I Live in a Sexless Marriage

Hi All,

I am new to this forum and am 12 days in a re-boot.

I am 59 years old and live in sexless marriage of 26 years.  I do not get touched, held or kissed.  There is simply no contact what so ever.  When living in a situation like this I turned to daily internet porn and masturbation for some relief.

There is extremely attractive woman that I have known for three years who recently became divorced.  On our first evening out, one thing led to another and we wound up in bed.  While I was highly arroused while making out, once we got in bed I was unable to achieve a full erection for sustained intercourse.  You can imagine my (and her) disappointment.  I doubt this relationship will go much further.

As already stated, I am 12 days into a re-boot but am uncertain what to expect or what is OK during the re-boot and following questions:

- I am beginning to have full nocturnal erections similar to when I was teenager.  Does this mean the re-boot is complete because I have no way to test this out.
- I like to go to strip clubs.  None of the younger gals do it for me as they are always to fast and rough.  But there are some older dancers in their 30s who will talk and when they do some table dances they are slower and more erotic.  Will this interfere with a re-boot?
- I am considering going to a prostitute to check things out.  Will this interfere with a re-boot?

I know that 12 days would be an extremely short period of time for a re-boot.  Any other thoughts that I should consider?

Cheers,

David

Let me get this straight...

You are in a sexless marriage of 26 years and recently were in bed with another woman?

You are going to strip clubs and wondering if that is going to help?

You are considering going to a prostitute to check things out?

I think you have enough thoughts to reconsider and you don't need any more.

I noticed you registered today which makes me wonder if this is for real...

What is your goal with the reboot?

I was in a situation similar to yours regarding the lack of intimacy in the marriage. Here are the answers to your inquiry based on my experiences:

No to the porn.
No to the masturbation.
No to the strip clubs.
No to the cheating.
No to the prostitute.

If you're truly interested in recovering those are your starting points.

Hi KL,

Thanks for writing.  I am going through a legitimate re-boot and would like to know if I am on-track now 14 day into the process because I do not want to interfere with a recovery.    Is it Ok to go to strip clubs to see if I am getting aroused by a woman's touch?  It it Ok to go to a hooker to see if I am making progress?  Are nocturnal erections at this point typical?  I do not feel I am going through a "flatline".  Is this typical?  I just do not know these things, because they never seem to be addressed?

Why am I re-booting?  I want to try again with someone else but do not want to move to quickly and risk being embarrassed.  Besides.  I do not believe all of my masturbation to porn was healthy for me mentally.

David

Hi Dg,

Welcome to the forum!

OK: I would be very careful about the strip club/prostitution thing.  Basically, these things can be just as addictive as P.  I know some guys who have bankrupted themselves with strippers and prostitutes.

I would think very carefully about the possibility that you are dong something called 'bargaining'.  All addicts do this, as any addiction psychologist could tell you.  Imagine an alcholic.  He has been told by his doctor that he needs to lay off the whiskey because his liver is getting damaged.  Perhaps he thinks 'OK, no whiskey.  I get that.  But maybe a beer a day.  I'm sure I can manage that. I mean beer isn't like whiskey is it?  I can control it when I drink beer'. 

Now to an outsider, that sounds stupid.  But when you are desperate for some relief of a very intense craving you can convince yourself of anything.  Could replacing whiskey with beer be like replacing porn with prostitutes, I wonder?

I think it is worth doing the 90 day reboot - no porn, no prostitutes, no strip clubs - to get your head  bit clearer.  Then, you should have the mental space to do some thinking.  What do you really want?  Just to have sex?  Maybe then prostitution is ok.  Sex with intimacy?  Visiting prostitutes tends to make that less likely to occur in your life, in my experience. 

Other questions I would have are does your wife know about any of this - porn, strip clubs, the other woman?  Do you care if she finds out?  Do the two of you need to talk to find some way forward where you can both be genuinely happy? 

And so, to my final point.  I know lots of people who have used prostitutes and gone to strip clubs.  I don't make moral judgements about them.  But I do observe that it has not made any of them any happier.  To me it seems like Mcdonalds.  Everyone likes a Big Mac now and again.  But if that is your diet?  Well, it's not exactly nourishing....

My advice: put more of your energy into pursuing the things you, in your own experience, find bring lasting joy, and less into things that in your experience, just bring temporary relief.

I say your own experience, realising it may be different from mine.
All the best on this journey,
AT.

Hi AT,

My wife is unaware of the strip clubs and and this one other women.  I make this very private to make certain she does not find out. I have not gone to prostitutes because I am certain they will not be satisfying.

I would like to find a woman with which I am compatible and that I can have a full life.  At some point I most likely would divorce my wife because of lack of any interest in sex.

The purpose of the strippers is to see if can get a spontaneous erection from the touch of a woman.  The prostitutes would only be a test to see if can have normal intercourse and not loose my erection half way through the act.  Yet, I am concerned that if I use strippers/prostitutes in this way I will set my reboot back.

I do not want to make the effort of finding a woman with which I might be compatible only to find out that I not ready.

Can you see my conundrum?

David

BTW.  I am 22 days into the reboot and having morning wood like a teenager.  Yet, when I attempted to masturbate with no porn imagery in my head I could not get an erection.  Is this flatline?

I do see your conundrum. And actually - well done on having got 25% of the way to 90 days!  Congrats!

I wonder about the deeper issues here, however, I have to say.

Any idea why your wife doesn't want sex?  Has it always been that way?  You don't neccessarily have to say if you don't want to.  But I wonder how satisfied and happy she is?  Most women want sex I think - perhaps as much as us men!  So if she hasn't wanted it for years and years, to me that is a sign that there is something wrong...

And I wonder if she knows how unhappy you are?  Would she want to try and fix the marriage if she did?  Would you want that, or is it too late?

I guess I'm just wondering if before the prostitutes and other women, some conversations and maybe even a bit of relationship counselling might be a better way forward...

Obviously - that's for you to weigh up.  But I did want to give you some food for thought.

AT.

Hi AT,

Thank you for understanding.  There were no issues before we got married.  Her issues with sex began within one year of marriage and became progressively worse. I tried everything I could to improve the situation including counseling.  Nothing worked.  I should have gotten a divorce, but there were other issues career wise that took precedence.  I really began to understand what I was missing when we lived apart for 5 years (career move) and had a full sex life.  However, when were united again ago I went back to my life of no sex.  I turned to pornography for relief--masturbating to porn as much as 3x per day for the last 4 years.

In October a woman (the most stunningly beautiful creature that has ever walked the earth) I have been friends with for 3 years suddenly decides she interested in us being more than friends. She caught off guard and I could not perform.  My situation with her is most likely not recoverable even though I explained what had happened to me.

In any case, I need to get myself re-booted so that I can try again with someone else.  But I do not even want to try unless I know that I am re-booted.  That's why strippers (spontaneous erections) and why I am considering a prostitute (to see if I can have intercourse).  And both of these are tough test as I know in the back of my head they are not interested and are only having conversation/sex because I would be paying them.  That does not work for me. 

It's a bad situation, but I really do not know what else to do in attempt to get some feminine contact.  I know that real contact is good and reduces re-boot time.  This is why I was asking my questions about whether-or-not strippers/prostitutes would interfere with my re-boot time.  I have incredible willpower and am committed to re-booting for as long as it takes--currently 24 days into the process.

Thank you again for taking the time to reply and your understanding.

David

Why are you married? Sounds like you want sex with whoever will give it to you.  Trust me....she will discover your betrayal.

Gracie,

My betrayal?  Can you imagine if your wife said to you "The only reason you want to have sex with me is that you want to pretend you are having sex with your sister".  The person that was betrayed was me.  I do not care if my wife finds out I am having an affair.  One reaps what they sow.

Did you even bother to read this thread? Or, do you just lack critical reasoning skills?  If you are not going to help, then do not write.

David

I just came through my second divorce and I am now 66 years old. In this last divorce, it was actually my wife who filed papers on me. Like you, I had been in a sexless marriage for about six of the 13 years we were married. My ex simply refused to have sex with me or even masturbate ne. Whenever I asked her why, she just said she didn't need to tell me-- that it was her right. I found this an unreasonable response and I turned to two on-line relationships, one of which was pretty platonic, the other one very sexual, if only in the digital sense. I suppose it's like Jimmy Carter said, "I lusted for her in my heart" and in this sense I did commit adultery. But I can honestly say I never laid a finger on any other woman. Now we are starting to split some pretty fine hairs here, so rather than judge either you or me, let me just say this: Do the honorable thing and divorce your wife. Then you can address your PMO issues from a clean slate.

I will say this and then be on my way.  Did not mean to make you hostile.  My husband thought I did not want to have sex.  I was in our bed every night, ready to have sex.  Because I did not act like a sex starved porn star, he thought I did not want it.  His foreplay was a slap on the butt during the day.  Meanwhile he was not in bed with me.  He was with his girls on tv.  Trust me it was betrayal.  He made a decision about our sex life that did not include me.  I was totally devastated.  Most of the women here felt that way.

  So good luck to you

What is it about on-line forums that individuals reply and never bother to answer the question that was asked.  I just do not get it.  The purpose of my post was to find out if occasionally going to strip clubs (see if I can get a spontaneous erection) and prostitutes (to determine if can have intercourse with a condom) to monitor my recovery from PIED or, do they just delay the process. I asked this question because I had read that real feminine interaction helps recovery.  Since I live in sexless marriage and have zero feminine contact (I do not get touched, hugged, or kissed) I thought these substitutes might help.

Instead of getting the help I needed to make a decision I received judgments on my life style and choices.

Since I was not getting the help I needed, I reported my last post to the moderator (similar to this one) and asked them to close the thread.  What happened is that the moderator just deleted the post and it now looks like the thread is still open.

The people that respond on this forum and the sponsors are worthless!  Now I need to figure out how to cancel my account so that this website will not obtain advertisement revenue from my participation.

David

It may not have been  deleteed because one of the moderators is someone whos main interest here it to ensure  men tell there wives everything  I had a thread going and I was getting the crap kickd out of me  based on my opinion and asked the thread be removed  I basically had to spell it out that the thread was now detrimental to  my recovery bfefore it was removed.