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in such a bind. married a wonderful man i respect greatly but had zero sexual attraction for. been together 10 years. i was screwed up at the time (eating disorders, family trauma, etc) and didnt realize it but NOW i see i made a bargain - emotional security for sex. i have never been happy sexually in our marriage or before. recently met a man thru work that i am madly wildly passionate for and started an affair (flamers field day!) and i have asked my husand for a sep. he is fighting tooth and nail. wants our marriage to work. i feel i am in love with another man and soooooo torn. we have 2 kids. some will say i am selfish. others will say no one wants a martyr for a mother. any experience ub-ers?
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hmm, i dont think of it that simply but have passion, sexual desire, sensual experiences with my partner are important to me. these are things i have forsaken in my life til now. i am 37 and just realizing that sexuality is extremely important."sex" isnt just a tiny compartment of life.
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Catholics have to go to pre-marriage counseling before we get married, it's called pre-cana. And I still remember the Priest talking to us. He said, " I always tell couples, you will meet the person you should have married after you are already married. Marriage is a choice you make each day when you wake up." If you are done making the choice to be married, I don't think its really fair that you stay with your lover. You owe it to yourself, kids, and husband actually, to separate, and get your act together, before diving in with the new guy. Sex does not last.
[ Reply | Options ]hmm, so interesting what your priest says. do you meet the man you should have married as a test to your commitment to marriage? i feel like i committed to my marriage because i didnt know what else to do.
[ Reply | Options ]I thought it was really great advice. I took it that marriage is hard work. You have to do the work every day. And of course, anyone who has dated someone for 3 years knows it gets old, and boring, and its tempting to look around. Do you do the work, or throw in the towel. To OP, I would say, I find your husband attractive that he was a loyal, loving husband and father for 10 years, much more attractive to me than your lover who would break up a family. I really do. I have a number of single girlfriends I would like to set your soon to be ex-husband up with after you have left him. He soudns like an honrable guy.
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I find it amazing that you found a man whom you respect, who was willing to go through all your screwed up stuff, and be the father to your children and is willing to fight for you tooth and nail that you don't value him and your family enough to find a way to improve your sex life with him. HOnestly, Ithink he is the martyr in this situation - I think you would be foolish to throw all this away and will probably really regret it. It sounds like you have a long pattern of self-destructive behavior and this affair is part of it. Affairs are self-destructive - and destructive of others. Is the affair all about sex or is there more to it?
[ Reply | Options ]much more to it. he is emotionally present, we get along very well, "get" each other, both have walked through really difficult stuff. by martyr, i meant being in a sexless, safe marriage because i "owe" it to him, rather than having the courage to creatie the life & love i want? also - i have taken my husband to sex therpay several times. he wasnt willing to look at himself. it;s always ME that is the problem.
[ Reply | Options ]more from OP, i value my family and kids tremendously but i am not so attached to the hallmark picture of a nuclear family to suppress all of my desires to maintain that picture. sounds like a recipe for divorce once the kids go to college. my therapist says i have re-created the incest of my childhood by having 10 years of sex that i d idnt want to have. literally, REPULSED by my husband's body. but always made it MY FAULT for thinking that. maybe we dont have "chemistry". can you conjure chemistry?
[ Reply | Options ]more from OP - trust me, i am terrified of making a decision i will regret. i couldnt live with that... so i am doing tons and tons of work on myself and the marriage to see what can be improved. including 86'ing the affair.
[ Reply | Options ]it really doesn't matter how physically unattracted you are to your husband, that's no excuse for hurting him in this way. and it doesn't matter how dysfunctional your family/childhood was, you are a grown woman responsible for your own actions and your actions are inexcusable. if you were terminally unhappy with your marriage, you should have ended it before you moved onto another intimate relationship. can you imagine your two children someday trying to blame their adult problems on the fact that their mother was a damaged, selfish, addictive personality who broke up their family and destroyed their father all because she cared more about her sex life with a boyfriend than her marriage and family? doesn't sound like a pattern you should be trying to repeat.
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np-can you read in your post that you are blaming someone and assuming THEY must have something wrong with them ("can you conjure chemistry"?) This is a pattern. it's NOT everyone else's fault. You need to take a step back and stop acting like an 18 yr old school girl.
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np-your frame is all wrong. you dont stay in a marriage because you owe it to them. you stay in because of all of hte blessings that you have and because you YOURSELF made a commitment to be married. you need to stop thinking about what you dont have and start thinking about what you value. do you value truthfulness? honesty? doing what you said you would do? therapy isnt about the other person's problems. it's about our OWN. what is it inside of you that thinks you should be so callous with these tremendous blessings?
[ Reply | Options ]i havent been callous. i have been completely devoted and focused ENTIRELY on what a wonderful man he is for 10 years. i have only looked at my own deficiencies and blocks. (see my postings above). i do feel incredibly blessed. i think because of my sexual trauma and abuse though, i chose a man based on that framework. not from a healthy confident place. so, do you believe in the "you've made your bed now lie in it" way of approaching life? do you believe people who stay in sexless repressed marriages benefit their children? i grew up in a sexless home and that is why i had NO IDEA about sexuality in life and married someone who repulsed me physically.
[ Reply | Options ]look. i'm sure that you and your therapist have discussed this a good deal. but the tone of your email is "i" this and "i" that. it's all about you. which is a framework for life you get to have before YOU choose the responsibility of creating a family. then it doesnt get to be "i" "i". once YOU make that choice, whoever you were when you made it, then your frame needs to shift. otherwise, yes, you are callous and self absorbed. period.
[ Reply | Options ]i have put my husband's feeling before mine for the last 10 years. he was so afraid of losing me he didnt want me to go to rehab because he was afraid i would "get well" and leave him, was afraid if me going on a retreat because it sounds risque to him and thereatened him, my post sounds all I I I because YES it finally is about me. most of my life has been about people pleasing for survival, my family, now my husband. it sounds like YOUR framework for life is VERY punitive. no one can change their mind. no one can make mistakes.
[ Reply | Options ]Oh OP, best of luck to you, Sex isn't everything but it is a very important,vital energy. It sounds like you need to have a realized sexual existence. If it isn't with your husband, you'll need to suffer that loss. I'm truly sorry.
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it sounds to me like you've had way too much therapy if you ask me. i have experience with your type in my own dysfunctional family. you've had so much therapy that you know all the lingo (so you, therefore, "know it all" and are pretty much beyond help at this point). and, because you are so well-versed in all this psycho-babble, you have gotten to the point where you see everyone's deficiencies but your own. if you had only stayed faithful, this whole story would read much differently. but your infidelity, in my opinion, is unconscionable.
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NP: You are clearly very mad at your husband. I am not shrink, bt I would guess you are deflecting, or trying t make yourself mad at him so he's easier to leave?? Also, you talk so much about hte importance of sexuality in life.. it's odd to me. I just don't see it as important. Maybe 5% of our marriage is sexuality, 25% humor, etc..
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why ? because she is saying that you just have to stick out your commitments even though it is a daily inner torture? because he is a good man? because sex "isnt everything"? never said it was "everything" but ANY marraige counselor will say that physical attraction and chemistry is a MUST. unless BOTH partners do not value sexual vitality.
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The point at which you were most selfish is when you married him - not now (yes, yes, I know you had issues). Does he know that you actually find him repulsive and he's OK with that? If he is, what about an open marriage?
[ Reply | Options ]trust me - i know that is when i was most selfish and it is a testament to how little i trusted myself and my instincts. i had a teeny tiny voice saying he wasnt the one but i didnt trust myself as i had made so many bad decisions. i have told him t hat i never truly chose to have a SEXUAL relationship with him. that i have always done it to please him, never myself. he knows this now.. and is accepting it. and now that we are FINALLY being honest with each other we are looking at how we can COMPLETELY re-boot our sex life. reading books... looking at more spiritual appraoches to sex
[ Reply | Options ]Oh my goodness. How could you say this to him? I'm siging off this post, because it is so upsetting. I feel for your DH. If my DH told me he only had sex w me to please me, not himself, I would be heartbroken. If you hate him so much, please do leave him. Let him find a loving wife who will be there through thick and thin. There are many more single women out there.
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You did your husband a great disservice by marrying him when you felt no attraction at all towards him. It was selfish and you basically used him for security. You did a greater disservice by having two children with this husband that you felt repulsed by. And now you want to dump them all because you want a better life? You do not sound worthy of your husband or children and I hope he gets them in a custody battle, because he is better suited to be a responsible parent. I'm sorry you had an early trauma, but does that give you license to do what you will do to three people? I say NO. You've made your decisions, now honor up to them.
[ Reply | Options ]I feel like this could have been written by a man, and he would be ripped to shreds on this board.
[ Reply | Options ]You've missed the point; most here do not approve or respect what she has done and the kids and dh are the innocent victims. OP needs to own up to responsibility and not cause pain to family. OP is an adolescent mentality with a fantasy life when she has dc who need her to be an adult.
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sexual attraction is NOT a good thing to base a relationship on. Respect and trust come in MUCH more handy. Don't know about you, but any man I was ever really attracted to and had great sex with was not someone whom I trusted or respected very much. I would advise you to work on your sex life with your dh. Take it as a challenge, you never know!! Think of all the pain and suffering you will cause the way you're going
[ Reply | Options ]my mother broke up a stable (though there were problems) family for a man she was into sexually (though that of course didn't last, it never does). I have sympathy for her, but after years of analysis therapy and bad behavior on my part, but only after that and a lot of grief, I have trained myself to make better choices than her. But it was very very hard, and I wish I had had better models.
[ Reply | Options ]Lone dissenter here. You get one life. If you and your husband are not happy together, you don't need to stay out of some type of obligation. Separate.
[ Reply | Options ]not alone - the most selfish part was marrying him in the first place (though from some of OPs posts, if looks like dh was looking for someone who was easy to control) - that's done and shouldn't necessarily be perpetuated. If they can't ignite the fire or agree to let the fire be ignited elsewhere, then enough.
[ Reply | Options ]I just don't think divorce is the worst thing ever. Even if we disagree with every choice she made in the past, she is here now, and basically can get a divorce and pursue happiness. JMO.
[ Reply | Options ]NP: Do you seriously think she'll find happiness with this other guy? (And let's be honest, the other guy is the reason she's contemplating leaving, not some great personal epiphany like she's trying to paint it above.) I feel like we'll just see another thread from her a few years down the road with lots of ALL CAPS talking about everything that's wrong with guy #2 and it's not really her fault because it was her first bad marriage that made her make this mistake in her second marriage and . . .
[ Reply | Options ]A lot of times guy #2 IS a device to get out of the situation. It is called Triangulation and does not mean that she has to be with him. Her ultimate happiness clearly does not lie with her husband, and both of them need a chance at a REAL marriage, whether or not he realizes it yet.
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Dh is willing to fight tooth and nail but is not willing to work on making himself more attractive? That doesn't seem to jibe.
[ Reply | Options ]is your lover going to weave into what would be your new life as a single mother with two dc, or are you going to give custody to ex-dh? it's not like you're single w/o kids and can flop in bed whenever you want. is lover going to fit into any kind of life with whatever custody arrangments would be made? think about that.
[ Reply | Options ]np: I'll join in with the lone dissenter above and say that if you feel the marriage is beyond repair, then leave. Divorce isn't the end of everything, and if you can find a way to build a happier life, then I say go for it. Yes, you took vows but every once in a while, life goes askew, and as the poster wrote above, you only have one life to live. Go out and live it.
[ Reply | Options ]tritto regarding having one life to lead. But remember, things in our head don't always translate so neatly into real life, i.e. the sexy boyfriend and happily ever after. Also, let's be fair: any guy that is fighting tooth and nail to stay in a miserable situation has some serious co-dependency issues of his own.
[ Reply | Options ]OR from above: yes, there is no doubt that the boyfriend in the wings has been idealized, but objectively, it does seem like she feels that her marriage is beyond repair. And like it or not, sometimes marriage is. (And nope, I'm not divorced - married 8 yrs...and I know you're agreeing w/me, so I'm directing this at other posters, not you :) I think what someone suggested above is probably best: leave husband AND boyfriend. Figure herself out first.
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I think you should think about your kids first. What effect will your split have on them? They are going to learn that you cheated on their dad. They will probably learn that their dad desperately tried to save your marriage. The other man is going to be gone in a matter of time, and if you think you feel unhappy and unfulfilled now, just think about how you're going to feel as a single mom. You're enjoying the passion and excitement now, but it's just temporary. I have seen this happen so many times. Odds are so stacked against you--this thing with the other guy is not going to work out, and you are going to be alone, and your kids' lives are going to suffer for your bad judgment. Try to look at this like a grownup and make things work with your husband.
[ Reply | Options ]eventually you'll lose the passion for new guy, it will become a intense friendship with the same 'emotional security' (or maybe not even that)...and then you'll miss the old father of your kids. just screw around with new guy a few times to get it out of your system during the separation, realize he has a ugly dick, and then go back to old guy with a new appreciation for him.
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