I am in a sexless marriage with my wife. We’ve been married 17 years (She brought two kids, age 11 and 16, into the marriage. They have become my kids). The first 5 years, plus the three years we dated, the sex was great. After that.....

The only "window of opportunity" seems to be Sunday morning 7 to 9am. And even then, I feel like my wife is accommodating me. But to really enjoy sex, I need her to be into it. We have sex maybe 6 times a year. When we do have sex, my wife pulls out three tissues before, so she can clean up the "mess" immediately after. I was 45 when we married, so I had a number of sex partners before we met. My wife is the only partner I have ever had who gets up right after sex and starts her day, without any afterplay or pillow talk. When I kiss her on the lips, she wipes her mouth off. And my teeth need to be freshly brushed for her to kiss me.

In the past 8 years, we’ve probably spent 6 weeks together in hotel rooms on vacation. We had sex one time, and it was awful because my wife was so reluctant. My wife covers her body from head toe in hotel rooms because of "germs" and "bed bugs." She seems to have developed a strong "ick factor.. At home, she sleeps between two body pillows, making it nearly impossible to cuddle her. She claims she needs the body pillows because she has a sore hip.

I finally told her that I WILL have an active sex life. And I will have that active sex life with either her or someone else, but I will not cheat on her (meaning I will leave her if things don’t get better). And to top it off, I now have transference issues with my female therapist of 7 1/2 years. For those not familiar, transference, in this case, means I have become attracted to my therapist, but am just projecting onto her my frustrations with someone else.

My wife is very anxious, which I think contributes to the problem. She is finally starting to get treatment for this. I’m willing to give her a chance that our sex life will improve once her anxiety eases. But I’m running out of patience. I’m 62 years old and I want very much to have an active and enjoyable sex life.

Thoughts and comments would be appreciated.