My husband and I just celebrated the 10th anniversary of our marriage. Over the years we've survived his affair with a younger woman, and ever since the second year of our marriage we've had sex only once every 2 to 4 months (and then only if I threatened to divorce him), due to his porn addiction.
Now, I am an open minded woman, I know men look at porn and although I wish he wouldn't, I am able to accept that most likely it's going to happen sometimes. But from day one, he would masturbate to porn even on the days we'd had sex. Sometimes he'd turn me down for sex if he knew I would be leaving soon, and if I came back to the house to grab something I'd forgotten, there he'd be, masturbating to porn the instant I stepped out the door. Eventually he started doing it even when I was home. He'd wait until I had gone to bed and sneak back up and go to another room and do it.
I discovered his affair on the day of our 1 year anniversary. For a couple months he had a hard time choosing between she and I. During that time we separated. When he made his decision and came back home, that's when the sex stopped and he'd go weeks without initiating anything and turning me down when I tried. During this time he was using porn as his sexual outlet to substitute for any sexual relationship with me. He even stopped sleeping in the same bedroom with me altogether, several years ago.
I have spent the last 9 years feeling like I am being punished for making him choose, punished for not being that other younger woman. The porn he masturbates to is always younger women, about her age. I don't know how to let go of his transgression when he turns me away and repeats it in his "pretend" sex life daily.
A year or so ago, I stopped feeling so hurt by his actions, stopped trying to figure out what was wrong with me or being angry with myself for not being 10 years younger than I am (like his lover was), came out of my depression, and then I started being angry and resentful. His reaction to that was indifference at first. Now more recently - although he still uses porn as his main source of release daily - he has started trying to have sex with me once or twice a week, and being very pushy about it. Instead of making me happy, I find it insulting that I am still playing second fiddle to his pretend lovers who take center stage in his life. And on top of that, I feel so disconnected from him now. I don't get turned on by him at all, I feel like I don't know him any more, nothing about him is familiar sexually. It is awkward and forced and quite frankly I'd rather not bother with it at all. On top of that, he is now so conditioned to masturbation as a means of release, that he c an't seem to climax from sex with me unless we go at it for 45 minutes to an hour. And I don't mean foreplay, there is none of that at all, he just goes straight to humping and then humps for that whole time. It is exhausting and boring and physically uncomfortable. I would rather have a tooth pulled with no anesthesia than to endure it. In fact now when he tries I literally feel so much anxiety at the idea of being stuck there that long getting rubbed raw, I sometimes get a full fledged panic attack and have to get him off me or else I feel like I can't breathe.
And so, I turn him away. Which of course sends him to the porn even more.
And here we are.
Now aside from the sex situation, we have a great marriage. Yes, we have our little spats, but nothing out of the ordinary.
How do I get past the resentment? How do I reconnect with him again? And how does he un-learn the notion of needing to climax from self-stimulation and become attracted to the feel of an actual live woman again?
And is it even worth worrying about at all? Because quite frankly I am sick of the whole thing.
Now, I am an open minded woman, I know men look at porn and although I wish he wouldn't, I am able to accept that most likely it's going to happen sometimes. But from day one, he would masturbate to porn even on the days we'd had sex. Sometimes he'd turn me down for sex if he knew I would be leaving soon, and if I came back to the house to grab something I'd forgotten, there he'd be, masturbating to porn the instant I stepped out the door. Eventually he started doing it even when I was home. He'd wait until I had gone to bed and sneak back up and go to another room and do it.
I discovered his affair on the day of our 1 year anniversary. For a couple months he had a hard time choosing between she and I. During that time we separated. When he made his decision and came back home, that's when the sex stopped and he'd go weeks without initiating anything and turning me down when I tried. During this time he was using porn as his sexual outlet to substitute for any sexual relationship with me. He even stopped sleeping in the same bedroom with me altogether, several years ago.
I have spent the last 9 years feeling like I am being punished for making him choose, punished for not being that other younger woman. The porn he masturbates to is always younger women, about her age. I don't know how to let go of his transgression when he turns me away and repeats it in his "pretend" sex life daily.
A year or so ago, I stopped feeling so hurt by his actions, stopped trying to figure out what was wrong with me or being angry with myself for not being 10 years younger than I am (like his lover was), came out of my depression, and then I started being angry and resentful. His reaction to that was indifference at first. Now more recently - although he still uses porn as his main source of release daily - he has started trying to have sex with me once or twice a week, and being very pushy about it. Instead of making me happy, I find it insulting that I am still playing second fiddle to his pretend lovers who take center stage in his life. And on top of that, I feel so disconnected from him now. I don't get turned on by him at all, I feel like I don't know him any more, nothing about him is familiar sexually. It is awkward and forced and quite frankly I'd rather not bother with it at all. On top of that, he is now so conditioned to masturbation as a means of release, that he c an't seem to climax from sex with me unless we go at it for 45 minutes to an hour. And I don't mean foreplay, there is none of that at all, he just goes straight to humping and then humps for that whole time. It is exhausting and boring and physically uncomfortable. I would rather have a tooth pulled with no anesthesia than to endure it. In fact now when he tries I literally feel so much anxiety at the idea of being stuck there that long getting rubbed raw, I sometimes get a full fledged panic attack and have to get him off me or else I feel like I can't breathe.
And so, I turn him away. Which of course sends him to the porn even more.
And here we are.
Now aside from the sex situation, we have a great marriage. Yes, we have our little spats, but nothing out of the ordinary.
How do I get past the resentment? How do I reconnect with him again? And how does he un-learn the notion of needing to climax from self-stimulation and become attracted to the feel of an actual live woman again?
And is it even worth worrying about at all? Because quite frankly I am sick of the whole thing.
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