SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Before I begin, I am just going to say that these are merely my opinions. I respect everyone else's opinion... and I am certainly willing to change my opinion.

Yes I am the one with the much lower sex drive and I have 100% put in all the non desirable sex acts to makes it more ‘enjoyable’ (for lack of a better word again ) (I agreed to a open marriage against by better judgement) yet here I am

My WW had little to no libido or desire for years prior to her last A. She even told her AP she thought she'd never have that kind of desire again. During that A she had plenty of libido, plenty of desire, for him anyway.

I have been on SI for 2+ years and I have made 3000+ posts and probably read 10-times more than that.

A very large fraction of people who commit infidelity do so for reasons that go well beyond getting their rocks off.

My STBXWW, for example, has claimed that her affair was not about sex. As of today, I actually believe her -- this is one of a few truthful statements that she has ever made about her affair. She's almost certainly a covert narcissist, so her affair was not about getting laid or even physical intimacy or unicorn-fart-love. It was strictly about getting her narcissistic supply -- she needed attention beyond what I (or any individual person) could give her.

In a lot of cases, wayward people have affairs want the adrenaline rush (or whatever) associated with cheating and/or experiencing a new partner. It is literally a 'thrill' that you cannot have with a long-term partner.

I have had arguments on here before that I would prefer to not have ever again, but there are relatively few genuine "sex addicts". When I say sex addict, I mean people who are addicted to the sex act itself... people who want sex 5-10 times per day and masturbate at least that often. People who cannot hold a job because they must have sex. Men and women who literally masturbate until they bleed and beyond.

Instead, most people labeled sex addict are addicted to the adrenaline rush associated with a new conquest.

I quote JimmyB above as well as Countrygirl10... both of their posts are consistent with my opinion/theory. JimmyB's WW found her libido strictly with another man.... Countrygirl10's WH still cheated in spite of the fact that "[she] 100% put in all the non desirable sex acts to [make] it more ‘enjoyable’"

I have spent a couple of years accepting blame for my STBXWW's affair. I was wrong; so are you. The wayward are to blame, not the betrayed.

[This message edited by barcher144 at 7:31 AM, May 4th (Saturday)]

In a lot of cases, wayward people have affairs want the adrenaline rush (or whatever) associated with cheating and/or experiencing a new partner. It is literally a 'thrill' that you cannot have with a long-term partner.

I believe this was true for my H. He had been deployed to a war zone several times. That is a huge adrenaline rush. He has always been a bit of an adrenaline junky. He always had to do the most extreme thing. He came home and was stuck in boring, old, regular life. The attention from the OW and the secretiveness of the A was exciting. It provided the adrenaline rush he was missing and craved. It's very difficult to go from a constant state of heightened awareness to calm.

This is something interesting about physical touch/sex as a love language. Why is it a "turn off" like this when your H/W wants to express love to you this way?

Sorry, but after quite a bit of consideration, I've rejected "love languages" as hooey invented in order to categorize people and sell books. I don't necessarily think the author is a bad guy. Most people like to believe there's order to the reason folks do the things they do, and most like to make a living. But in the end, "love languages" make us responsible for our partner's wants/needs, for their internal sense of satisfaction, for their communication style. The concept of "love languages" makes us responsible for our partner's hidden score card, rather than making our partner responsible for opening his/her mouth and problem-solving. I see it more as "reverse blame-shifting", where we step in and take responsibility for, not the facts of the relationship, but for our partner's perception of the facts.

In terms of "expressing love", I absolutely do NOT believe that every bid for sex is an indicator of "love". That certainly doesn't explain prostitution or NSA fuckbuddies. It doesn't even explain the dynamics within a marriage, because when that hidden scorecard is present, there's disrespect in play which colors all other aspects of the relationship.

love languages" make us responsible for our partner's wants/needs, for their internal sense of satisfaction, for their communication style. The concept of "love languages" makes us responsible for our partner's hidden score card,

I got the opposite out of it. I learned to recognize when my H was expressing his LL. I don't make him responsible for expressing mine. I might remind him sometimes that I need QT or a hug. I rarely express my H's LL. It doesn't come naturally to me.

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WRT sex as a LL and being a turn off, sex is not a LL. PT is the LL that sex falls under. There are all kinds of other ways to express PT, a hug, hand holding, a gentle touch as you pass by, a massage without expectation of sex. Sex itself is not the turn off. The turn off is when sex is the only PT or expression of love/affection.

The choice to cheat is not connected to sex drive or not getting enough

True!

But mismatched sex drives can begin a frustrated marital dynamic that is often handled badly by one spouse or the other, and this poor handling or coping can become cheating. I would never tell someone that their needs and wants don't matter, whichever side of the sex drive side they are on, but one or both of them may end up feeling this way regardless. Then what? Does the couple have the tools to overcome these hurt feelings, to soothe these unsatisfied desires, to dialogue openly and freely, and to solve the issue to the satisfaction of both? No, one or both partners frequently do not have those tools! The one with the higher drive can be attracted to ego kibbles and opportunity, especially if they are feeling rejected on top of feeling sexually neglected. Or maybe their high drive is the addiction elephant in the room that neither partner wants to admit. The one with the lower drive should be asking themselves the hard question of "Why am I not attracted to my spouse anymore?" before they find themselves attracted to someone else "out of nowhere," especially if they recognize that they still have lustful thoughts or feel some low level resentments in the M. They should not accept this "no attraction to my spouse" feeling as the new normal; it's not. Ignoring the undercurrent of reasons for the mismatch, dismissing the issue as nothing, or ignoring the obvious elephant in the marital bedroom does nothing good for the marriage. And may allow something bad. This was the case for me.

So no, sexual mismatch doesn't cause cheating; but many, many people do not have the tools to fix the sexual libido mismatch. Is that really something you want to allow to blister and fester and infect your whole marriage? Address the marital issue! Unaddressed marital issues trigger an internal crisis inside of us which triggers primal reactions known here as FOO which triggers our most default and dysfunctional solutions. And then we say, "WTF was I even thinking?" Speaking from first hand experience here.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 5:56 PM, May 4th (Saturday)]

There are definitely people on this forum with whom I could hang out and drink a beer.

And there are people on this forum that I just picture with a permanent “I just smelled a fart” look on their face.

This is something interesting about physical touch/sex as a love language. Why is it a "turn off" like this when your H/W wants to express love to you this way?

.

Because infidelity makes you question if It really is 'expressing love' or if it's just about wanting a quick root to, as another poster put it, 'scratch that itch'.

Infidelity makes you question everything you believed sex was and is.

For example, if my H is is going to only hit me up for sex at 1am in the morning when I am already half asleep and have to be up in a few hours then he's going to be rejected more often than not. It's not about compatibility and sex drives if sex is not prioritised. It's then not about 'expressing his love' it's about 'scratching that itch'.

[This message edited by Datura at 7:03 PM, May 4th (Saturday)]

Because infidelity makes you question if It really is 'expressing love' or if it's just about wanting a quick root to, as another poster put it, 'scratch that itch'.

Infidelity makes you question everything you believed sex was and is.

Which I can't disagree with at all when it's a WH. But it seems the vitriol for sex isn't reserved for WH's or BW's. My wife, I'm quite sure, had the same "dog humping leg" about my desire for physical touch before her A (and then, during the A, had more dog humping leg moments than I'd ever even conceived of asking for and basically did nothing but that during the A). We've had threads on here that go on for weeks and 100's of posts about filling sexual desires of the BS and the responses almost couldn't be more polarized.

So, taking the BW out of it for a minute (because that I completely understand), why is physical touch seen as such a negative love language by some?

And there are people on this forum that I just picture with a permanent “I just smelled a fart” look on their face.

True story...

why is physical touch seen as such a negative love language by some?

I think I answered this, but I'll try again. PT does not equal sex. Sex is a very small part of PT.

If all you are doing in the PT is area is trying to get sex, my guess would be that PT is not your true LL. You're just trying to get your rocks off. If PT is your true LL, you are also holding hands, hugging, giving a slight touch as you pass by, putting your arm around him/her. When it's just sex, sex, sex all the time, that's not LL and it's a turn off.

My first wife and I didn’t have much sex after we were married. The final year we did not have sex at all. I thought it was she wasn’t attracted to me. I now believe she just didn’t like sex.

Doesn’t matter if it’s a love language. It tells you what you need to know. That you don’t want the same things. That you aren’t on the same page. If she wants to do it on your birthday and Christmas then get out now. You can find a roommate on Craigslist.

But for the lady who posted- your husband is an immature prick. You can’t change that and he seems unwilling. I would let him go hump someone else’s leg and get someone who appreciates you.

[This message edited by turnthepage at 9:32 AM, May 5th (Sunday)]

But for the lady who posted- your husband is an immature prick. You can’t change that and he seems unwilling. I would let him go hump someone else’s leg and get someone who appreciates you.

Yep.

You must say that it's not ok. We have to stand up for our needs.

But for the lady who posted- your husband is an immature prick. You can’t change that and he seems unwilling. I would let him go hump someone else’s leg and get someone who appreciates you.

That's so nice of you and OIN to be concerned, but believe me... I don't tolerate that kind of treatment in my life anymore. Post-betrayal, if sex isn't legitimately about my fWH wanting to be with ME, it's not happening. I had spent my entire life, from the age of 13 up, being sexually harassed, and I don't put up with it any more. After intimate betrayal, many of us aren't afraid of being alone. So, unless there's emotional intimacy, and unless it's being consistently maintained (inside and outside of the bedroom), I'm not assuming that whatever stiff dick I'm presented with it necessarily MY problem. If it wasn't me that got it up, it's not going to be me who gets it down, eh?

People assume that it's only wayward husbands and assholes who sexually harass their wives. Many would just like to blame the female for being frigid or not liking sex, or even for using them for their income. They don't consider how unappealing and unattractive they are when they're treating a human being as a sexual jungle gym. I do believe though that there's a certain amount of social conditioning which has made this attitude too prevalent and needs to be undone.

I think there are people who would like to divide this issue as having a different data set when it comes to BH's v. WH's. But truly, there's no difference, not any that matter in terms of respect. The WH who takes his ball and leaves the field *and* the BH who insists on "porn star sex" as a condition of R are both acting from a position of entitlement. "She doesn't give me the sex I want so I'm going elsewere" "She gave the sex I wanted to someone else, so if I don't get it, I'm going elsewhere". Both statements are coercive. Both harbor the same objective.

When sex is not the legitimate product of mutual attraction, when the various sexual acts themselves are not mutually enjoyable, it's not authentic, not representative of an equitable relationship. Sex is the one area in which no one, regardless of who they are or what they've done in the past, should feel that they must participate in order to receive the emotional support they were promised. Sex is not always love outside the bonds of a committed, emotionally nurturing relationship, but within it... it most assuredly should be.

It kind of goes back to the old canard of "women want emotional intimacy to be sexual and men want sexual intimacy to be emotional", like there's an unfortunate stalemate and someone has to be the first to break it. What I'm thinking these days though, is that if it takes a sex act to open up to one's partner emotionally, there's a vulnerability issue which needs permanent resolution.

Anyway, long post shortened, I'm not anti-sex. In fact, mutually enjoyable sex, has a wonderful biochemical pair-bonding effect in loving couples which cannot be duplicated. So, it's a good thing. I just don't believe sex should ever be used as coin or that anyone (regardless of marital status) is entitled to it. And these days, I certainly don't tolerate that kind of nonsense in my personal life.

Thanks for checking on me though. You guys are awesome.

So, taking the BW out of it for a minute (because that I completely understand), why is physical touch seen as such a negative love language by some?

I'll try again. I think it's hard to understand for someone whose biochemistry is always ready to go, but if the hormonal mix is off for me, sexual desire just isn't present. I can still love my H and find him handsome, fun, etc, but the "itch" isn't there, so that patch of skin doesn't want to be scratched. Now, if we snuggle and build things up emotionally, that hormonal juice may get flowing, in fact it often does, but it's not a given that it will. And we've been through a few periods of incompatibility where he wanted sex every day, and I just went along with it because I love him and wanted him to be happy, but eventually I started getting actively averse to it because my body needed an extended break. Sex without significant arousal can start to feel oppressive, and of course, with a high drive spouse, it can be hard to ease back in after a respite. There's this fear that in their thirst, they won't drink moderately, they'll go right back to draining you dry.

Obviously, it was hard for my H not to take this personally, and it would have been exponentially harder if I was all juiced up with another man (which was not the case for us; we were perpetually horny teens/twentysomethings at the time of the A). I'll be honest, that is a phenomenon I have never understood. If I was capable of being hot for anyone, I'd be hot for BH. I'm just trying to answer why a low drive partner might react negatively to PT under normal circumstances.

I'll add that I'm operating on memory here. For the last six months, BH and I have been well matched in overdrive mode. So much so that I'm wondering why I'm still here posting instead of finding and jumping him.

I was talking to the lady who started the post. But it does apply everywhere.

I disagree with you in some of what you said. We can’t tell someone what they can’t require to stay married. It’s up to who they are married to whether to comply. My requirement is that I would tolerate no more lying or doing things behind my back. She wants to go, there’s the door. If she never wanted sex before I would want that to be different. Every thing she does to better herself or our relationship matters more now than before. She lost weight, she dresses up for dates, and she still rocks my world on a frequent basis. It all says to me she wants me, and she wants me to want her. It does matter. Your husband cheated on you, so you drew different lines for you that things were going to be different. You took control of what you wanted from a relationship. That’s great. If everyone did that no one would be here.

I’m going to jump in and agree with BSR on this. I also want to echo what Coco mentioned when she said: “ sex is not the turn off, the turn off is when all PT leads to sex”. I love physical touch, but not all PT involves sex, and sometimes I just want to cuddle. If my spouse thinks that every time we we cuddle/kiss then it’s going to lead to sex then i have two choices (1) we have sex and I don’t get the expression of PT that I am sometimes seeking (which feels like rejection to me); or (2) I shut him down and he feels rejected. Both are injurious to the Relationship.

ETA: I also think there is a detrimental effect to always having to be the sexual “gatekeeper” if you will, I think it unwittingly makes that person feel like a prude or like there is something wrong with them or their libido (which can ultimately lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy). I think BOTH indivudials benefit when they are both persuers and perused. I realize that this can be difficult to achieve when there is a drive mismatch but I think with communication, patience and effort (by *both* parties - not just the HD party), it is possible.

[This message edited by emergent8 at 2:16 PM, May 5th (Sunday)]

They don't consider how unappealing and unattractive they are when they're treating a human being as a sexual jungle gym

Oh, I'm pretty sure I can "consider" it well. Because I'm going to guess it's about as unappealing as being used as a wallet and a handyman while you WW treats someone ELSE as a sexual jungle gym.

And frankly, I feel this way about the other (non sexual) love languages. They feel very "unappealing" and "fake" to me. You really want me to just spout off ego kibbles about how pretty you are every day? Or you really just want me to clean the house to love me? Both of them feel a LOT worse to me than being used as a "sexual jungle gym", of course, because that's my love language.

And yes, to another poster who said physical touch isn't "just sex", your right. But that's like saying words of affirmation isn't just "words" it could be a look, a nod, or other things too. It's not just "I love yous" but, without those "loving phrases", I'd say that for most people, it's not going to do it (certainly didn't for my W). Same with physical touch, at least for me. I enjoy all of it, but if I'm getting a 4 hour backrub each night and no sex, it won't take long until my love language feels like it's not being spoken to me. But the reverse it also true, if the only time I'm getting touched it's sex, that wouldn't fill all my needs either (but it would be better than only being touched non-sexually).

I think there are people who would like to divide this issue as having a different data set when it comes to BH's v. WH's. But truly, there's no difference, not any that matter in terms of respect. The WH who takes his ball and leaves the field *and* the BH who insists on "porn star sex" as a condition of R are both acting from a position of entitlement. "She doesn't give me the sex I want so I'm going elsewere" "She gave the sex I wanted to someone else, so if I don't get it, I'm going elsewhere". Both statements are coercive. Both harbor the same objective.

And demanding NC isn't "entitlement"? Or demanding a timeline? Or the details? Or a post nup? Or that they go to IC? The simple fact is, is "entitlement" and coerced actions are "wrong" after an A, well, I don't see many people making it past d-day. Very, very few WS's "get it right" without a whole lot of "forcing" (because they are entitled to do so) by the BS.

But, rather than trying to define the terms, I guess the real question is "what to do" in this situation. Let's say your a BH who's WW went all "porn star" with the AP. You'd like that too. In fact, if you don't get it, you are going to D. What now? This is where it always hits the dead end for me. Just walk out the door if it's not offered up? Ask? And then what? My WS isn't stupid, she'd know what "asking" means, and I'm pretty sure that most WS's would fall into this category. If I'd just had an A, and my wife leaves her browser open to some pretty jewelry I know she's always liked, I'm pretty sure I know what it means, get it or get out. Now, of course, nobody says it this way, but.. Isn't that the message?

[This message edited by Rideitout at 4:07 PM, May 5th (Sunday)]

I have always had a higher sex drive than my wh and I’m the one that was cheated on. Go figure. I’ve always adapted to his lower sex drive and not made a big deal about it. I would have liked more of course but made it work for the other pluses in the relationship. Sadly, those pluses no longer seem great and me lucky after his infidelity.

I have always had a higher sex drive than my wh and I’m the one that was cheated on. Go figure.

BECAUSE (for the millionth time) CHEATING IS NOT JUST ABOUT SEX.

if I'm getting a 4 hour backrub each night and no sex,

Again with the black/white, either/or, allot nothing thinking. It isn't like that, or at least it doesn't have to be. My 2ndary LL is PT. I don't want sex all the time. I want touch a lot, that could mean sex, but it also can mean other things.

I can't presume how often a WoA person needs to hear ILYs because I'm not that person. But, again, ILY is not the only way to express WoA. It's wordS of affirmation, plural. So, yeah, it is just words. A look won't cut it, idt.

Have you read the book and taken the quiz?