I'm not terribly familiar with these message boards, so please forgive this newbie if I do something wrong. I'm casting about for reasonable advice for my particular situation, which goes something like this: I married my wife when she was very young, and neither of us had any sexual experience. We have been married nearly 10 years now, and although we have two children, throughout that time sex has been the major problem in our relationship. It's the familiar story: I want it, she doesn't. I suspected for a long time, though, that the her problem wasn't with sex in general (which she claimed), but with sex with me. I have since been proved correct, unfortunately. My wife conducted an emotional affair with another man, mostly online and by phone, for nearly a year, then finally had a sexual encounter with him in January of this year. As a result of this encounter, not only does my wife now know that she is not "passionless", but the experience has "opened her eyes" to what I've wanted all along. She has since returned to our marriage and cut off contact with the other man, but she has left the central issue that led to her infidelity -- our problems with sex (and I don't want to give the impression that I blame her for all of those problems) -- unaddressed. In fact, she now claims that to her, sex is not a necessary part of marriage, and that she will never be sexually attracted to me. She says we just "don't have it", but that the other aspects of our marriage are good enough that she can be happy within it. If we are to remain married, I apparently have to accept this, along with the minimal sex life it implies. Needless to say, this hurts enormously, and I'm having a lot of trouble with it.

I read the article on this website entitled "How to Overcome Sexual Aversion", and I found it startlingly relevant. There are passages in that article that describe my marriage and its central problem -- both my contribution and my wife's -- so closely and accurately that I find it spooky. But the article is not written with the perspective of recovering or creating a sex life in the aftermath of an affair, in particular an affair that was largely caused by problems with sexual aversion. How might I try to approach my wife with this article, and the treatment suggested in it? Does anyone have other advice to give on the situation I've outlined above?

But wait, there's more! My wife also has a good friend, who also happens to be male. They are partners in a sport that they both play (and which I am unable to join for various reasons). He lives in another city more than an hour away, so they don't see each other very often, but they trade e-mails during the day and instant message each other in the evenings and on weekends. I find the volume of their correspondence alarming, but the content, for the most part, is not. When I was in the process of ferreting out the truth of my wife's affair, I gained access to all of her online communications, and so I know that their friendship, at present, is only that. In fact, the other guy has consistently encouraged my wife to be honest with me and to communicate with me, and in general has supported our marriage in the aftermath of my wife's affair. The kicker, though, is that they flirt -- they trade (usually) sarcastic compliments regarding each other's appearance and dress, as well as a lot of double entendres. This other guy is happily married, and my wife has never concealed this friendship from me, although she didn't exactly advertise its extent to me before I started snooping (if it matters, I have since come clean to my wife about the snooping, as well).

So, here are some more questions: at what point does this friendship cross the line into an "emotional affair"? How can I address this with my wife without completely antagonizing her?

This is a hellaciously long set of questions, but I'm really finding it difficult to sort through all of this by myself. My wife and I have been to a marriage counselor, but after a few visits, one with the two of us and two each solo, this woman started suggesting that she could mediate a separation, and even used the word "mistake" in reference to our marriage. She was the one who supplied my wife with the "some couples just don't have it" bit. Needless to say, we have dropped her, but we are now quite soured on the whole counseling experience. The sexual aversion article is just about the only thing giving me hope at this point.

Any help would be appreciated, so long as it's better than what that counselor had to offer.

Have you followed any of Dr. Harleys advice on surviving and recovering from an A?

Your wife needs to end her relationship with her new male friend, and you need to deal with her first A.

Get and read the book "Not Just Friends" by Shirley Glass. Sorry to find yourself here and I am afraid that due to a lack of boundaries your W may be headed to another affair.

Schedule an appointment with the Harleys. It will be the best money you ever spent.

Read the comments in the Q&A section of this web site about finding a conselor. You were unlucky to find a feel good artist who is clueless. Sorry.

If you are in an area with a qualified sexologist, see about one appointment for yourself only and be prepared to tell it like it is !

Larry

You can't.

Don't try.

Why should what she "feels" affect your efforts to save YOUR marriage due to her A.

CB,

Welcome to MB. Sorry you're here, but happy to have you. I too think a call to the Harleys would be money VERY well spent. Even one appointment will help to give you some direction.

Having said that, I'll offer my take on this situation. Granted....you've got only one post....so I only have limited amount of information....but I'll tell you some of the stuff I "hear", and I'm going to ask some more questions.

From where I'm sitting, you're really getting the short end of the stick. Your wife rejects you sexually, eventually has an EA turned PA.....and then she gets to call all the shots. What's wrong with that picture. If you are so enamored with your wife that you will continue to all an unrepentent spouse with another EA ongoing....then you might want to rethink how that's working for you.

One thing that women find sexually attractive is "powerful" men. If she feels as though she holds all the power in the relationship, you will continue to get the short end of the stick. How confident are you? I know confidence is in short supply when sexual rejection is in place, as well as an affair....but I say this in the nicest way....man up!! As long as you're scared to death of losing your wife.....she's going to walk all over you.

I'm not giving you license to lovebust, but I am hoping you'll be assertive enough to set some decent boundaries around things like male friendship. Are you willing to accept celibacy when you see the cost of ignoring that need....your loss of self esteem, and her affair?

She might intitially be angry when you stand up for yourself, but she won't respect you if you don't. Be willing to risk her ire in order to build a better marriage that has some hope of battling future temptation.

It sounds to me, that following the discovery of the affair, that there were NO conditions for reconciliation (you were probably so happy she stayed that you didn't ask for anything)....and there doesn't seem to be ANY recovery plan in place either. When she was scared of losing YOU was the time when you had the most negotiating room and you could require things like accountability, ending the other EA, getting sex therapy, check ups, etc. Now that she knows you'll take her as she is....you're in a pretty crummy negotiating postition.

That doesn't mean you're sunk....but it does mean that you'll meet more resistance and conflict as you make the first step towards real recovery. You are quite right....if you don't address the things that made your marriage vulnerable....it's still vulnerable....in fact....she's still involved in an EA.

Sex isn't the only thing that defines an affair. She invests a great deal of her energy (and flirting IS sexual energy even if it isn't physical) outside of the marriage.

Now, tell us more about the beggining of your marriage....how you met, what dating was like. Did you have an emotional connection? Did you have things in common? Does your wife find you physically attractive (then/now)? When you were dating, how was the verbal communication? What things do you think attracted your wife to you?

Call the Harleys.

CB,

I'm going to give your post a bump so you don't disappear. Hope to see you back here.

Hi star*fish, and thanks for the conscientious response.

Regarding your take on my position in (what I presume you would characterize as) a power struggle with my wife, I think there is some truth to what you say. When the final confession was made (it took two months of gradual revelation before we got there), I did make two demands: first, that she cut off all contact with the other man (the one she had the sexual encounter with, that is); second, that she come with me to see a marriage counselor. Unfortunately, the counselor we wound up seeing was the one I described, which turned out to be useless. [I had interviewed this woman on the phone, too, and she had given what I thought were the right responses to the questions I asked at the time; she also came highly recommended from two different professional sources, including my PCP]. That also cost us a real chunk of change, so I am not in a position, at the moment, to plunk down more money on another counselor, just yet.

But I think you're partly right when you say that somehow she still holds the cards. The fundamental issue with our marriage that led to the affair remains unaddressed, and she is still best friends with another man. I wouldn't say that I'm "scared to death" of losing my wife -- I've looked into that particular abyss, and if separation looms, I think I'm ready for it -- but she is the one who moves first and fastest to giving up on the relationship completely when anything resembling real negotiation threatens to break out. It feels to me like some kind of emotional extortion, and I'm still working through how much I really want to deal with it/try to work through it/confront it to get what I need, and what I think our marriage needs.

At some point, I'm going to have her read that "sexual aversion" article, and I'm going to suggest a combination of the treatment suggested there with 2 others that I've found elsewhere to address this issue. At the moment,, however, I'm girding myself for that confrontation, and building up "love units" in our "love bank" that I can withdraw to get something accomplished. Right now, that bank is running low on funds, in part because my own behavior immediately after discovering the affair, however understandable, wasn't the best, and depleted my capital quite a bit.

How we met? We worked together in a lab in college (although I'm a bit older than she is). Dating was very nice for the first year or so, although she was clearly inexperienced (I was her first boyfriend) and things progressed slowly on all fronts, including the sexual. We definitely had an "emotional connection", and it was really during that first year that we had "it", meaning a truly mutual romantic love for each other. I know that at the time she found me physically attractive, and what we had (and still have) in common were highly compatible mindsets, attitudes, outlooks, interests, etc., although we have never really shared similar hobbies. At some point, however, she lost that. In retrospect, I can pinpoint when it happened, although there was no specific event that coincided with it. Regardless, after that, things were still affectionate, but they just weren't as passionate. So why did we stay together? For her part, she was raised to believe that one chooses a man who will be a good husband, a good father, good person and provider, and the reason she has stayed with me, by her description, is that I have fulfilled those roles (and until her affair she didn't really understood my need for sexual fulfillment at all, much less feel one of her own). For my part, I was then, and have always been, in love with her. It might be hard to believe, and some of you may find it pathetic, but I've somehow managed to carry a torch for this woman all this time, buoyed largely by the hope that eventually things would be better. Because after all, other than the sexual aspect, the rest of our marriage is actually very good.

I can't do that anymore, though, and so now I'm approaching a moment when I will have to demand that things change, or at least that we start working to accomplish a change, because in the aftermath of her affair I can no longer be happy in this situation. That moment may have already passed, on the day she finally confessed everything to me, but it's too late to cry over that now.

The other "affair", if it really is one, is a speed bump compared to that. If it does blow up into something else, I'll know, and then it really is over. I will not go through this twice. In the meantime, I'm leaning toward the viewpoint that the best offense against that is a good defense, if you know what I mean. But I'm uncertain enough about that to want to get other opinions, even if they come from people who have only a few paragraphs of description to go on. It's a lot for my poor little emotionally devastated head to wrap around.

Well, it does not surprise me that she finally found her sexuality via an infatuation/affair. Women have an emotional cycle, or I should say, some women have an emotional cycle of about two to seven years. Unless they are wise or not of the norm, they tend to have affairs based on that emotional cycle; at least some do. They they grow up and learn better, or not as the case may be.

Given the explosive nature of affair sex, it is doubtful that you can compete at that level until you are able to establish intimacy with her. There are a lot of good resources on the net for discovering intimacy. Do you homework, start slow and take it from there.

The Harley's charge $185 for an hour. Best money you will ever spend. Save up for it, please.

Larry

CB,

First, let me say that there probably won't be many people on this board who will think you're "pathetic". The reason most of us came here was because we also carry a torch for someone who betrayed us. You say you couldn't do this again....maybe not....but I have done this twice. I credit MB for the recovery of my marriage. My H and I did go to one of the weekend seminars. It was really good for giving us a common language to speak. Compared to the cost of divorce, I think it was money well spent.

Unfortunately, there are alot of counselors out there that cater to "individuals" and fail to understand that in order to save a marriage....the marriage has to be the third client. Did she give a reason for why your marriage didn't "have it"??? What is "it"? Sexual attraction?

You're also in the uneviable place that many of us have been....where you're the "betrayed" and instead of the wayward spouses doing very much to reach recovery, you have to limp into the lead despite the pain. It's a crummy spot chere....and I've been there. I felt like chump, but like you, I still loved my spouse and had children who deserved an intact family.

Have you guys filled out any of the questionaires? You might have better luck filling the lovebank if you make sure to plug up the holes where it's draining out. Find out what annoying habits and other busters you can eliminate so that you are in a stronger negotiating position.

So how long has it been since the affair ended?

I also want to talk to you about the "demands". Be careful with "demands". What you need after an affair is good boundaries (This is tolerable to ME and this isn't) and extra-ordinary precautions to ensure no contact (accountability measures that open her life to scrutiny).

You won't get blasted here for snooping....it's the way most of us found out....because affairs are done in "secrecy" and secrecy (unlike privacy) undermines trust, breeds suspicion....and for good reason. Your wife has a right to her privacy....but not her secrecy. I have a post somewhere about that....If I can find it....I'll give it a bump.

Keep posting.....hopefully some others will chime in....it's good to get different perspectives. Hang in there buddy.

Hi star*fish (and all the spectators):

Your sympathy and advice are appreciated. I think I need to be a bit more balanced and present the other side of the story. None of this excuses what my wife did, of course, but I'm a self-criticizing kind of a guy, and it has occurred to me that I have not been as fair on this forum as I have been with anyone else I have spoken with.

I was not the most sensitive of husbands in the early years (and, heck, in the middle and recent years) of our marriage. In the "sexual aversion" article, the description of the husband who pressures his wife into having sex when she didn't want it, etc. etc. -- that was me. I have never been physically or verbally abusive, but I made it clear that I was unhappy with our sex life. Little did I know that I was just reinforcing bad associations I had started to make for her as far back as when we were dating. One other complication: I was a user of pornography. A few months into the marriage, my wife made it clear to me that she wanted me to get rid of it. I didn't. Then she bargained with me, promising to work on our sex life if I got rid of it. So I did. Unfortunately, the collection was extensive enough that a few X-rated videotapes (this was pre-DVD and pre-high speed internet) were still hidden in the general collection. When we moved to a new house a few months later, I rediscovered the tapes, and in the meantime the promised sex life hadn't materialized. I figured the deal was off, kept the tapes, and started building the collection anew. She eventually discovered this, and after a long period during which things were touch-and-go for the survival of our marriage, she came to some sort of "accommodation" with my pornography habit, and started to tolerate it. She now claims that she no longer has a problem with me using pornography, although naturally I suspect that she still harbors some resentment over this.

For whatever it's worth, sometime last year pornography started losing its luster for me. As garden-variety pornography has become more and more mainstream, real porn sites have become more and more degrading, violent, disgusting, boundary-pushing, etc. That stuff is a real turn-off for me. If it matters, I was asked once what kind of pornography I tended to prefer. This was easy to answer: pornography in which a woman is being genuinely pleasured; no fakery, no overacting, no focus on the man's pleasure. You can find websites that cater to this sort of thing fairly easily. Regardless, the other side of the porn industry was taking the luster off of everything for me, so I started using it less and less often, and in the wake of my wife's affair in January, I decided to jettison my existing collection and go cold turkey. Temptation has occasionally been strong, but so far, so good.

Maybe that destroys all sympathy for me. I'd understand that.

Anyway, I've been no angel. My dissatisfaction with our sex life intensified my drive to use pornography, and perhaps more importantly, caused me to emotionally withdraw from my wife. As a result, she eventually stopped trying to involve me in her interests and hobbies. We drifted apart to a large degree, and eventually came to meet most of our emotional needs, and other needs (recreational, etc.), outside of our marriage. I'm sure that's what's behind her need for male friends. The steps we have managed to take since the affair include spending more time together, working to re-integrate each other in our respective interests, etc. This is certainly just as important as the sexual issue, so I shouldn't say that we haven't been working, and working well, to rebuild our relationship, together. The only flaw in that analysis is that the sexual issue underlies the other ones, and so if it isn't addressed, I don't know if we can make the other changes stick. My hope, at the moment, is that by building a better relationship I can loosen things up to the point where we can work on the physical intimacy, but it is very uncertain that we'll ever do that.

My other mistake, or major sin, depending on your outlook, has come in the wake of discovering the affair. Essentially, I flipped out. The snooping was part of that. While it was probably justified at first, once I had discovered everything, it really went on past the point where it was justified or useful. I'm afraid that I'm just a little bit skeptical of the "radical honesty" policy promoted on this forum, and I certainly doubt my wife would take well to it. On a more practical note, however, reading my wife's private communications was a violation of the privacy of the people with whom she corresponded. And most importantly, it hurt me. No one needs to know every little foible that their spouse is capable of complaining about. My wife would be mortified, even given the anonymity here, if she knew this story was here to be read.

Past the snooping, however, I became more than a little paranoid, and over the past couple of months I've dug into the past year trying to find evidence of a more extensive affair than was probably there, and I've accused my wife of various offenses, some justified, some not, most too repetitive. This has probably approached the level of emotional abuse. Maybe people here will disagree, and say that all of my reactions are understandable. Well, in the context I've given above, my wife's affair is "understandable". Neither set of behaviors is justifiable.

Things are touch-and-go right now, because I did it again today. I opened my mouth when I should have kept it shut, zigged when I should have zagged, inflicted pain when I should have shown forgiveness. So now we're in separate rooms again, probably for several nights. A major step backward. Maybe we'll vault this hurdle like we've vaulted the others (i.e. barely), but we'll see.

Oh, and I should answer your short questions:

The affair started with a non-sexual meeting in spring 2006. It continued as an "emotional affair" until January of this year, when the sexual encounter occurred. All contact with the other man was severed two months later, when my wife made the final confession.

What is "it"? Romance. Physical and emotional intimacy. The feeling of being "in love". Passion. Sexual chemistry. The sort of thing that waxes and wanes naturally in most marriages (or disappears, leaving the lovers struggling to find it again). The idea is that some people are simply not compatible that way, and there's probably something to it. My rejoinder is that my wife and I definitely had "it" when we were dating, that I have had "it" for her off and on ever since, and that while we haven't had very many moments of real passion, we have had them. Contra the counselor's thinking, I believe rather firmly that if those feelings existed once, they can be regained. My wife and I haven't changed that much.

CB,

You have a wonderful vocabulary.

Regardless of your faults, foibles, and snooping, it isn't your fault that your wife had an affair. The state of the marriage? That's 50% your fault - the affair is 100% hers to own.

I understand the snooping. I did it myself, still do, truth be told. Every day, I check his email. Nothing there. I check anyway.

Why? Because one of the first things the OW said was, "We didn't send emails or anything." Since she is such a liar, I figured they did.

My husband's story is much like yours, regards the porn use and the push for sex. His desire far outreached mine, and his use of porn pushed me away - yet he wanted sex more and more all the time. It was a vicious cycle. He ended up with the OW, who indulged the porn, watched it with him. As I read your story, I almost expected you to tell us that you had an affair yourself.

Somehow, do you view the porn as a form of cheating on her?



I agree that you can recover your marriage, passion and all. At first, I thought that it was over, and that things would not work out. I thought I would stay married, we would be friends, but the love would not return. I was wrong. It is back. And the passion is back.

So your counselor is wrong. I would say your counselor needs to do some reading.

SB

"If it matters, I was asked once what kind of pornography I tended to prefer. This was easy to answer: pornography in which a woman is being genuinely pleasured; no fakery, no overacting, no focus on the man's pleasure."

HUH? Porn is just a fantasy. Unless the cameras are hidden in a closet somewhere, the woman IS acting, IS faking.

And I know how your wife feels being pressured. That was probably part of the attraction of the affair - no reality, no kids, no bills, no going to bed exhausted and her husband tapping her on the shoulder.

Cymanca: I have an instinctively positive response to your take-no-prisoners attitude. There might be something to eliminating all consideration of my wife's feelings about her friendship with another man, and risk antagonizing her if it's necessary to have a better marriage. But that's risky. She may be so antagonized that she gives up completely, and then it's all over. So: I have to balance that approach against its impracticality if I really want to keep the marriage intact. Our children are the most important consideration (although far from the only one) in that calculation, and so from a utilitarian perspective, I think I have to tread a little lightly. A little sugar makes the medicine go down easier, right? Why give a hard push that might not work at all when a series of little shoves is more likely to?

Larry178: thanks for your comments also. I can't afford the Harleys right now, or else I can add financial troubles to the list of marital problems I'm dealing with. I've given some thought to a "sexologist" or "sexual therapist" or whatever the appropriate title is, but there is precisely zero probability I'll ever be able to drag my wife into something like that. If I do start reconsidering marriage counseling, by the Harleys or anyone else, that's going to be a tough enough sell.

believer: I don't want to belabor this too much, since the details quickly become irrelevant to the central issue, and the whole thing is embarassing enough to be carried to some X-rated message board. The vast majority of porn is fantasy, yes. But anything you can imagine being done, can be found online. "Real" female arousal is one of those things. Admittedly, there's always an element of uncertainty with that, but...well, this has gone on enough.

Oh, not being a porn watcher, I was not aware. Thanks for the clarification.

schoolbus: My wife has said that in the early years of our marriage, she regarded my use of pornography as equivalent to cheating on her. I'm not proud of it, myself, but I don't make that equation.

As for having an affair, I will admit to wanting one at various times during our marriage. But I've been given two opportunities to have an affair in the past 5 years, and I shut them both down before they went anywhere at all. I'm pretty sure that doesn't make me any more morally upstanding; maybe I'm just not capable. I'm a habitual monogamist.

As for the vocabulary: I have always read too d*mn much. I couldn't right simply and directly if I wanted to, so I always sound like a pedant. And there I go again...

"I couldn't right simply and directly..."

I'm posting too much tonight. Nothing to do and an argument to avoid. But that seems like a strangely meaningful typo, doesn't it?