[MeLuvCookies]

Thanks Wednesday. And for the record I do not in any way shape or form think any woman who masturbates is a dirty *****. I was just so speechless that a grown woman, let alone my wife who did grow up in any sort of uptight religious conservative background, could think that. Like how am I the one trying to fly the kink positive flag for women and she is **** shaming. She also tells me all the time that I don't know what women really like in bed and women don't like receiving oral and women don't like foreplay and touching and all that. Her exact words to me were that if she wanted all that she would be with another woman and she is not a lesbian so she wanted me to just stick it in already. She leaves me speechless sometimes and not in a good way.

I know I can't force her I just don't understand why she doesn't care and doesn't want more or miss more. It is not like we didn't have a great passionate sex life for years and she didn't get horny and initiate and not like I didn't give he orgasms. It was great and normal. She was vanilla but whatever I can live with that as long as she is into it and enjoying it. But it was like at some point she just gave up and won't make the slightest effort to try anything, porn smut, trying anything new, sex therapist, talking to a doctor about perimenopause, talking to her therapist about her intimacy issues, she doesn't care enough to make any effort to fight to keep it alive or get any of it back even a little bit and that makes me so angry. I know she has to want to and she has to try and it can't be forced I just don't get why she doesn't miss it more and how I am supposed to just be patient and expect this problem will magically fix itself if she won't do any work on her part.

And yes you are right I'm stuck between the sex life I want and frankly deserve and frankly any grown adult deserves and the woman I am in love with and who told me she loved me and wanted to have a full relationship with me and who when confronted about these issues tells me she wants it and tells me she has a spark for me and tells me she enjoys it and cums and who tells me she comes on to me all the time and who then after we fight about it will be different and into it for a week or two but then always go right back to her checked out attitude eventually. As mean as this sounds I want to get divorced. I want to find a woman who appreciates who I am and what I have to offer and wants to have a full relationship in every way including passion and intimacy and a sex life. Part of me is giving up and part of knows I would be so much happier with somebody else and that a lot of women would kill to have a guy like me. But between the impact on the kids and the cost of alimony and child support and living expenses separated I know neither of us would make it well and the kids would suffer and quite frankly no woman would be interested in dating a guy in his early 50s with two kids he has visitation of, an angry baby mama probably living in a crappy one bedroom apartment because that is all I'd be able to afford after paying out alimony and child support. Like no woman at that stage in life is wanting to sign up for that ride and that is just blunt reality. So I'm sort of stuck. That is why I am trying so hard to understand my wife and what if anything I can do to do the work for both of us if she won't do any work or find a way to reach her where she is if she won't meet me in the middle. Its not weakness or desperation or obsession so much as just a cold hard reality that she is probably the only woman I have any realistic chance of having a relationship with for the rest of my life because of money so I have to make it work because I can't live a passionless sexless existence the rest of my life. I wouldn't be so crazy if I could get out but I can't see any realistic path to starting over that ends in happiness, just to being poor and alone. Money sucks man. It runs peoples lives and ruins them.

[Wednesday L.F.]

I wish I had brilliant advice for you. I feel for your problem. My hubs and I had issues and he didn’t feel motivated to change until he realized I’d reached the end of my rope and was thinking about leaving. He regarded it as a mild annoyance needing occasional reassurance rather than an issue that was hurting me and making me feel ugly and worthless.

I really hope you and your partner find a solution.

[MeLuvCookies]

Thanks. I appreciate it. My frustration shows through obviously. That's why I keep searching for something I can do to turn her on, satisfy her and give her orgasms within her extremely restrictive narrow boundaries. I'll meet her where she is if somebody can just show me how in a way that works. I'll work with whatever tools I'm given if I can just be given tools that actually work and not be doomed to fighting impossible odds every time. I would do all the work and be patient if I had any hope that either the issue will fix itself without her doing any work or that at some point she will wake up and miss it and start making the effort to fight for it.

I would threaten to leave if I had the financial ability to back up that threat. There is a part of me that really thinks that maybe she just played me to have kids even though that is hard to believe because she was not like this at all for years and years even after we got married and because every now and then she gets out of her own head and out of her own way and that primal passionate woman comes out to play. So I get glimpses and hope. But other times I feel like I got played and now all she wants is my money so if I threaten to leave I'm just giving her what she wants anyway and I'll spend the rest of my life alone and broke giving all my money to pay her bills while she screws somebody else and she will get the only things she really wanted anyway and face no repercussions for using me. That's how I feel in my darkest moments. Other times I have hope and I try so freaking hard hoping something will get her to wake up and remember.

If I ever get to the point I can afford to start my life over and still have a life, I might just make that ultimatum. I hate to be that way when there are kids involved. I really do. But I know if I had the resources to restart my life and find another woman I don't think I would have trouble finding a woman who would be happy with me. I'm not against marriage at all. I just think I chose the wrong person either because she deceived me into thinking she wanted a real and full relationship or because she just completely changed.

[JonnyR]

MeLuvCookies I can feel your pain here.

At the risk of overstepping, I'm going to say some S*IT that you might not like or be ready to hear, but might be true.

If your wife came home tonight, pointed a gun at you and said "get the "F" out" -- could you leave?

Would money, etc be an issue at all?

Now, pose this from a different perspective -- what if your mental health is at issue here and staying might actually result in something cataclysmic for the children?

You see I grew up in a very chaotic and dysfunctional household (who the hell hasn't...), but what was really an issue was that both parents were martyring themselves for "the children".

I can tell you as a child of abuse and conflict, this does NOT work.

It would have been much better if my parents had divorced when I was younger and I had had 2 happy separate parents, than 2 miserable, co-dependent and chaotic parents -- one who drank to drown their pain and sorrow and was an alcoholic (which presented so many other issues for me to this day...) and the other who became physically, emotionally abusive.

Doing it "for the kids" is often not the right answer -- while there might be some trauma for breaking up the home, there will surely be a lot more for keeping it together under circumstances that children already sense and know is not beneficial, loving, or conducive.

Think of it this way -- do you want to teach your children it's ok to be martyrs and stay in ****ty situations at their own detrimnent? Or do you want to teach them that sometimes like changes. It's ok to make a different choice when presented with new information, and sometimes, it's nobody's fault when things go wrong. There might actually be peace, happiness and fulfillment when you listen to your gut and trust your instincts and pursue your needs to become a better human being?

You can do anything you want, anytime you want, if the pain is great enough to overcome the shame and guilt that might actually not even be truly justified if you're being honest and kind to yourself about the situation.

[MeLuvCookies]

I would agree with you if it was financially possible. I mean not just it would be hard but I would get by. Like the numbers are not financially possible like I would be not be able to afford any place to live at all and be homeless because the housing market is so overpriced I wouldn't be able to even afford a one bedroom apartment and even the most basic bills with what would be leftover after child support and alimony. Like she doesn't have to point a gun at me. I want to get out. I dream of getting out. I watched that old movie It Could Happen to You with Nicholas Cage and Bridget Fonda recently. That was like my biggest fantasy when I watched it. God to win the lottery and be able to afford to pay my wife to just go away and be able to afford to start my life over. I would give anything for that.

But the bank and the courts don't care if I'm happy or if I'm homeless or even if I survive. Can't pay child support and alimony. Screw you go to jail. Can't pay overpriced rent. Screw you your homeless. Can't pay your bills, screw you we'll take everything you have. All anyone cares about in tis world anymore is money with no understanding and no flexibility, money and power. So until I have enough of both to start my life over I'm trapped not by choice not even because I don't want to do the hard work, because the numbers just don't physically add up to being possible. When it becomes possible I'm gone.

[JonnyR]

Oh man, this is such a bummer....I really hear you and what you're going through and feeling and it's very frustrating.

What about asking for an open relationship?

I know that Wednesday L.F. had started doing that with her partner of many years.

What if, you could "escape" while still remaining a stable force for your family, but having your own fun time and escapes in order to justify remaining in the heartache and pain of the time involved?

Cause I know for sure if someone is reasonable, loves you and is thinking about you and not themselves and how they feel, they would be open to finding some form of release for you to remain stable, happy and emotionally available.

Heck, this might even STRENGTHEN your marriage.

I think that I referenced the work of Esther Perel -- read her books, podcasts and stuff, she is excellent and talks about all of this stuff in the context of marriage, infidelity, and the constructs that it can take both inside and outside the bedroom.

I think there can be a compromise here.

[MeLuvCookies]

Yeah totally. I have sort of a complicated history and perspective on open relationships and so called "ethical" non monogamy but given my current situation I would be 100 percent willing to discuss and explore it even though I don't necessarily want that.

I actually spent a large part of my single adult life as the other guy in couple's open marriages and the other guy for couples that wanted to try a threesome with another guy and wanted a single guy that wouldn't catch feelings. It was fun, I can't lie, as a single guy and allowed me from the outside to get what I needed without commitment. But I am also very observant and I did not see very much of what I would call healthy open marriages and anything "ethical" about the non monogamy being practiced. I generally saw one side or the other seeming like they were kind of coerced into it or not as into is as they appeared and doing it for their spouse and the other side taking advantage of the situation for their selfish wants. I definitely did not see situations where it was healthy and mutual and making their intimacy and marriages stronger, more like they were using it as a Band Aid for their broken marriages and broken intimacy, which is pretty much what I would be doing with my wife if I'm being honest. And I did not encounter open marriages where they negotiated clear boundaries and respected those boundaries and each other. I can't tell you how many times the agreement was supposed to be they only play together as a threesome but almost always I would also secretly sleep with the woman by herself because she got a thrill out of pushing and breaking the boundaries she had negotiated and essentially still cheating even though she had a pass to sleep with me if she just followed the limits she had negotiated with her husband. It didn't bother me at the time because I was getting what i wanted but if I was in that relationship I wouldn't be cool with being played like that so I remember enough to not exactly be trusting of how my wife or any woman would act in a supposedly negotiated and agreed upon open marriage. I'm not even sure how I would act and if I could follow negotiated boundaries after being forced to be sexually repressed and missing out on so much for so long because of my wife's attitude. It might be like unleashing the animal in me.

It is a moot point anyway. My wife has made comments when she is angry because I am trying to talk about sex with her or trying to work on our sexual intimacy that I should just go get a hooker and leave her alone. But when she is calm she is 100 percent clear that she is not Ok or agreeable to exploring or agreeing to any form of an open marriage or me getting my needs met by anybody else. Its all this is who she is and if I am not satisfied with what she wants sexually then I can leave entirely, knowing I can't afford to do that financially but god do I want to. You have no idea how ridiculous it feels to be fighting with a woman because you want to go down on her and give her orgasms and she won't let you and literally is fighting against you to not enjoy sex and make it harder for you to satisfy her. It is a weird spot to be in as a man and very frustrating. But she is actually very jealous type and doesn't want anyone else to have me. She has had dreams some times about me cheating on her, which I have not done despite my unhappiness with our sex life, and it makes her possessive which I kind of like but that feeling of possessiveness never seems to translate into taking action to do her part working on our intimacy. And when she saw a girl flirting with me at a party years ago her jealous streak came out alright I thought she was going to kill that girl. But again that doesn't ever seem to translate to her working on our intimacy. She doesn't want anyone else to have me but she doesn't seem to want me either. I don't want anyone else to have her but I also want her for myself. There is a huge difference.

But yes I agree with you in theory if she was emotionally mature and if we were confident and secure in our love and marriage and if we were both willing to talk about our sex life and negotiate boundaries and respect them then I think an open marriage could work for us and yes probably would strengthen our marriage and maybe rekindle her spark for me to the point we didn't need anybody else again. Cause honestly all i would ever need is her if she just felt a desire and wanted me the way I want her. But all of those ifs that would be required for an open marriage to be possible for us require work on her part that she is not willing to do and honestly if she wasn't so sexually repressed and was willing to talk about sex and do that work we probably wouldn't be in this position and needing an open marriage in the first place. It always comes back to the same problem only one of use seems to be fighting for or care about our intimacy anymore and only one of us is willing to do the work.

I'm know what this means. I'm not stupid or delusional. I know my hopes are either she snaps out of it wakes up and misses that passion with me, regains it or misses it enough to do the work to get it back or it just keeps getting worse until I can someday hopefully afford to get divorced and have enough money left in my budget to have any hope of dating and attracting a good woman I can start over with and make her happy. I know the odds and I see all the things that would help and fix it and give me my needs and happiness and I realize none of them seem to be in my control or reachable by me without somebody else being willing to change or work. That's why I seem so crazy and frustrated and hopeless, cause like I see happiness but it is just out of my reach.

I am all for compromise though, meeting half way, open marriage, sex therapy, anything. I just can't be the only one making an effort and halfway has to be halfway not just she makes no effort gets the passionless sexless marriage she wants and I am left with nothing.