadequate, emasculated, crushed, you name it. But I now realize that the problem wasn't me at all but the very, very broken woman I married.

I made a vow before God and my family and I keep my promises.

Pretty simple if you ask me.

Duty Sex? No. Stop that. Take care of yourself if you need to, don't settle for duty sex. That's bullshit.

Men - How did you overcome this issue? (Please refrain from the "whore" verbaige. I get it. I felt it. I'm asking for a more refined answer.

I turned ou physical intimacy into a rudimentary act based on "needs," I had. It became functional, non-emotional and little better that taking care of myself. It sucked.

I could not be vulnerable with my wife. I also knew that this was the easiest way to meet my needs without hurting anyone, except myself.

At one point I had to shower immediately after so there was none of her scent on me. I also told her that it was meeting a need and it meant nothing. Yeah I was kind of a A-hole back then.

My advice at this point is to let things develop naturally. If you need to stop, you stop. Just be clear about what it was that made you want to stop. Later talk about what could be done differently to make it easier.

No eye contact ? Her only being there for you ? A few drinks ? Limit any release to be her doing ?

There is no way I explain how painful the physical part of the A is for some guys. I felt emasculated, humiliated and like a real chump. I had the benefit of realizing that my W and I both had experiences before we got together. That made the idea that she had sex with another man "easier" to deal with. It also helped that I mentally broke the M into Pre-A and Post A pieces. Pre-A was over and done and Post A could be anything I wanted it to be.

Lastly, you need to find a way to build your self esteem in other areas. Your W can help you with this too. IC, delving into a hobby your really like or even just working on improving yourself and your outward attractiveness. (Mind you don't neglect the inside too)

Also please, please talk to your W about this and ask her to help you to find a way with this. This is not a "You" problem. It is a "you and your W" problem. Share whatever is going on at the time in your headspace and why you can't or don't feel up for it. There were times where the mind movies get to be too much and sometimes just letting your W in some (while scary as F) can purge those thoughts.

How does she approach this part of your lives ? What has she suggested ? What about her makes you attracted to her ? Was some of that lost in post Dday perceptions of who she actually is versus who you thought she was ? Maybe there are things she can to help show you that person again.

PS- Trying new things neither has done before can be a very healing experience and help numb the pain and the fear for awhile. If you get to be a different you too, it might help.

Hi STBXH,

Your post was timely for me. I'm nearing 3 years out from Dday and experienced ED issues since Dday, and still do today. The Dr. easily fixed the getting started problem but I have big issues finishing. It seems to be getting more difficult to finish now than a year ago. I try to live in the moment when with my WW but it almost feels like i get to a point where I'm close, then nothing, I can't get any further.

I'm sure it's frustrating to my WW and it is very frustrating for me. I am still very attracted to my WW, but I just can't seem to get past this feeling a lot of times (sometimes it isn't as difficult).

My WW tells me she gets it, does things to help me get to that point, but even last night, it was so difficult to finish.

I'm going to make an appointment with a sex therapist to see if there is anything that they cam suggest. Just wanted to chime in on this topic since I'm going through the same issues, but unfortunately, at nearly 3 years out, I still struggle.

Mancunian,

I won't step out of my marriage, period.

And, I won't lower myself to her level. Ever.

Life isn't fair and yes, I felt wholly inadequate, emasculated, crushed, you name it. But I now realize that the problem wasn't me at all but the very, very broken woman I married.

I made a vow before God and my family and I keep my promises.

Pretty simple if you ask me.

If you prefer to live this way, its your prerogative.

But I want to experience passion, unbridled, gasping to breathe, powerful, nerve jangling lovemaking.

After being betrayed for 15 years and 7 months during which I only got duty, muffled voice sex once or twice a month (won't lie was at least once a month) while wife was meeting 6 days a week at highest times but even 2 times a week at lowest times, I DESERVE to experience this. I was providing for the family by working at a job and bearing all the shit from bosses that comes with working in a corporate. Yes sir, I deserve that passionate sex especially when WW hasn't shown any inclination to treat me the way in the bedroom as she did the OM all this time when he did not even contribute anything for my WW in terms of getting shat at a backbreaking corporate job to support my WW's family. The injustice of it all!!

Since you put your view in a sort of chest beating superiority kind of way, let me tell you what I have realized - all this talk of making vows before God and keeping those promises is just that. Talk! It doesn't matter. You won't get a statue for all those "integrity" of your self. No one will remember or give a shit you within 5 mins after you were buried under the ground. You know who gets remembered? The immortals. Say like Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great or Ghengis Khan. I am sure powerful statesmen like them had many mistresses some of whom had been married.There were probably some poor old husbands of those mistresses who thought "I'm not going to lower myself to my wife's level even though what I am going through is so unjust". Do people remember those promise keeper husbands? Does any book mention them by name 2000 years later? Does their stand on moral values and integrity being taught at schools? Whats being taught at schools are the great achievements of the men who forged history. So it doesn't matter if anyone says vows are important. Because they really arent.

Mancunian, then divorce and go find it. If vows mean nothing to you, then why are you so hurt and angry? See, the thing is that men and women both hurt from betrayal. I read your words and hurt for you. Was what happened to you right? Of course not. You had expectations of your marriage and vows. You can certainly choose to cheat and that choice is one you must live with. It WILL change you and you will betray yourself and your own integrity. Again, your choice to make.

Lord knows all of us have railed against the injustice of all of this. There is NO JUSTICE, and we certainly wish we could find it. What I know to be true is that my going out to have hot sex with another guy may feel good in the moment but I'd feel like an asshole person and hate myself for it. Do you deserve that from your wife? Of course you do. If you are not connecting or fixing your marriage, then please choose to leave her--choose to save yourself.

ETA: STBXH , if your dday was September, I definitely had the most difficult time for at least a year. I only did it if I felt like it. I often had to focus on being in the moment only. I had to shove mind movies out. It was hard.

Now, it is very different and...intimate. It can get better, if you are both working on yourselves and your M (later).

[This message edited by demolishedinside at 11:30 AM, March 20th (Tuesday)]

STBXH,

I'm not sure how well your recovery is going,it is still very fresh by looking at the time frame...

I'm not sure I can be of any help seeing that I still have my struggles although sex I have overcome ..Hysterical bonding helped at first but then we had to work to get where we are which is making crazy love that we are both enjoying ..

If you're feeling good or strong about reconciling then communicate communicate communicate no matter what is in your heart communicate to her..then once you get that out of the way,which will return guaranteed ,again if you are feeling strong about reconciling then wash rinse repeat and it's okay if you fail once in a while it's normal.

So like I was saying once you get what you need to express out to your spouse good bad and ugly proceed forward in that moment of feel good you know that moment don't even peek back not even for a second shut it out completely and be romantic be spontaneous be crazy if you want, tell her to do the same. .foreplay foreplay foreplay then erupt and explode...both of you partake in creating and discovering new ways different ways and enjoyable ways and don't you go there because you will try but DON'T. .ENJOY THE MOMENTS. Make the both of you first priority .

Go on routine and spontaneous Date nights . Make eachother Dinners, take showers together. .

And Dance naked in the kitchen, holding eachother tight. ..

If you are strong about reconciling than time and lots of communication will heal you both ..it takes a lot of time for the rest of the shit storm but don't put that part first make it a separate time a separate place.

Make it a point that you are a Team not enemy's. A new Team and you both are creating strategies of how you want this team to work out.

Hope something from this helps you and your spouse.

Peace and hugs to you.

Enjoy what life you have left on this earth and what good sex you have left because that my friend runs out too.

[This message edited by Deejay523 at 11:25 AM, March 20th (Tuesday)]

"So it doesn't matter if anyone says vows are important. Because they really arent."

they are to me and obviously other people. Why do you get to decide this?

Me? I just don't care anymore. Before her A, Just looking at her turned me on. She was wanted by everyone. On a bad day she is a 15 and her body was and still is incredible. I paid 10 grand to give her DD's, and with her weighing only 120 and with a 25 inch waist, she looked great. I couldn't get enough of her and I was always wanted her. She on the other hand never wanted it, always claiming that I married the wrong girl and that she never had the same interest in sex that I had. We would go months without doing it. Then she met him and she turned into some type of nympho. Over the course of 3/4 months, she did him more times than she probably did me in 3/4 years. She was going over to his house 3/4 times a week, on period of time I tracked her over there like 9 days in a row. I guess she was that type of woman, just not with me.

Now it's different, I never initiate it or ask for it. I have no feelings for it with her. Even when she wants to , it's sometimes hard to do it and I need the pills and I am on testosterone every week. But I guess that's just my life now. I refuse to lose everything I have in a divorce. At my age I am not starting over financially. I know that if we got divorced, everything would have to get sold and split and I would be living in a crappy one bedroom apartment while she surely would be picked up in a second by some rich dude who wants arm candy to walk around with. Not going to happen. Also, I'm no fool. At my age, I'm not going to start playing the field again. That's why I got married in the first place so I wouldn't have to do that when I got older.

So I just play the hand I was dealt with. She is being good and says and does all the right things but it's just not the same for me. She is tainted. Tainted by a former drug using loser who she let do anything and everything to and then expects me just to forget it and move on. She really believes we are stronger now than ever but naw, I got tired of arguing and asking her things so I just quit. She keeps asking why I never try anything with her and I just reply that I know she doesn't like doing it with me and she would rather be doing it with him but since he is no longer in the picture, I just wait until she gets horny enough so that she would do it even with me. She gets really mad and denies it but that's how I feel.

I put on a happy face and go along with her having no idea I really have no feelings sexually for her any more. It's like doing a robot.

[This message edited by 99lawdog99 at 11:35 AM, March 20th (Tuesday)]

@Mancunianforlife

Revenge affairs, hall-passes, whatever you call them, do not "level the playing field". All they do is strip the marriage of the last vestiges of boundaries that were already sorely lacking in the first place. They help nothing.

This is how we know this. Did your WW's infidelity help your marriage? Did it make your WW a better/healthier person? I would assume both answers would be a resounding "no!".

Every WS has their "reasons" for cheating. Are any of their reasons valid or are they just excuses and justifications for what they want to do? I will assume you will say they weren't valid reasons, Mancunianforlife. Now you feel you have "reasons" to break your vows, to cheat, to fuck outside the marriage. How are your "reasons" anymore valid than your WW's "reasons" were? As far as breaking vows you took vows and your wife took vows. Nowhere in those vows did either of you say that you would keep your vows unless the other spouse fucked someone else, did you? So, your vows are still valid regardless if your WW broke hers. You can't blame your WW for you breaking your vows, that is all on you. If vows are meaningless than you lied at your wedding.

eta: to add name

[This message edited by SisterMilkshake at 11:42 AM, March 20th (Tuesday)]

Mancunian, then divorce and go find it. If vows mean nothing to you, then why are you so hurt and angry? See, the thing is that men and women both hurt from betrayal. I read your words and hurt for you. Was what happened to you right? Of course not. You had expectations of your marriage and vows. You can certainly choose to cheat and that choice is one you must live with. It WILL change you and you will betray yourself and your own integrity. Again, your choice to make.

Lord knows all of us have railed against the injustice of all of this. There is NO JUSTICE, and we certainly wish we could find it. What I know to be true is that my going out to have hot sex with another guy may feel good in the moment but I'd feel like an asshole person and hate myself for it. Do you deserve that from your wife? Of course you do. If you are not connecting or fixing your marriage, then please choose to leave her--choose to save yourself.

Just like Otto and Fenderguy and 99lawdog99 I cannot go the divorce route unless I want to lose it all that I have worked for 28 years, even the adoration of my children who will certainly resent me for incapacitating their family stability (I know their mother risked that with her secret life and passion). In their mind, I should have facilitated their stable upbringing, not blow apart the whole thing in search of my own happiness.

But unlike Fenderguy, Otto or 99lawdog99, I will not sit idly by and be a martyr. I deserve all of those that OM got and more. I am looking for another job that wont get me tied up for 12 working hours a day. I am making full proof (if the secret can hold on for 15 years 7 months its pretty full proof) plans on how to make it discreet. I am conditioning myself to act normal and trustworthy in presence of my WW so that my extra marital affairs doesn't put me in a state that I can't get out of which leads me to my WW noticing my change and becoming suspicious to dig. Yes by God, I can do this if my WW could have!!

And in light of what I said in the last paragraph of my last post, that how having extramarital sex is "betraying myself" and how does that matter in the grand scheme of things in which I will be dead in another 40 years (hopefully will live another 40 year) and within a week of my death no one will be affected by the fact that I am not existing anymore? What is the TANGIBLE BENEFIT of not having the passion that I crave but is not provided by WW?