I ran into an old school friend and she confided in me that her husband stopped having sex with her after their 2nd child (15+ years). There wasn’t another woman involved, he wasn’t impotent and a collection of porn was eventually discovered. Husband is a workaholic. They still meet up with friends on occasion but that is the extent of the relationship. This woman claims she made reasonable attempts at a physical love-life. She won’t get a divorce because of her kids and her faith. When I knew her in school she was always full of life. She is still physically fit and better looking than her husband.
I guess I can understand keeping a family together for the sake of children but I would have taken a frying pan to Mr. Romantic’s head a long time ago.
What say you ladies? What’s a deal breaker for you?
If I wanted a marriage with no sex, I’d marry a gay man, and we’d both keep lovers on the side. So, barring chronic illness or a disabling accident, no sex would be a deal breaker.
Other deal breakers? Any physical abuse, emotional abuse that he won’t change after a warning, serious mental illness or addiction that he won’t seek treatment for, committing felonies or some misdemeanors, most instances of infidelity, and a severe change in temperament, values, or common goals.
I know that sounds extensive, like I’m standing there with a clipboard, waiting to mark him off, but it’s not really. Besides, I wouldn’t require anything from him that I wasn’t willing to give from my side.
I’m not a lady, but maybe her faith would let her have an affair? She deserves one.
But probably not. I’ll go into Dear Abbey mode and ask if she tried counseling.
It would probably be a deal breaker for my wife and me. We see advice column letters about this kind of thing all the time, and neither of us understand it.
[QUOTE=Voyager]
I’m not a lady, but maybe her faith would let her have an affair? She deserves one.
[QUOTE]
Careful about what you say she deserves. IME (or more accurately, the experience of friends), unless the person was a cheater by nature to begin with, an affair just adds guilt and more hopelessness to a bad situation.
Is the husband willing to try marriage counseling or other means to improve the situation? IMHO, no one problem is a deal breaker, but unwillingness to work to correct the problem is.
Having an affair does not have to involve lying. Counseling is first choice, as I said, but perhaps an announcement of an intention to have an affair could do some good. I’m far more opposed to lying than I am to adultery.
There’s the “Til death” part of the marriage vows, but there were also vows to love and honor each other. I don’t mean to imply that love automatically means sex, but that appears to be an important aspect that the wife is missing. The husband is not keeping his vow to love her, or to honor her by respecting her needs/desires.
I would say it’s a deal breaker if he refused to work on the problem or seek counseling.
File it under “alienation of affection.”
I think she must be married to the brother my wife does not have. it hasn’t been 15 years, but it has been a while.
Divorce? I would get creamed in a divorce. Unless I want to live a cheap apartment, and fuck over my plans for retirement, no divorce.
Your friend doesn’t have to divorce. I’m fairly certain her church or religious organization would allow an anullment on grounds of fraud. It doesn’t matter whether he intended all along to lose interest in her sexually, or if it just happened. If it was a traditional church wedding, at one point he promised to love, honor and cherish her forever, and those weren’t just empty words. They had real meaning, and he’s not living up to his vows. He’s broken his marriage vows, violated her trust. Most conservative and old-school churches will allow for annullment under those conditions. I believe the Roman Catholic church (calling tomndebb!) uses that argument for allowing anullment for abuse, philandering and a variety of other marriage-busting activities or inactivity. So she really doesn’t have to stay married to the slug, even for religious reasons.
Well, there’s also the “forsake all others” part, in addition to the “as long as you both shall live” piece.
I would think this might make it difficult for some swingers (of which I have been a member in the past), unless they have some sort of “addendum” with each other. But yes, being unhappy in a marriage - that’s a real Pandora’s box type of issue. Examining WHY you’re unhappy…can you change it…etc. Very difficult.
it hasn’t been 15 years, but it has been a while.