Your advice is good for a couple who has had a short dry spell. But in the OP’s case, they haven’t been intimate in 21 years. I’d say it’s a lost cause at this point. One partner clearly has no interest in sex.
That may well be true, but at the very least his husband owes him a conversation about their lack of a sex life and what the expectation can be about Roderick looking for satisfaction outside their relationship if Roderick’s husband can’t or won’t provide it.
And the other partner has waited 20 years before being concerned about it.
I take hope from the OP describing their relationship as still affectionate. That’s something to build on, if they want to solve it.
That’s the key of course. He can’t want to solve it- they need to both want to. The husband may surprise him- he may be willing to give it a try after an open conversation.
I think there will be few who have experienced exactly what he has, but maybe he can adapt what has worked for others to his situation.
I deeply appreciate many of the responses to this thread. Thank you.
I acknowledge freely that I am as much responsible for the current situation as my husband, except that as we were drifting out of the sex habit I did not realize that there would (theoretically at least) be no going back. Then I was OK for a long time with just masturbation, until suddenly I wasn’t.
Having deep discussions is not something we do well, partly because of language issues (his English is really not up to that level of discussion) and partly, I suspect, due to cultural differences. I think I understand him pretty well in many ways, but I don’t really understand why he doesn’t want to have sex - he says that we’re too old, and that’s all he’ll say. I don’t think he has any contributing physical problems, but I suppose he might be impotent or something and I wouldn’t know about that and he wouldn’t want to talk about it. In any case, lack of sex does not seem to be an emotional issue for him.
That’s my context, and I hope it’s clearer. I’m still interested in your stories of your long-term relationships and ways in which your sex lives are or are not still good for you. I don’t know why I’m interested exactly, except that I don’t have anyone in my own life I can talk to about this. So I’m having the conversation here.
Frankly it sounds to me that you 2 are basically just roommates now.
Which isnt unusual. Many couples stay together just for things like money. Do you both own your home together? Do you own a business together?
Roderick Femm, I don’t understand what you mean, “Having deep discussions is not something we do well, partly because of language issues (his English is really not up to that level of discussion) and partly, I suspect, due to cultural differences.”
As I understand it, you’ve been together for 26 years. How can you not have deep discussions with your spouse?
I think you should at least give him a chance to know how you feel. Maybe he’d be fine with being in an open relationship sexually. Maybe he’d be fine with an emotionally open relationship too.
My situation:
I am a married gay male, early 50s. My partner is 2.5 years younger than I. We got married 2 years ago. We’ve been together for 21 years, but dated for a year prior. It’s not exactly the same situation. Unfortunately we mostly stopped having sex after marrying because I developed a chronic condition. It would be funny if it weren’t sad. So if I’m able to block out the constant pain and become aroused, when I am close to orgasm my mind will start thinking of the pain------it’s sort of like getting a charley-horse right at the moment. But it’s not sex related. At any time in general I am in physical pain.
How are we coping? We’re not. We’re trying to figure it out.
I’m pretty certain that if my partner did not want me around so much I would have already checked out. But he wrote the sweetest letter to me Monday. Of the many things he said, he said that maybe it was selfish of him but he wanted me around as long as he could have me.
Anyway, I’ve never been the jealous sort. I’ve never thought sex was sacred. People are. Sex should be fun. If he needed a sexual partner, I’m pretty sure he knows that I’d be OK with that. -----All of the normal caveats—be safe, etc.
That’s all I got for you. Hope it helps.
I’m sorry but I don’t think I understand your question. It sounds as if you can’t believe that two people could be in a committed and loving relationship without having deep discussions as part of it. My impression of the world is that we would not be an outlier as a couple in that regard. That is, I think there is a significant number of couples in the world who go through life that way. In my husband’s culture (Japanese) I don’t think there is any particular tradition of that kind of verbal intimacy.
Please understand that I am only trying to understand. It doesn’t sound like a committed relationship if you are contemplating what most would consider cheating without having defined that within the parameters of the relationship.
Otherwise, I guess we have a different nuance to the definition of intimacy.
Sorry for the double post. In the movie About A Boy, The “boy” says of his crush that the boy is content if he didn’t have physical contact with the crush as long as he could be around her.
I don’t think you are in love. If you don’t feel what the movie described about your husband, maybe you should reconsider----for both of you. There are people who really enjoy the entirety of another human.
I don’t think of the 26 years as wasted. As of now, all humans have had similar experiences. What’s 20, 40, 60, or 120 years of life when compared with the age of the universe?
Maybe future humans will have a deeper/broader understanding of being. But right now we’re all in the same pig pen.
Being in love and loving are two different things. The second cherishes warts and all; the first refuses to acknowledge that there is such a thing as warts.
I can’t think of the words—except, “You are right”. I think I love you, Nava.
So you don’t have physical intimacy, and you don’t have verbal/emotional intimacy. What makes this a marriage?
Again I apologize for not being clear. In the other thread, when I said “if I got the chance” it included the idea of “if the way were clear,” i.e. if there were no obstacles.
I didn’t realize that my marriage would end up on trial here, but I guess that’s somewhat understandable. We have a lot of emotional intimacy, but it’s mostly non-verbal. We also have various kinds of commitments to each other. Those are the kinds of things that make it a marriage, in my eyes. That there could be more does not mean there is nothing.
I don’t know man. After 26 years, you still have language problems in your communication. He still has an ancient Japanese perspective on marriage/companionship. He thinks you are too old for sex (and apparently has thought that for 20 years?). This sounds goddamn grim. Unless you are both a 100 years old, I see no reason why you should accept such concepts of marriage. In “his culture”, gay marriage isn’t kosher in the first place but you should accept all the other features of its marriage concept?
And I don’t even know what non-verbal emotional intimacy really means. He snuggles you when you look sad?
Sorry. I was just trying to relate. I get it —the house, the pension, the 401K----all of those intertwined things-----none of which you begrudge. Here’s a funny vid from Crazy-Ex . End of the Movie. . .
life is a gradual series of revelations
That occur over a period of time
It’s not some carefully crafted story
It’s a mess, and we’re all gonna die. . .
Eh, people have different sex drives. Post-sexual revolution we have tended to put sex on a pedestal where it’s this all-encompassing expression of love and devotion when in reality it’s just another bodily function. It releases some nice hormones, but they don’t affect everyone the same way. I tend to think of sex as a relatively safe drug trip. Some people get addicted, others don’t. Some get more of a rush doing it one way, others don’t. It is what it is. Placing too much of an emphasis on sex is just us trying to replace transactional marriages with something else and it doesn’t always work. If you’re happy and he’s happy, then sex is as important or unimportant as you want it to be.
Roderick I do think that you have stumbled upon some serious fractures in your relationship with your husband. I suggested this in the other thread, but I think some counseling would help. Start with some just for you, to understand what you really want. You can move on to couples counseling if that’s what you want to do afterwards.
I believe that you love your husband. I also believe that you are lonely, and unsatisfied in multiple respects. If you and he want different things in life and partnership, perhaps it is time to keep the loving friendship, but leave the marriage.
There’s actually much more to it than that sort of thing. Those are just incidental to the brick-by-brick construction of a relationship over a lot of years. I guess it’s harder to explain than I thought it would be.
It’s a funny thing. A long time ago, when I was in a different relationship where we both spoke the same language, I could talk my way out of anything. I was pretty young and pretty stupid, and I thought that’s what talking was for, basically manipulating people, and I was good at it. We would have serious discussions and I never revealed my true self. I used my language skill as a tool for getting what I wanted. Later, in this current relationship, when I couldn’t use my language skill to any significant degree, I had to rely on less verbal means of expression, and so more of the real me came out. Being also older, a little wiser, and having gone through a couple of years of therapy (before we met), this didn’t seem like a bad thing to me. It’s true there are meaningful gaps, but there is communication and there is intimacy.
I’d also like to point out that non-verbal communication has been a subject of serious study for a long time, and I think that if you believe that your non-sexual relationship intimacy doesn’t rely a lot on non-verbal communication, you’re kidding yourself.
Sunny Daze, thank you for your perspective. These things have occurred to me, it would be a long and difficult road to pursue, and the likelihood is that at the end of it I would be old and alone. At this point I am not sorely tempted.
I am married to a quiet man. I am a quiet woman. We have had a non-verbal language for years. We do discuss important things, but that man can say more with a look than anyone I ever known. It is actually nice to not have to be careful how you phrase things. I just know what he means and he gets me. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do it like this.
I get so tired of saying words to my kids and grandkids sometimes. It just wears me out.