SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

You are more than enough. You are everything.

Your husband has a problem that you stood by him through, only to have him so cruelly betray you. You have been a good and loving spouse and he has not. I don't know by what cruel twist of fate you've been dealt this hand, but it has precisely 0% to do with you. There are oodles and oodles of men who would love to be with you, and if your husband isn't one of them, that is his great loss.

Sorry Louisianalisa, most ED is mental.

Don’t have time to post a long reply, but in my experience as the spouse of a sex addict, intimacy avoidance is the underlying cause and things like porn addictions, sleeping with escorts etc. are the symptoms, same with ED. Throw in madonna/whore complex for good measure.

If you google “intimacy avoidant men”, “intimacy avoidance and sex addiction,” intimacy avoidance escorts” or any other combination of those words a lot will come up.

I would spend hours talking my husband through his ED so he would stop thinking so much and was able to perform. Like you, I did everything I could to be the faithful, loving wife. The times when he was actually able to perform without that was when he was high, and I could always tell because he had this look in his eye like I could have been anyone, could have even been a doll or fleshlight and it wouldn’t have mattered. It’s like his eyes were wide open and excited, but there was nothing behind them.

I want to emphasize what tush said though, absolutely none of this is your fault! I refuse to take the blame for any of my husband’s sick, twisted proclivities, and you should not internalize any of the shame for his! I read your story and honestly I could have written a novel in response, but I’ve been trying to take a break from SI (I know, I know, I still lurk and read). I will try to get back later and write a more thorough response.

He's had no problem lying to you for a very long time. Whose to say he's not lying about this?

I suspect he knew he wouldn’t be able to get it up for you before you married which is why he waited.

There are people who are asexual. It's possible that your WH just isn't all that interested in sex. In that case, though, there must be something he was getting from the affair that made him want to engage in one.

Also, a healthy sex life doesn't have to involve an erect penis. I am shocked at all the comments here that imply just because of ED or PE that a marriage can't have a healthy sexual connection. Have you not spent time in the past focusing on other ways of having sexual intimacy? Sex does not start and finish with a penis, erect or not.

You deserve SO much better than a marriage with a dead bedroom, regardless of the affair or anything else. The way I see it, you never really had much of an opportunity to have a healthy sex life and you are letting time pass you by. I would think very, very hard on that if any WH is worth you losing out on your entire life of sexual experiences.

[This message edited by PSTI at 7:32 PM, January 2nd (Thursday)]

Louisianalisa, everything you have shared screams that your husband is a porn addict. The OW provides (at least temporarily) something his porn addled brain can relate to. Escalated risk and fantasy. I'm very sorry you've been made to feel that you are the problem.

Does anyone have any ideas on why this might be the case for him?

Don't over think this OP... he's a selfish asshole.

I'm really sorry your husband has been so cruel. Divorce his impotent ass.

The first surgical procedure I saw, while in nursing school, was a rigid penile implant in an almost 80 year old man. He did to please his wife, of a 50+ year marriage.

At the time, I thought it was so sweet of him

There are other options out there, people. Consult with a health care professional, not a whore.

Hi LouisianaLisa

58 y.o. guy commenting here with huge trepidation to offer a slightly different perspective on what might be happening. My apologies if this seems like a massive threadjack but I am genuinely trying to help.

To me it's a complete fallacy to say all men are dick-led or respond visually as their primary driver for sex. I suspect that our cultural conditioning has hand in this (at this point I am not looking at this as "masculinity" purely sexual response). I am suggesting that sex, for more men than we acknowledge, is primarily an emotional/cerebral connection not physical as we are all taught.

Let me try to explain. My cultural conditioning is quite typical for a lot of men in the G10 countries: English boys (single sex) public school, lots of team sports etc, military service etc so I grew up in a masculine culture and era where the "did you do her?" or “did you give her one?" mentality was absolutely normal. (See how the language around sex as something you "do" to a partner, not something you share). However, growing up I never looked at a hot girl and thought "I want to bang you". If someone passed a such a comment, my thought was "Uh? You don't know her. How can you say that?". It meant I never flirted and I missed all the signs when a girl (or man come to that) flirted with me. In fact "hot" didn't mean too much to me either. I was so obviously not responding the way other teenage boys did that even my sister assumed I was gay. I am not at all. it's much more complex.

It took until about 6 or 7 years ago to find the label that applies to me. On a spectrum of sexuality I am probably what's termed "graysexual". (Thank you Internet and the millennial generation for being able to discuss this and so many other subjects freely). My understanding is it means I am only sexually attracted to women I make an emotional bond with. Sometimes that bond is quite a shallow connection but the premise of the attraction is that it has to start in my head and my heart never in my loins. It also means sex is with women I already like so it is a joint enterprise and physical appearance has almost zero impact on my libido. Once I get going I am as typical a man as one could be.

So what am I saying to you? Well, I am not some exceptional freak of nature. I am sitting on a spectrum that every other male is also on. What if your husband was closer to me on that spectrum than our commonly held perception that a man should be ready to go at the sight of a nice set of boobs or a cute butt (real life or porn)? What if he never made that connection to you but did to the OW? Of course he may also have other emotional issues FOO issues, toxic shame etc piled on top of his relationship with you that he didn't have with OW.

Something that struck a real chord is when you wrote that ED medication never worked on him. Now in my late fifties I have a type 2 diabetes and I need chemical help. From first hand experience, when my wife and I are communicating badly over even a short period of time (2 weeks) I can take sildenafil, taladafil or levitra by the bucket load and it has zero effect on me just like your husband. On the other hand when we are in tune, I need just the lick of a tablet to get going. It genuinely is all in my head.

Please don’t think I am trying to excuse, apologise for or minimise anything around your husband’s behaviour or putting any of this on you. Your husband should have had the balls to seek help and find out for himself what he needed to do years ago. Fourteen years is 13.5 years to long to put a partner who is showing you love and affection through enforced celibacy.

Where can you go with this? How do you communicate with him generally? Do you have a shared passion that you can both engage in? One where you are talking and connecting intensely on that subject. Can you then engineer a segue to turn it towards being sexual encounter and see if he responds differently than you’ve experienced before? Once again please understand that I am not suggesting this because it is your responsibility but only that it might give you a clue to resolving the issue if that is something you want to explore.

I can’t pretend to understand how women think about sex but I can assure you that there are lots of men out here who “work” like I do, if forums are to be trusted. Most men over 40 I know still see sexuality as being binary and anything less is “weird” and “gay” and so don't question themselves. Sadly for a lot of us, the trend and debates around alpha/beta male roles in relationships just add to the confusion.

[This message edited by hansvoleman at 5:54 AM, January 3rd (Friday)]

hansvoleman: Thank you (and to everyone here) for your input.

hansvoleman: I agree, my WH does of course, prefer the emotional connection, like you. I know his sexual history, and sometimes (in his 20's) it was mechanical. But mostly, he sought emotional connections.

You ask a question that pains me, because it's true:

What if he never made that connection to you but did to the OW?

The last few years of our marriage have been so hard, that yes, he completely bonded with his OW and detatched from me. But he wasn't always detatched from me. We were deeply in love and emotionally bonded on our wedding day and very connected, but he still could not perform on our honeymoon.

If our emotional connection was not enough on our honeymoon (and for the first several years of our marriage when we were deeply in love) then it never will be.

Perhaps, even though we were as much in love as two people could be, it still was not enough for him.

Perhaps, even though we were as much in love as two people could be, it still was not enough for him.

Again, this isn't about you. It's about whatever is broken in his brain. You can fix this and you certainly can't bear the blame in his inability to fix himself. PERIOD.

I’m so sorry you’ve gone through this. It is very heartbreaking and really messes with your mental and emotional state.

My wayward withdrew intimacy from me when I started confronting him about affair number one. It was mutual at that time. I wasn’t going to be intimate with somebody that was having sex with another person. He stated he didn’t have the ability. Fast forward about three years and I found out about affair number two. Which mostly was a. physical affair.

My wayward does have unresolved childhood trauma that he has not faced. I agree with others, most of the issues with ED are mental/emotional. It’s nothing that you have done or not done. It is his screwed up thinking.

I have continued to stay faithful. Faithfulness is a choice.

I'm going through this now. Actually, it's been going on for about four or five years now. Ever since he had prostate problems, he has had ED. Our sex life used to be amazing in the early years, 20 years ago. I tried to broach the topic of viagra or hormone treatments but he doesn't seem to think it's a big deal. Overall his entire sex drive has seemed to drop off. If I found out he was having sex with others while being unable to keep it up for me, quite honestly I'd be devastated! I'd feel like he thinks I'm cheap, not worth the money to spend on viagra to please physically. Sometimes I worry, what if he's off with another girl and can get it up better for her than what he's shown me?

I would find it impossible to R, if my Husband (now ex) would have said that to me...

[This message edited by justabrokendream at 4:35 PM, January 3rd (Friday)]

I agree with the porn theory. My husband struggled with maintaining an erection with me once he got heavy into porn use. There is scientific evidence that porn causes ED when in a normal sexual situation. An affair is not a normal sexual situation, it is secretive, much like porn use.

Many people here have offered input that these symptoms are porn induced and that his behaviors are a result of porn addiction. A few questions:

1. Those of you here who are/were married to secret porn addicts, what symptoms and behaviors did you see besides ED?

2. Can ED be induced by magazine/print porn? The reason I ask is because when we first got married (when his ED came to light on our wedding night) my WH had been purposely living an electronic-free life (no computers, no TV/DVD/VCR) and he only had an old flip phone with no internet access. Smart phones didn't exist yet at that point. He could not have been viewing porn electronically at that point, only with magazines.

[This message edited by Louisianalisa at 7:32 AM, January 4th (Saturday)]

I'm unfortunately a bit of an expert in this issue. When I was banging my AP my equipment would not work for my W. When I stopped banging AP equipment worked just fine for W. It's all psychological. If he separates from AP his equipment should work just fine.

I could have written your post

xwh started to struggle with Ed His health was a large part of it. Alcoholism. Sex stopped completely with me. Turns out he was saving it for cheating. He told me he had Ed He did. But managed to have something with them. It was greatly less.

It’s common to pretend to have Ed. It was an all clear. Easier to convince me he doesn’t cheat. He bought viagra two days before valentine’s for Ow It was planned. I was still believing he had Ed.

I have no doubt the excitement helps. Newness. Viagra. The truth is. If they really do struggle. It will return. Sooner then later. It still has nothing to do with you. Your looks or sex. This is another example of the lies they tell. How far they go to cheat. It’s ugly. It’s inside them.

Xwh now has alcoholic brain damage. He really can’t have sex. He’s drinking more Chronically. ow dumped him. I think it’s ironic. He believed he was a great and talented lover all through his Ed and then impotence. He couldn’t accept it’s gone. It became an addiction. Like the alcohol. The brain damage helped convince him. His world became all lies sex and alcohol.

It’s hard to wrap my head around this entire experience. I no longer feel less than. It feels bizarre. Alcohism mental illness sex and desperation then denial. It was insane.

[This message edited by cancuncrushed at 9:07 AM, January 4th (Saturday)]

Louisianalisa, your story is a sad one for so many reasons, infidelity not the least of it.

My story has some similarities, although a number of aspects of also very different. I can emphasize with being the BS who didnt have an adequate sex life (and with her accepting the responsibility for the issues we were having; although I never certain she really did). Only to find out my WW had a very active, adventurous and fulfilling sex life outside of our marriage.

Best of luck!

Reece