It is malicious because there has been fraud and misrepresentation. People don’t suddenly change one week after the wedding. The timing is too convenient. The excuses are too convenient. The wife is not interested in changing this state of affairs. She is not interested in investigating. She is not performing her wifely duties. This calls for an annullment.
Wifely duties?? She has a duty to get jiggy with her hubby?
Is there some sort of minimum requirement?
I don’t know if there is fraud or misrepresentation, and I don’t care. All that matters is that the OP ain’t getting what he needs and it don’t look his wife likes him all that much. He needs to get out.
This has already been asked, but is she on the pill?? For some people (like me) the pill is 100% effective - that means it kills sex drive to the point where the act itself becomes almost repellant. My husband and I went through a dry spell, and I didn’t know what to tell him because I didn’t know about the side effects. I found out other people were having the same problem from another thread on this board, so I chucked the pill and amazingly everything went back to normal. I guess I can say that the Dope saved my love life. So check out whether there is a physical problem first. Personally, I’d be pretty ticked off if I knew a message board full of people had been telling him to divorce me over something I couldn’t help.
I had an unpleasant thought. Is it possible that she’s been the victim of a sexual assault? Many victims lose all desire for sex and may shy away from physical contact completely. From what you describe, her change was rather abrupt.
I went through a patch of zero libido about 3 years after getting married. It did get to the stage where I didnt want to kiss or cuddle or anything at all, but this was because it got to the point where my SO would see any kind of physical contact as a green light to go further. It was far less painful to not do anything at all than to have a cuddle then end up pushing him away. In fact I desperately wanted to be ‘loved’ but without the pressure to go further. (I should point out that my SO was looking for reassurance that we were still ‘OK’ rather than just trying to get his leg over…I couldnt get my head around that at the time)
This went on for a long time, probably a year or more, and we still have occasional dry patches (BAhahaha!!!) I still dont really know why it happened but I am just totally grateful that my SO stuck it out and was a gentleman throughout. We talked LOTS and one thing that did help was having a period of time where we both agreed that under NO circumstances would we have sex. I think we did it for about a month and I finally relaxed knowing the pressure was off.
Is this something she wants to fix even though she wont seek professional help? Can you both take some time out to just relax and be a couple together? I hope it works out for you both.
K
I’m actually itching for some feedback from the OP here. A lot of people have asked a lot of interesting and pertinent questions, and I’m just dying to hear the answers!
As far as my advice goes, Id say:
- get a doctor to check for any possible physical causes first.
- if there are no physical causes, then tell your wife that she has to go to counselling with you.
- If she refuses to go to counselling and refuses to make any effort to rectify the situation, then I’d say that separation and/or divorce is the only answer.
Sex is an important part of a marriage. Physical intimacy and closeness are essential to feeling loved and wanted, and if your life-long partner just flat-out refuses to give you that kind of love, then it sounds like it isn’t going to work. No-one should be forced to live the rest of their lives in a sexless marriage.
Generalize much? Thats so offensive to me!
Ever think it can also go the other way? That some women have husbands who don’t like to kiss, hug and have sex? Well I’m one of them! Is my husband “ignorant” as well, or is it just women?
A non-interest in sex is usually one of two things, a hormonal imbalace that can often be treated by your GP or emotional problems steming from sexual abuse, as is the case in my husband.
I seriously doubt that the OP’s wife was trying to be sneaky, deceptive and trick him into marrying into a sexless relationship. She certainly doesn’t deserve to be taken to the cleaners, cheated on or any of the other lovely things that some have suggested. What she needs is help, understanding and acceptance.
Ok I’m done ranting, Snoopyfan please don’t take offense to what i’ve said. this post has just really made me angry.
I’ve always been leery of all advice gurus. Whether on TV, radio, newspaper columms or on an Internet MB, odds are you’ll get little more than platitudes and sound bytes with the odd common sense commentary sprinkled-in for good measure. Of course, given what little one-sided information of the issue they have, common sense is about as good as it gets.
With that in mind, Thrasymachus, I doubt the solution to your problems will come in the form of an epiphany from reading this thread. I’d venture to say that no one knows the particulars of your marriage situation as well as you do – and certainly not a bunch of strangers on a MB. Sure, if one is to take your comments at face value – and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t – you’re stuck in a miserable situation with little hope for improvement as communication between the two of you appears to be permanently damaged. And sex is simply the manifestation of said failure.
That being the case, it is also quite likely that when reading this thread you’ll (consciously or not) be drawn to those posts that tend to validate whatever decision you’ve already been mulling. Question is, is it the right one?
FWIW, I’ve gone through two divorces myself and I know just how difficult and painful they can be. And although I feel that I am better off now, I also wonder at times if I did everything possible to keep those relationships going, or if I simply took the “easy” way out. Eight years after the last one and still single by choice, best answer I’ve come with is that I wasn’t meant for marriage to begin with. But in both cases, I also know that the failure to communicate at the proper time was, ultimately, the cause of their undoing. And I’d be lying if I said there was only one party to blame for that.
In closing, for the reasons noted above, I have no real advice for you. Because only you know your circumstances well enough to decide and only you know if you’ve tried everything within your power to save the relationship – or even if it’s worth trying further.
However, a thought does come to mind. What do you think would happen if you asked you wife to read this thread? After all, if what you’ve you’ve written here is the root of your problems, why not put it all out there and tackle it head on? If nothing else, you may find it to be a cleansing experience. As might she.
Best of luck whatever you decide on doing. Whatever it is, hopefully it’ll get you laid soon 
Now, J.C., how the hell do you know whether she’s tired, or doesn’t it enjoy it because of something he’s done, or is being deliberately malicious? You got a crystal ball, or something?
Having sex with someone purely for their sake, when you have little to no desire for it yourself, SUCKS ASS. I’m not talking about the way disappointing sex sucks, either. I’m talking dehumanizing kinds of suck. For one thing, for a woman sex without arousal can be incredibly physicallly painful.
You know how your eyes feel all dry and scratchy sometimes when you’re not getting enough water? Think about someone repeatedly rubbing their finger over your eyeball at a time like that. Even when lube isn’t an issue, muscle tension is. During arousal, the vaginal muscles relax, and the vagina expands a great deal. Trying to shove a penis into an unaroused vagina is like trying to put on jeans that are three sizes too small; you can do it, but it ain’t gonna be pretty.
And then there’s the emotional impact of being treated like someone’s masturbatory aid. When your thoughts, feelings, and utter lack of enjoyment are entirely disregarded for the sake of someone else’s physical pleasure, that’s exactly what it feels like. You feel like you might as well be one of those latex sleeves they sell in sex toy catalogs. And that’s devastating, it really is. It also tends to build anger and resentment, which destroy future sex drive.
To suggest that someone do something that physically and emotionally harmful to themselves for someone else’s sake is every bit as cruel as cutting somebody off for a couple years. YMMV.
As for why her sex drive dropped so suddenly after the wedding, I have to wonder about post-wedding depression. The period leading up to a wedding is a busy, exciting time, and by the time the big day arrives, a lot of brides have been living on an adrenaline rush for several months. After the honeymoon, the excitement dies down. The parties stop. You don’t have fifteen things to coordinate. You’re not the center of anybody’s attention. The adrenalin is gone, and it leaves a nasty, nasty hangover for a lot of women.
A lot of the time, men compound this problem without having any idea they’re doing so. Romance? Eh, I married her, that ought to be proof enough of how I feel. Foreplay? Eh, she’s a sure thing now, and she’s always enjoyed it before.
That kind of stuff is absolute death to a sex drive. So is never being kissed without a tongue going down your throat. So are a lot of little things guys tend to do without realizing it. And you feel guilty about the fact that your libido keeps dropping. Eventually, you just don’t want to be touched at all, because it just leads to you feeling worse.
All this can be hard to articulate to yourself, much less to anyone else, and it’s damn hard to find a way to articulate it in a way that doesn’t sound like an accusation, or a guilt trip, or manipulation. So you just don’t talk about it at all, because in a perverse way it’s less painful to hurt all the time and to do stuff that hurts you both than it is to say things that will hurt him.
THANK YOU CrazyCatLady! People sometimes are surprised to learn that I don’t “do it anyway” for my husband’s sake. It always surprises me because my husband would never do something like that to me–ask or expect me to have sex with him when he knows I don’t want to. How horrible would that be? What kind of a man would want his wife to do that? Would you really want to be having sex with someone, knowing that while you might be getting your jollies, they want to be anywhere but here?
To say that it take two to make a marriage work is a nice platitude, but I have to respectfully disagree.
At least in the sense of “It takes two to kill a sexual relationship.” That’s like saying it takes two to make rape happen, or it takes two for half a couple to start spontaneously yodelling. Nope. It takes one.
Taking everything at face value, it looks to me like the onus is 100% on Mrs. OP at this point. Even if Mr. OP is at fault, it’s up to Mrs. to let him know where that fault lies.
I was in a relationship like that for two painful years. We tried to talk about it, we tried counselling (um, four different therapists), everything. The most I got out of her was “I just think sex is so, um, I don’t know. You know what I mean?” In the end we had no choice but to break up.
Why are so many people in this thread coming up with reasons that it must be his fault?
If the genders were reversed, I doubt anybody would be saying ‘Well maybe something you did made him not want to have sex with you for years.’
This isn’t ‘the period right after the wedding’. This has been going on for years, and his wife is totally unwilling to even speak about it.
How many more years does he have to go through no sex and no talking about the issue before enough’s enough and he’s lived up to his responsibility to try to fix the problem?
Did you even read the thread? Several people here have described how they suddenly lost their libido due to a purely physical problem. Fortunately for them (and their mates), they were able to figure out what was wrong and recitfy (or are trying to rectify) the situation.
Someone above said that they doubt the OP will find answers in this thread. I actually think that there is a good chance that he will find some very useful advice. We have discussed two explanations for her behavior that he might not have considered:
–It’s something that he’s doing (less likely)
–It’s a physical problem (more likely.)
These might not be the reasons for the change, but it gives him two new avenues to explore.
If this can work out via Counselling or finding the right perscription, I think that both would be happy with the marriage (I’m going to assume there had to be something there in the first place in order to spark a wedding). If she’s unhappy because he’s bad in bed, there are doctors and books for that too.
BUT…
If this is ‘just the way things are’ then technically couldn’t the marriage be annulled? Much cheaper than a divorce & allows for re-marriage someday in all churches…
For all the people who have suggested counseling:
How long does he have to wait for her to be willing to get counseling or see a doctor about this?
If it’s been going on for years and she refuses to see a doctor or a counselor, should he just indefinitely remain in a very unhappy situation until she is, even if that time is ‘never’?
Well as I type this my husband is at his very first counselor appointment. We’ve been married for 10 years. I suspect its going to take a while for him to work through his issues as well. But when I married him I married him “for better or for worse”. I vow to support him until he is better because I love him and he’s the most decent person I know. It’s not his fault and I plan to be there until he realises that.
This thread is very fascinating, and I’d like to read the “Daddyxtwo” thread you have referenced. My attempt to find it via a SDMB search failed, so could someone please post a link? Thanks.
The daddyxtwo thread http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=205816
You misunderstand me, astro–I wasn’t being clear. Yeah, we can judge his choice. We all judge other people’s choices all day long, and it is right and healthy that we do so because it helps us decide how to make our own choices. And when we are that guy–in whatever form or fashoin–we have to base our choice on all kinds of things–including our responsiblities to our children and our partner. Hell, I put “personal preference” pretty far down the list of factors that should guide the descion. But it’s always a choice. So when that guy stays with his wife, he’s not allowed to comfort himself with the mantra “I’m trapped, I’m trapped, I can’t leave, I have no choice”. You do have a fucking choice. You may not like your choices, you may feel like you are having to chose between the lesser of two evils, or that you are having to choose against what your gut wants for the sake of what your head knows is right–well, life is like that about 95% of the time. But it isn’t right–it isn’t honerable–it isn’t productive–to worry about whether or not you are “justified” in leaving. You should make your choice based on first, what fufills your own ethical principles and second, what you want. It should not be based at all on a comparison to the other person’s behavoir, on what they deserve, on whether or not they’ve held up “their side of the bargain”. It’s not an adult’s job to punish another adult. For example, if someone is abusive, you leave because you find any human creature being abused morally unacceptable, not because the other person’s bad behavoir has somehow justified or empowered you. If someone cheats, you leave because you would rather be alone than with a cheater, not because they’ve made you or forced you or set you free. If you are bored with someone, it’s healthier to leave because you are bored with them than to spend six months turning every little thing into a battle royal so that you can justify walking out the door, or to let the sick “trapped” feeling take you over to where you pepper the relationship with a million little meanessess every day. You can’t tel lme you haven’t seen this pattern, astro. It repeats itself all the time.
I do believe that choosing to stay in a mediocre relationship for the sake of the children/one’s responsibilities is often the morally correct choice. But I also think that the only way to be sucessful in such a situation is to admit–to yourself if to no one else–that that is what you are choosing to do, that it is a love-gift to your kids, that you’ve decided that this is the best of all possible worlds. More times than I say I have seen people sabotage relationship, hoping that the other person with give them a justification for leaving, or dedicate themselves to punnishing the other person for their own trapped feeling. That is a shameful, cowardly thing to do that maximizes the pain and suffering for all involved.
astro, my apologies if I am a bit slow in responding to this, school has started and I am up there 12 hours a day. I didn’t think this thread would last this long or I wouldn’t have jumped in. If you want to continue this in email, please feel free to drop me a line.
I think it’s rather unrealistic to expect someone to wait forever, which is basically what the ‘get counseling’ folks are saying here.
Nobody should stay in a situation that’s making them miserable just because they ‘promised to’.