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Hello Everyone,
I hope everyone is well. It's such a strange time. I feel like everything is upside down. My husband is very black and white, he figures he has chosen to stay with me, he has broken off contact with the other man and he wants our marriage to work. What is missing for me is feeling his passion and I'm not just talking sex, though that is part of it.
I do know he loves me, we are still very close but he almost never initiates sex and often rejects my advances. He either has a low libido or is just not into me. Tangle Oil talked about bi-cycling where he is sometimes dealing with his desire for men and sometimes wanting me. I talked with my husband about this and he agrees that that is happening. I wonder though, if what he really doesn't want to deal with is that he is not "in love" with me anymore.
I have always questioned his in love feelings which drives him crazy. He says he has been in love with me for a very long time, but sometimes isn't attracted to me. I do have a bit of a belly and we are older now. He is almost 60, so he doesn't have a young body anymore either. It's worse for women because men fetishize young women's bodies and women's bodies really change after menopause. I don't work out. I do walk a lot and I am not obese but I am a little over weight. Maybe 5 or 6 years ago, when I pressed him about why we weren't having sex, he finally said it was like eating an unappetizing meal. Ouch! We have had many wonderful sexual experiences since he said that.....long term marriage is such a jumble.
I know I am maybe getting too personal. I hope you don't mind. We are at the stage where I am trying to figure out if I can stay with him because I may feel constantly wanting of what he cannot give which is reassurance that he is in love and a much more active sex life. I mean I may be older, but I'm not THAT old and I've lived without much sex in this relationship for far too long.
Peace out!
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Hi Sonata. I know where you are coming from! Been 3years since I had sex. Maybe once a year prior to that for like 6 years. My wife came out to me as a lesbian In July of this year. Now I know why!!!. We get along well and are still married. But we will never be intimate again. I don't want to remain celibate for the rest of my life, yet I would never step outside the marriage.(no thanks to an open relationship) So where does that leave us? Time will tell, I have noticed that there are a lot of beautiful women out there! nuff said. Stevo
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Sonata,
I wonder what the meaning of "making the marriage work" is to your husband. Because obviously it's not working for you.
I think his focus at the moment is (still) mainly on himself, directed inward. He has to deal with his sexuality... his feelings... keeping it in check. Maybe he thinks that's the solution to make it work, and this should be sufficient for you too.
It all turns around his gay/bi sexuality as the central gravity point of the marriage, and you are also sucked into orbit. It's not surprising you don't feel passion as the attention is directed on this center, and you're not there in that center.
He probably doesn't fully understand how this impacts you, maybe he hears it but it doesn't really sink in. Not like: "OMG I'm doing it all wrong" (maybe his whole life long?) and "my wife should be the focus of my love and nothing else".
Love means his focus is on you, accepting who you are as a person, understanding your needs emotionally and sexually. Going for that goal, maybe not always perfect but that should be his strive.
And that's in the first place a choice, an act of the will: putting you in that central place within himself.
(This is actually the main subject in my wife's posts: the shift of priority in her thinking that was essential to connect to me. For me to feel her love and passion, but also for her to truly understand my feelings).
You shouldn't allow yourself to think you aren't attractive enough. As if somehow faults or shortcomings of you are to blame. It's not!
It's a common pitfall to be thinking like that, but it's caused by feeling rejected and not receiving the acknowledgment you need. It's not because of you, but it's ONLY caused by your husbands sexuality and how that made you feel.
True, with age the body becomes less glamorous than when we were twenty. It would be strange to expect otherwise. If I expected my wife to look the same as thirty years ago, I would be the one who has a problem, not she.
Yes, man are visual beings. But I'll tell you a secret, our attention is set to all the beauty the wife we love has to offer (because that's important to us) and we simply ignore possible shortcomings (because they are not of interest to us).
So if a man starts nagging about the looks of his wife, very likely there is some other problem in the relation that is the real cause.
All of this has a huge impact on you, it shows how extremely important it is for your husband to really accept you who you are and work towards you.
He has to realize your importance, his responsibility for your wellbeing if he chooses to go for the marriage. That he stands up to himself and decides that if he loves you, he's not going to let it happen you are being hurt.
It starts with conviction (choice), feelings follow, these lead to actions. And this will also heal you eventually.
But he has to (want to) take these steps.
edit...
My wife and I talked about it some more this morning and SamanthaNL wondered if you also read her post of a few months ago. Because it was split up in two parts (first one to Lily, but some days later another post specifically in reponse to you), she thought you could easily have missed it.
Last edited by Dutchman (December 6, 2020 9:05 am)
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Hi Sonata,
I’m so sorry for all you’re going through. Look at the Reddit MarriedandBi subreddit. So much helpful information there. As far as the bi-cycle that many bisexual people talk about I’ve never been aware of it as far as my husband is concerned. He’s never been obviously not into me. We’ve had sex and intimacy at least once per week, and often more frequently, for nearly three decades. The longest we’ve gone was three weeks only once and that is because we were both ill. My husband usually initiates. When he was figuring it out that he was bi the last couple years I always felt he loved me, but at times I felt like he didn’t like me. He and I have spoken about that and he said he’s always loved me, but he didn’t like himself so it came across as not liking me.
if you’d like I can send you the link to the subreddit I think may be helpful in understanding how bisexual people think about their needs and bisexuality in general.
Tangled
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stevo wrote:
I have noticed that there are a lot of beautiful women out there! nuff said.
Yes, Stevo! I'm still with my spouse, too...but one effect his coming out had on me is that I notice other guys more now...I used to find myself quickly breaking eye contact when I'd catch an attractive man checking me out on the train or wherever...I no longer do that...There's a certain sort of comfort in knowing that there's a great big world of possibilities out there.
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Thank you everyone and thank you Dutchman for your reply especially because my husband read it and it really resonated with him. For the first time he said that he had been more focused on himself than on me. I think he understood for the first time.