You know you're not the first person to say that porn makes monogamy easier (I know I've said it, and have friends who agree), just the first person I've seen get shredded for it.

When I point and say "what would Bob have done", remember there are four fingers pointing back at moi. I wonder the same thing. When I feel I'm losing the battle to come to terms with (or at least serenely accept) the internal dichotomy created when the needs and wants of the corporeal form jangle so harshly against those of the intellectual and spiritual selves, I drink. I suggest more beer. Let the superego take charge and repress the ego for a change. I'd recommed a little mental illness, too, but it's like drugs, not everyone can handle it.

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Cobalt, big ditto to everything you have said here (I won't bother to put it all in quotes).

And now to take Cobalt's prescription for happiness and go home to get a little drunk and a little crazy with the wife. God I love not having kids!

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What porn has done is to ease the pain of the trade-off of keeping my family together at the expense of feeling sexually deprived.

Unless and until I can manage to untie that Gordian knot (for instance, by convincing my wife to "open up" our marriage) or see my way clear through to severing it, the part of me that wants more frequent, more uninhibited, and more fun sex is going to continue to feel like shit.

I'm not feeling optimistic today.

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One thing you might consider is how strong the pull is between your wife and the children. She might feel that mothers don't luxuriate in sexual indulgence. She might be martyring her sexuality for her kids. Lots of us have done so. An exemplary mother certainly can't allow herself to be a depraved harlot even temporarily, even with the father of her children. Guilt is a powerful and destructive force. Some women never overcome it, and others learn to put it aside as they mature.

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you don't have to answer these questions if they offend you or whatever, i just want to know how all of these men end up in these sexual wastelands.

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At the time we got married, the sex was good. The disparity was there even then but, being relatively young, I thought (foolishly it turns out) that things would get even better as trust and intimacy grew between us. But it didn't work out that way.

It wasn't until the kids were well along -- and she had opted out of both couples counseling and individual therapy -- that I began to realize that things in the sex department weren't going to get any better. Denial is seductive and powerful, but only up to a point.

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Listen here dawg, If I EVER see that you've read my man journal, (men don't keep diaries), again, and then copied it word for word in an internet messageboard for all the world to see, I will sue you for blatant plagerism. And then I'll kick your ass. And then I'll buy you a beer.

That's MY misery up there, not yours.

BSD (23 years and counting, about the last 7 of 'em have been REAL tough.)

P.S. -

I'm down here in San Diego, and I know you're somewhere up in L.A. We gotta have a beer.

Edited by - BSD on 2/9/2007 5:06:48 AM

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The other thing I wondered was this - is she aware just how lousy this makes you feel?

Fergus

Edited by - fergus on 2/9/2007 11:21:13 AM

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I sometimes wish I/we didn't, because in a lot of ways it just makes the situation worse.

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Edited to Add: I don't want to paint her as a bitch, because she's not. She had childhood traumas around both abandonment and sex that she's never really been able to get past.

*

Edited by - bob on 2/9/2007 11:23:55 PM

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Any of those? All of those?

"I don't like the things those girls do in that mess you watch. It doesn't turn me on. Don't ask me to do them. Besides, I can't believe you actually like some of that stuff."

"Why can't you just love me the way I am instead of making me feel like I'm not good enough because I'm not into [monkeys, funny hats, snorting horseradish, etc.]."

"I don't like that I don't make you happy. Stop making me feel like something's wrong with me just because you have a problem with wanting sex all the damn time."

"And just why do you want sex / jerk off so much? Is that normal? Doctor, is he normal?"

If I'm way off base, tell me. I can't get in the zone if I don't have the right subtext to guide me.

If it turns out you get some on the side to take the edge off, you have to tell us because I'm using it for my book.

Edited by - cobalt60 on 2/9/2007 12:28:50 PM

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Both options are bad. It's just a question of which shit sandwich I choose. I've been sticking with (1) for the longest time -- partly because, until recently, I thought that some improvement might be possible. I no longer think so.

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Let Bob pick up the tab, BSD - he's not going to need money where he's going.

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But I'm in the same boat as him.

I can't bring myself to cheat. (Not out of any great committment to, or respect for, her. Just my own intrinsic morality won't let me.)

We are basically incommunicado. (Although not hostile, which is actually worse. There is no passion, good or bad. We really don't even fight that much anymore. We're no longer invested enough to get that emotional. Oh yeah, I remember sex, it's something that happened YEARS ago.)

And I will not leave my 15 year old Asperger's Syndrome (a form of autism) son, and 12 year old daughter, solely to her mismanagement.

So we soldier on. Two ships that passed in the night long ago.

BSD

Edited by - BSD on 2/9/2007 4:43:09 PM

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I refuse to lie to you - 1) being empathic with you can be a real pain sometimes and 2) I am thankful, thank you.

Don't be a martyr. I didn't see my dad for about ten years growing up, but I moved in with him when I was 15 and we're still close. Yes, that's the devil's advocate you hear, and yes, it's just me adding insult to injury.

Is sex really that important? She's right, you're a Freak, with a capital "F".

I'll leave you to your misery. I'll be back with some salt for them wounds, though.

Bob, BSD

*sigh* Aw, jeez, guys.

You're making me feel like a rich man in a soup kitchen. Let's forget about your problems for a minute and think how awkward it must be for me with my sane, rational, non-frigid wife.

Integrity and a sense of responsibility must suck. How do you slimes sleep at night?

Edited by - cobalt60 on 2/9/2007 4:57:53 PM

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You guys ready to beat my ass yet?

You both know you deserve better. You know what your options are. You are aware of the long-term consequences of your decisions. It's painfully obvious that the universe is unfolding just as unfairly as it always has, but it's picking on you in particular and if you feel persecuted, you're certainly entitled.

So the least I can do is pick up the tab.

You just have to fly me out to California first.

Edited by - cobalt60 on 2/9/2007 5:53:37 PM

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Partly that's because there are several different kinds of "love". Even if a person is blessed with some of those kinds (for me, friend-love with my wife and parent-love with my children), they may feel starved for another kind (for me, sexual love).

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However bad things are in my marriage (and it fluctuates), I often look at my kids and think, if not for her I wouldn't have them -- I might have other kids, but not them.

For that reason, despite the rest, I wouldn't undo what's been done.

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Here's where our paths veer a little bit.

I love my kids, but in truth I never wanted kids. And I was very clear about that before I was married. And the entire time we were dating, up to and through our marriage, my ball and chain was adament about not wanting children as well. I was, "Okay, this might work."

My mistake was believing that a 19 year old "woman" (term used loosely), really knew what she was talking about when it came to never having kids. I believe that she meant it at the time, but I should have been smart enough to not put so much stock in that. Because by the time she got to 26 and all her sisters were having babies, and life was looking a little different to her, and that "motherly" thing was jonesing on her, she started singing a much different song.

And there I was, seven years into this, fully invested, and standing there.

So I swallowed hard and did the right thing.

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids, and wouldn't give them back. I honestly believe that I would not still be here if not for them. Especially with my son being a special needs guy, and me being more in tune with him than anyone else. (Not because she's been a deficient Mom, it's just that I've spent more time with him than anyone else.) As long as they are here, I wouldn't think of splitting. And truthfully, we've (she and I) reached an operating level where the kids are not really harmed by our having grown distant. There is no open hostility. We sing from the same music, we're reasonably united in our spproach to the kids and how we conduct our lives, and we do function well as a family. But neither she nor I is happy with the state of our personal relationship and have just resigned to subordinate that to the other things we consider important. Many would say that this is what all marriages do at some point, and to some extent.

But hindsight being what it is, if I had to do it all over again, I can't say that I would.

BSD

Edited by - BSD on 2/10/2007 12:34:19 PM

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I hear you. Our paths do veer a bit.

But where we are in the arc of our lives, the priorities we have, and the frustrations we try to cope with seem damn similar.

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I woke up this morning (the 10th of February). All the rancor I'd felt toward her from the fight we had a couple of days before over the "I'd Rather Eat Chocolate" book had passed.

It was my wife's birthday. All I felt was the desire to reconnect in the ways that we do connect (and have always connected) so well. And I wanted her to feel special and enjoy the day.

We had a very good day, she and the boys and I. Now she's asleep. The boys are long asleep. And here I am, the perennial night owl, typing away. I'll feel frustrated again tomorrow or the next day or the day after -- I know that. But right at this moment, I feel content basking in the afterglow of the very good day we spent together.

Weird.

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Word.

Now THAT sounds familiar.

We, (she and I), agree on most things. Although we do sometimes have some childrearing philosophical differences. But since our kids are teenagers and mostly formed now, even those are pretty much in the past.

But the sex and intimate communication is a major problem, and after time that negatively colors the rest of the relationship.

It's funny, the only advice my Dad gave me at marriage, was to coordinate your financial goals and outlook, and do not get over the rocks about money, for that is the ruin of most marriages. Fight about sex or anything else in your relationship, but do not fight about money. It is a killer. And that has been the one area where me and my old lady have been in excellent concert from the beginning. Financially, we have always been in tune and pulling in the same direction, and it has served us well.

But the sex...

BSD

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Oh but if I could just get over that moral hump.

Trust me, in 24 years I've been close a couple of times. Painfully close once.

But I've always stepped back from the precipice. I don't know whether I'm too moral or too chicken.

Thank God for porn.

BSD

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Withholding Sex = Ethical * but * Cheating = Unethical?

Is that because the withholding person is being "honest"?

When children are involved, it's not a simple ethical question.

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* maybe i don't know what i'm talking about, maybe i do...

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On the other hand, if you believe sex is important to the marriage, yet refuse sexual intercourse, that is like saying, "I'm not going to fulfill my responsibilities to the marriage." Demanding sexual fidelity at the same time is like adding "But I expect you to fulfill yours." No good can come of that.

I tend to think our ancestors had the right of it. Marriage is a means to carry on the family and to accrue wealth and power. Ergo, the purpose of sexual intercourse in marriage is to have children. If sexual love happens then consider it a nice bonus. Otherwise, seek fulfillment elsewhere; discreetly, of course.

The romantics have a lot to answer for.

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????

You quoted me, but I'm not sure you're talking TO me, or ABOUT me.

Where did you get the idea that I was refusing to have sex with my spouse?

BSD

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Your response to BSD's post was, "+1 ethics."

My response to you was that it's not an easy equation of of "this is ethical, that is not." Nor, at a certain point, is it terribly meaningful from the perspective of a sex-starved spouse whether his/her partner is "withholding sex consciously" or is "simply not wanting to have sex".

My wife is a kind person, an ethical person, not a consciously manipulative person. But where does that get me? Nowhere. "Honesty" is beside the point.

In any case, (as Hardware noted), in the context of a marriage, "not wanting to have sex" can't be simple anyway.

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