My wife won't go to couples counseling?

I'm not getting enough sex. I haven't been getting enough sex for years, for almost the full 24 years I've been married. I've been living with this, being unfulfilled, and I've been focusing my sexual energy in other directions. I've had some success with this, but when the day is done, it seems like I always come back to the same place where more sex would be the cure.

After come on to enough of my "platonic" friends, I finally got the message. They convinced me that my occasional slip ups were inappropriate and they recommended counseling. I refused to go to counseling for years, thinking I could solve my problems on my own. And to make matters worse, my wife is against counseling because she feels its a waste of time and money. She says I'm just going to counseling to get attention, that I treat it like a hobby, like some people go bowling.

Please don't tell me to leave my wife and get a divorce. I would be devastated. I love her too much and we've got so many good things going on in our lives. That would be like telling me to cut off my right arm because I've got an itch I just can't quite scratch.

I digress. I came home yesterday with the bright idea I needed a sex therapist. I told my wife that I was pursuing this idea. She hit the ceiling. She said she was tired of my obsession about sex. She's been putting up with my obsession for so many years and she thought it would eventually subside and I would grow out of it. I asked her if she would go to couples counseling so we could work on this together and she refused. This is after she made me cut my other counseling sessions down from 3 a week to 1 a week.

I'm still going to go. I still have a lot of work to do on myself.

Does your wife know about your slip ups? Is there a known reason why she is not interested in sex?

She knows about my slip ups with my first marriage but not with her. I don't know why she is not interested in sex. She doesn't want talk about it. It may be known to her, but it's not known to me. I asked her if she was ever sexually abused and she said no.

You both really need to go to counseling. She better learn to talk about it. You should really insist you go. You certainly deserve to know a reason she doesn't want to have sex.

Ahhh, the age-old conundrum: "What is enough sex? And who gets to define it?"

Man, if some genius could figure that out -- in, say, a nice simple quadratic equation -- there would at last be peace on earth. Or at least in 99% of the bedrooms on earth. lol ~sigh~

mf, a Q? for you: What, exactly, does sex "fix" for you? Bc it really is different kinds of a big (or not) deal to different people. My late husband defined sex as recognition and reassurance -- couple-bonding. It took us years to figure that out, and to recognize that we had very very different sexual terminology emotionally. Our counselour thought we were hilarious, but lemme tell you, I was NOT amused -- at the time, sex felt like just one more DEMAND someone was making, that I had to satisfy or I was a bad person & a horrible wife and uncaring partner blah blah blah.

Yeah, def do go to your therapy appts & get it sorted in your own head. I'm thinking that perhaps your wife might feel a bit as I did at one point: Sexual demands equals a big "Pay AttentionTo Me!!" insistence from you. If that's how she feels, that's sad for both of you.

Best,
Chyia

You are in your 60s, I assume she is close to you in age? You said it is 4 times s month? It's once a week. How often do you think others in their 60s have sex?

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If you love your wife then why cheat? You said those vows to remain faithful. However, your wife should go to counseling to address the issue. It is not healthy for you to remain in a marriage that is not satisfying. Ask yourself is this the kind of marriage you really want because your wife should be willing to work on these issues with you .she is not doing her part to have a good marriage if she is not. If she is not willing to go to couples counseling then its not important enough to her but please don't cheat that only adds more problems in a troubled marriage and you are betraying her. Cheating is never an answer to problems.

i'm glad that you are going to therapy on your own at least.

Thanks for the encouraging words. Looking back on this situation, now I can see that cheating is an easy way out. It's much harder to stay in the marriage and try to turn things around, especially when you don't have a participating partner.

Are you familiar with The 5 Love Languages? What's your primary love language? My primary love languages are Physical Touch and Words of Affirmation.

Mine were Quality Time with Affirmation/Physical Touch at the same.

I digress, on this thread. I can see why you would consider cheating. Not sure if you married in a church or not ? Dignified relations are meant to bring oneness and growing perfection in a marriage. That's a hefty sacrament if that's the path taken towards the altar.

4 times a month sounds pretty manageable to me. That is how often me and my H have sex. Once a week. If it were up to me it would be less then that though. That is to often for me. But I want to meet some of his needs to.

I personally jsut don't think about sex as a need. My H thinks about it all the time and wonders how can I not think of it and not don't consider his needs and wants. I tell him I can't recognize a need that I myself don't have. And it is hard to make my self available for the satisfaction of another. I get very little from sex.

My H sounds alot like your wife when it comes to therapist. I would love to have a sex therapist, but my H doesn't want to go. He doesn't think our sex life is any bodys business. He doesn't want some other persons opinion on what we need to do to fix things. We should jsut know. I personally do have a past history of sexual abuse and rape, so I know where my issues come from. Now I jsut need to know how to get past them.

I think for people in their 60s especially if they are still working and busy 4 times a months is not unreasonable. It is probably more than others have. And to say I have rights to cheat because she won't have sex more often is strange. It's not how commitments work

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If she is unwilling to even work on the marriage, is it salvageable? A marriage is a two way street. Both halves need to give 100% towards making it work. It makes it frustrating when one half of the equation point blank refuses to do a thing towards resolving the issue.

How could she resolve the issue of him demanding more sex because he is an addict ( according to him). It's a known fact that no one else can cure addiction but the person himself/herself. Just because he wants more than weekly sex in their 60s doesn't mean she must provide. He is the one cheats on her . What else could she do??? How is this her responsibility?

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I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. Cheating and sexual addiction are two of them. In the past, I would use my wife's lack of sex as justification for cheating. That was over 10 years ago. Now I'm trying to turn over a new leaf. However, until recently online affairs were never considered cheating by me, only real time affairs. Yes, I'm a recovering sex addict. Once I admitted that cyber sex was cheating, I had to find a way to avoid this too. That's why I "outed myself" online as a way to find help. I've been pretty good lately. No cybersex. No online affairs. No masturbation. But's it's been difficult because according to my therapist, what's cheating and what's not is really dependent on the couple to work out for themselves. It's hard to work these things out when my wife won't talk about it or go to counseling. Is the marriage salvageable. Yes! Will I ever have a perfect marriage? Probably not. Every day I have things to work on, to be a better man and a better husband. I can't change the past, but I can work toward a better and brighter future. That's all I'm trying to do.

Sex is a couples activity, but sex addiction is an individual issue. How much is your counselor helping you address this addiction?

She could see your recent emphasis on being a better husband as a transparent attempt to obtain more sex.

What do you suppose she means by saying that you treat counseling as a hobby, like bowling?

Well, after discussion with counselor, I'm finding that I don't have as much of an addiction as I thought. I don't have it under control, but it's not ruining my life either. But the jury is still out. I'm going back for more counseling to dig a little deeper. It seems like I just use sex to get the physical touch I need as an expression of love. Yes, she can see the change in me as an attempt to get more sex, but the target keeps moving on that one. I'm finding that it's not more sex I need as much as more compassion and empathy and emotional connection.

For her a hobby is something you do for fun. Like taking a vacation. You don't need it but you do it because it gives you some relief. She likes watching TV (Wendy Williams and reality TV shows) and talking on the phone to friends and family. Those are her hobbies.

From what you have posted here, I can understand the need for more compassion and empathy and emotional connection. Maybe the sex issue is mainly a symptom of the lack of fulfillment of these basic needs.

For me it wasn't the mistakes that he has made but the disparaging remarks about him as he tried to work on himself in counseling. Less about frequency of sex, more about how they both interact and communicate.

This^^ worded in a way that explains what I am trying to articulate

Sometimes we forget that there are people and feelings and emotions behind each post. Real people and real pain. But that's the risk we take when we open our hearts to the others.

I grew up in a strange environment. It was different. Much different than anything you could ever imagine. We did not talk. We ignored each other. We were in pain, emotional pain, and we learned to hide it, to keep it bottled up to never let it out. And we learned to be the opposite of authentic, unauthentic. Don’t tell anybody how you really feel inside, and if they guess you are in pain, that you’re hurting, don’t tell them. Don’t tell them what they did to hurt you because if they hurt you once they will use your emotional weakness to hurt you again. I was taught to hold back the tears. Men don’t cry.

My father was not in touch with his emotions. If he was he didn’t let me see it. When my mother did not give him what he wanted, that was his get out of jail free card to get it someplace else. He was a handsome man. The women chased him. And he knew how to turn women on.

My mother was confusing. When she was in pain and even when she felt joy, I missed it. Over and over again. I missed the tears welling up in her eyes and what it meant at the time. She would not say what she wanted. She would not say she was afraid. When my father left, I left soon after. I abandoned her like she abandoned me so many times, yet she never said she missed me or she wanted me to stay.

She is more likely very resentful at this point.

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She has a choice then, doesn't she??

That's the thing about triangulation of relationships. Not one of the three parties is victim.

The craving you feel for emotional connection goes back to your childhood. Your wife, no matter how loving, cannot meet that primal need. Your counselor, though, can help you address the past.

How does your wife's manner with you compare with the way that your mother treated you, and the way your father treated your mother?