From my perspective (the wayward wife) sex was never amazing with my husband, even at the beginnig/before marriage. To me it never felt like "making love", and my husband called it "boinking", which might be cute for some people but I realize now really made me think that he devalued what CAN be an act of love, passion, and a union of body and soul. He says now that the term he used was just because he was immature and that sex was always a completely mind-blowing experience for him, and I believe him. It just never felt that way for me. In fact, it wasn't long after we were married that I became less and less interested in sex and, after our kids were born, lost all interest and in fact developed an actual aversion to being physical with my husband. I assumed that it was natural to become less inerested in sex after being married for awhile, and also thought that I must just have a really low sex drive. But then, after seven or eight years of marriage I entered into an affair with the man who had been my husband's best friend in college. It definitely felt to both of us like a 'soulmate' connection and continued for several years. Making love was AMAZING, beyond belief... so passionate, so fulfulling, so RIGHT-feeling. I suddenly realized that there was NOTHING wrong with my body or my libido, and understood what it was really supposed to be like. What was it? We speculated that pheromones might play a role: we loved the smell and taste of each other. Making love reminded me of when I was a child and the joy of getting out of the ocean in Hawaii and then rolling in the hot sand of the beach - the warmth on my skin, the smell of the sea and the flowers, the gentle kiss of the sun - and not caring who was watching. Utter bliss! And, unlike my previous experiences with sexual intimacy, it just kept getting better and better. I had no idea it could be like that!!!

The affair is now over, my husband knows, and I have had no contact with the man who was my lover in over nine months. We've been trying to make our marriage work, to repair the damage we both did over the years. According to Marriage Builders it is supposed to take around six months for intimacy to return, but it has not. I have honestly 'been with' a lot of men in my time (>20) and had never, ever realized that making love could be so amazing with anybody as it was with this other man. Sure, sex with my husband is okay now (sometimes I actually become aroused in a luke-warm sort of way and have an orgasm), but it feels like a chore. My husband is a wonderful man - smart, funny, kind, good looking, and I feel SO AWFUL for him that it's like this. He says he feels amost like he's raping me when we have sex. It's unfair for him and I feel like he deserves better that what he's getting from me, and I am worried that it will never get much better. Can we ever achieve the physical intimacy we both want/need now that I know what it feels like to truly make love to a man who feels like my soulmate? Can he ever get over that I told him this, or will he always feel inadequate? Can "boinking", which turned into infrequent "sex", turn into real "love-making"? He says he's had it with me making excuses not to make love and with me wanting to take it slowly, but the more pressured I am the less amorous I feel. We are talking about divorce and I think maybe it's the right thing to do. Pretty sure he doesn't want to divorce, though, and thinks we can make it work. Does it sound like there's any hope? Has anyone else out there ever been in this situation?

I know this was a really long posting - sorry!

DoTheRightThing,

Have you considered sex therapy? Much cheaper than divorce, and a lot more rewarding!

I'm guessing the sex was sensational with OM not because you were "soul mates," but because of the way he made you feel about yourself.

What -- before you had sex with him -- did he do to make you feel so wonderful? Identify that, and you've probably named your most important Emotional Need(s) (read about them via links on the MB )home page.

Then, show your H how to meet that same need the way you most appreciate it. BTW, you do the same for him.

I wish you love and great sex with your H!

Right Here Waiting

Despite the lack of passion, your H must truly be anamazing man to be able to deal with that type of betrayal and still be willing to try to make things work. I'd say if there was hope for igniting the sexual spark between you, the infidelity, especially with his friend, has made it much harder to find. You, essentially, castrated him with this and the revelations about your "soulmate's" prowess. Nice.

Dotherightthing,

Interesting that you are willing to hurt your children so. Intersesting that you are willing and did hurt your husband so.
Interesting that feel pressured, but simply fighting back rather than examining the need for intimacy in a marriage.

Dothe, you are still in a wayward way of thinking. Let me ask you this since you mentioned your self-image. I am curious since your self-image has not prevented you from being with >20 men before. You also said
Notice something in this, this affair went on for years isn't that right? Do you think that in the years you debased and devalued your marriage and your H with his supposedly best friend that your mind vilified your H to protect you from having a conscience? Do you suspect if you acted like you valued your body and were not self-conscious about it around your H that he might react differently to you. I am sure you were NOT bashful about being nude in front of OM, but how many times are that way with your H?

Great sex is not an issue of "soul mates" great sex is an issue of honesty, openness, desire, and yes love. Oh! yes and one other ingredient that you clearly lack, RESPECT FOR YOUR PARTNER.

How you could respect a man that cheats on his "best friend", how you can have self-respect when cheating on your partner is problem YOU need to address.

Given that this was a long term affair, it is not surprising that after only 6 months you have not regained intimacy, you are still in withdrawal. At 6 months it is often seen that the BS begins to feel deep deep anger for the betrayal they have endured and tried to overcome, with in your case little assistance from the wayward spouse.

You say
Do you understand that he feels like he is "raping" you for a reason. Do you understand that this man is far more sensitive to you and your moods that you apparently were to him. Do you understand that "good sex, great sex" requires that a man feel he is desired by his spouse, and he probably has KNOWN for a long long time you have not desired him, that you have been comparing him to the man you were cheating with, or many of the other 20+ plus men you have been with. Do you understand that his ability to feel and sense your mood, is the very key you are looking for to have "great sex", but you have not been aware that your H is that sensitive nor that aware that he needs YOUR encouragement.

OM are almost always good a reading, finding weak spots and exploiting them for their sexual purposes. Is OM married? I'll bet you were not his only conquest both in college and after. You have never given your H an even shot. Your loss of drive for him is NOT HIS FAULT. It is YOURS.

I think it is time you faced the fact that this affair has really really warped how you view things and how you have rewritten history. This last point is very common because most people are good people and the only way they can justify the betrayal they perpetrate on their spouse is rewrite history.

Interesting that you feel he "devalued" love making, when in fact it was you that did just that in your marriage.

Please think about all of this and seek some really good marriage counseling, most counselors are NOT very good.

God Bless,

JL

How long was you affair?

When did it end?

How did it end?

When was your BH's D day?

How long has NC been?

How close do you live to the OM?

Did you work with the OM?

Well I feel like I should chime in here, for the sake of fairness and clarity. I am the aforementioned "H" in this sad saga. My wife is a good person, and I want to make it clear in this forum that I have made more than my share of mistakes too, and the fault isn't hers alone. She posted here looking for support and help and she deserves both.

My perspective on the early years of our marriage, strangely enough, differs from hers. I thought it was wonderful. That said, I apparently had quite a different set of expectations from her. I think that her expectations for marriage were quite well developed and particular, and became a huge source of disappointment for her when they weren't realized. Mine were more fluid and ill-defined. In truth I always considered myself extremely lucky to have found and married a woman like her, but didn't have much of an agenda or long term plan beyond that.

I had the good fortune to be raised by a couple of solid, loving parents who did many things right. Unfortunately, there were some things I was woefully unprepared for, and the proper wooing of women was one of them. If you're getting the impression I am a recovering geek -- you're pretty close. My dad used to swear (tongue in cheek, but all the same) that he never touched my mother and had no idea where the children came from (he did, btw -- his children were legitimate). He just wasn't a romantic guy, sexuality wasn't something you talked about. I once put a poster up of "Blondie" (there's no accounting for taste when you're 12 I guess) on my wall and my dad made so many sarcastic remarks about it I was humiliated and took it down. So in college I was going through the emotional sexual development process normally reserved for 14 and 15 year olds. NOTE TO FATHERS: don't make your sons feel awkward and humiliated about sexual feelings & curiosity!!

So when it came to wooing my wife, I did a pretty lousy job. It's amazing in hindsight that she married me at all. Pretty much any classic romantic overture that a man is supposed to make to his love, I screwed up somehow. But I can promise you that the love was there, just not always the execution.

She and I clashed from time to time with regards to our differences on style, children, leisure activities, sense of romance, etc. Sometimes it was a minor thing, sometimes it was a pretty significant disagreement. To me these things were fairly trivial in the sense that I rarely worried about them for very long. I might be indignant for a short while, but eventually I would come to agree with her most of the time (and, in truth, was almost always the better for it -- I am stubborn sometimes, but I can be taught!) To her, however, it was one brick after another layered on the wall of disappointment around her heart.

I didn't see it at the time. I say "didn't" not "couldn't" because the latter would be wrong. There were numerous times where I felt like something was missing, but I didn't have the courage or the emotional tools to allow myself to be vulnerable and to open up enough to her that she would feel comfortable telling me about what had hurt her. I kick myself about this now... <sigh>

Anyway, we'd proceed along a building crescendo like this for a while (months to a couple years) and then something would give and we'd have a crisis. She wrote me a letter after the birth of our daughter saying that she was very very unhappy with me and that she wanted to leave. I wasn't emotionally ready for fatherhood (probably to do with more childhood experiences...) and I consequently was a horrible partner for a pregnant woman. Again, her expectation of pregnancy and motherhood was that it would be this wonderful experience of joy and bonding with hubby and baby, and instead she was sick for 9 months and I was in major escapism mode (computer games, working long hours, hanging out with friends, generally being unenthusiastic).

The letter I think was a major wake-up call, and from that day forward I began to work a lot harder at being a good partner, being a good father (I *adore* my kids, as stressful as they can be sometimes), and trying to give the W what she needed. But these were the first steps on a long journey, and sadly I wasn't nearly as well-equipped with the relationship skills as I needed to be at that point to avoid what happened in later years. The emotional disconnect that she felt toward me did not abate, and my frustration and disappointment in this tangible yet mysterious distance between us just grew. At times I would feel the urgency -- that something needed to be done -- but I didn't know what, and marriage counceling felt like admitting I was a failure (NOTE TO COUPLES: marriage therapy does *not* mean you're a failure!!!)

You might get the feeling that my wife is the first relationship I'd ever been in that was even quasi-serious. You'd be right. Even though I got married at the age of 25, and am 36 now, I'm still learning on the job.

Anyhow, I wanted to give this bit of background info to her story above, because it is important that you understand that there are reasons why she felt emotionally disconnected from me. She's not a bad person who just decided to go off and mess around with someone else. To a large degree, she was driven to do it. She is a kind, loving woman with a big heart and she feels awful about the predicament that we have both put ourselves in, as well as the OM, his W, and all the children involved.

I love my wife very much, despite it all, and I am committed to getting a good therapist and taking down that wall brick by brick. I am convinced that the last chapter in our story has not been written yet, and we have been given this chance to heal each others wounds and become good together again. I have issues that I need to address (thanks Dad -- I'll be sending you the bill) and I think that I will be a better marriage partner as time goes by.

My W and I are both reasonably attractive, fit, educated, decent people. Neither one of us are going to collapse into emotional Gehenna never to be heard from again if we get a divorce. Our children will suffer the same pains that all children of broken homes do, but like so many, they will survive and become functional adults. Nonetheless, I do *NOT* want to get a divorce!!

The way I look at all the crap that has happened to us is this: just bumps on the road of life. Well, okay, some of them are gigantic meteor-craters in the road of life. And, well, in our case right now, it is more like a hidden single track in the snake-infested overgrown jungle of life. But the point is that I still adore my wife, I think I understand her a bit better than I did before, I am learning the value of making love instead of just "boinking", and there is no one in the whole world I would rather hack my way through the jungle with, machete in hand when necessary, than her.

-BWD.

Epictitus, you sound like an amazing person. DoTheRightThing - do NOT let this man go!!!! Your problems will be resolved in time. This guy is a true gem. Even if he's only 1/2 the man he seems by his post, he's more than most of what's out there. And he obviously adores you. Good luck you two!

Epictitus, you set the bar waaaaaaay to low. This woman has zero empathy for what she has put you through. The fact that she clued you in on how sex w/OM was way better than with you should raise a huge

It actually makes me want to

She's still wayward and disgustingly so.