I don’t really know where to go from here. How do you decide whether this is enough or whether you should start over?
By the way, I’m as sure as I can be he’s not cheating; he just has zero interest anymore and doesn’t seem to want to change that.
Mostly Celibate: Before you deal with the sexless marriage, deal with the talkless marriage. Or truthless:
“This is important to me. Please don’t blow me off with jokes; that’s not fair to either of us.” Or: “I understand this is uncomfortable, but I believe I have a right to an answer, or at least an honest discussion. This is our lives we’re talking about.”
If you still get nowhere, then that’s the bigger issue. Couples can be forced out of physical intimacy for a bunch of reasons beyond their control: illness, injury, medications, trauma, low drive or interest, etc. But they can get through it on the strength of their emotional intimacy, which is the true heart of a peer marriage.
So if your spouse won’t even tell you the truth, then you’re headed to a loneliness even more profound than the one you’re feeling now. Plant your flag there and don’t budge. That’ll tell you whether you have a life partner, a pal, a roommate or an ex.
Re: Sexless Marriage: Perhaps your husband has a medical problem and is too embarrassed to discuss it with you, because he feels like a failure.
Anonymous: One possibility, yes. All the more reason not to let the yuk-yuk response pass for a legitimate answer. When we give difficult topics patience and respect, they become easier to discuss than hold in. Thanks.
Other readers’ thoughts:
· Been there. Turned out my husband had the testosterone level of a 4-year-old. Took a lot of pushing for him to tell a doctor, too embarrassed to talk about sex. I finally told him that, if he didn’t, I would make an appointment and discuss it. Turned our lives around. At first he used the patches but went to weekly shots.
· It might be worthwhile to start bluntly with: “This is weird to talk about, but we have different sex drives. That’s not a value judgment on either of us, but it can get really awkward if we can’t talk about how to handle it.” Society looks down on men who aren’t interested in sex, so he may be making jokes to deflect. There’s also the other (potential) elephant in the room: “I also want to be able to cuddle, but I don’t want either of us to feel like I’m angling for sex every time.” Because that happens, too.
· Sounds like my marriage. I finally asked my husband whether he was gay, and he said yes. It broke a dam, cleared a LOT of things up and we decided to stay together (we had been married for 33 years, three kids) because we really liked each other. Maybe this could/should be your question.
