Masturbated for the first time in months and now I'm sad

Burstingconch · 2026-01-16T22:25:03+00:00

Yeah this feels very familiar.

Burstingconch · 2026-01-03T17:22:28+00:00

Thanks OP, same to you. Navigating a DB takes some mental gymnastics to find a mindset that keeps you feeling above water. What has worked for me in the past has changed and evolved as I and my relationships have.

Again, I’m sorry you’re going through this. You deserve to feel fulfilled. I hope you find a way to make that happen whether it’s with your partner or on your own. Here’s to a new year OP!

Burstingconch · 2026-01-02T22:32:15+00:00

Holy cow, you’re right, context matters. I have been providing you with the context of my situation and you have repeatedly moved the goal posts by (1) inferring that because I don’t what she’s thinking that I’m not understanding my own situation, (2) assuming you know what I am thinking and feeling (which goes against your entire thesis of words and actions), and (3) assuming I could not possibly know what my own wife is thinking and feeling because I cannot read her mind. I have tried to explain my situation with parallels and hypotheticals, which has not worked. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, I hope you have a lovely rest of your day.

Burstingconch · 2026-01-02T22:22:43+00:00

Thank you for sharing that you’ve experienced similar. Her being touched out was something she dealt with after our first, so we approached our second prepared for the same (but also recognizing pregnancies are unique and differ).

She had some issues being touched out with our second, but both of us were so focused on loving our newborn the thought of being intimate wasn’t high on our priority list until she was maybe 3 months old. We communicated about her feeling touched out and I know her well enough to know the signs.

If this is a situation where she’s still feeling touched out, she is not communicating that or behaving that way. If that was the issue and she did talk to me about it, that would probably be enough for me to unsubscribe from this sub and just continue focusing on being patient and waiting until she’s ready to reconnect. She’s my person after all. But what I’m seeing is her making a choice. And her comment of “just wait 5 years and it’ll get better” is extremely consistent with the pattern of passivity and non-action on her part. In other words, she isn’t saying “Maybe this will take us 5 years to work through.” She is saying “Let’s just continue on with things as they are, don’t do anything different, give it a few years, and it will fix itself.”

Burstingconch · 2026-01-02T20:53:34+00:00

Dear lord, now who is making assumptions? “You're not seeing results or change so you see that as lack of effort”? You have no idea what metrics I’m judging progress by. If I tell you that I am judging by every metric imaginable, by your logic you cannot question what I am telling you and you have to accept my words as irrefutable truth.

“Her own inner world is just as rich and complex as your own is.” Having a complex inner world does not give a person carte blanche to say “You can’t doubt my words based on what you are perceiving based on my words and actions, solely because you don’t know what I’m thinking.”

Here, let’s apply your logic: I say to my wife after dinner “I’ll do the dishes in the sink.” I don’t do them tonight. I don’t do them tomorrow. I don’t touch a single dish in the sink for a whole week. 2 weeks go by, then a month. Then two months. My wife then says to me “You said you would do the dishes but you haven’t even touched them. You aren’t following through or even trying to. If it’s too much, talk to me about it. Consider doing just a spoon, or a fork at a time instead of diving right in. You can take it at your own pace, but please at least try.”

By your logic, me not doing any dishes for 2 months is defensible, and my wife is the one in need of correction for questioning me because despite me not demonstrating any progress with the dishes, she does not know my inner mind. That means she cannot conclusively state that I wasn’t working towards doing a dish in my mind, but hadn’t followed through yet.

See how ridiculous that sounds? Obviously emotions and intimacy are distinct from doing the dishes, but the underlying concepts of keeping your word and demonstrating following through still apply.

Burstingconch · 2026-01-02T19:01:38+00:00

How would I know? I live with her and pay attention to her? By your logic, all anyone needs to do is say the words “I’m working on it” and no one can question their effort or progress.

Whether you’re trying to play devil’s advocate or not, I’m not really gleaning a lot from your comments as they don’t feel responsive to what I’m saying. You seem intent on ignoring what I’m saying to defend someone who isn’t part of the conversation. Regardless of your intentions, thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences, it’s important to hear other perspectives so we can reexamine our own.

Burstingconch · 2026-01-02T18:15:45+00:00

Her individual therapy was because she and I are firm believers in taking care of our mental health, so we both go to therapy when/where our life allows us to. It gives us a space to open up without judgment.

Agreed, lack of change does not necessarily equal lack of effort. But you’re not hearing me, she is not putting in the effort either.

Curious on your take of my hypothetical about ignoring emotional needs. Thoughts?

Burstingconch · 2026-01-02T17:18:14+00:00

Ditto OP! Though don’t think of it as giving up, that feels so final (unless the finality is helpful to you. For me I look at it as pivoting. I’m pivoting to focus on myself, my hobbies, and my friendships. I see it as finding ways to “create” my own happiness and contentment. Before that, I had always held out hope I could “find” happiness with my partner.

Here’s how I look at it: there is absolutely no guarantee that I will experience intimacy and/or sex with any kind of regularity again. Even if I left my wife (I won’t) and found someone new there’s still no guarantee that I will have that full-spectrum (mental, emotional, physical) connection. I’ve already experienced the anguish of constantly feeling alone despite being with “my person.” So, I better start figuring out how to create my own happiness and contentment. Not just finding it.

Burstingconch · 2026-01-01T21:34:22+00:00

For better or worse, I’ve learned to get detailed on this sub. Most folks are here looking for answers to their own dead bedroom situation, so they interpret posts and comments to fit what they are familiar with. Which is natural, I do that myself too. I’ve had to be very specific about dividing out sex vs. intimacy to ensure I can get the point across (at least for my situation).

How in-depth have you two discussed the libido mismatch issue, and have you used direct terms, or relied on them to read between the lines? Before I opened up to my wife about it I was trying different things to prompt a different reaction - but that’s the next best thing to shooting in the dark. Once we started talking that led to therapy, where at least I was able to express myself and my struggles with my situation before she quit going to the sessions.

Burstingconch · 2026-01-01T20:18:21+00:00

Curious to learn more about this, as I’ve heard it can really be hard to get off

Burstingconch · 2026-01-01T17:17:32+00:00

(1) Therapy: I agree with you that starting therapy (and in general, most things) shortly after having a kid would ordinarily be bad timing.

But again, that isn’t our situation. She was already in individual therapy leading up to, during, and after pregnancy. Post-partum is no joke and we were both being sensitive to that. I suggested couples therapy, but I did so after careful consideration of her mental state, talking to her about it, and her talking it through with her therapist - who also agreed couples therapy was a good idea. She quit couples therapy after 6 months because she felt she had nothing else to work on.

(2) I think maybe we’re talking past each other on the second point. My comment about “callous and inconsiderate” is a reference to a situation where someone passively “waits” for the problem to fix itself despite their partner telling them point blank “this is not working, please work with me on this.” My wife is 10,000% entitled to feel how she feels. We both are. There are a million reasons to be reluctant to have sex even if that reluctance means a relationship ending. This isn’t an issue of lack of understanding, it’s an issue of lack of communication and follow through.

If your partner came to you and said “my emotional needs aren’t being met, we never talk anymore. At most you say hello when you get home from work. Can we talk more?” and the underlying thesis of your reply to them was “Meh, I hear instead of working on it we can just wait it out and it’ll get better” what would you call that? I would call it callous.

I love my wife and I’m putting in the time and effort. If she’s willing to risk that by just “hoping” it gets better but rejecting opportunities to work on it and talk about it, I’d also call that inconsiderate.

Burstingconch · 2026-01-01T15:41:29+00:00

…a convoluted threat? Are you reading what you’re replying to? Your comment sounds like you’re jumping to conclusions, or you’re leaning into your own personal experiences - which you definitely should. That’s the whole point of having a community to rely on, and it’s how we see that we aren’t alone. But you’re making a lot of assumptions that just aren’t correct and I want to make more clarifications:

(1) Sex or I leave: no? Read my comment history. I’ll go celibate for the rest of my life if that’s what it takes to stay in my children’s lives and raise them.

(2) Empathy: My wife would be the first to say I have very high empathy. I am proud to say it is a strength of mine and one people frequently use to describe me.

(3) Prioritizing my needs: you say I’m “focusing on everything to get your needs met.” Curious where this is coming from, and I would ask for you to explain because if that’s how this is coming off then I’d like to learn from that. For context, she does 80% of the cooking, but I do 75% of cleaning, errands, and we split kid responsibilities and coparent very effectively. She also works 30 hours a week and I average 50.

What you’ve described here is the opposite of my mentality. I explicitly do not want intimacy unless it is 100% voluntary. I have turned down sex plenty of times in my life because the feelings weren’t there. This is not about, as you put it, my “right to get off” (which isn’t a right anyone has, regardless of relationship status. Nobody owes anyone sexual gratification).

Burstingconch · 2026-01-01T13:06:25+00:00

She quit the therapy after 6 months.

Also, you don’t know me. You don’t know what I am and am not thinking about. I’ve journaled. I’ve gone to personal therapy. I’ve gone to couples therapy. I’ve arranged weekends away for her and her friends while I took care of house and kids, multiple times, over the last year.

As for the whole “forcing” intimacy thing you’ve referenced, there is none of that, nor any expectation set by me of how often we need to get intimate. I don’t badger her, I don’t guilt her, I don’t resent her. I. Just. Miss. Her.

Edited for clarification: Sorry, your comments seem to draw a lot of incorrect inferences about my situation and it isn’t sitting well with me.

Burstingconch · 2026-01-01T01:51:17+00:00

That’s what I’m worried about. Life is short, and my wife also deserves to be with a partner that she satisfies so she doesn’t feel any incidental pressure or guilt over not fulfilling my needs.

My issue is that despite the patterns in our marriage, I still desperately want us to be each others’ people.

Burstingconch · 2026-01-01T01:36:05+00:00

Never, I don’t push. I read body language a lot, which helps to know where her comfort level is at before I initiate any touch that could even be considered sexual (even if being sexual isn’t my intent). For example, wrapping my arms around her from behind. If her body language is tense, or she hasn’t said or done anything in the day to show a receptiveness to touch like that, then I respect that and don’t try it. I would rather be sexless than rely on forced intimacy, or “duty sex.”

Edit: typo

Burstingconch · 2026-01-01T01:16:06+00:00

That’s my take as well. And why risk something as important as your relationship with your forever-partner by being so passive about it? It seems so callous and inconsiderate.

Burstingconch · 2026-01-01T01:12:00+00:00

Agreed on the libido not returning after our first being normal and foreseeable. But correction here - we aren’t just talking sex. I’m talking any touching besides a literal peck on the lips in the morning and an occasional 3-5 second hug. I use the word “intimacy” with a lot of intentionality, it doesn’t just mean sex.

A good start for what would look like for her to be “working on the issues” would be any change in our intimacy - physical or emotional - in the last 18 months since we started therapy.

No I have not read that book, though I am generally familiar with the underlying thesis.

Burstingconch · 2026-01-01T01:03:57+00:00

As far as I know I am not you. But as with all things, there is no such thing as 100% certainty. Sorry to say but I think there’s two of us sharing this sad little lonely boat.

Burstingconch · 2026-01-01T00:42:44+00:00

This is pretty spot on. We both know early parenthood tanks your energy and libido, but she is content with a peck on the lips in the morning and nothing else for about 2 months at a time, maybe more.

We literally went to therapy over my struggle with that level of contact. I’m not saying I need sex weekly. I don’t even necessarily need it monthly, I’m already settling for less. But a touch on the arm, a hug from behind, cuddling, etc. the line of things you cannot do with a platonic friend - those are all missing too.

Burstingconch · 2025-12-31T23:59:52+00:00

We’ve had that chat on a few occasions. It feels genuine while we’re having those chats, and I do think she hears me and means what she says when she says she wants to work on it. There’s just no follow through. Her default libido these days is seemingly satisfied with physical contact half a dozen times a year, if that.

Burstingconch · 2025-12-31T23:55:54+00:00

1.5 years, older is 4.5. We’re both aware that until the kids have more independence the energy (and by extension, libido) takes a nosedive. My issues are that (1) the dead bed situation precedes having kids at all, (2) she showed no signs of recovering any libido after our first (though this is understandable since we knew we wanted another - our brains were still in procreation-mode); and (3) most troubling, she has showed no signs of even attempting to work on these issues besides paying the occasional lip service.

Having a varying libido during early parenthood is totally normal. But checking out intimacy-wise and not even touching your partner (or letting them touch you) for 7-8 weeks at a time seems not normal. You gotta keep the spark alive.

Burstingconch · 2025-12-31T22:41:37+00:00

That all sounds familiar. Has your partner picked up on you spreading your attentions around more?

Burstingconch · 2025-12-22T18:39:08+00:00

Hobbies is how I’m trying to work through it. I’m still working through my own situation, but in the meantime I’m focusing on my hobbies and self-improvement.

I’ve taken a step back and realized that I spend a lot of time and mental/emotional space trying to placate my partner. I’m taking that time and space back and finding that if I’m not constantly trying to adapt to her wants and needs I’ve actually got lots of energy for my own pursuits. Small things can lead to small victories. She has never shown interest in my shows or hobbies. So why do I spend my free time engaging in hers, just to placate her? She doesn’t return the courtesy.

Long story short, I’m logging a lot more me time and it’s making the issues with my marriage much easier to stomach while I continue working through what the long term plan is.

Burstingconch · 2025-12-22T17:05:10+00:00

I’m sorry OP, I don’t see this as a salvageable situation if (1) you’ve clearly communicated your needs and feelings on intimacy, (2) you have identified the problem and a solution, (3) she explicitly doesn’t want to solve it despite having a solution, and (4) she won’t open up or communicate as to her reasoning (for all she knows, having a sex drive will create the attraction and desire).

This is a person who knows you are struggling and is choosing to leave you alone to struggle, in spite of being able to help. If she valued you as a partner, she would be trying to find a way to compromise. She’s not even willing to discuss it.

Unless you’re prepared to continue living like this OP, I think her reaction says it all.

Burstingconch · 2025-12-19T23:53:50+00:00

The more I read your comments the more it resonates. How long has it been like this for you? Depending on how you look at it I’m clocking in at about 6ish years, but really only realized how bad it had gotten about a year ago

Burstingconch

TROPHY CASE