I’ve been married for ten years, but have felt disconnected from my wife for about the last 8 of them. When we were dating she seemed to share my interests and to be sexually open-minded, but now I realize that she was just playing the devoted girlfriend, a role she has since exchanged for “Mommy”. Though we both wanted kids (we have two), we had originally planned to enjoy time as a couple for a while before starting a family; instead she started to pressure me after a year of marriage, and we argued about it every month until she got pregnant. After the second child, she grew even more distant and I went into a deep
depression and started therapy. Since then, I enjoy what you might call “family life”, but not my private life; my wife wants me to be happy, but with her way of things, not by actually trying to make me happy. We only have sex when and how she wants it, which is seldom and perfunctory.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to lose my family because I do treasure it, but I feel (and my therapist agrees) that I can’t live like a monk the rest of my life and still be happy. I’m reluctant to try a professional because my employer has a “zero tolerance policy for human trafficking”; if caught I’d be fired on the spot. And as you’ve said many times, amateurs can’t be trusted not to destroy the family life that I do love. I do love my wife, and do not want to leave her or my family. Your thoughts and advice on the matter would be greatly appreciated.
My cousin Jeff used to say that the tragedy of relationships is that women want men to change, and they don’t, while men don’t want women to change, and they do. The truth, as much as nobody wants to hear it, is that Western people have been sold a lie. Marriage was designed in ancient times not for companionship, but for social, economic and political expediency; it would still work just fine if we remembered that. But somewhere along the line people started wanting to pretend that the hormonal rush we experience from being strongly drawn to someone is the same thing as love, which it isn’t; we even started calling it “falling in love” (which, again, it isn’t). As if that weren’t bad enough, some two centuries ago we decided for some absurd reason that this temporary neurochemical derangement was in and of itself reason enough to make a lifelong commitment to someone, without any concern for economics or personal compatibility. In fact, within the past century we completely departed from rationality by deciding that this quasi-inebriated condition was the only valid reason for marriage or (some believe) even having sex, and went so far as to create social institutions (such as anti-prostitution laws) to enshrine the fallacy as Divine Truth.
But that feeling of romantic love, though very powerful and as real as any feeling, is by its very nature ephemeral; it usually lasts no longer than two years, and almost never longer than seven. Even couples who swear that they’re still “in love” after 20 years or whatever aren’t being entirely honest; what happens in the best, healthiest modern relationships is that the feeling of romantic love is gradually replaced by the stronger, sturdier type of affection we feel for our friends and children, just as the tissues of a fossil are slowly replaced by minerals. The original shape is thus maintained, often perfectly, but the fossil is not the same as the organism it replaced, and never can be. Sometimes the copy is as good as or even better than the original, but at other times the resemblance is superficial at best. And if one of the couple just adores the fossil while the other feels it stinks, we arrive at a situation like yours: your wife thinks it’s just wonderful that what was once living flesh has turned to stone, while you grieve for the living thing you lost; worse still, she can’t comprehend why you don’t prefer the nice, clean fossil which doesn’t crawl around or eat or get sick or anything messy like that.
I’ve written four times before about situations not dissimilar to yours, in “There Ain’t No Bad Guys“, “Late Bloomer“, “On a Mountaintop” and “Familiarity Does Its Thing“; you may wish to take a look at those, because elements of each might prove helpful. The good news is, you don’t need to choose between a fulfilling sex life and a rewarding family life; the bad news is, you do need to choose between getting what you need and obeying the perverse and arbitrary dictates of your busybody employer about what you can do with your own life and money when you aren’t on the clock. You wouldn’t obey a boss who told you that being a vegan or a teetotaler was a condition of employment, would you? No, you’d talk the talk when necessary so as not to lose your job, then do what you wanted when you were off the clock because it isn’t any of their damned business. Obviously, you need to be careful; in my examples it wouldn’t do for you to be caught in a bar or a steakhouse, so massage parlors or street girls are an absolute no-no for you. Do your research, find a mature and established escort with a reputation for discretion, pay her what she asks and maybe a little more, and then as long as you’re careful you can have the advantage of a mistress without the emotional attachment and resultant risk of exposure. You will get what you need, your wife will assume you’ve adjusted (as long as you keep trying her defenses regularly without actually harassing her), and both your family and your sanity will survive intact.
(Have a question of your own? Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)
I do have one point in contention-
While being in a loving relationship with the same person for 10 years or more is definetly an evolutionary process, that romantic attraction often comes back on and off, maybe only for a few weeks at a time, but it can happen several times a year. There’s no way to predict it, but you can trigger it by spontaneously changing you behavioral patterns.
In order to take advantage of it, you need to be really self aware, and you’ll want to treat it just like a new relationship- extra attention, and a contious effort to attract the person.
I’ve noticed at alot of older couples make the mistake of getting to used to the other person, and then they are surprised when what they assumed was a sure thing has somehow magically disappeared. A good analogy is the think of a relationship like a fire- once you get it going, it certainly requires a lot less effort , but you definetly still need to put wood on it.
It’s still a good idea to consider an escort, but you might also try seducing your wife as if she was a stranger to you, and maybe paying an extra bit of attention to her and make her feel sexy and attractive.
You’re right that long-term couples do sometimes “fall back in love” momentarily; I’ve seen it happen to friends. But generally, that only happens if the woman genuinely likes sex, which I’m afraid the questioner’s wife does not. About a third of American women consider sex a “necessary ordeal”, and I suspect this lady is among them (except that for her it was only “necessary” to produce kids). Given what he wrote about her in the (much longer) original letter, continued attempts at seduction (he tried several times) are not IMHO going to work, and she has actively rearranged conditions to ensure he can’t again try the specific seduction methods he attempted before.
Dear Ms. McNeill:
When you were an active Adult Companionship professional, was the phenomena that you described above commonplace among the married men that you saw? If so would this be the typical type of client who might become a regular if not only for the libidinal pleasure pleasure but for the intellectual stimulation that he would derive from discussing other facets in his life? Also when you where active what things did you know from some of these men that you would say that there wives didn’t know? Finally although you won’t disclose everything that would transpire in your mainstream life , would you have a knack for seeing when a relationship becomes sexless, and if so do you count privately how long it would be before one or both of the partners seek sex elsewhere?
Begrudgingly, I have to admit that you’re right about this “enduring” love thing. I am a romantic – and would like to believe in it – and have most of my life, but it’s really not the same. Sometimes I think of leaving my wife – but then I think, at this point she knows me better than my Mom ever did – and better than any woman I’ll ever meet in the future. There’s also the economic thing – it’s literally amazing how we seem to have shitloads of cash while we’re married – but then were we to split – we’d both have a very tough go of it.
My advice to the guy would be to get his act together at work and get in shape. I have been married for 26 years and, except for one rough spot about two years ago when my wife went through menopause – we’ve had sex at least twice a week and sometimes up to six. I think my wife has always felt that she’s in competition still with other women – which she kind of is. No – actually she very much is because I usually meet at least one new girl a week who’s interested. If I don’t have sex with one – it’s because I choose not to.
But – if your wife starts looking at you like a loser and she believes that no other women pay you any mind – then I can see her slacking off in the way this guy describes.
Show her she’s wrong.
LOL – even my wife’s friends make a big deal out of how romantic I treat her and how rare a guy I am … and I think she interprets that as … there’s plenty of “takers” if she “opts” out!
I’m so evil!!! 😛
Also – he should FUCK his employer wrt to the zero tolerance “trafficking”.
I have obeyed laws and rules and regulations all my life. My employer is zero tolerance too.
Once a year I take 3 to 5 days to myself to visit a particular country and basically screw my brains out. When I go – there is only one human being on the planet who knows where I am (and that’s because I’m usually staying with him).
You cannot believe the feeling of complete freedom.
And you cannot believe how GOOD freedom feels – nor how completely awesome it is to thumb your nose at idiotic regulations and policies.
People, well men anyway – need freedom and a bit of danger in their lives … it keeps us alive.
basically you are saying that if you stop putting on a show (showing her that new girls are there) she will leave you…
Wow. Talk about finding true love! Seems like a headache to me…
“My advice to the guy would be to get his act together at work and get in shape”
To this and the subsequent, essentially a “YES”. As a lifelong-drug-free bodybuilder — who realized as the years passed that the muscled-and-lean but not “schwarzenegger”-size physique I have is what the majority of women deem “attractive” — one benefit I’ve experienced as an open married/lifestyler is women in their early 40s to middle 50s chasing me (I’m about to turn 59)initially due to my physical appearance. I seem to be an anomaly, if what they tell me is true. Some of these women have admitted to me (as time has passed and they felt comfortable enough with me to admit so) that they feel shallow because they were initially baited by my washboard.
I have a speculation and perhaps a warning to under-30 guys relating to this.
Women evaluate men’s attractiveness with dual wirings — one wiring evaluates a man’s physical appearance, the other wiring a man’s “nurturing” qualities (which encompass qualities such as his personality, his financial capabilities, his paternal potential,and his social status). Women in their prime child-urge years (ages 25 to 35) who are wanting children emphasize the latter — they want a man who has good nurturer potential; and, at that stage, most men are still relatively young enough that their physical attractiveness part takes care of itself by the default of the man’s youth. The partner a woman chooses for his good nurturer qualities is still young enough that his physical attractiveness exists without a lot of effort or attention to it by him.
Flash forward to when her partner is age 45 and older. By then, a woman’s child-emphasis has lessened, since she’s fulfilled her urge for children. She no longer deems the nurturing qualities of a man as so very much more important. than his physical looks in assessing his attractiveness. A man’s physical appearance becomes more important to her.
However, because men have heard from women while those women were in their child-focus stage that “how a man looks is not the most important thing”, men typically have not given much attention to maintaining their physical looks. Just at the point when physical attractiveness resurfaces as important for a woman, her partner, now in his mid-40s, has allowed himself to become significantly overweight and less physically fit because as far as he understood, physical appearance wasn’t that important to women.
So…my moral is, Young guy, do not neglect your physical appearance even though under-35 women send the message that a man’s looks are relatively unimportant; because, when you’re age 45 and older, your wife/partner and other women her age damned well WILL start assessing you on how physically attractive you are; and so, if you want to be as sexually desirable as possible to women when you’re that age, you’d better put the effort into staying lean and fit all along.
Sounds like the letter writer’s wife believes that if she is not interested in sex, there’s no need for sex and her husband’s sexual needs are mere “selfishness.” If so, she really should read Maggie’s column A Whore In The Bedroom.
I was going to recommend that one too. Beat me to the punch. Dang! I send that column to people a lot when we talk about sex requirements within long-term relationships.
BTW, your cousin Jeff is quoting Len Deighton from this book. I was sure that someone like Oscar Wilde or Bernard Shaw had said it first, but apparently not.
Oscar’s quote is: “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his.”
That’s possible; I know he read Le Carre and Fleming, so Deighton wouldn’t have been a stretch.
Then again, I’ve never read Deighton and I’ve heard of the “tragedy of marriage” quote. I think this is one of those cases where you assume a “great” or “well-known” person in the past must have said something and thus falsely attribute it to him. That “sunscreen” graduation speech column by Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune that became something by Kurt Vonnegut. Howard Zinn’s quote about dissent being the highest form of patriotism becoming a Thomas Jefferson quote. And finally, a protest from striking beekeepers somehow got attributed to Albert Einstein.
I’m not talking about you, but rather about myself before I did an internet search to check over whether Wilde or Shaw made that quote before and discovered that I was wrong. I have no doubt that your cousin Jeff actually said it, and I have to give him credit—he didn’t attribute it to anybody but himself. If a statement is true, the truth of that statement should stand on its own and not require the weight of a celebrity’s fame or prestige to hold it up.
Given what he wrote about her in the (much longer) original letter, continued attempts at seduction (he tried several times) are not IMHO going to work, and she has actively rearranged conditions to ensure he can’t again try the specific seduction methods he attempted before.
She unfortunately was never attracted to him in the first place, and just wanted to be sure her children weren’t bastards. This was her plan all along. Also, he isn’t a dominant enough man to arouse her.
He got played for his ATM capabilities and now needs to decide if he wants to pay her hefty severance fees in a divorce, or go ahead and find a professional escort, which will be far cheaper.
She set the situation up so she could have her cake and eat it too, and thus defrauded him, so there’s no need for him to continue to suffer; she is no wife.
This guy needs to break his Beta and get a serious extra-strength dose of the Red Pill. Start with Athol Kay’s A Married Man’s Sex Life and start running Married Game on your wife. Either she’ll become the woman you want . . . or you will attract the woman you want. You win either way.
Good luck!
Exactly … it’s the “beta” thing.
What’s worse – he’ll find out tomorrow she’s been sleeping with someone else and he’ll be utterly destroyed. All he’s been through … all he’s put up with … all he’s gone without … and some “alpha” has been working her all along.
Not saying that’s happening – just saying that’s the kind of sense of “humor” that fate has.
Men should never give up their manhood – unfortunately, too many men were raised up not knowing what manhood is. You have all these emasculated “betas” running around crying about women and how they’re treated by them. I have never been “fucked over” by a single woman I’ve ever been romantically involved with. They will all tell you I’m a great guy – every one of them. Part of being a man is knowing about human nature and how to treat a woman – and part of that means never pushing her into a corner so that she has only one option – to lash out. Part of it is also carrying a presence and demeanor of masculinity and confidence so that she doesn’t want a conflict. Betas are easy to kick … and when she kicks him … she gets pissed off at herself for kicking a weak beta – then immediately she turns that into his fault because he’s allowed himself to become a weak beta. Suddenly, kicking his ass becomes quite satisfying to her.
Now – I’ve gone through “dry spells” but my wife never “arranged” any conditions to prevent me from making a sexual advance on her. Had she ever done that – IF she ever does that … I’m done and I don’t care how much cash it costs me – I’ll start over from scratch.
If I were him – I would get in shape … concentrate on my career (cuz women don’t like men who are career losers) … take some college classes where I can meet some young chicks and put that shit right in my wife’s face and see how she digested it. That’s if I cared about her enough to give her a second chance … if not – I’d leave this woman right now.
When I read things like this, I always wonder if the discovered motive was “she has a secret lover I don’t know about” would change the equation at all.
OK, I sympathize with the guy. However, sex isn’t really all that damned important. I married my best friend. We haven’t had sex in decades. On the other hand, she doesn’t mind if I use porn. I would stay with her even if she objected to porn, though. We are STILL best friends, and I could live without my liver easier than I could live without her.
Maybe I’m odd. I place one hell of a lot more importance on warmth, banter, and companionship than I do on sex. My hand can simulated sex well enough to produce an orgasm. Living with a compatible mind is a lot harder to arrange.
Sex might not be that important. But the problem for me is what it represents. My wife obviously loves and appreciates me. She just doesn’t desire me, at least not nearly as much as I desire her. And it’s the loss of the desire she used to have that’s so discouraging. It’s the death of something I had valued, not the lack of an orgasm, that’s the cause of dispair.
You’re right about the important things in a relationship. But for lots of us, all that alone is still not enough. If you can teach me how to find that self-service is as fulfilling as an enthusiastic and eager partner, I will be very appreciative. It’s not orgasms that are missing. It’s being craved, desired, and chosen. Many people may not need that, and that’s fine. If I don’t have that, well, that’s the loss of something that had been very important to me.
Thanks for your insights into other vitally important parts of a marriage.
Just another man, his future swallowed whole by the femplex. He’ll work to support a woman who does not love him for the rest of his life.
Avoid his fate, gentlemen.
PS: paternity test. Just Do It.
The employer is making a gross and dangerous mistake by conflating sex work with trafficking!
Since it’s the official US government position now, though, it’s a safe one for US businesses to take even if it’s dead wrong (same pattern as violating individual rights by drug testing).
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I think that Jeff was right. Women need to remember: men are not This Old House, and you ain’t Bob Vila.