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My WW says that I have been so amazing, her rock through all this. That she wouldn't have been able to get over her humiliation without my support and love. That our marriage is better than ever, and that we have moved on, in such a better place now, etc. Basically, she was the victim, and I was her rock that got her through. She didn't mention to her friend the part about her sucking and fucking the OM. Pointless details, right?

"Better place" now, huh?

Your latest update would indicate otherwise.

My WW has no idea that I'm planning to D her in a couple years (I'm waiting for mostly financial reasons). The A is bad enough, but the rug sweeping is what truly pisses me off. I recently realized that she is never going to be what I want/need her to be. I can't live with a roommate wife for the rest of my life. Our MC told us that we need to focus not on the past, but on building our future. That's what W is doing. She gets to go back to life as it was before the A. To argue about the A is to wallow in the past. How convenient for her. The only times I feel optimistic about the future are when I imagine her not in it. Once I finally let myself think about what a D would look like, it's been all I want to do.

Are you sure you want to wait on D after her latest revelation?

BTW, I wouldn't have sex with her either and would probably move out of the bedroom. If she asks why, just tell her you aren't interested in duty sex from her. Especially since it feels like rape.

And if you are really going to stay with her for a couple more years before divorcing her why not just tell her that and ask for an open marriage?

I will say this; after last night, I have no desire to have sex with this woman. I’m simply not going to. I’d rather chop it off at this point then continue to be humiliated like this. Our anniversary is in a few weeks, so sex is somewhat implied. But I’m not going to do it. I’ll just jerk off in the hotel bathroom after date night. That’ll be a better sexual experience for both of us.

Why go on a date with her at all? Set up a sitter so she can't derail your plans, and then schedule a fun night out with your friends ... or a weekend away WITHOUT HER. Heck, start doing that now without any reason. If she complains? Tell her that her expectations are unreasonable and recommend therapy to help her process the end of your relationship.

because she of course produces no natural lubrication.

Well, neither do I. My husband also has to “lube [him]self up.” I hope he doesn’t feel about it as you do.

I’m very sorry things aren’t working out as you hoped. I wish you the best.

So if you are prepared to go without and not satisfied with your wife's efforts to reconcile why are going to engage in additional behavior that will only further frustrate and hurt you? Clearly your wife is treating the marriage as more of a roommates with reluctantly given and disliked sex, so why would you get a hotel room and fancy date for your anniversary?

I'm not advocating that you do it to punish her and at the end of the day there is nothing you can do to change how she feels or behaves. That only comes from within her - she either wakes up and puts the effort in, or not.

In the meantime maybe it is time to start to establishing some separation both emotionally and finacially. You don't need to be hateful, angry or cruel but neither do you have to be a "doormat" for her either.

If she is not working - then it is time for her to find work and start contributing to the household. It will give you both a taste of what life will be like if ultimately you get divorced. Additionally you need her capable of earning her own money so (depending on the state you live in) you do not get saddled with unsustainable spousal and child support obligations.

Do what you need to do interacting with her for things related to the kids and you should start taking a greater roles in kid related things like doctors appointments and other activities. Do what you need to do to make sure the household does not finacially fall apart but push her to become an equal participant in daily expenses and household expenses. Consult with a lawyer to get educated on what divorce and child support/custody looks like in your state.

Stop being an emotional sounding board and stop feeling obligated to do couples things anymore. Couples things are for people in healthy mutually satisfying relationships.

Several things may happen. You will discover that what frightens and concerns you about potentially divorcing is not as scary or undo able as you think it is now. Perhaps it may serve as a wake up call and your wife will start putting in the effort to fix herself and fix the mess she made.

Hope for the best but plan for the worst. Notice I am not advocating you charge out and file for divorce - but clearly you are also not really in a reconciliation. Right now you are merely existing. Planning for the worst means taking practical and unambiguous steps to get you where you need to be.

Hope that she wakes up and has a change of heart but plan that the marriage will end and figure out how to best minimize the impact on you and your kids.

I’ll get to more responses later, I appreciate all the good advice, truly. You people are lifesavers!

I did want to address Darkness Falls really quick. I’m sorry if my comment about “lubing it up” offended you. I understand that sometimes that’s just necessary, and the way a woman’s body works. I regret putting that in my post now, because the fact that my wife doesn’t get “wet” isn’t her fault either, and it’s unfair to place blame. I don’t actually mind the fact that we use lube. But my issue is more that I usually just have to lube it up myself in a very mechanical way, like a doctor lubes up his instrument. It’s all part of the passionless, emotionless manner in which our sex life is being conducted.

Anyway, I apologize for my poor wording. I’m sure that the fact he must use lube doesn’t in of itself ruin the experience for him. I hope I didn’t cause you to feel any insecurity, that’s the last thing I want to do to anybody.

Bull. Her friends have sex and like it. I’ve lived all over this country and my friends like having sex with their spouses.

I thought about it and I actually wanted to apologize, because I totally know you have the right to feel however you feel about your personal situation without someone trying to make you feel bad about it and take it personally. Thanks for your kind reply though.

Darkness Falls, Just for informational purposes there was a section a little back that stated the limitations she has put on sex. The fact that she has no lubrication not because she can't lubricate BUT because she allows ABSOLUTELY NO FOREPLAY!!! He is not allowed to kiss her during sex, no play involving breasts allowed nor is touching below the belt.

You have to allow foreplay to enjoy the benefits of natural lubrication. She has apparently ( sorry but I have to say this) has assumed the role of a plastic vigina masturbatory tool!

By doing this she has never allowed him to connect on an emotional level since this started. She is giving the emotional connection that you buy at the porn store. (rude,but funny, comment not posted cause I don't want to cause pain). I realize that the popular image in pop culture is that men have no feelings. We are supposed to "take a hit" for the "team". Well news flash some of us DO have feelings and need to connect to our spouses on a physical level. We can accept lack of function due to illness or injury but still need the touch and demonstration of affection to the extent possible.

Nobody I know wants to cohabitate with a plastic vagina.

JMO YMMV

You tried to make this work, but she's been like Lucy to your Charlie Brown. Pull the plug, man, and file for D. There's more to life than living in a love/sex-less marriage.

Why does everyone jump to say divorce? Over and over people post it, yet most of the time those posters are still married themselves. Divorce is not always the immediate answer, and yelling it and threatening it over and over during a fight is just going to lose its effect. He has said multiple times he is happy aside from the sex. Its not as easy as just pulling the plug and divorcing someone. I think he has made it clear he doesn't want to give up on his marriage just yet.

Pinkpggy -

He has said he plan on D in a couple years.

Pink,

Divorce comes up because the BS eats a shit sandwhich. When there is a specific issue discussed over and over after adultery, it changes everything.

It’s extremely diffiuclt to do this with a remorseful spouse. Remorseful means giving your vulnerability towards your betrayed spouse. Basically both people in the marriage need to be vulnerable for a host of reasons. It goes both ways.

For a man or a woman, sex should be a beautiful moment in the course of the day or a week for a married couple.

It’s a horrible feeling to want sex, and feel like robots. This is even outside of an affair.

Same update over and over again.And same kind of replies over and over again in multiple threads.

[This message edited by Mancunianforlife at 2:39 PM, August 6th (Monday)]

Right. I understand that but he has said multiple times he is happy, and that if they could have sex like the other week that he would be happy. If sex is the only hurdle, is it possible to be worked on? I'm not saying he should accept it but it does not sound like he truly wants a divorce. I understand there may not be another option, but if he is overall happy, maybe there is. They need to seek therapy on this issue, if she is willing.

Yes! Absolutely. If she would be vulnerable with her husband. YES!!!

Okay fenderguy. She is telling you over and over the porn is a problem for her. You said before oh my wife is cool with it. I suggested months ago she wasn’t.

Your desire of wanting to touch your wife is completely fine and normal.

I suspect she isn’t emotionally connected to you. Her butter is melted with intellect talk. Is this something you can add to the table? Political Butter Talk!

Come on...this is a classic case of W cheats on H, has passionate and frequent sex with AP, gets found out, doesn't want to lose lifestyle/security/face/whatever and reconciles, but she prefers her AP over her H sexually, and won't do the things with her H that she did with her AP bc that would be betraying her AP.

There's only one answer here. Divorce.

[This message edited by GoldenR at 3:56 PM, August 6th (Monday)]

My wife doesn’t have an issue with me viewing porn in general. She just says that she thinks it gives me an unrealistic view of what sex is like. She doesn’t remember what it was like before kids, when we had a passionate sex life with no boundaries or stop signs. Even a couple years after the kids sex was still good. It was about 2.5 years ago that I first noticed things were not good. I don’t believe I have a porn problem, honestly.

I honestly don’t wish to divorce. But I feel that I have no choice. She has made it abundantly clear that this is not something that has a favorable solution to me. You people have told me your success stories about having good sex lives, and while I’m happy for you, it saddens me to no end because that is simply not in my future, unless I get a divorce.

Yes, it hurts me, very much. But I think I’m past the hurt phase. Pure hopelessness is what I feel now.

If sex is the only hurdle, is it possible to be worked on?

@pinkpggy, sure, it is possible to be worked on. Based on what Fenderguy is saying, does it sound like she wants to?

I tried like hell talking about it. It was important for me to have a good sexual connection with my wife. I started bringing it up when I was about 35. If you look at a list of medications that cause ED, of the 15 or so on the list, I take 6. I also have chronic kidney disease, another ED indicator.

My wife always talked a good game, brought up the same things that you did. I made an effort, for years. Tried non-sexual touching during the day, everything I could do.

The truth was, she didn't want to have sex with me. She would really go crazy sexually every 6 months or so (this is called reset sex) just to keep me around and paying the bills. There is no working with someone that doesn't care about improving things.

Piggy - and Fender-

I understand that but he has said multiple times he is happy, and that if they could have sex like the other week that he would be happy.

You do realize you can't say, if X happens I would be happy because I'm not now, and still say you are happy, right?

Clearly, he is not happy. And, honestly, I have no idea where you got that from - when a man says he'd rather chop his dick off than initiate sex - HE'S NOT HAPPY.

if she is willing

She is not.

He has tried. His wife has said in no uncertain terms that sex with him will be perfunctory with no emotion or involvement on her part.

Really? You think that's a good way to live?

[This message edited by WornDown at 4:28 PM, August 6th (Monday)]

FG: My current wife and I experienced a period of what I perceived to be severe sexual doldrums during a period when the kids were between about 4 or 5 and about 10 or so. I complained about it from time to time and my wife said things to me that were similar to what yours is saying.

We were about the same age at that time as you guys are now. Like you, we had a pretty good sex life pre-kids, during pregnancy, and during infancy. Then it sort of dropped off a cliff, and my wife also said that she had zero sex drive. No libido. Our sex during that period was exactly as you describe yours. Like yours, my wife told me during that time that she was happy with our sex life. "It seems like we've found a nice happy rhythm to our sex life", she said once. I looked at her with a face of blank incomprehension. This was when we were having sex like once every month or two, sometimes less, and it was the most clinical, passionless, masturbatory sex imaginable, as you describe.

I considered many things during that time frame. I tried talking to her about it but she got defensive and angry. I considered having an A. I know some ex-gfs who would gladly indulge me. But I don't have it in my moral code to step over that line. I certainly had thoughts of suicide. I considered D, but in my marital vows I said "for better or worse" and I reckoned that the lack of sex was the "worse" part. It was an easier decision path for me because my W did not herself have an A.

Like you, I used porn and masturbation to get through. I didn't watch a lot of porn. Just a few minutes a few times a week to help me get off. Usually one of the "recently featured" clips on the first page of Pornhub - in other words, no real searching around for it, just whatever 10 minute clip I could find without effort. I also comforted myself by recalling that, before meeting my wife, I had a very significant "freak" period where I had a ton of sex with a lot of women in just about every naughty way imaginable. In the overall big scheme of life, I've had a lot of good sex.

Believe it or not, sex with my wife began to change as the kids entered their tweens and then teens and now it is back to full leather jacket sex. In hindsight, I think that being a mother when young kids are going through big transitions from being home to going out into the world is stressful emotionally for some women, maybe many. It can consume all of the emotions. All of the marriage "guide books" remind married couples to reserve time for the marriage and pay attention to the needs of the spouse, but this was not the case in my marriage during that time frame.

My wife was somewhat of a "Tiger Mom", pushing the kids on homework, grades, music practice, sports, etc. She invested a giant amount of time and energy into this. By the way, both kids are now confident, high performing students in STEM fields in very prestigious universities. In hindsight, she was right about what she was doing.

I'm sharing this with you simply because of the resonance between your experience and mine. I of course don't know you or your WW and therefore cannot speak to whether this might apply, and as mentioned I didn't have to contend with the trauma and heartbreak of an A. I can say there were times during that phase when I was teetering on the brink of pursuing D, when the only thing that kept me in the marriage was grim determination to honor my vows (also, I would recall the advice given by my minister when he was counseling me prior to the marriage: "What are you going to do when you find yourself reaching the point where you are sure you no longer wish to be married to your wife? Because all married people get to that point at least once, sometimes more than once. Couples that stay married do so because the individuals figure out how to get beyond that point.")

If my wife had an A during that phase, it is quite likely I would have pursued a D. I don't think I could overcome the fact that she stepped outside the marriage that I had been stubbornly clinging to, denying myself in the process. My anger would likely have made our relationship uber-toxic.

However, it would not have been an easy decision. Like you, we had amazing family times. There was no family that worked better as a team/unit than ours did. Laughter, joy, music, art, etc. And my wife was a fantastic mother. I was proud to be part of our family. But the sex thing just about killed my spirit during that phase. If my wife had an A during that time it would have negated my stubborn adherence to my vows, the "I reckon this is the worse part" justification for staying.

That said, and I'm not trying to guilt you, I know in my heart that if we had D'd, my kids would have suffered emotionally, and this would probably have affected their grades and entire life trajectory. As mentioned, we had created a family space that was, from the perspective of the kids, joyous, intellectual, supportive, creative, inventive. A space where our kids were able to become their best. In hindsight I'm grateful for that.

I would note also that part of what changed sex for us, and made it better, was me changing the way I addressed the conversation about sex. I was reminded of the adage: "If you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you're getting." So I tried doing different things. Mainly, I began to be very frank about my needs sexually, and I reminded her that part of her job as being a spouse was to address those needs. If she didn't want me to do oral on her, or other foreplay, she was still very capable of doing it on me.

I also changed the way I interacted with my W. I stepped up my H game. I trained myself to be less tone-deaf on the things that my wife was communicating to me about her emotions. The "men from Mars/women from Venus" thing was a factor in our marriage. I realized I was not a good listener to her in that I wasn't hearing what she was trying to tell me, most of the time. I'm a very typical guy. My wife talks to me about an issue, I try to find a solution. Usually, that's not what women want. In fact, often, that just annoys them. I'm trying to be a better husband to her in this way, more present emotionally on the things that lurk in the back of her mind, that she speaks about softly in the dark as we are drifting off.

By the way, reading many threads here on SI has helped me in this way. I was terrified that my marriage was going in the direction of my prior LTR, where my XGF had a 3-9 month EA/PA and then dumped me for her AP. XGF and I were in similar social circles and over the years I came to learn that she drifted from me emotionally due to precisely these kinds of communication issues. I think it is a common reason for the creation of a wedge between husbands and wives.

By the way #2, I have a Strat and a Tele, play them both a ton, love them. Also have a 335. Play it a ton. Love it. 75% of the time I prefer the brighter sound of the single coils and the 25-1/2" scale, but sometimes there is no replacement for the throaty tone of the PAF's and the 24-3/4" scale. Like the Felder segments of the solo in "Hotel California", for example.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 8:41 PM, August 6th (Monday)]