so, K...I will ask again here. I am curious about what your recovered marriage looks like.

So, for starters, if you are willing to reply, I will ask the same question here.

How long did you go (or have you gone) in your marriage without SF?

Did your wife limit or stop having SF with you after her affair? Did you make a decision to not have SF with her after her affair?

and I would appreciate this discussion being limited to K and me at this point.

Cool. I will respect your wish, though I hear echoes from other threads where you posted objections to such a request.

Good luck with your discussion and I posted a comment on the other thread that is relevant to the information you are seeking.

you respect my wish...yet here is a post from you.

Hi MEDC,

Certainly I will try to give a glimpse into what our marriage currently looks like, and the steps that we've taken.

For your SF questions, it has been somewhere around 12 years. Maybe it's 11 and I'm being overly dramatic---but lets just say a good while. And I'm only counting 'intercourse' here. The sex with my wife stopped prior to the beginnings of her affair, but probably not a lot before the affair started to form. Because it started out as an internet/email thing, I'm not really sure of exact dates of when the 'interest' in the OM started.

After my wife's affair had ended and she was through withdrawal, she was in her last trimester of her pregnancy. Not a good time to push the sex issue. I also was uncomfortable with having sex with her until she was cleared of STD's, which did happen during this time.

After the baby was born (10 years ago), we went through a period where we were closer with regards to intimacy, but my wife was dealing with depression from what she had done, a constant reminder (the child), and some normal tiredness of having a youngster. Not too soon after that she suffered a stroke. This affected her pretty profoundly, especially with regards to the depression. Her physical health has deteriorated (arthritis, TMJ, sleep issues, cancer) over the years, and the treatment for these (especially the depression) has shut her down sexually.

It is an issue that I do bring up (Radical honesty, after all). But it's one that she needs to address---the only thing I can do to force the issue is separation or divorce. I think too highly of my marriage committment, my committment to my family (kids and her) to take this tactic---generally conning someone into having sex with them isn't done at gunpoint.

The rest of the marriage is good to great. We meet most of the other areas of EN's for each other. Lovebusting is much less than prior to the affair---but I do have a tendency to still slip in DJ's when I ought to be shutting my pie hole. We do not spend enough time together---this has been an area that I've never been able to convince my wife of it's importance. And she'd rather have sex with me than start counseling with Steve or Jenn again (she got stuck in the past blaming herself...). Honesty and transparency is good.

So there you go---as marriages go, I'd give it a 7 or 8 out of 10, except for the sex part. My believe is that my wife's depression, medication, and her self-blame is what's leading to that. If she can get over it, my guess is that we'll progress on that front. And I'm unwilling to leave her to satisfy my own needs in that area.

My question is why you consider this recovery a 'sham', or that it's a surrender to MB principles?

K..I am honest when I say this...I feel sorry for you. Your wife last had SF with the OM and you do not see how dysfunctional that is.

Your m is not recovered IMHO. You have throw up a white flag of surrender just to remain married.

Making excuses for someone for 10-12 years is very sad.

If that is what recovery looks like K, I am sure that the vast majority of people would choose to move on.

I never said it was s surrender to MB principles. i said it was a surrender.

I do truly feel sad and sorry for you K.

I would offer a suggestion for you moving forward...consider your own needs as being important.

MEDC,

We're different people. My wife did last have sex with the OM. That's a fact---not dysfunction. OTOH, I get to celebrate that boy's 10th birthday (with no OM involvement)---and he's a gift straight from God.

I understand that for you, this would not work. I'm not sure why you think I'm making excuses---this was pretty much just a statement of fact. And I'm sure that many would have moved on from this marriage. I'm not one of them.

Being in a marriage blessed by God is, to me, very serious and very joyous business. I do rejoice and give thanks for the abundant blessings in my marriage, and I put my 'sacrifice' before God as an offering. And I still do work on it with my wife---although this is with a greater patience and understanding than most have.

And my needs are doing pretty OK, overall. You probably see this sad sack barely hanging on---and in reality, I love life, am full of joy and happiness, and I believe that I'm pretty well off. It must be sperm toxicity or something... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

yes, i agree we are different. I hope that your situation changes some day.