[TishaBuv]

It's time to address the elephant in the room.

This is partly why I am having sexual issues.

Sex is supposed to be to make love and have pleasure. But as far as I can remember, it has really been my form of glue to cement the relationship.

There was one brief period where it was just about pleasure with my college BF. This way never developed with my husband.

My sister keeps telling me 'just stop having sex with your h, and he'll divorce you'. Yet, I have kept giving in to sex to 'keep trying' with him or out of fear of him really ending it.

It's been a few months with no sex now for the first time with us, and we are now in therapy.

Can anyone relate to using sex as a means of currency?

[metalchick]

Yes I can. In fact if I wanted to keep someone around, I would sleep with them...that was enough for them to stick around for awhile. Right now my "partner" of 16 years and I have not touched each other in 2 years. We hate each other...
..now I realize it was a big mistake and sex was the only thing that kept us together. Best of luck to you and your h. I hope you guys can work things out.

[eskielover]

Lol....I difnt have sex with my H the last 12 years I lived with him. I wished he wanted a divorce because I sure did. Financially trapped because the house value was upside down & he refused to work with me on making a divorce work.

Found out after I finally was leaving him that he didnt want a divorce because "it would make him look like a failure" (i now understand why his brain worked in such strange ways but didnt then....couldnt see the forest for the trees)

Anyway, I left & 9 years later Im the one filing & paying for the divorce to make sure that somewhere along the line he doesnt do something really financially stupid & mske me loose my paid for farm.

He was hiding his failure behind closed doors for 33 years of our marriage. I focused on my degree & career & didnt have that much to do with him most of our marriage but sex wasnt ever a big desire in my life anyway so it didnt matter.

Lol, in my case, sex wasnt necessary as currency but my computer engineering career was.....& his desire to not look like a failure had more meaning to him than having a quality relstionship/marriage

[Lovino]

I can definitely relate to using sex or sex appeal as a means of keeping a relationship, unfortunately. I'm sure a lot of people can as well. You're not alone in this.

I hope that things work out well for you!

[Virneto]

So here's my male vision of it...
Not saying (or wanting to say) that sex is, everything in a relationship, I must say it is very important. As it is other affective manifestations or complicity in several other ways...

For me, sexual needs are very, very important. And it doesn't mean I would want to have sex with a girlfriend/wife regardless her will... I do not. I want her to want and I want my relationships to be complete in all ways including emotional and physical complicity and sexual expression...
As I write, I'm also thinking of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, represented as a pyramid with the more basic needs at the bottom... Sex is one of them... And it makes sense to me.
Having said that, i don't thing sex should occur in a meaningless way for one or both of the elements.. I don't think it should be used as a currency, although I try very hard to practice a continuous convergence of ideas and interests in my relationship...

Wish you all the best!