lasan Posted December 8, 2006 Posted December 8, 2006 (This is kind of a thought that I had that has spun off of the unmet needs post, and something another poster posted today. ) That if I stop having sex with my signifigant other, that they get fed up and want to cheat? I have been following the unmet needs post, and today I read something else another poster posted. I am heavily paraphrasing because I can't remember the posters to find it again, but the main thought was that Even though she wasn't having sex with her spouse, that he should still stay faithful. Don't get me wrong, I agree to an extent. My philosophy is either stay faithful, or get out, but don't cheat. I just feel sorry for people in this situation. I am completely biased because I have been in a sexless relationship. It is MISERABLE. (Well it was for me anyway.) I was rejected so much that I quit trying. Even years later it still affects me. I rarely initiate sex. Fortunetly for me I remarried someone who was very understanding and helped me work on it. He passed away sadly, but He did help me to realize there was nothing wrong with me for wanting to have sex with my spouse. (Seems like a no brainer huh) Since I have such a horrible bias on the topic, I thought I might ask other people what they thought. If this is the wrong place to put this topic, I apologize. It just seemed an appropritate place.
Wantingtogetitright Posted December 8, 2006 Posted December 8, 2006 in my own opinion sex is an important element of the whole relationship. It is the ultimate expression of love and atrraction to your partner. It is not the be all and end all but a very significant part. It is the most intimate part, you are at your most vulnerable etc. Therefore if this is missing from the relationship I don't believe it's because you don't want to have sex per se it is because other elements are missing and no sex is the result of that. Cause and effect. If there truly are no other problems in the relationship and you simply have no libido, this I believe needs to be checked out medically as it could be a signal for something. Hence, what is the cause, what are the other problems. No loving relationship should be without sex.
Ladyjane14 Posted December 8, 2006 Posted December 8, 2006 My philosophy is either stay faithful, or get out, but don't cheat. That's my philosophy too. You know if memory serves, before the "no fault" divorce, withholding sex from your partner was grounds for divorce in most places. I wish I had the energy to research some facts and figures on that for you... but I'm too beat tonight.
Author lasan Posted December 8, 2006 Author Posted December 8, 2006 That's my philosophy too. You know if memory serves, before the "no fault" divorce, withholding sex from your partner was grounds for divorce in most places. I wish I had the energy to research some facts and figures on that for you... but I'm too beat tonight. It's ok I was after a more ...human answer and not neccesarily a legal one, if that makes any more sense.
Ladyjane14 Posted December 8, 2006 Posted December 8, 2006 I was after a more ...human answer and not neccesarily a legal one, if that makes any more sense. Gotcha. These days.. I have a greater understanding of the lop-sided libido issue than I had previously. For the better part of ten years, my husband and I went round and round on this subject. It's got a solution. But the solution requires that both parties put aside their previous misconceptions. They have to adopt an acceptance of the idea that they cannot possibly understand their partner's EXACT feelings. A man has no knowledge of what it is to be a woman and to feel with a woman's emotions. A woman can't feel with a man's emotions. You know, I've mentioned it a few times before, but I once watched this TV program where a man was having a gender reasignment. When the hormones finally kicked in... he described the decrease in testosterone level as it applies to sex drive as the silencing of a kind of white noise that he hadn't even been aware of. This just blew my mind. I'm female. I won't EVER know what it is to have that kind of buzzing noise on the fringe of my consciousness, pushing me along like a call of nature. So.. what it comes down to is that we have to throw out the old way of 'doing business', and learn to take our partner on faith. I'm never going to experience what it is to be a man.... except through my partner's experience. And ONLY if I take him at his word. This isn't any different than my husband's side of the issue. If he takes me at my word, he understands that occasionally despite my best efforts, I'm too tired, or too cranky, or too bloaty with PMS. He can at that point choose to believe that I'm not "rejecting" him, but rather that he's caught me at a bad time. So yeah, there is a solution. People just have a hard time making the leap of faith required in order to find it. Anyway, I have to wonder if entertaining the idea of cheating is sometimes simpler than doing an entire overhaul on your thinking. And even if YOU are willing to do it... if your partner fails to get on board, the problem can't be solved within the parameters of the monogamous relationship. The only choice at that point, IMHO is to abandon it. The cheating alternative brings more problems than solutions in the long run. It snowballs until it devours everything in it's path, making the original question of withholding sexual favor a moot point in comparison to all the hurt and damage.
Scrivdog Posted December 8, 2006 Posted December 8, 2006 LJ, I think most men can certainly understand that women don't always want to have sex. Especially when PMS hits and it can be almost painful. Other times a wife may just not be into it. That's fine. I, for one, would have absolutely no issue with that and I'm relatively sure most men wouldn't either. But when the rejection is consistent enough to lead to weeks and even months of sexlessness or pained "duty sex", then the problem begins. It goes beyond the occasional and becomes the morm. That is scary. For me, it felt like I was trapped.
Ladyjane14 Posted December 8, 2006 Posted December 8, 2006 But when the rejection is consistent enough to lead to weeks and even months of sexlessness or pained "duty sex", then the problem begins. It goes beyond the occasional and becomes the morm. That is scary. For me, it felt like I was trapped. I understand. We can't MAKE our spouse adopt the requisite change in mindset that's needed to elicit real and lasting change. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make her drink, right. We can only choose for ourselves. That said, I still don't view cheating as an alternative solution to the problem. I view it as an escalation of the problem. The cost to the family unit can be exorbitant.... the bigger the problem, the bigger the price tag. The foundation of the family, the marriage, is already cracked by the loss of emotional and physical intimacy. But upon discovery of the infidelity, it's completely obliterated. The only choice after that is to either agree to build a NEW foundation together... or for each to build their own elsewhere. I don't envy you the trouble you're going to see if/when D-Day happens, Scriv.
Scrivdog Posted December 8, 2006 Posted December 8, 2006 LJ, "I don't envy you the trouble you're going to see if/when D-Day happens, Scriv."' I can't say I disagree, LJ. I don't think any of the alternatives open to me at this point are at all enviable. This is the only one that at least has a minute chance of "working".
Ladyjane14 Posted December 8, 2006 Posted December 8, 2006 I think most men can certainly understand that women don't always want to have sex. Especially when PMS hits and it can be almost painful. Other times a wife may just not be into it. That's fine. I, for one, would have absolutely no issue with that and I'm relatively sure most men wouldn't either. I had one more thought to add regarding your last post.... Yeah, I think you're right that men who are living in sexually unfulfilled marriages can (and do) understand the mundane matters that lead to a loss of physical intimacy. But what I think they have more trouble wrapping their minds around is HOW some women can be relatively at peace with it. A man like that does feel the "buzzing white noise". But she doesn't. She can't identify with it, and is sometimes otherwise poisoned by her own perspective to the degree that she can't get around her own 'stinking-thinking'. It utterly blew my mind, when I finally arrived at it. The solution is sooooo much simpler than most people living with the lop-sided libido problem can imagine. He's different than me, and my thought process doesn't apply to him. But it took me TEN YEARS before I finally set aside the lousy 15 minutes it took to fully open my ears and listen before I could HEAR that message. And even then... it was under emotional duress. Honestly, I do believe that it takes a crisis to generate this "opening of the mind" more often than not. Hoards of STBX spouse's come here to LS's Separation/Divorce forum saying "I wish I had listened when s/he said....(fill-in-the-blank)" I have to wonder if it would've taken you more than packing your bags and spending 3 nights at a Motel Six to get this problem solved YEARS ago, Scriv. Sometimes, our partner's just won't listen until we're willing to face the conflict and 'roll the dice'. Anyway, you can't imagine how STUPID you feel when you realize that your whole process was WRONG. But after you've accepted the truth of that, you're FREE to see the solutions right in front of you. In my case, once I realized that my grievances weren't based on reality and I wasn't just a tool my husband used to 'get off' on now and then... I could start believing in his words. If he says..."You are beautiful to me", and I accept the truth of that, then I AM 'beautiful' to him. If he says... "I feel loved when our relationship is physically intimate", then THAT's what he needs to feel loved. It's a simple thing. All it requires is love and faith.... with ONE exception. The resentments on both sides must be utterly and voluntarily relinquished. After that, the NEW mindset is... "I will add to my partner's life experience, and never subtract from it". Hmmm... that ended up being a fairly long ramble for "one more thought". Sorry.
Ladyjane14 Posted December 8, 2006 Posted December 8, 2006 I don't think any of the alternatives open to me at this point are at all enviable. This is the only one that at least has a minute chance of "working". You're right, the alternative is not enviable at all. It's a gamble... and one you'd have to be willing to lose if it went awry. The only person I've witnessed here at LS who had success at "opening his partner's ears" without introducing SERIOUS conflict is JamesM. And his wife had a medical problem, and wasn't as mired in her own position on the subject. I'll tell you plainly... if you tell a woman you're going to leave her because she's not physically intimate with you, nine times out of ten... she'll point you to the door and tell you to "find a woman that will". But I guarantee, if you pack a bag and walk out... she's going to have a moment of doubt. A moment where she wonders if maybe she wasn't wrong.
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