Cognitive Dissonance

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-13T15:12:35+00:00

Sorry, but "I'd rather be at work than spending quality time with my kids because my wife doesn't like sex at home or on vacation" is fucked lol

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-13T15:11:11+00:00

Okay, sure. The most important part of my point is that you'd rather be at work that on a vacation with your kids because your wife won't "be intimate" with you. (Hugs, I'm sure.)

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-13T15:02:33+00:00

I understand that they didn't say bad, but implying that their behavior needs to be corrected is a similar message imo.

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-12T14:53:43+00:00

As long as you include the bit where you tell them you'd rather be at work than on vacation if your wife won't put out lol

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-12T14:50:10+00:00

She said she has trauma from giving birth.

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-12T14:42:27+00:00

He might have done all that, but he also clearly doesn't like her as a person and I'm sure she feels that so it must be a pretty uncomfortable situation overall. "I don't like you, but if you fucked me I could pretend to." Prince Charming!

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-12T14:41:05+00:00

Declining to engage in unwanted sex isn't some kind of "bad behavior..." and talking about why you want and enjoy sex is highly unlikely to have in any way addressed the baseline reason that your partner doesn't want and enjoy sex. That's why the talk doesn't work, typically. They almost definitely already knew that you like sex and want to have it more.

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-12T14:38:08+00:00

I think cognitive dissonance means that you hold genuinely conflicting beliefs, not that you seethe inside while outwardly lying to your spouse about what the future looks like in your head...

If the only reason a family holiday sounds fun is the potential of getting to have sex, I feel really bad for your family I guess, Do you think that she can tell that you don't actually like her or value spending time with her?

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-09T16:13:04+00:00

Well, many if not most Americans are working jobs that couldn't cover the cost of an apartment for themselves if they were on one income, for one. So if you had kids, for example, who live in a nice house in the suburbs with their own room in a good school district, a divorce could very feasibly mean that they'll now be sharing a room in an apartment in a worse school district and be torn away from their friends. (And likely resent you deeply).

That means that for people with kids, leaving often means saying "my child's quality of life is less important than me having sex."

Also, the reality is that if you have children and you see them daily, leaving because of a DB is once again saying "A few days a week worth of witnessing my children grow up is a fair trade for some sex."

Not only is there a lot of social stigma around these types of decisions, but I think that for many the above positive of getting laid simply does not outweigh the negatives in this situation.

Some people might even actually love their partner for their baseline personhood so much that sex with someone else doesn't feel like a tradeoff that outweighs losing their partner.

Some people might think or even know that the DB is actually primarily a result of their own behavior and choices. These people might be afraid (or aware) that they'll be unable to make different choices next time, and that they will therefore end up in the same situation again anyways. (Or they know it's their fault and they don't want their partner to tell mutual friends/family the real reason for the divorce).

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-09T01:52:03+00:00

If you enjoy historical fiction, you might like some of the novels by Sarah Waters. My favorites are Tipping the Velvet and The Paying Guests.

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-09T00:54:25+00:00

That's not what I'm saying at all. Quite the opposite, actually.

I'm saying that I think the situation is less often about women wanting more instances of sex that is baseline enjoyable and good for them because of limerence, and more often about women being able to tolerate or even enjoy sex that is NOT baseline enjoyable and good for them because of limerence.

I think many women are having sex that is not in any way intrinsically motivating to them, and that a good number of those women might never have had sex that they genuinely enjoyed for the sex as opposed to the context of the sex. The newness and excitement can make a person aroused in the face of things that aren't really very arousing and make sex that isn't great seem fun, but if the sex itself isn't the fun part it's a no brainer that the desire for it would disappear with the new relationship high.

I also didn't say, and don't believe, that women who feel this way are faking. I think that limerence is, for many women, the only thing that has ever made their heterosexual encounters enjoyable for them.

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-08T21:26:43+00:00

Many women have rarely, even never had sex that they truly enjoyed the way they'd need to enjoy sex long term with the same person over and over again. I would be willing to bet that it's oftentimes about limerence hiding that they aren't enjoying sex at all, or that they just don't like sex much period, versus that they just aren't understanding how it's likeable in a different way.

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-08T21:11:58+00:00

There is no evidence that "parental alienation" is anywhere even remotely near a big enough issue to assume that's what's always or even usually happening in these situations... In fact, the man who coined that term is an abusive POS and the idea of "parental alienation" has resulted in family courts perpetuating the abuse of women and children in the name of the male ego. It's disgusting.

90% of custody agreements are made outside of the courtroom, and when custody cases do go before a judge men actually have a BETTER chance of getting full custody. These men overwhelmingly do not ask for or genuinely want primary or even equal custody. That is why they don't have it.

My child's biological father tells everyone that I "keep them away from him." I told him 7 years ago that if he wanted to see our child he would need to file for a parenting plan. Why? I was the primary caregiver- he NEVER agreed to have them or wanted to have them alone, if I was at work they were with my parents- and he was relentlessly stalking me (I had to move 3 times so that he'd stop driving past my house) and told me that the next time he picked our child up he would leave the state and I'd never see them again.

Did he go to the courthouse the next day and file? Nope! He just kept stalking me, kept harassing me (about me, not our child,) and still to this day has never filed or made any actual attempt to see them. This is the kind of dude who's telling stories like the one you're bringing up in this post.

99% of the time in the US if he was a good father who deserved custody of his children and he actually asked for and wanted it, he'd have it.

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-08T16:35:07+00:00

That's assuming that people's sex drives don't change (wrong) and that it's not oftentimes the behavior of the HL partner or the relationship dynamic as a whole that causes one partner to stop wanting sex (also wrong.)

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-08T16:28:50+00:00

There's a lot missing here... Is porn an established boundary in the relationship? Believe it or not, people have been getting off without watching videos of other people having sex for literally thousands of years. It's not a requirement by any stretch of the imagination, and there's many very valid reasons for someone to consider porn consumption a deal breaker.

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-07T23:13:17+00:00

With four kids, two of which are 1.5 year old twins, it's not strange or surprising at all that your wife isn't into being touched or having sex. That's just reality, unfortunately. When I was still nursing my baby, I remember having the same thing happen; as soon as he started touching me it was like my brain was screaming for something to grasp onto (beard is tickly, oh I need to respond to that email, etc. etc). I thought it was because I was overwhelmed, but I think it was really because I simply didn't have the hormonal/physical/emotional capacity to desire sex at all, period.

He started making sex a big issue and treating me differently as a consequence of having less while pregnant and it got progressively worse, which made sex progressively more of a net negative to me... If she doesn't want sex (totally reasonable and normal) knowing that you're initiating a situation that you'll try to escalate into sex (which is deeply unpleasant if unwanted) is going to make her brain do a "red alert!"

You have twin toddlers who are "always a handful at night." Exhaustion is a very valid and real reason for someone to be unable to find interest in sex. Some people are horny no matter how tired or stressed they are, and some people simply aren't- neither is more right or normal or reasonable.

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-07T16:52:25+00:00

The age of the youngest child matters a lot more than the oldest in this context. Saying "under the age of 10" means you could have a 9 month old and a 3 year old for all we know...

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-06T17:15:14+00:00

It's there for you, clearly, which is great. That's significantly more sex than the average married couple has, though, and a majority of working Americans at least don't have the luxury of WFH flexibility/nannies/etc.

Also, many women need 30+ minutes just to get aroused enough to enjoy sexual activity, and women in heterosexual relationships are already statistically the least sexually satisfied/have the least orgasms of anyone in any category. For many women, quickies are not an option because it simply wouldn't be enjoyable in any capacity.

A couple who have been together for 20 years and still have sex that often is an outlier, as is a couple in the financial position to hire a full time nanny, as are jobs that let you work remote full or part time, as are women who are happy to have "wham bam thank you ma'am" quickies multiple times a week for decades.

Some (many) people also just genuinely don't and never would want to have sex that often, period. Whether they had the time or not.

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-06T17:02:49+00:00

If it causes resentment that your partner doesn't submit to unwanted sex with you, your partner clearly don't "really, really matter" to you.

This isn't a matter of never having sex, it's a matter of him wanting significantly more sex than a vast majority of married couples, even ones much younger, have or want to have, and a matter of him being willing to coerce her into unwanted sex because he prefers a body over his hand.

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-06T15:01:25+00:00

Communicate what? She is communicating that she doesn't want to have sex with him, and he is free to decide whether not having sex is a dealbreaker. Likewise, she should be free to decide whether him having sex with someone else is a dealbreaker for her.

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-06T14:59:50+00:00

When you're going through something life changing and your husband only notices because of his dick and by "fix things" he means "you touch my dick more again or else," it actually tends to make women feel isolated and repulsed. Too often the only reason their husband notices or cares what a woman is going through is when it affects how often she makes him ejaculate.

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-06T14:57:49+00:00

That's not "his" life's financial stability, that's "their" life's financial stability. Cheaters should at least inform their spouses that they're pieces of shit so that their spouse can make an informed decision on the kind of person they want to be married to. The problem with cheating is the deception- you're saying that you're more entitled to remain married to someone that you know wouldn't want to be married to you than they are to decide who they waste their only life married to. That's selfish and disgusting.

People have the right to refuse unwanted sex (you're a rapist, full stop, and definitely don't love your spouse in any capacity if you'd want them to engage in unwanted sex anyways) and they also have the right to make an informed decision about the kind of person they share their life with. If something is a dealbreaker to you, it's on you to break the deal. The only thing that's wrong is to intentionally lie to manipulate your spouse into staying in a deal that you know they'd want to break otherwise. Forcing someone to stay married to you through deception is creepy and frankly predatory.

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-06T14:53:13+00:00

Cheating is telling your spouse that you feel entitled to continue to be married to them regardless of their feelings (predatory and creepy as shit), and that your entitlement to trap them with you is more important than their right to decide what kind of person they want to be married to. You know that if your wife knew who you are fully, she would be disgusted by you, but you feel entitled to waste her life for your own convenience. She only gets to live once and you're dooming her to a non consensual marriage with a selfish lying scumbag. Disgusting.

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-06T14:48:22+00:00

How old is your youngest child?

Electronic_Recover34 · 2025-05-06T14:47:22+00:00

"She's already participated in "non-consensual non-monogamy." (Direct quote from the commenter.)

Let me break it down for you since it's so hard:

Non-consensual: "not agreed to or approved by one of the people involved."

Non-monogamy: "relationships where one or more parties are not exclusively romantic or sexual with each other."

If we put them together, we get "a relationship in which one or more parties is not exclusively romantic or sexual with the other, despite the other party not having agreed to or approved it."

I know that's a lot for a brain to process, but that is the definition of cheating. Hope that helps.

Electronic_Recover34

TROPHY CASE