I've thought about not even jumping in on this thread, because I have no experience in choosing a MOM, nor did I ever consider one.  And that's because I knew it couldn't work for me.  How do I know?  Because I was IN a MOM for 16 years, and for at least the last 10 years, I was suffering, and trying to make the intimate part of our marriage not be overly important to me.  I didn't realize I was in a MOM, of course.  But the reality of the situation is that I was still left with the same outcome - someone who didn't willingly bring any intimacy to the table.  It seemed my only option - no matter what the core issue was - would be to lie my wishes for intimacy down at the alter of marriage, and make them unimportant.  I don't know HOW many times I tried that, but suffice it to say at least dozens.  Every single time, I'd think I could do it.  I'd stuff that physical need down inside, like the batting in a pillow.  Like having jello for dessert, it seemed there would always be room for more, metaphorically speaking.  Until one day, I stuffed some more batting in, and the seams popped.  I tried to stitch the seams, only to learn that other seams would pop when I went to stuff that batting inside.  Until I realized that the batting was too much - I'd stuffed all I could into the pillow, and there was nowhere left to stuff any more.  And so it lay around me on the floor - unable to be hidden any longer - to myself or anyone else.

I thought my ex GIDXH was just..... asexual.  Or just extraordinarily low sex drive.  Or too wounded by his sexually abusive past to think of sex as something beautiful, touching, passionate and giving and amazing.  I felt that by pressuring him, I was literally inflicting trauma.  And yet I STILL couldn't make my desire for intimacy go away.  It wasn't just the physical act of sex - it was anything that went along with being more than friends, really.  It was holding hands, it was needing someone to occasionally come up behind me while I did dishes or laundry, just to kiss me on the back of the neck or to put their arms around me.  It was looking across the room and seeing him staring at me as if I were his world.  I could dress to the nines and the kids would all ooh and ahh, and his comment to me was, "Ready (to go)?"  I'd sometimes even start the compliments toward him, just to see if it got me anywhere.  "You look really nice."  His response? "Thanks".  If I said, "How do I look?", I'd get, "Fine."  Fine???  I'd done my hair, my makeup, put on a killer dress and heels, shaved and glossified everything, smelled delicious, was sparkling with little touches, and I looked...... FINE?  It wasn't just about sex - it was all of it - including but not limited to sex.  Even the sex was half-hearted.  I couldn't get a passionate kiss to save my f'ing life.  Sex was something I had to coerce him into.  It was done in the dark, soundless, only in missionary position, while he looked anywhere but at me.  "Don't say 'I love you' during - that just ruins it."  "Touch me here", I'd beg.  He'd say, "Can't you just be happy with where I touch you?"  No, I couldn't be happy with him getting sex but me being too gross to have my genitals touched.  I began to push him - why couldn't I ever get oral sex?  He certainly accepted it all the time from me.  (Now, it was a metaphorical argument - I didn't really WANT oral sex from someone who didn't enjoy it or know wtf they were doing.  But still.)  And you know what that man said?  That if I took a shower and then put Saran Wrap over my genetalia, maybe then.  Maybe then I could be happy with oral sex.  As if I could be happy receiving something from someone who is so grossed out by my body that they need a f'ing barrier between me and them to tolerate it.  None of this was hitting my sweet spot.  None of it seemed more than anything I could get from a good friend who was a roommate.  And we weren't roommates - we were spouses.

It didn't matter that we were were friends.  It didn't matter that we had some love for each other.  I have all these things with others.  There was literally nothing making our relationship exquisitely special from anyone other relationship in my life.  Was there any reason we couldn't be friends without being married?  If we really liked to spend time together all that much, we would.  We didn't need a marriage certificate to do that.  I spend plenty of time with my good friends, and we have no certificates prompting us to do so.

I loved him at one point in time, and I never did wish him anything but happiness - even in our darkest days.  But stick around because we loved each other?  No.  That meant giving up all the things that I was marrying for in the first place.  Otherwise we could have just remained good friends forever.  I tried to rationalize that if I had all those things, and then my husband got into a horrific accident that left him paralyzed and unable to sexually perform (or even feel touch), then I wouldn't leave him, would I???  No!  Of course not!  Only even in that case he'd still likely want my kiss, look on me with desire even if it couldn't be fulfilled.  He could maybe still tell me how beautiful I was, and that I was his world.  I had a non-paralyzed man who wouldn't even do that much, and wouldn't tell me what the f*cking problem really was.  In the end, it didn't matter if his problem was that he was gay, asexual, or just not that into sex.  I was left with the same outcome - an unfulfilled need for intimacy on many levels.  It was clear that if I left, I still might not ever get all I needed and wanted.  But if I stayed, it was clear what I'd have to accept.  I would literally be choosing unhappiness.   And I just couldn't continue to choose unhappiness.  If I wanted to be happy, I had to cut this marriage and this man loose.  It was my only shot at happiness.  I already knew what I had wasn't working for me, nor was there any hope left for things to change.  I was at the end of the road.

I couldn't choose to stay together just because at one time, we had (or I thought we had) it all.  I am vibrant, giving, and have so much to give others.  I couldn't handle not giving that to someone, and having it be readily received.  I was tired of having no outlet to pour out my desires and excitement into.

I respect everyone's right to be in a MOM.  I just feel that most often, it's fear-driven.  You won't crumble into a shell of person without them.  Neither will they without you.  You can still be friends if that's the way it works out.  You don't need to be married to spend all your free time together, or take your problems to each other.  So you love them.  I love plenty of people - I don't consider them my spouses.  They don't need to be.  But I DO NEED my spouse to give me mental and physical intimacy.  I won't settle for less.

Now that I have that, I cannot believe I suffered for so long without it.  I told myself countless times that love doesn't give up.  Only he'd given up on me long before - I wasn't worth loving except in a friendship kind of way.  Fine - so be it.  I took my chances that the future would be better.  And it blew my past out of the f'ing water.  I don't even know how I was surviving that way for so long.  It all seems so pointless now, when I look back at it all.  He's so much happier now too that he's allowed to express what he wants to a person who gives him back what he needs.  It's clear to me that staying together would have been so limiting to us BOTH.  And not the message I wanted to send my kids about what to expect in their own futures.

Kel

Last edited by Kel (October 24, 2016 1:05 pm)

Hi Sherry, 
I know me too.  Our sex life is better and overall we've both been generally happier (after the shock was over).  It's like the elephant in the room is gone.  I flip flopped a lot initially though I really couldn't see us separating that idea never felt right.  You can check out Alternate Path on Yahoo groups if you're looking for a woman only chat group.  I'm on there but I come here to SSN too.

I disagree with the notion that we stay in a MOM because we're afraid.  Honestly it would be easy for me to leave, I have employment, enough income, youth, I'm attractive, I would do fine.  I stay because he's a great guy, he loves me, treats the kids and me amazing.  He just happens to have a SSA (same sex attraction) too.  Sex is important to me and as long as we're still having sex I'm sticking around.

Vicky

Dear Kel, No-one in their right mind choses to be in a MOM. Almost all of us made this painful discovery somewhere along the road. In my case, as my partner/wife slowly came to understand herself, her orientation, and its un-changing nature. So I'm a little puzzled by your 'have a right to be in a MOM'. I would give anything not to be. And yes, I know that I could leave. But 'we are broken together'. I have the choice of leaving, and losing all or most of what we have together, in the hope of finding something better, another, better relationship. But with no certainty or guarantee. At nearly 70 years of age. Or coming to terms with what I/we don't have, don't, can't share. And savor the good things that we do have, that we do share. There's no painless way out or on.

After reading your post Sean I googled the term 'same sex attraction' and must admit to being amazed at how many links to religious organizations it brought up.

I don't think it's exclusively a 'conservative Christian' term (as the Urban Dictionary claims) as it does appear on some Australian government web sites. I live in Australia so naturally Google is bringing Australian links to the top.

I've always seen it as a 'catch all' term that basically means gay, lesbian, homosexual etc. I don't think anyone here has ever had an 'agenda' in using the term.

I've read the criticisms of the use of the term and honestly can't see what the problem is. Some people claim that the term implies that 'same sex attraction' is a choice or fixable. I can't see how the term itself implies that at all. Maybe people who don't like the term only have that opinion because the term is used A LOT by 'pray the gay away' organizations.

Does anyone else think the term is somehow tainted or loaded? Anyone else find it problematic?

What I say is that after 30 plus years struggling with her same sex attractions,  my wife came out to herself and to me as a lesbian. She first said 'bisexual' then she corrected herself and said 'lesbian'. And given that she knows how much our sexless relationship pains me, I have to accept that if she can offer no intimacy at all, no compromise  (mutual masturbation, for example), she really is 100% lesbian,  now relieved that she no longer has to pretend or to force herself.

On the deeper, wider, more important point, I sadly conclude that there is no help and support here for those of us who chosen to stay with our partners. When I say that, it's just a fact, there's absolutely no judgment of the choices that you have made. Had I discovered the reality earlier,  that we had a mom, I probably would have left too. For the sake of us both, not just for myself. But this is such a lonely road. There's so much fellowship and support for gays and lesbians coming out of MOM'S,  and lots of support and fellowship for recovering straights. But SO little for those struggling on. MONMOM on Yahoo currently has 239 members, and I think, including me, 3 straight men married to lesbians! My other 'home' is the MOM forum on the Gay Christian Network. There I am one of the only straights.