Feeling Trapped: Do I Leave My Marriage Because of a Bad Sex Life? Ask Me Anything: January 2024
Ask Me Anything is an anonymous Q&A where individuals submit questions and Kimberly responds with general insights, suggestions, and resources.
Ask Me Anything Question:
Can you please help me?! My wife and I have been married for a little over 25 years. While we have a good relationship outside of the bedroom, inside the bedroom, we’re nothing more than roommates. Our sex life has been miserable from the very beginning and all throughout the 25 years of our marriage.
There’s no affection, no desire, and no love in our bed. I’ve been faithful, patient, and good to her all these years, but my patience has run out. I saved myself for marriage because I was told that if I did so, God would reward me with a beautiful, wonderful sexual relationship with my future wife. What a load of crap! Instead, I’ve been rewarded with a wife who thinks sex is gross and is only for the pleasure of the man. So she avoids it like the plague. We’ve been sexually intimate less than 10 times this year. But when it happens, it’s just as I describe below.
When we’re doing it, she just lays next to me while I masturbate her. She does nothing but lay there. She might masturbate me, but she shows very little affection. She is always wearing a shirt. She prevents me from kissing her breast, her body, or between her legs. So we just lay there while I rub her for a very long time—at least 20 minutes. (I know because I have watched the time.) She never makes a sound.But it seems like there are times when I bring her to orgasm because she hugs me tightly for a minute and then releases me. It’s then that she is ready to receive me. She doesn’t let me stay inside her for very long. She always wants me to stop right after I’ve had my orgasm, even though I can go longer. Then she turns her back to me and goes to sleep. This is what it’s like to have sex with my wife every time we do it. I’ve tried everything imaginable to address this problem, to no avail. We've done counseling, read books, watched videos, and tried all kinds of ideas to create a romantic setting. But nothing works to change what happens in the act of sex. It's always the same. Short of filing for divorce, what can I do to change this problem?
Kimberly’s Answer:
Thank you for sharing this vivid, but painful, description of your current sexual experiences and relationship. Many people who come to sex therapy report dynamics like this and many more never get to a sex therapy office and suffer for years in a dissatisfying sexual relationship. I picked this Ask Me Anything question from an anonymous writer because I found the description of the sexual dynamics to mirror what I hear in clinical practice. I also found the sincerity of what I call ‘two shitty choices’ to be one of the most striking features that is common when people experience sexual problems in their relationship. On one hand, they love their partner and want to make it work; on the other, they don’t feel they have any real choice about how things go if their partner isn’t interested or able to explore the issues. These types of binds can thrust people into existential quandaries where they question foundational aspects of what it means to be in a relationship or even their own religious beliefs.
Some aspects of this conundrum stand out to me as being noteworthy.
First, it is incredibly common for individuals raised in religious households to grow up with minimal to no sex positive education. It is also common to have unrealistic expectations and find disappointment with sex after marriage, especially if there are sexual dysfunctions or unresolved trauma that is not recognized and professionally treated. Based on the information provided in this question and description, while you describe a deep desire to explore sexual pleasure and connection with your wife and she also appears to be available and willing, it appears that there could be psychological blocks, or just a lack of sex positive education, from learned roles of what sex is within a religious context of marriage.
Generally speaking, many religions teach individuals that sex is for marriage and to remain chaste until marriage, but provide limited or no information about how to actually have pleasurable sex once you are in marriage. This creates a binary representation of sex in the mind—sex is a beautiful gift for marriage, but I cannot be sexual. The ‘I cannot be sexual’ often remains in the minds, particularly of women, even after marriage. Internalized shame about sexual expression, self-pleasuring, sexual desires and fantasies, and restrictions on how sex can be experienced are not so easily shut off in one’s psyche just because they are married. Sexual health information delivered throughout the life cycle, including age-appropriate sex education for children and adolescents, is necessary for healthy sexual functioning into adulthood.
The second aspect of this description that stands out to me is the lack of communication. I usually find that many couples who experience this type of sexual frustration and stagnation have limited skills around emotional intimacy in their communication outside of the bedroom. This impasse is as much relational as it is sexual— one person in the relationship isn’t getting their needs met, and for a very long time. This produces not only sexual frustration, but can also lead to feelings of resentment and emotional distancing that can jeopardize the relationship itself.
Regardless of the issue that a couple is wrestling with, the ability to communicate openly and honestly about their positions and needs is fundamental to having a healthy relationship. Many problems in relationships are perpetual, meaning the couple may live with them for their entire relationship. Recognition of differing perspectives and needs is important, even if they cannot be completely resolved, so the couple can work as friends to manage and navigate the issues constructively and in a manner that doesn’t harm the foundations of the relationship. It may be helpful to see this as a perpetual problem and learn to talk about it and explore it in all its dimensions first, even if you don’t find a complete solution right away or at all.
Third, it appears that the dynamic that you are describing isn’t one that appears to be able to be resolved with more superficial means, i.e. books, videos, or a change of setting. While it is helpful for couples to experiment and bring new aspects into their sexual and intimate relationship, these things are often not the problem.
If you find these things don’t work, it’s because they are not the problem. Many people presenting to sex therapy come to think sex is the problem, when in fact sex—or the aspects of distress and dysfunction they are coping with—are just symptoms of the actual problem. This is only something that can be determined by a qualified sexual health professional. Foundational contributions to the type of sexual impasse you describe range from any form of childhood maltreatment (sexual, emotional, or verbal abuse or emotional or physical neglect) to attachment disruptions or to other mental health issues.
All of these things can have complex origins from childhood development. Usually, these types of long-standing sexual issues predate the marriage and would occur regardless of the partner. Understanding the cause of the symptoms is the first step, and I would advise working with a licensed and knowledgeable sexual healthcare provider, especially with such a long-standing and persistent issue.
At the end of the day, it takes two people to wholeheartedly want to resolve the issue. If your partner isn’t interested in fully exploring the issue and your feelings about it, that is ultimately their choice. Your choice is to do what you need to do for yourself.
Sometimes people in this situation remain married because sex, while important, is not the most important aspect of their relationship. Having a successful marriage, family, children, financial stability, and companionship may outweigh the lack of sexual satisfaction and connection. For others, the pain is too great and a sufficient reason to move on. This is a discernment process that should be considered with great care. Sometimes understanding that you do not always have a "good choice," but that you do have a choice can be helpful, and can reduce distress by reclaiming your autonomy and personal power.
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