My Marriage Is Completely Sexless. Is It Ok to Sleep With Someone Else?

Hi Doc,

I married my best friend 9 years ago. I have always known I have a much higher sex drive and for the past 5 years have slept in separate bedrooms. My wife does not want to be touched, kissed or even cuddled. We have had sex a year apart the past 2 years and the 3 years prior none. I am very sexually frustrated. Even the couple of times we have had sex my wife just asks me to cum quickly.

My wife refuses to talk about why she doesn’t want sex. She doesn’t wish to see a counselor or discuss opening up our marriage. I am very attentive to her and have made sure she feels appreciated and that she doesn’t need more from me. I don’t want to leave my family, but I do know an escort I would really like to spend time with. If I could do so discretely, is this bad? In my mind, this is better than deserting my family. In my mind I am just finding a way to get an unmet need of mine that in the end would help me not resent my wife. I need your honest opinion.

Sincerely,

The Lost Man

That’s a really rough situation, TLM, and you have my sympathies. It’s incredibly frustrating when someone you love and care for not only cuts off both the route for intimacy you prefer, but also doesn’t seem to want to so much as discuss the issue, never mind try to figure out how to resolve the problem.

And to be sure: it’s entirely understandable that you’re frustrated. You’re well within your rights to want sex and intimacy with your wife, specifically. Your wife has autonomy as well and if she doesn’t want sex, that’s her right… but it’s troubling that she doesn’t want to so much as discuss it with you, especially if you went into this relationship with the understanding that sex was going to be a part of it.

It would be helpful if your wife could at least provide some insight into what’s happened and what’s changed. It could be for example, that she (or you, or both of you) rounded sexual attraction and friendship up to romantic love and tried to make a relationship work, but the sexual aspect was never that strong and faded over the course of a couple years. Alternately, it could be that she’s always been asexual and only recently realized it or accepted it. Or – and this is a less pleasant option – it could be a case that it’s less that she’s not interested in sex, just that she’s not interested in sex with you.

Of course, it’s also entirely possible that she doesn’t know the why of it all, just that this is how she feels and that’s the end of the story. Part of the problem, however, is that she doesn’t seem to acknowledge that this is important to you, nor does she seem to be willing to discuss things.

At the same time, I wish you had included what, if anything, you have suggested or tried in order to bridge this particular gap. Sometimes the supposed fixes can end up making things worse, especially if the compromises involve actions or acts that make the person with a lower libido feel used, or that their needs or desires are unimportant. If she feels like she hasn’t been listened to up until now, I could understand why she might decide that she doesn’t see the point in discussing the matter further.

As it is, this is a rough spot to be in. In and of itself, it’s unfair for one person to unilaterally decide that not only are they done with sex – for whatever reason – but so are you. And it can be particularly maddening when a lot of the responses you’ll get are to basically get over it or leave.

Unfortunately, you’re stuck with a series of bad options and you’re in the position of having to choose the one that’s the least worst… and that can be hard to do.

Now, I know I’m on record as saying that cheating isn’t necessarily the worst thing that someone can do in a relationship and I’ll admit that there are times when the kindest or least-bad option is to do what you have to in order to stay in the relationship without also letting your own feelings curdle into bitterness and resentment for your wife. But I also don’t think that divorce is the worst option either. Sometimes leaving really is the kindest choice you could make. You know your circumstances better than I do, so you’re the one who would have to make this call. But before you do, I feel that it’s important to go into this with your eyes open and a full understanding of the risks and potential consequences.

You say that you don’t want to leave your family – while you don’t say one way or the other, that does carry the implication that there are kids in the mix. Wanting to stay, if only for the children is understandable… but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the best choice.

Kids aren’t stupid, nor are they oblivious. They’re much more perceptive and sensitive that people give them credit for, and they can pick up pretty easily when things aren’t good between their parents. Living under the perpetual storm cloud of two parents who are increasingly resentful of one another can cause all sorts of emotional harm, especially since children are as likely to assume that they’re the cause. Feeling responsible for your parents unhappiness, especially when you’re too young to really understand what’s going on, can end up being worse for them than divorce would be. And getting a divorce doesn’t mean that you’d be abandoning them. If you and your wife could make things work as co-parents, while maintaining at least the respect for one another as non-romantic partners in this, then that would make divorce the least bad option.

Now, if everything else in the relationship is working except for your wife unilaterally declaring that the two of you are done with sex… well, yes, visiting a sex worker would be an option. There are benefits to having an ongoing relationship with one particular escort over seeing someone else on the side. An escort is far more likely to be discrete and has vested interest in not causing drama or blowing up your life, while an affair partner might eventually want a more open and above-board relationship.

At the same time, however, going out and cheating – paid or not – runs the risk of dropping a grenade into the middle of your entire life. While you would be making every effort to be discrete, there will always be an element of risk that will end up compounding over time. The longer the affair goes on, the greater the odds that the lies, half-truths and misdirections will pile up and end up getting you caught. And even if you’re especially disciplined, there’s still no way to account for random mischance. No matter how careful someone is, chaos always enters the system and there’s always a chance for things to go wrong, messily and all over the place. If that happens, then you run the risk of having an even worse result than if you’d just gotten a divorce in the first place. Being caught having an affair, especially with a sex worker, could mean not just a divorce, but losing custody and access to your children on top of potential legal penalties.

If all of this sounds like I’m pushing more for divorce, that’s because I am. While I’m generally pro sex-work and sex-worker, this doesn’t sound like a situation where staying married while getting your needs met discretely is the least-bad option. You don’t mention anything that would indicate that your wife would be seriously harmed by your leaving – presumably she’s employed and wouldn’t find herself homeless if you left, she’s not an invalid and you’re her sole caretaker etc. While divorce can be rough, I think dissolving the marriage while resolving to be functioning and effective co-parents would be the best of a bad situation.

Before you decide anything, however, I think it would be good to try to have at least one more, good faith discussion about the issue with your wife. Taking an approach of trying to understand things from her side – why she feels the way she does, why she objects to opening up the relationship, etc. – could at least ensure that you two understand each other and know where you stand on the issue. Coming to it from a place of “help me understand how you’re feeling” might at least offer insight, if not a way forward.

I also think that you may want to push harder on at least seeing a sex-positive counselor who isn’t going to just tell you to get over having a sex drive. If you don’t know one already, the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists has a referral directory to help you find a counselor in your area. A counselor may not necessarily fix the problem, but they may be able to help you both figure out how to wind down the relationship and transition from being married partners to at least co-parents.

Now to be clear: you may have to deliver an ultimatum in this case: either you two go to a counselor or you get divorced. But if you do this, you have to be ready to pull the trigger on ending the marriage. If she still refuses to so much as consider counseling and you don’t actually follow through with the ultimatum… well, you’ve basically given up any leverage you have to make this relationship work. At which point, you’re now left with a series of increasingly poor outcomes; the only question becomes what level of suck you’re willing to live with.

It’s a shitty situation and I’m sorry you’re going through it. Unfortunately, the only real options you have are varying flavors of bad ad you have to decide which is the most acceptable one. You’re the only one who can make this decision, TLM. Just be sure to think it through carefully before you do.

Good luck.

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Hey Dr, I’m 29/F. Two years ago I met these two guys (Fin & Chad) who I thought would be great partners. However, turns out they were best friends. I felt pressured to pick one though I really wanted to get to know both of them. I picked Finn, the one I felt more compatible and close with. Unfortunately, he strung me along for an year until I decided it was enough.

All this time Chad had stopped speaking to me. I felt really bad for some months because I thought I had made a wrong choice. I prayed that we may cross paths again. Then I forgot about him until he reached out again via phone call and I couldn’t even recognize his voice. He disappeared again. Then I apped him and he was super cold towards me. I understood that I had hurt him.

An year later he reaches out, with strong intentions of marrying me. One thing I noticed was that he seemed a bit cold. He also mentioned that he had broken up with his situationship prior to reaching out. But I was glad that we were talking again.

Like two weeks later he lost his job and from there he became inconsistent in everything. I undertook so I gave him his space. Months later I lost a brother and he was aloof. He disappears for a month before reaching out, a trend that has been going on for 8 months now. He got a job and everything seems to be okay. I feel like I might have been his rebound or he just lost interest in me. Either way I want out. How do I go about it since we are not official?

Situationship Normal, All Fucked Up

Honestly, SNAFU, I’m scratching my head as to why you got together with either of them. It doesn’t sound like either of these guys were winners. Both of them seem to follow the same pattern of stringing you along and not paying much attention to you or your needs.

Chad in particular, seems to just come and go, disappearing when things get hard for him but showing no concern when you have tragedies in your own life. I mean, being aloof when you didn’t just experience a death in the family but your brother? To be perfectly honest, that’s the sort of behavior that would make me reconsider why I kept in contact with them, never mind trying to make a relationship work. And this is from someone who, apparently, was seriously talking about making this relationship with an eye towards marriage.

I don’t know if you were a rebound, if you were convenient, if he lost interest or, hell, this is some weird psychodrama where he’s “punishing” you for choosing his friend over him. But honestly, it doesn’t matter. Nor, for that matter, does it matter that this isn’t “official”. Having the stamp of “boyfriend” on the relationship instead of “situationship” (a term I really dislike, for many reasons) or “casual” or “it’s complicated” doesn’t make a difference. The fact that this is a messy situation doesn’t mean that you can’t break up with him. You’re 100% allowed to tell someone you never want to see or talk to them again and that this relationship – whatever form it’s taking – is over. It’s not as though they can say “ha ha, by law you’re required to allow me to stay in your life until such a time as I give this relationship an official designation!”

This is one of those times where the best thing to do is to just keep things like a knife: short, sharp and to the point. You aren’t required to nail a list of grievances to his door like you’re creating a schism in the Catholic Church; all you have to do is say “this relationship isn’t working for me and I don’t want to hear from you again. Goodbye, and you can pick up your stuff (if there is any) at X time in Y place.” You can explain your reasoning if you want, but it’s really not necessary. It’s not as though your reasons need to be “good enough” to merit a break up, and some people will waste your time by trying to argue the points. The important point isn’t the reasoning behind the break up, it’s that the break up has happened. Please note the past tense; you can break up with someone unilaterally, even if they object to it happening.

The best time to do this would honestly have been months ago, but the second best time to dump him is right now. You don’t need to wait until he’s drifted back into your life or wait for another moment where he up and vanishes again. Break ups require neither a casus belli nor do they necessitate an in-person discussion, especially if he comes and goes like a feral cat. It’s not like you need a process server to deliver the notification of Being Dumped. If you’re in another period where he’s out of contact, then you can text him or leave a voicemail.

Give him the news, however you need to deliver it, wrap up any loose ends (returning any of his stuff to him, getting yours back from him, etc.) and call it a day. And in the future, don’t linger in a relationship when the other person’s behavior is telling you that they don’t actually care – whether it’s “official” or not.

Good luck.

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This post was previously published on Doctornerdlove.com and is republished on Medium.

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