I have a wonderful husband, but I'm still not happy.

[CurlySpice]

you always tried to be honest? so you've told him you aren't and never were in love with him? and he chose to marry you anyway?

 

I think, at the time, I thought I was in love with him. He did know that I wasn't interested in being intimate. My best guess is that he also figured "no one is perfect."

 

I do love him with all of my heart and the emotions are more complex than whether I do or don't love him/am or am not in love with him.

[Ralph79]

2.

Do you still find that this is the case? Or was... I'm not sure of your personal experience. Did that desire and passion to wake up beside your wife ever fizzle out?[/i][/i]

My wife came from a very VERY troubled family. She was emotionally abused by her parents and physically abused by her siblings growing up. I was merely a way out for her since I was from a different town. She was initially ecstatic at the prospect of being my wife, but shortly after she started regretting it. It didn't help matters that she had a BPD, and that her way of dropping hints that she was unhappy was completely humiliating me and ridiculing my performance in bed for the last 2 years along with other very disturbing actions against me. Yet, even after all that, no, my passion to wake up besides my wife never wavered. It was only until the divorce was finalized that I started closing the doors and accepting the reality and am still trying to recover and move on. Her sexual interest in me died the moment she said I do. From that point on she felt like she was whoring herself out to me for a better life. My marriage was dead the moment it began. I just didn't realize it until it was too late.

 

4.

I know in my heart that this is what I need to do. But you even said "take the good with the bad." There is no perfect person. My biggest concern is that there is so much good in him, and one horribly bad problem between us. I run the serious risk of giving up that amount of good in my life for the unknown, and know that if I selfishly keep him, that I am keeping him from whatever good he may find in someone else.

 

No matter the amount of qualities he has, if you feel like crap with him, he is never going to get the effort in this marriage he deserves from you. What's the point of living in a golden cage, if it's still just a cage. Forget sex. You need to be someone that makes you feel proud of YOURSELF. Bad sex with him is just a byproduct of the dysfunctional situation you find yourself in. It's an overall reflection of your marriage. Great looking on the outside, rotten in the inside.

 

If you want to make things work with him, I suggest counseling. And be open with him. Don't hide things anymore. He will want to have input on an opportunity to fix this, and he deserves it. Just don't give him false hope if it's not working. Be honest with him. You owe him that much.

[KBarletta]

If you want to make things work with him, I suggest counseling. And be open with him. Don't hide things anymore. He will want to have input on an opportunity to fix this, and he deserves it. Just don't give him false hope if it's not working. Be honest with him. You owe him that much.

 

I second this. I am also curious - you got together when you were both 18. Were either of you with anyone else before? Do you have any other experiences to compare this to? Do you have sexual desires for *other* guys and just not for your husband? Do you have ideas for what could remove the awkwardness for you and get you both to a better place where you can enjoy intimacy with each other? If he's never been with anyone else, he may be clueless about what he's doing or not doing that may be causing these feelings. Have you tried/considered sex therapy?

 

Sometimes, the spark just isn't there and you need to move on. But other times, you need to learn to communicate about intimacy issues instead of just accepting a mediocre sex life and assuming that's all that's ever going to be.

[CurlySpice]

Were either of you with anyone else before? Do you have any other experiences to compare this to? Do you have sexual desires for *other* guys and just not for your husband? Do you have ideas for what could remove the awkwardness for you and get you both to a better place where you can enjoy intimacy with each other?

We were both sexually active in high school with multiple partners. I wasn't getting around, but I'm not inexperienced. We did try to spice it up with BDSM and Roleplay; but, again, it just came out awkward and I felt dirty for participating when I wasn't really into it. Once we weren't trying to start a family anymore, I felt terrible about myself for doing it and bad for him because the acts became pity ****s. I am absolutely attracted to other men (haven't acted on it, although I've been tempted.) I actually find myself being turned on quite often, just not for him.

[Be_Strong]

The loss of attraction is a very common thing in marriages, particularly a wife's attraction for her husband. Even if you had super passionate hot sex at the beginning of your relationship, it can and often does fizzle out in marriage.

 

Long term familiarity with a person can kill attraction. It's the primary reason why people aren't attracted to their siblings that they grew up with. In my experience, women that begin a relationship very young (such as their late teens) are more likely to eventually see their husband as more of a brother (and therefore not a sex partner) than women who begin a relationship later in life.

 

I usually advocate for staying in a marriage and trying to do everything you can to improve it, especially in cases like this where there's not anything that your spouse is doing wrong. But here, there's no kids, you're both still young, and it seems like there really never was any chemistry and you married for the wrong reasons. I just don't see what can be "fixed" about your relationship because at a fundamental level you don't appear to be compatible in a romantic way. Every day you're spending with the wrong person is a day you're potentially missing out on meeting the right person.

[KBarletta]

You have said that your husband is basically a good fit in every other way except your sex life is unsatisfying. I may be stating the obvious, but it sounds like you have a fairly clear choice here:

 

Either: A. You accept these sexual problems as something that you can live with and work on improving, and then you get to work on it so you can be happy together.

Or: B. You decide that you can't live with it, and you move on to someone more sexually compatible but maybe not as good a fit in other areas.

 

Nobody is going to check every single box on your list of things you want in a partner, but sexual chemistry is a pretty big one. If you think it's something you can work on and get past, give it a shot. If not, I wouldn't wait until August to get out, I'd start the ball rolling by talking to him right away.

[evanescentworld]

We were both sexually active in high school with multiple partners. I wasn't getting around, but I'm not inexperienced. We did try to spice it up with BDSM and Roleplay; but, again, it just came out awkward and I felt dirty for participating when I wasn't really into it. Once we weren't trying to start a family anymore, I felt terrible about myself for doing it and bad for him because the acts became pity ****s. I am absolutely attracted to other men (haven't acted on it, although I've been tempted.) I actually find myself being turned on quite often, just not for him.

 

Leave.

Leave, leave, leave, leave, leave.

Before you become the WS, he becomes the BS and some other complicating, insistent guy becomes the AP.

 

Resist all temptation, but leave.

You're married to your brother.

 

If you understand my drift.

[Justanaverageguy]

To someone that's been married for years: did you find that you lost your complete desire to be affectionate with your husband/wife? Is it something that just happens to everyone?

 

Not something that happens to everyone - but it is definitely something that is very common specifically to women in their mid to late 20's who are in long terms relationships. Many women in this age bracket will say they have a happy marriage and happy life but suddenly begin to feel unhappy - like something is missing. They also gradually begin to feel a complete loss of sexual desire for their husbands - often saying they have fallen into a "brother sister" type relationship where the passion has gone. This often gets to the point where some women say they are actually physically repulsed by their husbands and will actively try to avoid sex with them. They make up excuses like period problems, headaches, tiredness, they go to sleep early - anything to avoid having sex.

 

Sound kind of similar to what your experiencing now right ?

 

This is normally followed by the wife leaving the husband .... or alternatively her meeting someone before that happens who reignites her sexual desire and then an affair follows. I like to call this the "Eat, Pray, Love" Women's mid life crisis. Becoming quite the common trend these days.

 

A lot of marriages break up in mid to late 20's. People will say it is because "people grow apart". Honestly that is maybe part of the reason - but actually much smaller then people think. I'd recommend reading this book Here guessing you will find a lot of parallels in the 4 stages it discusses women going through in long term relationships at your age. Might give you some insight into whats happening and also help you understand how you can try and rectify and work through this period to save your marriage if you want to.