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Redhorse: maybe I missed if/where you clarified, your wife’s affair was 6 years ago. At the time of the A she had not gone through menopause, correct? Im asking because yes your feelings are very relevant of course! but she was not in the same phase physically then, and her decreased estrogen isn’t something she can really help now, right? Put it this way: if your increasing age caused you to have low testerone and ED,would it be ok for her to feel resentment about you being unresponsive?

If her wild, animal sex A didn't kill her BH's feelings for her....if he sucked it up and gave her the gift of R, then shouldn't return the favor to him by sucking it up herself and having good sex with him?

There's a 50 page long thread on this very topic. The answer to your question, condensing about 100,000 words for you; men say "yes, of course she should suck it up and provide better sex"; women said "no, it's her body and it borders on rape to demand changes in the sexual menu as a condition of R".

I'll say, it was perhaps the most male/female divided thread I've ever read here. Men and women just view this totally differently, it was shocking to me how different the 2 sexes were on this.

her decreased estrogen isn’t something she can really help now, right? Put it this way: if your increasing age caused you to have low testerone and ED,would it be ok for her to feel resentment about you being unresponsive?

She can "help it" (assuming, of course, that this is the problem). Estrogen replacement therapy, low dose testosterone therapy, lubricants.. There are plenty of ways to get the mojo back. Now, if they've already tried all this and nothing worked, maybe that's really it. But, to continue your analogy, if the WH had ED but wouldn't try Viagra or Cialis; yeah, I'd say the BW (in this example) would be just fine feeling resentment. Especially (as is often the case) the WH was taking Viagra or other "helpers" to sleep with the AP.

Sad situation all around

We can't even keep people faithful, how are we going to keep them attracted?

I don't think people even consider it the first time around. Loves supposed to carry us through but I see that it doesn't bridge this divide.

It comes down to how important it is to you personally. As long as you are honest, I think that's fair. I would not leave my man if he became unable. I treasure him and want him in my life. If he wanted someone else, not me, I'd want him to go.

Hunting up married women for better sex.. ...aren't we supposed to be advocating the opposite of such sentiments here?! please let's concentrate on finding single women who would enjoy better sex.

Edited to add

There is a risk of some cancers adding estrogens. I know that's on some people's minds if they have a family history or maybe they get mood swings. It's a tricky balance between a few hormones. Not everyone has success with it.

[This message edited by pureheartkit at 8:51 AM, April 2nd (Monday)]

Poppy - to answer -

you asked: "maybe I missed if/where you clarified, your wife’s affair was 6 years ago. At the time of the A she had not gone through menopause, correct? [correct] Im asking because yes your feelings are very relevant of course! but she was not in the same phase physically then, and her decreased estrogen isn’t something she can really help now, right? [right]Put it this way: if your increasing age caused you to have low testerone and ED,would it be ok for her to feel resentment about you being unresponsive? [NO, unless there was an A]

if your increasing age caused you to have low testerone and ED,would it be ok for her to feel resentment about you being unresponsive?

Only if he had had an A.

Edit: RedHorse beat me to it.

[This message edited by GoldenR at 10:07 PM, April 1st (Sunday)]

She should be breaking her neck to get estrogen--and sexy lingerie, erotic aids or anything else needed to satisfy your sexual desires.

To do less is a slap in the face.

The answer to your question, condensing about 100,000 words for you; men say "yes, of course she should suck it up and provide better sex"; women said "no, it's her body and it borders on rape to demand changes in the sexual menu as a condition of R".

There shouldn't have to be a demand. They should want to.

Pure heart-I totally get what you’re saying... maybe she was cuckoo and didn’t actually like the wild sex... but guess who did.. the AP... and guess who would like it... the BH. So In a way, it’s like the AP gets the best sex and BH just has to tolerate never getting it...I guess what i am saying is sure you can’t force attraction... but honestly if she loves him why wouldn’t she be attracted to him? And moreso if she is not, she’s done enough damage, let him find someone who does want him, and accept that she doesn’t deserve all the good things that come with being with him.

Poppy- you’re example would be valid... if the husband cheated. What we are saying is that things we would overlook in a marriage get a revised opinion once betrayal is thrown in the mix. If a wife doesn’t do anal with anybody... totally acceptable. If it’s just the BH that she doesn’t do it with... different story. If a wife’s biological clock has stopped libido, totally ok if she hadn’t wasted her good time on another guy. But now, she better do anything she can to get that clock ticking again somehow. Other dudes not gonna get better version of wife than BH is. He won’t accept that.

Same goes for WH with ED. You never stick it where it doesn’t belong, and you end up with ED? The wife can’t be resentful because he honored her. If he was cheating and then couldn’t perform with his wife? She has every right to kick his ass to the curb and upgrade. Just my two cents

An A is a limited amount of "wanting to" sex--not forever.

Post A there was tons of HB

And you got that.

But I am sorry, the kind of sex you are looking for frequently does not last forever. I wish it did. I blame porn. Easy porn has every man believing a "normal" sex life looks like that--from birth to death.

Lies. All lies.

Are you going to divorce us?

Ok, then. But that's a lot of drama.

To get permanent HB.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 10:20 PM, April 1st (Sunday)]

but guess who did.. the AP... and guess who would like it... the BH. So In a way, it’s like the AP gets the best sex and BH just has to tolerate never getting it..

^^^Interesting and subtle point - unique for the BH - the issue is just as much that the OM got it as the WW gave it/got it.

the issue is just as much that the OM got it as the WW gave it/got it.

For how long?

It's been six years and they DID have HB! He has not been denied!

My H wants a better lover.

And I want to fall in love again.

Both are fantasies.

Real marriage is neither, and we all move on.

Owningitnow-

I have made no claim that i have been denied sex. I am merely talking about my feelings and what desire looks like.

Also, yes its been six years, but without going into it, i suffered some highly unfortunate TT.

So In a way, it’s like the AP gets the best sex and BH just has to tolerate never getting it...

There's no "in a way" about it. That's what happened (in your example); the AP did get the best sex, and the BH does have to tolerate it. Except he can't/won't as both you and I know, for most men, it's a deal breaker. But there's no "it's like" involved, there have been dozens of stories about there here and elsewhere, no amount of "thinking the vanilla sex with the good stuff" will make it anymore true for many.

For how long?

Forever. It's not like this is a "punishment". As I said earlier today, I with someone would "punish" me this way. Oh crap, we get to be intimate in a way you've never been with other men, I'm going to have a lot more orgasms and feel much closer to you, AND we're going to do it much more often?? Oh, the horror of it all! That "punishment" for a WS sounds kind of like my vision of heaven, assuming, of course, that I still love and want to be with the person.

The door was opened by the WS; and yes, this is a "forever" thing, IMHO, just like not lying anymore, being transparent and trying to fix themselves is "forever". Because what the A showed me; and I think shows others in this situation, all the "not tonight I have a headaches" were lies (or most of them were). When a man comes along that she wanted to sleep with, the headaches, suddenly, cleared up. Which means that the lying about sex drive has been going on for years/decades.

Yes, this "amend" is made forever. But it's perhaps the most pleasurable amend ever foisted on anyone ever.

Ok, Rideitout--

I am not saying your feelings are wrong. But to understand, if your WW no longer had passion in the bedroom six or eight years post-dday, you would divorce?

I guess my attitude is that I can only feel whatever I feel in the bedroom, and that is just one part of my value. If my H needs to divorce over that, go for it.

So, do what you need to do, right?

Owning-your a BW not a WW so no, your libido whether waxing or waning with natural biological drivers, would not warrant my desire for divorce, because loyalty, integrity and honor you showed in a marriage count for a lot ALOT.

And yes, I take note that your a mad hatter, but your husband broke the bond, you reacted. I don’t subscribe to the notion that you are just as bad a your WH. If you had cheated first it would be a different thought process. But you were loyal until he wasn’t. That loyalty matters

I think the point being made here is that. Wife who never cheats will always be held to a different standard than a wife who cheated. Just as biology makes desires and sexual drives less realistic than porn depicts, biology also drives the male mentality of territoriality and competition. So a faithful wife who loses drive, we can accept. It may suck but I’m not the sucker. For a WW, it sucks, but I’m also the sucker for accepting it. Sometimes I believe the ramifications are harsher for WW than WH generally, for this very reason. Territoriality.

Just my 2 cents but a WW can’t ever be Held to the same standard after dday that a faithful wife would have been. Perpetuity it is, or Divorce is on the table.

[This message edited by nicenomore at 11:09 PM, April 1st (Sunday)]

Damn!

I've lurked for ~2 yrs just absorbing wisdom via osmosis but this thread has galvanised me into action.

First a quiz to get some context:

Amongst the cornucopia of activities that humans do for pleasure, like enjoying good food, wine, music, theatre etc., name one that:

1. Is good for you physically- gets the heart beating hard, blood pumping, skin flushed, muscles exercised etc. etc.

2. Is good for you psychologically- gets the good hormones flowing, gives you a feeling that life is worthwhile etc.

3. Delivers an incredibly high level of physical pleasure.

4. Is completely safe.

5. Costs absolutely nothing.

That's what (good) sex is and does. I can't think of anything else that meets those parameters.

Sooooooooooo, why on earth would people NOT want to partake of this wondrous gift?

Ahhh! Libido now comes into it!

Libido IMHO is a binary phenomenon.It's either on or off. I cringe at the term low libido. It's like saying someone is slightly pregnant! Libido is like an electric motor or light that needs to be switched on. It, however, has 2 switches and they are in sequence. IOW, libido has 2 requirements before it can "fire up":

1. OPPORTUNITY

If I had the opportunity to fuck Charlize Theron, my libido would roar into action & be absolutely unstoppable. I sadly don't have that opportunity so to me it's NBFD. But, it IS a big deal when my life partner, who I sleep with and have desire for, wants sex about 5 times a year over a long period. Especially if he/she had demonstrated a history of very frequent and vigorous sex with others. I've been thru the young children, stressful career, domestic duties etc. etc. dramatically decreasing the opportunity and accept & understand that completely.

However and OTOH if in the past I had had the opportunity to fuck Mother Theresa, my libido would not have just stayed asleep, it would have slipped into a coma. This brings us to the second requirement for libido to awaken:

2. SEXUAL ATTRACTION.

Look guys, each and every platitude proffered for "low libido" can very easily explained by low sexual attraction. Google Occam's Razor. If I came off a 24 hour shift and had a raging flu & a sore back, but I knew Charlize was waiting in my bed I KNOW my libido would work just fine. Given no medical reasons (Darkness Falls- my commiserations re MS. I was involved with someone like you. It was utterly heart breaking! You are excused.), low libido boils down to low sexual attraction. I defy anyone to give me another LOGICAL explanation!

It's what you decide to do about it that is the crux of the matter.

Sooooooooooo, why on earth would people NOT want to partake of this wondrous gift?

I don't know, but I don't think your explanation of libido captures it all. After d-day, my libido (at least for my W) was in the toilet. Sex was actually somewhat traumatic to me; the mind movies were terrible; it had lost the "special", I knew I was getting "scraps". I still did it; as often as I could (which, most would consider "very often") because I knew it was the only way back for me; I needed it to start to rebuild what my W had broken. Even though it wasn't exactly wonderful; and it brought me a lot of emotional turmoil, I knew that to stop sleeping with my WW would mean "divorce", because my attraction to her would drop, and without that attraction, I'd start to pull away from anyone who hurt me that badly who I wasn't in love with.

Look guys, each and every platitude proffered for "low libido" can very easily explained by low sexual attraction. Google Occam's Razor. If I came off a 24 hour shift and had a raging flu & a sore back, but I knew Charlize was waiting in my bed I KNOW my libido would work just fine. Given no medical reasons (Darkness Falls- my commiserations re MS. I was involved with someone like you. It was utterly heart breaking! You are excused.), low libido boils down to low sexual attraction. I defy anyone to give me another LOGICAL explanation!

I agree with you; especially in the wake of an A; so you're "low libido" wasn't a problem in the A, you were happy to have sex 5 times a day, but, before that with me, and after that today, now you have low libido again? And there are explanations given here; the WW was "showing off" for the AP, it was "all fake" (except the sex wasn't fake), it was just to get "ego kibbles" (sleeping with the AP 4 times a day wasn't enough to get an ego kibble?!). There are explanations, yes, but none of them, IMHO hold up to much intellectual scrutiny. Your analogy about CT is exactly the one that I think about, and I'm sure others do as well; so, WW, you don't feel like sex tonight, but if this was during your A and with the AP, you would have slept with him twice in the past hour. So, no, it's not that you don't feel like sex tonight, you don't feel like sex tonight with me. And that's a very different statement, and one that I could, before the A, lie away to myself (telling myself that she was just low libido, and she wouldn't have felt with sex tonight with anyone), but now; I know it's a lie, and that changes everything. Because it AP was here, she'd be jumping him until he couldn't move, "low libido" or not, she was entirely willing and able to find some libido for him.

But to understand, if your WW no longer had passion in the bedroom six or eight years post-dday, you would divorce?

That's a tough question to answer, and one I hope I don't have to. I think the answer is "probably", because I would see it as the "warning sign" that an A was in the wings. But that's pretty difficult for me to really figure out today; if our sex life up to that point was blockbuster and then it fell off for some "real" reason, maybe I could deal with it. But it would have to be some real/medical thing, and she and I would both have to try all medical interventions before I'd give up on having a passionate sexual relationship for the rest of my life (again).

I guess my attitude is that I can only feel whatever I feel in the bedroom, and that is just one part of my value. If my H needs to divorce over that, go for it.

This is, of course, true; but, if you only feel "blah" in the bedroom for your H, wouldn't you want him to D so you could both find someone who you wanted to be with that way? That's the thing I guess I'm getting at, feeling "blah" in the bedroom is a sign, because, if my W and many stories here are to be believed, you won't be "blah" with someone else, you'll be in the sexual olympics, at least for awhile.

And, while this one is a little hard to discuss; yes, sex is just one part of your and your H's value. It's also the only part that's totally exclusive to the marriage. If your H is a terrible cook, you can go out to eat and still get wonderful food. If your W hates cleaning the house, you can hire that out and still have a nice tidy home. If your H isn't the most talkative person, you can talk to your family and friends for hours to get it off your chest.

It's only sex where there is simply no substitute; and, because of that, at least in my eyes, it's held to a much higher standard. One partner "not enjoying sex" means that the other partner has to live their entire life without it; that's a huge leap; one that's difficult to accept, but many (myself included, pre-a) can come to grips with it and give up that part of themselves for the rest of the good things the marriage brings to them. But to find out you gave up something so important for no reason? That's the sting that many just can't get past, and, if they do, it's something that will never be repeated. Not with my WW, and if I were to D, not with any other woman. If you're "low drive" that's fine, but it won't be low drive with me; I will never live that way again, knowing that "low drive" just means I'm not the right person to bring out the high drive and the good stuff for. Nope, been there, have the scars, and that will never happen again.