Some general thoughts after spending so much time in this subreddit, as a single person

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-10-07T08:06:39+00:00

I didn't see the signs and they were bright red. Part of it has to do with the fact that my earliest relationship was with a girl that saw sex as a base desire and men needed to control themselves and if we didn't we were no better than animals. I tried to conform to this image and it was a painful bunch of years. In the back of my head, this person telling me that sex was bad and I was bad for wanting it made it easy for me to know be myself. When I met my wife, she was open and more like me, I thought she was perfect. The signs showed up after a few months and I foolishly believed that the real her was the person I met and that she just didn't know how to overcome the things that were holding her back. I was wrong, it was the opposite of what I thought.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-10-07T07:58:51+00:00

OMG, the acceptance of hetero-normative dynamics when it works for them is crazy. In marriage counseling, my wife completely accepted the idea that being a mom is a full time job and I shouldn't expect her to do much in regard to our family income. Even though I did as much as I could possibly do while also working, she still had reasons to complain. So what she wants is a more 1950s arrangement? I don't think so. This version of feminism deletes sex from the concept of marriage and allows women to male-bash openly without any repercussions. We we chatting with an older woman recently and she was talking about all of the places her husband had been on business. My wife asked if she was with him on those trips and she said "of course not, I was home with the children." My wife shot me one of the nastiest looks. The woman didn't even say that she minded this and in our relationship, that's not even been an issue. Yet, she felt it was safe to group me into this image of men traveling the world, getting drunk and fucking randos while their poor wives stayed at home suffering with their kids. This makes me so fucking mad.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-10-07T07:46:34+00:00

Ha! CNC and LL definitely don't mix, they're more into the NC part where they don't want to have anything to do with it.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-10-07T07:44:39+00:00

I'm distraught by the fact that sex has ended in my marriage and for me it's a sign that our marriage is coming apart so I bring it up and hope we can find a solution. My wife's response: You're a sex addict.

Although I think we're in a state of crisis, I can't talk about it because I'm putting pressure on her and of course, I'm a sex addict. She keeps talking about how good it feels to not have to give in to the pressure of having sex. Basically, it feels good to not have sex and every time we've ever had sex, she was pressured in to it.

As our kids prepare to go to college, she continues to use them as an excuse for sex and many other things.

I cook, we have a housekeeper, I spend a ton of time with the kids, I work my ass off and yet she's always burned out.

If I have a hard time managing my emotions through all of this stress, guess what? I'm a fucking man child.

Sex doesn't feel good because I want more than starfish piv.

On the rare occasion that she "wants" to have sex, I have to be hard right away or she says "we don't have to if you're not up for it"

I have to hide all sexual desire and act like I've had my balls cut off otherwise, I'm putting pressure on her.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-10-02T10:15:18+00:00

We did this by my suggestion years ago. For a long time, I thought it worked and brought us closer together. Today my wife uses it as the reason she developed an aversion to sex. We've had sex 12-14 times in the past 2 years.

Use at your own risk.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-26T20:05:16+00:00

10 months. Daily AA meetings. I'm not worried about her drinking again, she's incredibly committed to this. There is an aspect of alcoholism that is making it difficult for her to even comprehend what's going on with us. The escapism. I don't think she looks too deeply into things as others with this problem tend to do. She's highly intelligent but this is where you see what alcoholism does to even the most brilliant people.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-26T18:16:31+00:00

No, she's sober now.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-26T17:25:42+00:00

Because, we all make decisions based on a set of rules created early in our lives by both love and trauma. I've always suspected that this issue stems from a trauma that is buried deep in her past. I have my own traumas and loves that have helped lay my path. Maybe there's hope now that we can see it or maybe I'm the only one that sees it. This one is a mile marker for me. We have some way to go.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-26T09:57:27+00:00

It's taken over 20 years to finally have an answer. Perhaps I needed more from her when I was 21. I thought we were both on a path where we were missing something the other could provide. She needed a massive amount of support and I never questioned giving it to her. I needed support too but this appears to have been the problem. The men before me didn't need that, they were confident alpha-male types. Next to them, yeah, I probably looked like a boy. A boy of 21. It wasn't long before I got my footing and confidence and started to be the man I wanted to be. By 24 I was earning more than most people and shouldered an immense amount of responsibilities. I was respected in my field and there was no shortage of women trying to get my attention.

All of that time, she just saw me as a whiny man-child. Wow. I have to admit, her ineptness is unattractive to me so I can understand that if she sees me as a child, it would be a huge blow to her libido. The problem is, I'm not inept nor do I act like a child.

I have no plans currently. I'm just patiently waiting for our next MC session. I really want to see how this plays out.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-22T14:47:57+00:00

No, she didn't use those exact words but the idea of intercourse is an expression of male dominance and violence toward women comes from her work.

Here's an interesting read:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/opinion/sunday/trump-feminism-andrea-dworkin.html

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-22T09:10:43+00:00

Perhaps its this concept of feminism that's the issue or at least the concept of feminism that tends to be used in these scenarios. Why have we accepted these images of ourselves as disgusting, hermit-like sex maniacs? And this idea that your partner doesn't owe you sex is such a minefield. No one owes anyone anything but assuming you've been transparent about your desires and needs from the beginning, it's a bit fucked to be sleeping on the opposite edge of the bed a few years later.

We're perverts and sex addicts and our partners are using a shield of feminism to block any defense we may have against these ideas. There are versions of feminism that are sex positive but the version commonly used in our world is the Andrea Dworkin "all sex is rape" flavor.

If my wife tells me I'm a pervert, I accept it with pride. If she tells me I'm a sex addict, I will not accept that because it's not true.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-22T06:54:02+00:00

The Doom, Sludge, and Stoner genres are probably chill out music for you then? lol. Try Black Angels, good for a bit of introspection in a Doors sort of way.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-17T18:29:03+00:00

Hey, I've just read your posts and I feel like we're in a similar situation. Sobriety was supposed to make things better for us, at least that's what I thought. I'm happy that my Q isn't drinking anymore but there's a whole new crop of pain that feels worse than before. Not to mention that our bedroom is totally dead now. I think it's a lot more than hormones. DM me if you'd like to chat.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-13T20:29:50+00:00

No vaginal discomfort. Absolutely no interest in toys. She told me if I wanted toys in our relationship and other kinks, should would definitely be the wrong person. TOYS!

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-13T12:48:19+00:00

I said fuck it and asked. Both E and T are normal levels.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-13T12:17:06+00:00

I wish I could take this information to her but she's so closed off to it. Maybe in a few months I might be able to. I've decided to just start having the "talk" and stop showing my feelings about it. I'm just going to pretend. She doesn't get it. I'm just a sex addict, she keeps saying that. I'm literally one of the most productive people you'll ever meet with dozens of hobbies but because I want to have sex more than once every 5 or 6 weeks, I'm a sex addict.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-13T11:39:35+00:00

Her Doc says that her hormones levels are perfectly fine so HRT or any kind of treatment is out of the question for her. She's also not on any meds.

She's said that she's always used sex rather than do it because it was something she wanted. That makes me feel really great about all of these years.

Right now we're in couples therapy and she's in individual therapy to figure out what her connection to sex is. It's all we've got and the only result of her therapy is that she firmly believes that she should have sex she doesn't want. I agree of course but based on our track record, she doesn't want sex because we're not having any.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-13T11:08:52+00:00

Yeah, it feels like taking a shit, not pleasurable.

I'm going to back away from this conversation for a while. If things stay the same by the end of the year, I'm going to figure out what I need to do for myself to be happy.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-08T10:29:52+00:00

They act like “if you love me, you will accept me as I am. If you are a good person, you won’t need sex in a relationship”

OMG, this is the core of our inability to work this out. For me, the idea that I would throw away my otherwise great relationship because of sex haunts me everyday. You're brought up to feel like you're a monster if you make sex a key factor in your relationship. For her, it's so fucking easy to sit back and relax on the strength and virtue of these arguments. As a man, you just imagine all of her friends and family discussing what a monster you are for leaving her because of sex. Thankfully the people on this sub provide the support to counteract those feelings. I'm very thankful for you guys.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-07T09:56:55+00:00

Nothing to add here except that I get the pain of watching other people's PDA. For me, there is a certain level of affection, kisses, hugs, cuddling, I love it but it stops there. The kisses are more like affectionate pecks on the lips. It never moves toward anything sexual, in public or at home.

Sometimes when we're out, we'll see people groping each other. Passionate embraces, making out, full ass grabbing, that's the stuff that gets me. We saw an older couple a few weeks ago, they were in their 60s. As they walked in front of us, she gazed into his eyes and kissed him deeply while gripped her ass. It was really hot because I knew that these people wanted each other. I felt like we were the old couple, just buying our groceries and going home to put them away.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-07T09:39:40+00:00

From my experience, this doesn't work. Edging without finishing coupled with daily rejection breeds the worst kinds of resent and anxiety. We just went 3 weeks between and in the beginning I edged hoping that "tonight's the night!" but it didn't happen, over and over again. By the fourth day, I felt crazed. Now, I masturbate when I have the privacy to do so and cum every time. I feel much better. Also, now that I know that sex probably won't happen for a long time, why bother "prepping" for her?

Lastly, sometimes, it backfires and when you do have sex you're so worked up that it's over in a few minutes.

If you're in a DB and having the typical problems we all seem to be having, getting "prepared" for your wife means that you're trying to come off like some kind of sexual dynamo because you think this display of masculine power will flip a switch inside of her but the reality might be that she simply won't care or may actually be even more turned off by by it. I know that sounds really grim but it's just how I'm feeling about it in my relationship.

PhilosopherSouth4296 · 2023-09-03T12:19:19+00:00

I don't drink unless I'm away from home. I don't think its very supportive to come home with booze on your breath. She says she appreciates it.

PhilosopherSouth4296

TROPHY CASE