Thread: A little advice needed.

Bare with me but this is a super-long story. I wanted to get some advice, just to see if I am crazy or doing something wrong. Please don’t hold back at all.

I am 41 and my wife is 37 years old and we have been having sensual and sexual problems for the past 5 years or more now. It is hard for me to keep track, it could have been happening throughout our entire 12 year marriage. (thing is, it just became habit after time.) I feel really bad, ashamed really because after thinking back I don’t think we had successful sexual intercourse at all during our relationship. Sure we have had a little oral and heavy petting but nothing like actual penetration.

You could say I woke up recently when helping an old girlfriend survive a recent divorce which had peculiarly similar situations. I have had honest conversations with my wife in the past about many difficult situations in our relationship but recently I have become more direct in my questioning and she has become more straightforward in her answers. (after both of us ignoring it all these years)

As of last count we have not had sex for at least a year. (maybe more). I initially thought it was me. I assumed it was a by-product of job (Police officer) and the stress involved with it. I am not ugly, women are attracted to me. I am not fat…a little pudgy but not overweight. I am a pretty confident person and I don’t see anything wrong with the way I look. My job related stress did affect me sexually but I recovered within a month and wanted to perform. The thing is I do think it was the ineffective sexual contact and awkward activity that slowed me down.

We have attempted to make love but with questionable results, the best way to describe it is….awkward. She often states that “I’m not romantic” or “I won’t be treated like a plaything” or “I am not a .” She often complains “I am not doing it right” or “This is not a porn movie.” These terms and actions themselves tear at my self-esteem and worth and often produce the effect I think she is looking for after all….no sex. She would not respond or become active in our forplay. She made it seem like a job.

In our frank conversations she has stated that she can live without sex and if I can’t do it right then “We don’t need it.” I was always assuming that what I was attempting to do was completely normal within a marriage but she thinks differently. (I am not being freaky but quite normal…I am sure what everyone would consider normal.) I want to engage in different sexual positions other then missionary but she refuses. “It makes her feel like a .”


I have had a few past relationships before we met so I guess you could say I am somewhat experience while I am her first. I often thought this was the problem and attempted to learn with her but to no avail. Something just isn’t clicking. She blames it on me. She says I am not romantic enough or I don’t make her feel loved.

I take her on expensive cruises (6 to date), romantic getaways to Ocean City and other places, dinner and even cook her breakfast in the morning…with little effect. I asked her to go with me to see a counselor but she believes everything else is more important or say it’s my fault…”I am not emotional enough.”

Well after much (a lot) of demanding on my part I suppose... she finally decided to go to the hospital to get some type of assessment on what was going on with her physically as well as mentally because of our sex issues.

As I knew for quite some time she was re-assessed and diagnosed with Clinical Depression.

She was diagnosed a few years ago but she never really followed up on it. She had therapy sessions and a run in with side effects with her medication but she stated to me often that she could cope with her depression issues without all that. (I should have known better.) I often felt sorry for her because her medication was causing serious problems...harming things more then fixing.

Sometime I think she is fine but in hindsight I really don't know much. I am not a specialist, I can't read minds. I can only guess at what is going on in her head and it's frustrating.

She also was diagnosed with Fibroids, some form of Vaginitis (which could be connected) and the doctors are looking into Endometriosis. (that is what she tells me anyway) Now with these conditions everything is magnified 10x then before. Every pain or depressed state is somehow connected to the Fibroids. She complains that she could try sex but with lots of conditions. It seems overwhelming and un-romantic.

The doctors will not take out the fibroids because there could be complications. (too close to bladder and she has anemia she says) So she takes birth control pills that will only shrink them moderately...never eliminate them.

Now after years I am not unscathed in this whole situation:

I am bothered because I have been living like this for years and I feel resentment. Resentment in the fact that we have never really had normal sex (a cause of her physical and mental condition perhaps...I don't know.) Resentment in the fact that if I didn't prod her to go to the hospital to get it looked into....she would have been content to go on with her life the way it is.

I feel at times that I have been lied too. ( I know I should not feel that way but I am being honest here...so bare with me.) Why in the world did she not bring up our sexual situation to the doctors in the past? Why did it take me calling her doctor to explain the situation that had persisted for years? Why didn't she think it was important? She would have let me live like this without so much as a question. I was horrified when I thought about that. I was dumbfounded in the fact that I also would have let this happen. (Why?)


I also feel manipulated...used also...She says she wants these things fixed yet the truth sometimes leaks out..."I don't want to deal with this." or "I would rather be celibate."

She doesn’t want children. There is no way I could persuaded her and I have just given up on that front even though it nags me. Could I have been a good father? Would I have loved to have a child? I don’t know if I will ever know. (I am the last of my line.)


I have never cheated, my eyes have wondered but I am feeling completely stressed and I am questioning things at this very moment. My emotions are very conflicted. Is there such a thing as sexual incompatibility?

How far do I have to bend to fix it when she doesn’t believe anything is wrong? Should one stay in a sexless marriage at my age? (or does age really matter in this situation?...cause its been a while.) Can people grow apart? Can they become habits? I have read the forums suggestions, such as “Changing a Willingness to Make Love into a Desire to Make Love” and others but I can only assume this requires someone to make a change. Lastly, Is it me? Could she actually be right in all this and I am the one at fault here?