Hi jking,

Welcome!  There are only a couple of people I've seen on this forum who are choosing to go through the transition  with their partners.  This is primarily for the reasons you mentioned in your post (they are being mistreated, the spouse is acting like a teenager, etc.).  So - don't be offended if the majority of the advice you are given here is to leave him.  That's because the majority of us have lived through it only to find out it never gets better.  Unless this is what you truly want, it's time you examine if you are getting what you want and deserve.  That's the best place to start.  Maybe you  have already done that.  But be very leery of anyone who is acting like a child.  Behavior like that often does not improve (in our experience here) and tends to slowly get worse until one day you realize he's been mistreating you for years.  Good luck and welcome!

Hi All
This is my first time on here . I’m not really sure how and we’re I share my story .
If anyone could help , would be great !

I'm so embarrassed to ask this question but this is a forum to help people understand so... If I can't ask here, where can I ask?
Ok. Deep breath.
I've been married 20 years. In a relationship for 23. I have 3 children. When my STBX and I were dating, the sex was frequent. I mean, I thought it was. I wasn't very experienced. But it was a lot from my memory. The minute we got engaged, it stopped. I excused it as we didn't want to be pregnant on our wedding day. But I assumed it would pick up once we were married. It never did. It's been 20 years.of him telling me that he's tired or he's on medication or he ate too much at dinner or he's a morning person and I'm not and the kids are home or our daughter's bedroom is below ours and she might hear or.. or . Or... It did a number on my self confidence. Eventually, after being called a pervert for wanting to do something different from woman on top, I stopped asking. (Sorry, I warned you this was TMI). In 20 years I've probably had sex with my husband 50-75 times total and most.of that was when we were trying to conceive. I would voice concerns and tell my husband that it felt weird and what was wrong with me that he didn't want me like the magazines said men did. That all you hear is how much men think about sex. How often they want to do it. I even scheduled Wednesday "funches" so he would come home on Wednesday at lunch for some "fun " he only did it once and never did it again. Always had an excuse. And I believed the excuses because he was working so much.
When I would tell my husband I felt like things were off, he would tell me that the media had confused me. Exaggerated things. That men didn't think about sex as often as the TV made me think they did. And, because I wanted to have sex, I kept thinking I WAS a pervert because I definitely wanted it more than he did and he said the media was wrong. I mean, I'm not a man. I don't know what's real and true.
So... Now I understand. Now I get it. He's gay. He didn't want to have sex with a woman. But now I'm wondering #1. How often DO men want to have sex usually? I know there's not a one size fits all answer, but do they really usually want to do it a lot or is that a media thing? How often should a woman expect them to be interacting?
#2 if you reach across the bed to start something, do men actually brush you away and roll over or, even if they are tired, do they rally??
#3 if a man isn't having sex but once every few months (starting when he's 30), is he either handling it himself, having someone else handle things, or completely fine sound nothing for weeks and months on end? I'm just trying to figure out how often I was cheated on. How often I should expect things to be different in the future. If men need some kind of release like the movies act like they do, then he was definitely with someone else on and off because there was never ANY release. But if men can go months and months with no "stimulation" maybe he wasn't ...
Sorry to be so graphic!!!!
Thanks for your help

Last edited by ImSoConfused (October 30, 2023 12:01 am)

have been with my partner 11 years. Im female he is male.We were early twenties when we met. Our sex life was very normal for the first few years, aside from difficulty maintaining elections ( however I thought this was due to being inexperienced and possibly nervous). We stopped having sex as much due to my chronic illness. It didn't seem to affect him at first, however over the years he would mention how he watches too much porn and we don't have sex enough. He would always seem very stressed by how "unhealthy" he thought porn was. I'm not sure what kind and really how often he was using it. I always assumed the shame came from religious background.

In the last year things have really started to change. He started taking testosterone due to depression and low mood/libido. Keep in mind I wasn't wanting sex due to health, however when we would he wouldn't seem to have any issues performing. I was against testosterone however eventually accepted it.

Second thing I found one day in the garbage was cialis ( election medication). We hadn't really been having sex. He told me he was using it as pre workout.

He was always at the gym. Almost 7 days a week. On weekends at the same time for 2 sometimes three hours. He would not change his routine even though I would ask him to hang out with me in the morning.he would get very annoyed If he had to miss it.

He started showering BEFORe the gym and from what I can tell shaving his balls. Always getting very defensive when I ask him about it.

I know he really likes texting and talking to a few guys from his gym. He really only sees them and not his long time friends. He's always talking about men. Never women. He talks about his gym friends with his family even and he knows alot about a couple of them.

He's always giddy texting one of them.

He started acting distant to me while still checking all the boxes. I feel he no longer cares about my opinion. He's so self obsessed and focused only on his image now.i feel he resents me. He says he can't be himself with me, That I don't understand him. He talks occasionally of a crisis and a void but claims it's to do with work. I asked him a couple questions relating to the gym guys and his response was " omg do you think I'm gay" I said I dont know. He said " he's super straight". He then never brought up the convo again which was suspicious.

Anyways are these actually red flags ?