Valentine's Day Heartbreak

[ThatJustHappened]

What was your question again? I'm on my phone. Wasn't it something like And what v would your wife think of you cheating? I mean, c'mon. It wasn't a serious question. So it must have been something else. Unless I'm mixing up my posters here!

 

Whew, problem solved! You are mixing up your posters. My question was, would your wife agree that you didn't cheat, which was your response to my original question, which was..are you really surprised that the woman you cheated on your wife with is 'cheating' on you.

 

Don't bother replying to this, I'm out. Best of luck to your poor wife.

[HonestNeurotic]

I can identify with the sexless marriage. I knew it before we got married. I can identify with the feelings of "I owe it to her". I'm just not attracted to him. I really wish that I was.

 

He has a VERY low sex drive. About once a year, though the last time we went 20 months. He's totally capable, he's just super genius dude that is thinking on other stuff most of the time. I almost wish he WOULD have an affair.

 

I'm very selfish myself. I prefer my own company. I thought I was okay with no sex, because everything else about this man is great. Sure, the little things that bother others are there - he is a packrat, things like that. I've not had to make any compromises in myself for him, nor do I expect him to make any for me.

 

I didn't think about having an affair until a situation presented itself to me, and well, it was someone that I would NEVER have been with had I been single. I just wanted the sex. This dude was not in love with me, and I really didn't think that guys were all into the falling in love thing. I really thought that they just wanted sex. That affair ended and I felt no emotions over it except that I was angry that *I* didn't end it first.

 

I decided that since that seemed to work so well for four years, I should just go and find another married man to have an affair with for sex. My brain says that romantic love/courtly love, doesn't really exist. So I find a man to have an affair with and do just that.

 

Then he says he's falling in love with me. So I can't deal with it - and I cut it off. Because that would be WRONG to me - the love part. And sincerely - my husband and I don't have morals and values that many place on sexual behaviours. He knows my previous history - which was VERY active when I was single. I've never had a problem with sex relationships, just no one that can deal with me as a person.

 

BUT! arghgh - I can give you a bunch of "justifiable" reasons why, but it really doesn't matter, cuz I did it. I went back to him. The sex was so good with this man. And I fell. Hard. Into that "love" thang. True cake eater. Cuz I have no intention of changing my status at home unless my husband wants that. I never had romantic love in my life, and it feels great. I wonder if that is not what I wanted all along...

 

But Leo - I write all that to say - that I DO understand about being in a sexless marriage, the deep love of the partnership. All of that. I sincerely do.

 

I understand the "exclusivity" agreement, because that is what I have with my MM. Though he is certain that I am going to "wake up" because he has it in his head that I am "too beautiful" for him. Which is funny, cuz I am just average maybe. I told him I don't care if he is "with" his wife. I really don't. I just don't want to hear about it.

 

I also write because - well - from an OW stance, where you said that she is mean and abusive to you - well - I am a master manipulator. I know that about myself, and having found that out made a conscious effort to not do that to people. i.e., I want people to be around me because they WANT to be around me, not out of some manipulation that I did to make them feel that way. There are times, when I see that I could so just - wrap this dude around my finger and make him jump through hoops. Partly, because I just can't believe that he really loves me. Partly, because I know that he DOES (or thinks that he does) He could never be with me permanently, I know that. But if he gets too close - - - well, then I'm kinda mean. Not really MEAN, but I do make it so that he feels like it's HIS fault. And it's not.

 

Because I don't avoid CONFLICT - I avoid INTIMACY. For whatever screwed up reason, I've not believed in courtly love, though I admit that I've always kinda sorta wanted it. I've always pushed it away, believing that it was always a ploy to just get into my pants - so why not just blow by that part of it and have the sex?

 

I am a cake eater. I enjoy the day to day life I have with my husband. The conversations. The things we do. I also enjoy the sex and the adoration, the romantic love, that I have with this other man.

 

I dunno if that helps you at all. I read here all the time, trying to understand myself. Trying to KNOW what people are all about. I often think that I really should be just living by myself. My husband is rather the same way - which is I think why we are together. I do know that we need to talk about this - it's the one subject that we never, ever, discuss. We're very comfortable with each other - - we're like family.

 

I don't look for validation. I also don't look to be berated and moralized on. That is not helpful. I put down what I am doing to be helpful perhaps to others, and perhaps for some insight into myself. Not to have someone tell me what a douchebag I am. That's not going to make me a better person, though snarky comments MIGHT make another feel better. I dunno. I'm emotionally distant girl, and have always had extreme difficulties with emotional things in general.

[whichwayisup]

I agree. Leo, go talk to someone, a therapist/counselor to help you with this stuff. Your way of thinking, analyzing and handling this is not healthy and you can't see this - A trained therapist can get you to see things from a more realistic and honest point of view. Your thoughts and views on this is very one sided and you really aren't seeing the bigger picture of your situation and what you're doing to your wife.

[HonestNeurotic]

I'm out of options for "help". Being honest is helpful. Counseling, psychiatry, drugs, have not been helpful. Though I encourage everyone to seek out that help - at least TRY it.

 

On the outside - you would never ever know that I am not normal.So you may not find it helpful, but there are actually others like me, not normal, that are in everybody's lives. Most end up addicts or dead. Me? I run around trying to save the world to no avail, but it keeps me busy, alive, and no one knows that I'm not "normal".

 

I posted my response to LEO. Like, hey, dude. Yeppers. I totally get the sexless marriage thing.

Edited April 16, 2013 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[LFH]

No - I'm not normal. If I were, then I wouldn't be HERE.

 

I'm out of options for "help". Being honest is helpful. Counseling, psychiatry, drugs, have not been helpful. Though I encourage everyone to seek out that help - at least TRY it.

 

On the outside - you would never ever know that I am not normal.So you may not find it helpful, but there are actually others like me, not normal, that are in everybody's lives. Most end up addicts or dead. Me? I run around trying to save the world to no avail, but it keeps me busy, alive, and no one knows that I'm not "normal".

 

I posted my response to LEO. Like, hey, dude. Yeppers. I totally get the sexless marriage thing.

 

Not for YOU j'dore. I'm sure you're perfectly normal.

 

Actually, although I personally can't relate to a lot of what you said, I did understand a few parts of it and I think what you've written might be really helpful to the OP.

 

I find it helpful to be honest too and I still don't understand myself either.

I think what you said took a lot of guts to write actually and I also think normal is overrated.

[awkward]

Lion <----- cute

 

Did you ever say why you chose to stay married when you first fell in love with OW? Before she started acting crazy. Also you said that OW read a bunch of stuff online about MM. Did she read it here on this forum?

 

Also, did your wife save your life or did she experience something traumatic while in the relationship with you? When you say you owed it to her to marry her, was it because of some act that she did to save or help you? And if you wouldn't have married her, would she have not been able to go on or been devastated?

[RainDown]

Hi, Leo. Your thread seems to have gone a tad off track, so let me bring it back round to the beginning. Your question, in your initial post, was a query about the commonality of the "sexless marriage". The answer is yes, there are many, many sexless marriages. In my opinion, that question, and the answer to it, is not relevant at all to your situation. The relevant point to your situation is why your marriage is sexless. You, as a person, are not sexless. The question then becomes, "Why are you, a fully sexual person, not sexual with the person with whom you are supposed to be most sexual?" If that is truly the question to which you want an answer, I suggest you seek that answer from a qualified relationship/family systems specialist. I don’t believe anyone here on this forum can get to the root of reason you set up your life as you did.

 

I must say though that I do not believe you honestly wish to alter the status quo in your marriage. I believe you are quite content to live with your wife as brother and sister and that your marriage brings to you security that is quite valuable, even necessary, to you. I don't view this as a problem per se - after all, you do not wish to have sex with your wife and, apparently, she does not wish to have sex with you. As you are both seemingly happy with that dynamic it's really a non-issue.

 

What I find to be most interesting is that you prefaced your central question (are there really sexless marriages) with paragraph after paragraph relating the dynamic between you and your special person. The sexless marriage question came as a complete aside to your detailed story about the relationship between you and your special person. Why would that be, do you think? That is obviously a question for you to answer, but I'd venture a guess that you somehow felt the need to offer a preemptive defense for your decision to engage in an extramarital affair. There are many forums on the internet devoted to people in sexless relationships or marriages; yet you chose a forum devoted to the topic of extramarital affairs and, more specifically, the OW aspect of your extramarital affair. I do not believe this was an accident. I believe your situation with the special person is what brought you here and that your sexless marriage is a more distant concern. Having said that, I do believe the two issues are intimately related, and I believe they must be considered together in order to gain any insight into how and why you chose the two women you chose.

 

I am not a proponent of the idea that things “just happen”. I believe that situations are driven by deliberate choices, and while we may not understand or have any insight into the core issues driving our decisions, our core issues drive our choices nonetheless. What I see in your situation is that, at the end of the day, you have made deliberate choices that have resulted in a circumstance that allows you to avoid intimacy entirely, albeit with radically different women. One woman, your wife, relates to you in a bother/sister/friend fashion which bars any real threat of you being confronted with a situation in which you must make yourself known in an intimate way. The other woman, your special person, relates to you in an abusive, dysfunctional and unsafe fashion which also bars any real threat of a situation in which intimacy could occur.

 

I mean no ill-will in telling you that I believe the problem is you. It does not matter why your wife is content with a sexless marriage; it does not matter why your special person appears to have a borderline personality. What matters is why you have chosen, and continue to choose, to remain in relationships that allow you to avoid true intimacy. Until you change your focus and get to the root of the issues within yourself that are driving your intimacy avoidance you will continue to go round and round without resolution, and you will continue to be a destructive presence in the lives of the women closest to you.

 

You have created a situation in your life from which there is no easy exit, but if you truly want to create a life that contains authentic, loving and intimate relationships it will take quite a bit of hard work and introspection on your part to get there. Posting on a message board may be a springboard to your personal enlightenment, but I think a good, supportive individual therapist is in order when you are ready to take true steps to sort yourself out.

 

Good luck to you. I hope it all works out.

[coffeebean201]

Hi Leo,

Is it possible that your special friend loves you and wanted you to divorce/marry her and she cheated on you because she got frustrated with you?

 

It is nice that you are married to a woman who is like a mother to you (endless love and support, no sex).

 

Is that really what you want for your future?

 

Assuming you decide to stay married, you are likely to take up with another special friend and another roller coaster of emotions. Because it is hard for the woman to stay as OW without hope of a final future with you.

[HonestNeurotic]

Fear of intimacy. Indeed. (speaking for myself) Great post RainDown.

[Leo the Homely Lion]

I can identify with the sexless marriage. I knew it before we got married. I can identify with the feelings of "I owe it to her". I'm just not attracted to him. I really wish that I was.

 

He has a VERY low sex drive. About once a year, though the last time we went 20 months. He's totally capable, he's just super genius dude that is thinking on other stuff most of the time. I almost wish he WOULD have an affair.

 

I'm very selfish myself. I prefer my own company. I thought I was okay with no sex, because everything else about this man is great. Sure, the little things that bother others are there - he is a packrat, things like that. I've not had to make any compromises in myself for him, nor do I expect him to make any for me.

 

I didn't think about having an affair until a situation presented itself to me, and well, it was someone that I would NEVER have been with had I been single. I just wanted the sex. This dude was not in love with me, and I really didn't think that guys were all into the falling in love thing. I really thought that they just wanted sex. That affair ended and I felt no emotions over it except that I was angry that *I* didn't end it first.

 

I decided that since that seemed to work so well for four years, I should just go and find another married man to have an affair with for sex. My brain says that romantic love/courtly love, doesn't really exist. So I find a man to have an affair with and do just that.

 

Then he says he's falling in love with me. So I can't deal with it - and I cut it off. Because that would be WRONG to me - the love part. And sincerely - my husband and I don't have morals and values that many place on sexual behaviours. He knows my previous history - which was VERY active when I was single. I've never had a problem with sex relationships, just no one that can deal with me as a person.

 

BUT! arghgh - I can give you a bunch of "justifiable" reasons why, but it really doesn't matter, cuz I did it. I went back to him. The sex was so good with this man. And I fell. Hard. Into that "love" thang. True cake eater. Cuz I have no intention of changing my status at home unless my husband wants that. I never had romantic love in my life, and it feels great. I wonder if that is not what I wanted all along...

 

But Leo - I write all that to say - that I DO understand about being in a sexless marriage, the deep love of the partnership. All of that. I sincerely do.

 

I understand the "exclusivity" agreement, because that is what I have with my MM. Though he is certain that I am going to "wake up" because he has it in his head that I am "too beautiful" for him. Which is funny, cuz I am just average maybe. I told him I don't care if he is "with" his wife. I really don't. I just don't want to hear about it.

 

I also write because - well - from an OW stance, where you said that she is mean and abusive to you - well - I am a master manipulator. I know that about myself, and having found that out made a conscious effort to not do that to people. i.e., I want people to be around me because they WANT to be around me, not out of some manipulation that I did to make them feel that way. There are times, when I see that I could so just - wrap this dude around my finger and make him jump through hoops. Partly, because I just can't believe that he really loves me. Partly, because I know that he DOES (or thinks that he does) He could never be with me permanently, I know that. But if he gets too close - - - well, then I'm kinda mean. Not really MEAN, but I do make it so that he feels like it's HIS fault. And it's not.

 

Because I don't avoid CONFLICT - I avoid INTIMACY. For whatever screwed up reason, I've not believed in courtly love, though I admit that I've always kinda sorta wanted it. I've always pushed it away, believing that it was always a ploy to just get into my pants - so why not just blow by that part of it and have the sex?

 

I am a cake eater. I enjoy the day to day life I have with my husband. The conversations. The things we do. I also enjoy the sex and the adoration, the romantic love, that I have with this other man.

 

I dunno if that helps you at all. I read here all the time, trying to understand myself. Trying to KNOW what people are all about. I often think that I really should be just living by myself. My husband is rather the same way - which is I think why we are together. I do know that we need to talk about this - it's the one subject that we never, ever, discuss. We're very comfortable with each other - - we're like family.

 

I don't look for validation. I also don't look to be berated and moralized on. That is not helpful. I put down what I am doing to be helpful perhaps to others, and perhaps for some insight into myself. Not to have someone tell me what a douchebag I am. That's not going to make me a better person, though snarky comments MIGHT make another feel better. I dunno. I'm emotionally distant girl, and have always had extreme difficulties with emotional things in general.

 

Been meaning to thank you, and someone else I shall get to forthwith, can't remember her name, ever since that night. It was an exceedingly excellent post, and I appreciate your time and effort to respond to me. So thank you.

[AnotherRound]

Well, I didn't read all 11 pages - jeez! lol But, I wanted to add my two cents, as usual.

 

I was in a sexless marriage myself. There is some disagreement about what actually constitutes "sexless" but I think the generally agreed on amount of sex is more than once per every 3 months or so - and even that is bordering on sexless (in theory, sort of like obligation sex and not considered a healthy sexual relationship). In my former marriage, my exH and I had not had sex for something like 6 months-ish when he started his affair. To me, 6 months of no sex is sexless - especially with a partner that you LIVE with.

 

So, when I met exMM and he said that he was in a sexless marriage - it wasn't hard to believe (and considering his now exW was telling people the same thing, so their stories matched up if you will). I mean, had I not just left a marriage of the same type? Yep - so, as much as some people want to believe that this doesn't happen, it absolutely does - and not just to "older" couples either (that's a whole other discussion, physical inability to have sex vs. choosing to not be sexually intimate).

 

ExMM and his now exW had sex occasionally - most couples at least do that (birthday sex anyone? lol). But, honestly, that didn't bother me in the least. Everyone goes through the motions sometimes, imo. So, the fact that they had sex approximately 2 or 3 times a year - sounds pretty sexless to me. If that was a "relationship" well - there would be a whole lot of relationships in this world between people who don't even know each other, lol.

 

So no - you aren't the only one that has experienced it - or the first or the last. To me, having a SO that you aren't sexually intimate with is nothing more than having a best friend. And, I have a best friend already - I don't need another one! If I choose to be in an SO relationship with someone, I expect that relationship to be different than ALL my other relationships - and the thing that makes it different? We are sexually intimate with one another. If we aren't - then to me, it's not a significant relationship anymore, we are not SOs anymore - just friends. Maybe FWB - but that's about it (I had more sex with my FWB than 2 or 3 times a year! lol).

[Leo the Homely Lion]

Having good sex in an affair is rather easy.

 

Having regular good sex in a long term marriage is what separates the men from the boys.

 

Funny. You've said this MANY times.

 

And yet you claim to have NEVER been in a lovemaking affair. So, uncredentialed, and beyond inexperienced in sexual affairs, how do you come by your information, again? By reading this forum, you've said.

 

Okay. . ..

 

But hey.

 

You be les man, "Pierre."

 

On the Internet.

 

 

Ps. Is that Sean Connerey??? What a legendary lover, non?

Edited April 20, 2013 by Leo the Homely Lion
"les" for "da"! DUH!

[Leo the Homely Lion]

You're surprised that a cheater cheated?

 

There was a time when every cheater was a non-cheater.

 

By your logic, that'd be as impossible as "a cheater not cheating".

Edited April 20, 2013 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[movingon45]

I'm brand new to this forum. But I that I was in a sexless marriage.

 

 

But my question is, has anybody heard of a totally sexless marriage? I can't hardly believe it myself. Don't blame my ex-OW for not believing it. But how alone am I in this reality?

 

Wow. It's over. What timing. At least she finally told me the truth. But I'm crushed by it. And the finality.

 

 

I'm in a sexless marriage in that my husband can't penetrate me due to illness. We've been married for 19 years, with only one year of penetration. I had an affair with my ex college bf now married with children, but I ended it after a few months because of disagreements. No d-day.

[ThatJustHappened]

Deleted. Don't care.

[Leo the Homely Lion]

Originally Posted by Leo the Homely Lion

I was awestruck by your post, and I'll have you know, I'm not easily awestruck, except by myself.

 

 

I think you may have found the root of your problem.

 

Impressive diagnostic skills, of the type so rampant here, except this time the flaw involves a willful disregard so as to enable the taking of a cheap shot, or just the abject failure to detect the intended levity. Give it another shot. You can do it. I have faith in you.

[Saba]

The arrogance in this thread is palpable; I find it anything but awesome.

[Leo the Homely Lion]

The arrogance in this thread is palpable; I find it anything but awesome.

 

Do you have an example?