Are there any midlife women who want daily sex?

[Bagheera]

There is something else that is puzzling me in reading through your old thread, SSMGuy. How old were you when you met your wife, began dating her, and married her? I can't get your timeline to make sense. You mention being in your mid-fifties, sex-less marriage for the previous 10 years, which would be from about age 45. What about the previous 45 years? Were you previously married? Single? What were your previous sexual experiences to your wife?

Somewhere I think that you mentioned being married for 14 years, sexless for 10, but that would still put you at age 40 or so when you met and married. What came prior to that?

-- B.

[ssmguy]

Bagheera, thank you very much for the time you've spent on my threads and your excellent recall! Heaven knows it's a lot of childish ranting of a sexually inexperienced and frustrated person. Yes, you're right, my comments from 2 years ago are amazingly similar! Hey, at least I'm consistent! And I'm not trying to reword things just to create a false impression of progress.

Yes, I have been "stuck" in the same situation for several years now, though I prefer to look at it as patience and honoring my wife's request to "back off the pressure" to fix things and give her some peace for a while. In the first years of my SSM, I responded in a very action-oriented way and arranged for therapy, tried to have discussions, went on vacations where I was romantic, ... all the recommended things. It gave me a false (in retrospect) feeling of making progress, but at least I can say I tried those things.

We met when she was in her late teens, and I was in my early twenties, and married a few years later. I'm now in my late 50's. And no, neither of us were previously married (we were in college and grad school when dating). Previous sexual experiences to my wife? None at all. And none for her.

Not sure where you got the "14" number for years of marriage. At this point, that's just the number of years it's been SSM.

Actually, many of the stats at the bottom of your post are remarkably similar to mine, especially if you add about 8 to all the numbers in the first two lines. Which might suggest we have faced some of the same issues and tradeoffs.

Though I'd like to go out and do all these crazy sexual things and enjoy myself, I can't help but "succumb" to my daughter's request to help her with calculus or chemistry, for example. She's acing everything and I'm so proud of her. Or when she wants me to go with her to a scary movie that mom doesn't want to see. So my time gets eaten up with work, family, hobbies, and chores, and it has kept me off the streets!

[25yearsmlc]

SSM

Wow, I guess I feel deceived, or mislead.

You came here back then wanting to cheat, or get a hooker, or sex w/o strings or a sex tutor...b/c your feelings/ego were hurt and you were not getting anywhere with your w. (Though to be fair, the present thread is vague on specifics as to what you have tried OR SAID and what specifically she did or said and why)

But you are back here again with the same story of not getting ANY and wanting it SO MUCh, albeit worded more discreetly and vaguely.

Why did you hide the fact that you've been here before and --and what?

Why come here? You are dancing around the issues but

This is a pro marriage site so of course we are going to advise that you work on your marriage---and---we hope and believe that will eventually improve your sex IN the marriage....

we are not going to tell you to go outside for it EVEN though we might understand it if it happened...

but you want to plan it ahead of time and not inform your wife of the repercussions of her choices....yeah um, it's unfair to her, at best.

FYI
you compare a lot of your "numbers" about sex to "average couples" you read about and take as gospel truth.

You really seem to think it's all accurate AND that your ability to masturbate in some sort of indication of your libido, but it lacks any context & the two are not the same.

But you say things that excuse YOU more than the average would be cheater...and worse, you are just blessed/cursed with such a high libido that of course a guy like YOU is going to be even more frustrated due to all the denial of sex you think you would have if only your w were normal or more giving.

Hey, I'm NOT going to defend your w's zero sex tolerance policy, okay? I don't agree w/it by a long shot.

But OTOH

your comparisons about sex frequency are very inaccurate and they sound...forgive me, "silly" and I will leave it at that..

My point is comparing your ability to do yourself --w/ reports of couples making love less often than that -doesn't fly....
A guy alone in the shower doing himself, cannot be compared to a man making love to his wife & spending the time to please her. Masturbation is "sex" I guess, but it's by yourself. It's not making love.

It takes skill AND energy AND effort so you can't equate the events.

BTW, women with sex devices can usually get several orgasms in less than an hour, and "without a messy partner"...

yet when given the choice, nearly all of us choose to have our lovers instead...even with fewer O's...

There is something about sexual intimacy that an orgasm alone simply doesn't cover.

Naturally we at DB land are going to urge you to go for the deeper meaning sex. You're saying "lousy sex is better than no sex" or "meaningless is better than meaningful if that takes another decade."

Is it that you think pleasing YOUR w, is just too much work, compared to just having her put out w/no sexual return,

OR you just finding it elsewhere...OR staying stuck in the same self serving mode??

I mean, of those options pleasing her would evidently, take the longest...(but it would yield the most by far)...

You are very stuck. And That's your choice.

I do wonder what your w would think if she knew how you see it and I'd love to hear her reasons for not wanting it at all AND

would love to know what SHE SAYS she expects to have happen
if you two never have sex again.

Does she even get the choice? See, you would have to tell her the truth for her to have that choice.

Given your past threads here, my guess is you have Not been as forthright with her as you need to be. Or as SHE needs you to be so she can knowingly choose.


Frankly,

if your w believed you were going to get it elsewhere AND she was really okay with that, to me that would indicate way more than merely a low libido on her end.

What are you afraid her real reasons are? What's the worst belief she could have?

That you "wrecked" sex for her? Do you believe that?

IF so, we could work with that. (It's not a permanent or incurable condition.)

IF you don't believe or fear that, then why are you so afraid to tell your wife what this is really costing you and her?
Bottom line--

If you truly want real sex badly enough,

but you are SURE you cannot have it inside the marriage--

then you have to have THE tough love talk with your wife.

And obviously follow through, or be stuck and learn to accept it.

It's not easy, but it is not that complicated either.


Good luck

[Bagheera]

Actually, many of the stats at the bottom of your post are remarkably similar to mine, especially if you add about 8 to all the numbers in the first two lines. Which might suggest we have faced some of the same issues and tradeoffs.

There are some similarities and some significant differences. When I married at age 24, I was the sexually experienced partner while my wife, at age 19, was not. I incorrectly assumed that since she was starting off inexperienced and a bit naive, that I'd be the one to introduce her to the 'joys of sex' that I had experienced with my previous partners. Wrong answer: although able to reach orgasm with me, she remained sexually timid and reticent about many activities, and once the 'honeymoon phase' of the relationship began to wane, it became apparent that her sex drive was also a good bit lower than mine.

Our first child was conceived on our honeymoon, literally, and thus very soon into our marriage she had children to focus on, and so her interest in working to maintain *our* relationship and connection diminished further. In her mind, we were supposed to be "all about the children" now (a very common story). I responded to this "rejection" in typical male fashion by withdrawing emotionally and not providing her with all of the support and enthusiasm that she felt I should be providing (again, a common story). The ever more distancing, resentment-filled, downward spiral of our marriage went on for the next 20-odd years.

During the winter and spring of 2007, we went through a 6-month, job-related separation (I had changed jobs and moved ahead of the rest of the family). That separation produced a lot of soul-searching for me, and I recognized that I was at the make-or-break point of my marriage. I realized that I needed to either (a) get out and divorce her then, or (b) make a new effort to save our relationship: the stalemate had to end. I began my own GAL efforts during that separation period, and worked through my anger to the point that I could set it aside and really begin working to improve things. When my wife and I got back together in late summer, I started working to connect with her again, and to really meet her needs, for the first time in years. At the same time, however, I set a deadline. I made sure that she understood that although (a) I was willing to bust my butt to make our relationship better, that (b) if things had not significantly improved in one year's time, we were done...we would separate for good and I would file for divorce. It was no bluff, and she knew it. The real breakthrough came in the fall, when I put a copy of MWD's "The Sex-Starved Marriage" down in front of her and asked her to read Chapter 1 as I left for work that day. When I got home that evening, she was in tears: the light bulb had gone off in her mind and she *finally* understood that I had been hurting just as much as she had been all those years. She got it, and we began moving forward together from that moment on. By the following winter, we were seeing a therapist who was a qualified individual counselor, couple's counselor, and AASECT sex therapist, and we utilized him in all three capacities for the next three years (2008-2010), until I again had to change jobs.

It's been no picnic, and we've come close to throwing in the towel a few times along the way, but we continue to make progress. Similar to your wife, my wife was also sexually abused as a child (for several months when she was only 8 years old), and that experience produced a huge, dark cloud of problems when it came to intimacy and sex. However, when push came to shove and her marriage was clearly at stake, my wife was willing to attend counseling and work through those issues and get past them. And slowly, ever so slowly, she has been discovering, and revealing to me, the sexual woman that she has kept carefully hidden inside of herself throughout her lifetime. That 'light' is still quite fragile, and easily stuffed back under a bushel basket again, but it is there, much to both our surprises at times.

FWIW, I see two major problems with your current arrangement, SSMGuy:

(1) Your outside-the-marriage, casual sex activities PROVE to your wife, over and over, that for you, sex *isn't* about making love to her --> it's about pleasuring yourself. You've said that over and over again here, literally. While some women can engage in casual sex and enjoy it that way, *most* women cannot -- they need an emotional connection; they need to know that their man wants only *them*, and that it's about more than just physical pleasure. With every Playboy calendar that you accept at Christmas, with every trip to the strip-club, you prove to your wife over and over that for you, it's nothing more than 'scratching an itch', and that any old 'hole' will do. You keep proving to her that you DON'T want an intimate emotional connection with her. Thus, why should she want one with you? For her, that emotional connection is a REQUIREMENT for wanting to have sex with you: for her, sex and love are not separable.

(2) As DanceQueen pointed out over and over, you dropped the ball and never really pushed your wife hard enough to make the very tough decision to work her intimacy issues and abusive past. You never really held her feet to the fire, and instead left her with an easy out (your extra-marital activities). I know, from firsthand experience, that it's a very hard thing to do to firmly tell someone that either (a) we work these issues and start to fix things, or (b) we are done as a couple. You have to really mean it when you say that, and follow through with it if they take option (b). David Schnarch doesn't call such 'crunch points' the "crucible" for nothing. But there is really nothing else that will ever get your wife to budge and to face her fears and intimacy issues. Otherwise, she will take the easier, more comfortable route of doing nothing, and informing you of the next 'discount night' at the strip-club.

Take care,

-- B.

[ssmguy]

Hide the fact that I posted here before? My posts are on the forum, available by searching. I though that would be obvious to anybody, just as it is to me every time I go and look at a poster's firsts posts. If I wanted to hide anything, I would have gotten a new ID. And really what difference does it make, except to note that I appear to be "stuck". I already tell you what the situation is.

Why come here, well, like I said several times, just to vent.

And again, for the umpteenth time, I'm not looking for advice, approval, or anything like that regarding going outside my marriage. What I get most out of this site is seeing other people's situations.

I'm well aware of the differences between masturbation frequency and partnered sex frequency effects. But I can tell you that even when I had the best partnered relationship period, what I said still applied. So the question might be, would it apply to me just as much now as then.

Is it that you think pleasing YOUR w, is just too much work, compared to just having her put out w/no sexual return,

Have you not read anything I've written a dozen times? I have been trying for decades to let me pleasure her. I've given her countless lengthy back massages. I've stated repeatedly that I would like foreplay and sex to last a long time.

And you don't think I've had the tough talk with my wife? Have you read my thread?

As for "not telling" my wife about other women, my approach which I have actually done, as opposed to wishing I would do, has been to tell her about other women I know and generally what we did because it can't hurt my goal. If a woman seems interested in me generally and we talk or work together at work, etc., I tell my wife about it. The way I figure it, if she feels someone else might catch my eye, she might be motivated to step in. If not, then I don't feel I'm hiding anything that might happen if she takes the attitude that I can do whatever.

And no, if I were to cheat, it would not be because my ego was hurt, etc. That's your interpretation. I'm curious about sex and I like it, period. And if you see that as the only way to get sex for a long, long time, it's tempting.

[ssmguy]

I know, from firsthand experience, that it's a very hard thing to do to firmly tell someone that either (a) we work these issues and start to fix things, or (b) we are done as a couple. You have to really mean it when you say that, and follow through with it if they take option (b). David Schnarch doesn't call such 'crunch points' the "crucible" for nothing.

Well, that's the problem really. If I had been as tough as I should have been, we would have divorced. So it's kind of a moot point. The question now is to bring the topic up all over again, hoping we're better prepared to deal with it.

[Bagheera]

Well, that's the problem really. If I had been as tough as I should have been, we would have divorced. So it's kind of a moot point. The question now is to bring the topic up all over again, hoping we're better prepared to deal with it.

But you aren't better off now. By engaging in my item (1) above, you have just about guaranteed that she's choose the (b) "separate and divorce" option if you present her with my item (2) above at this point. What's her incentive for TRUSTING YOU if she were tho choose option (a) "work the issues"?

Before presenting *any* ultimatums, you'll need to start all over again with the 'phase 1' and 'phase 2' efforts that I've outlined before. In particular, 'phase 2': re-learning to love and meet the needs (emotional and otherwise) of your spouse, and most importantly for you, rebuilding *trust* again.

-- B.

[ssmguy]

But you aren't better off now.

True, if all you're only weighing the sexual issue. But I really have no regrets overall because of my kids and the other things I still have with my wife. Shared custody, occasional visits, not living with my kids, was unthinkable at the time, and I'm glad I didn't divorce. That plays a huge part for me.

Before presenting *any* ultimatums, you'll need to start all over again with the 'phase 1' and 'phase 2' efforts that I've outlined before. In particular, 'phase 2': re-learning to love and meet the needs (emotional and otherwise) of your spouse, and most importantly for you, rebuilding *trust* again.

Yeah, we might be dead of old age by the time we achieve all that. Like you said, it's hard work.

[ssmguy]

25yearsmlc, I apologize for the irritated tone in a previous reply. It's not the first time I've been frustrated trying to convey my situation to well-meaning people giving me advice. In particular, I'm referring to your comment:

Is it that you think pleasing YOUR w, is just too much work, compared to just having her put out w/no sexual return,

About ten years ago, I had a lengthy conversation with a woman about ten years older than me who had had a long and good marriage, where neither partner ever turned down the other for sex without giving a "rain check", and that happened only a few (!) times in the whole marriage. Condensing the dialog quite a bit.... I told her about the difficulties in my marriage, and she suggested that a woman needs more foreplay, etc. I explained that my wife won't let me. And so she suggested that I need to set the mood and take her out and do things. And I had to explain, no that has never put her in the mood for foreplay. She still didn't quite seem to get the picture until I explained that even when she had had a good time, and we had spent the whole day together on a vacation, and she was flirty and wanted to make love, and we were about to have intercourse -- even then she never permitted me to touch her breasts or anywhere near her genitals.

At which point the elderly woman seemed somewhat shocked and said, "Oh, I see, you really do have a problem."

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

I'm going to step out of my own story for a moment and offer a couple of observations.

If I had been as tough as I should have been, we would have divorced.

For the functioning of human voluntary reflexes (as opposed to hardwired reflexes that we cannot control), language is everything .

In in your language, in the words you tell yourself (and others) there are two separate but related factors.

The first part is that you should have been tougher than you have been in the past. It's right the in the first part:

If I had been as tough as I should have been,....

That's a self-assessment of your own position, not something that someone else has imposed upon you. In those words there is something else and that is what you tell yourself about not being as tough as you should have been.

Others have pointed out how allowing the resistance, her resistance, to win out over the follow through is letting her off the hook. But you are telling yourself you shuold have been tougher, and you have not been. Aren't you also letting yourself off the hook and haven't you been all along?

That leads to the second related part, but not necessarily logical part:

....we would have divorced.

I'm fairly certain that you, like I, have a whole internal conversation about divorce and what it "means" and how that view defines us. As a child of divorce, I can look back and see how that influenced my view of the world and contrast that with "normal" families. It also requires a great deal of self-awareness on such issues.

So, let's just say to simplify things, divorce is not a path you wish to follow. Again, from my own adult experience, though we've made it relatively easy, we make divorce mean something and say something about who we are as people in this world.

But it does not necessarily follow that you'd be divorced.

You've told yourself that. The question is, has she?

I'm clear that my wife has told me that if I become involved with someone else (and she probably does not make any distiction between the physical and emotional) that our marriage (relationship) will end. She has spoken the words and re-stated them to be clear about her feelings about that.

(As a note: she has given me an "easy-out" to end the marriage...for her to stay true to her promise, her word. I have not taken the easy out.)


And the only way that you could draw that logical conclusion is fi she told you explicitly that if you attempt to work through these long-standing sexual difficulties with her, that she will divorce you.

Or put another way to match your words, she would have to have said to you "if you are as tough on me as you should be, I will divorce you!"

But at least the path would be clear...you both would have agreed that you should have been tougher and that it should end in divorce.

Otherwise, you just have a logical fallacy.

The Captain