Being Anti-Cheating Doesn’t Mean You’re Not Sex Positive

mrNiceGuyOne of the more pernicious forms of blameshifting chumps experience is the intimation or outright accusation that they suck at sex.

That either comes from the cheater directly, or from the rubbernecking bystanders in your life theorizing on why you Weren’t Enough to Keep Them.

It’s the most well-worn excuse in the cheater handbook — “I was in a sexless marriage.” Which often comes as a total surprise to the chumps (and the affair partners), because — oh hey! — you’d been having regular sex with them.

Sexless marriage does exist, of course. But it’s not a pretext for cheating. It’s a good reason for an honest conversation, a sex therapist, or a divorce lawyer, but it doesn’t give one carte blanche to spend the 401K on prostitutes.

(I’m sorry guys, I don’t really know how to write today’s column without being TMI or encouraging comments that are TMI. So if you’ve got delicate sensibilities, skip today.)

I wanted to write about this because every time I read an interview with Dan Savage, or someone railing against the “unnaturalness” of monogamy I find myself feeling very defensive. “HEY! I’m a chump and I LIKE SEX!” And just because someone is monogamous doesn’t mean they are vanilla, do it missionary style, while clenching their teeth and thinking of England.

No, if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say chumps are probably every bit as giving in the bedroom as they are elsewhere in their life and the cheaters are the same ol’ selfish bastards.

But somehow we’ve got a public relations problem, chumps, that we’re vanilla frozen popsicles. Withholding. Never indulging their kinks or meeting their needs. (I did fail to meet the needs of my serial cheating ex because I can’t be a smorgasbord of novel pussy. My bad.)

So how do you respond to this message put forth by the Esther Perels and the Dan Savages that it’s okay to step out on your partner for sexual novelty without sounding like you’re a total prude? Or on the defensive about your sexual practices? Yes I did it in a box! Yes, I’d do it with a fox! Yes I like green eggs and ham! Since when did committing yourself to one partner make you vanilla?

Dan Savage was interviewed in Playboy. God, he disappoints me. There is so much I truly LIKE about Dan Savage. His anti-bullying campaign, renaming Rick Santorum (a grateful nation thanks you), coining the acronym DTMFA (dump the motherfucker already)… and yet he’s absolutely tone deaf on the subject of infidelity. He talks out of both sides of his mouth.

On the one hand, he thinks people should have honest conversations about their sexual compatibility. On the other hand, he’s completely okay with having affairs and lying about it. Because affairs, of course, “save marriages.”

PLAYBOY: Bottom line, do you advocate cheating for men and women who are bored?

SAVAGE: Sometimes. Better to do what you need to do to stay married and stay sane. If your partner won’t fuck you, one person doesn’t have the right to unilaterally declare another person’s sex life over.

PLAYBOY: But you said a partner’s refusal to have the sex one of them wants could be a deal breaker, that that’s when you realize you’re in the wrong relationship.

SAVAGE: Sometimes, but there are situations when the least worst option is cheating. We’re not natural monogamists. People argue that we are. Then why in so many cultures—Judeo-Christian, Islamic—is adultery a death penalty offense? What species has to be threatened with death to do that which comes naturally?

PLAYBOY: Okay. So you cheat to save your marriage. Should you lie about it?

SAVAGE: Absolutely. I don’t want my husband to tell me the truth about everything all the time. What relationship could survive that kind of a scalding, deposition-style nightmare?

PLAYBOY: Isn’t lying another betrayal?

SAVAGE: I want to be lied to. He wants me to lie to him. There are things you don’t say because they can’t be unsaid and would be shattering, so you protect each other. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do in the wake of an affair is lie.

PLAYBOY: Aren’t you giving men a free pass to cheat all they want and then lie about it? No wonder a lot of heterosexual men like your advice.

SAVAGE: I’m not giving a pass to serial adulterers or people who are vicious and manipulative.

If your partner won’t fuck you, one person doesn’t have the right to unilaterally declare another person’s sex life over.

One person does NOT have the RIGHT to unilaterally risk another person’s health and welfare with STDs either, you motherfucker! And the costs are much higher for chumps! Dan, you just finished your spiel about how powerful and destructive sex can be, and how women have to be more careful because of pregnancy risk and STDs, so how can you FOLLOW THAT UP WITH YOUR BLESSING FOR CHEATING?

Ever had to check the paternity of your children? Lose a pregnancy to an STD? Find your savings decimated for a hooker habit?

This whole “we have to save the marriage” is such a thin soup bullshit excuse. No, just admit you value sexual novelty above most things, including the health of your partner. Because that is the truth. Quit dressing it up and shitting on monogamy. If you don’t want to do monogamy, FINE. Swing openly and honestly. Why would you defend lying to your partners for some strange?

And for the record, Dan, polyamory doesn’t confer immunity from cheaters. Any arrangement with boundaries is vulnerable to abuse from people with shitty character.

 I’m not giving a pass to serial adulterers or people who are vicious and manipulative.

Yes you are.

Saying you cheated doesn’t make it “shattering” — DOING it makes it shattering. Lying isn’t protecting someone, it’s just disrespecting them further.

 

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Bev
Bev
9 years ago

These kinds of observations (your partner is a no show in bed so cheat away) must be dealt with as you are taught to deal with sweeping statements on the SAT. You simply change the “word” in question and see if the thesis holds up. Since we are to assume that the man is justified in cheating because his wife sucks at sex then let’s flip that. Let’s say that a women has dreams of financial security. She was clear from the beginning of the relationship that she expected her husband to provide for her. Now, the husband lost his job and the wife is free to find another man to provide for her and LIE about it? She doesn’t have a conversation. She doesn’t divorce him. She doesn’t consider that she could provide for herself. She simply finds another man to fulfill her need to be financially supported without a word to the poor schmuck she married. It makes as much sense as “go ahead and screw around if you don’t think your partner is great in bed”.

Margaret
Margaret
9 years ago
Reply to  Bev

I’ve used a similar analogy to expose the hypocrisy of people who think cheating is okay if your spouse isn’t giving you “enough” sex. Let’s say I’m employed by you. I don’t think you are giving me enough money so I start taking office supplies home with me, toilet paper from the office restroom, and eventually start taking money from the petty cash box. How many of these “neutral” cheating-apologists would think that is ok???

sunshine
sunshine
9 years ago
Reply to  Margaret

What a great analogy, so true!!!

sunshine
sunshine
9 years ago
Reply to  Bev

Well said, Bev! The logic doesn’t lie!

Charles
Charles
9 years ago

“Thinking of England”! Man is that funny. Thanks for writing this.

Good point Bev. I would add that defending social or political positions based on whether or not something
is/isn’t “natural” is an exercise in ridiculousness.

DaisyDupedNoMore
DaisyDupedNoMore
9 years ago

Oh boy… CL, are you reading my diary or just my mind?! This is a big problem for me. My STBX is the only man I’ve had sex with. Thirty-two years of one-sided monogamy. All of his “excuses” for cheating (and yes, he is one of the ones who spent upwards of $80K on his “strange” habit) revolved around not being satisfied in the bedroom for one reason or another. I too completely failed at being “a smorgasbord of novel pussy.” It irritates the hell out of me that the fact that he taught me everything I know somehow never factored into his “you’re not doing it right” thought process. I used to be proud of being a one-man woman but now I wish I’d played the field so I’d have some positive reinforcement. But even without that, I’m quite sure that given a good man who was in the moment with me instead of using me as a blow up doll while running some twisted porn fantasy in his head, the sex would be anything but vanilla. Or maybe it would be vanilla but with dark chocolate drizzle, whipped cream and strawberries. 🙂

sam
sam
9 years ago

I think it is a madonna/whore thing for many of these male cheaters. My XBF couldn’t perform with me, but was having a grand time paying hookers for blow jobs. It’s like they can’t have a sexual relationship with someone they like/love. They can only function when they are paying, cheating or using a hooker.

Current Chump
Current Chump
9 years ago
Reply to  sam

Sam-you just hit the nail on the head for a huge majority of these narcissist man cheaters-the Madonna/whore syndrome! My stbx said to me once that he would have proposed to me or married me even if we didn’t have sex first. Uh, HUGE RED FLAG. We had great sex until we were married then our sex life disappeared. Once you marry or get in a serious relationship with these freaks, you cease to be a sexual being. Heaven forbid you have a child/children with one of these assclowns-you will never see that dick again. They cannot or will not understand that women have sexual needs too. My stbx actually told me after Dday that sex & those types of things with me felt like he was defiling me? WTF!? So, I wasted YEARS waiting on my sex life with him to come back and he already had his sex life taken care of THE WHOLE TIME by porn/hookers/massage workers. Just pathetic

ItsAJourney
ItsAJourney
9 years ago

Yup. I totally get the blowup doll feeling. I used to think “this must be what a paid whore feels like.” He gave me herpes, and 2 yeast infections. Looking back I can’t believe I allowed him to do this shit to me. I allowed it because he wouldn’t leave me alone, would compulsively beg me for sex, and I believed it was the only way I could get him to leave me alone. Now I know he was probably fucking other women at the time as well. We’re still together, but haven’t had sex in two years (since the second D day… I forgave him, I was still in denial). Last year he asked me, “when can we have sex again” and I told him, “when I don’t have to take antidepressants”… I refuse to medicate myself just so I can tolerate his shit.

I plan on serving him after the Holidays.

Margaret
Margaret
9 years ago
Reply to  ItsAJourney

So sorry, that is disgusting what he did to you! I know what you mean about feeling like a whore: he used to call me that over and over again, “You little whore!” I would say no, please don’t call me that” — he replied “YOU love it!!” whore, slut, fucktoy, over and over. Therapy helped me deal with the damage this did to me and my soul and I was fortunate not to get any disease because I found out after DDay that one of his previous women had to have a hysterectomy at age 50 because of STDs he gave her. I had myself tested after DDay, every chump should!

Tempest
Tempest
9 years ago
Reply to  ItsAJourney

Its a Journey–congrats to you for forging ahead to be free of your jerk. I’m so sorry for what you had to go through.

JBaby
JBaby
9 years ago

Daisy, I was inexperienced as well, and often thought of myself as just a blowup doll to him. One of my first huge red flags that I recognized, yet shoved to the back of my mind, came on our honeymoon. After having sex with him for the first time, I felt sore and wanted to allow myself a day to recover. He treated this like a rejection and pouted for the entire day, totally unconcerned with my discomfort. “I can’t even be intimate with my own wife 🙁 “. Poor baby. I spent the next twelve years making sure he was sexually satisfied (I thought), at my own expense. In all that time I probably had 4-5 orgasms, total. I now am with a man who is so giving in the bedroom that I kick myself for thinking that my pleasure was nothing important for all those years.

Margaret
Margaret
9 years ago
Reply to  JBaby

Add me to this list. He actually used to say during sex with me, “you’re my little fucktoy!” I want to puke now thinking how many years of this degrading crap I put up with including indulging his dom sub and pedophilic fantasies (“youre a hot little teenager!!!” no i’m not, i’m a 50 year old woman)… rape fantasies, gang rape fantasies. etc. When I found out about the cheating I was shocked but actually so hurt BECAUSE all those years I thought that was what made me sexy, if he was so hot for me I could go along with it (“down on your knees!! worship my cock!!” this was said at random times and places and I also gave him bjs in the car, in the woods, anywhere he demanded it). Turns out it was never enough. I’m 50 and menopausal now and don’t want sex so much but at least, unlike some other chumps, I did have other men before him, still makes me angry though and very sad that I wasted 16 years. When I confronted him after DDay and said, “you abused me and made me feel like an object,” he laughed and said, “what? those were innocent bedroom games! and besides, you saying you felt like an object just proves that you were emotionally unavailable to me, Margaret! I was always trying to make an emotional connection with you!” Twisted lies and gaslighting. So glad it’s over, so glad he’s gone, but miss my lost opportunities to have love and loving sex with anyone but him. Dumb loyal chump that I was. 🙁

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Margaret

“Worship my cock”? WTF? Maybe you should have announced it with red hot ointment and sprinkled it with ashes.
No , this is too weird. He said that?

TheMuse (Margaret)
TheMuse (Margaret)
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Arnold, I am not making this up. He said this over and over again. I’d be standing there doing dishes or something and he would say it. watching TV. you name it. He apparenlty is into dom/sub something i knew nothing about before him. He liked to call me “a good little submissive.” His OW is about a foot taller than him and friends have speculated that she might be the dom.

Tempest
Tempest
9 years ago

If his OW is the dominant, I hope she puts painful stripes across his back with a cat-of-nine tails.

TheMuse (Margaret)
TheMuse (Margaret)
9 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

ha ha! Thanks Tempest. He deserves it. I only hope he doesn’t get to enjoy it. He belongs locked up somewhere.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Anointed it. WTF is it with this auto correct?

DaisyDupedNoMore
DaisyDupedNoMore
9 years ago
Reply to  Margaret

Margaret, sometimes I wonder if we were all with the same guy who was cloned over and over again into an evil cheater facsimile of a man. 🙂 After DDay #1 when I was madly dancing the pick me dance, my STBX bought a book of sex positions and told me to go through it and pick the ones I wanted to try. I did it happily, looking forward to a change in routine. When I gave him the book back with pages marked – Oh, the anticipation – he leafed through it and said no to each and every one I picked. “My dick is too short for that one (it was but I wasn’t about to say that! Ha Ha)” “That’ll hurt my back”, etc. He really wasn’t interested in doing anything but the same ol’ routine he established that fit into whatever sick inner world he was visualizing while using my body.

Nat1
Nat1
9 years ago

Oh….you remonded me…I bought the joy of sex, thinking that it might inspire SOMETHING in him. That was very early in our marriage too. I know I got so pissed off with him that I ended up throwing it across the room and it fell apart. Symbolic really!

Margaret
Margaret
9 years ago
Reply to  Margaret

typo, I’m actually 59, not 50

DaisyDupedNoMore
DaisyDupedNoMore
9 years ago
Reply to  JBaby

JBaby, I’m glad you found yourself a real man! Good for you. My wedding night was a dud too and one of many red flags I overlooked through the years.

KudzuGirl
KudzuGirl
9 years ago
Reply to  JBaby

I can third the “blow up doll effect”. When I was 8 weeks pregnant with our oldest daughter, he got extremely angry at me because I couldn’t effectively complete certain sexual maneuvers that could exacerbate nausea. In other words, he took a normal physiological issue (morning sickness with a side of enhanced gag reflex) as a personal affront. It wasn’t enough that I tried to make him happy, I didn’t perform. All about him. There were many instances like that in the years prior and after that should have been red flags. He was my first and only, though, so I really didn’t know any better.

Margaret
Margaret
9 years ago
Reply to  KudzuGirl

Kudzu and Daisy, I have a chronic med condition Meniere’s Disease I got in 2012 which definitely affected my ability to move my head – I often couldn’t move it w/o getting extreme vertigo and being sick for days…. this made doing X’s favorite thing difficult (“down on your knees! worship my cock!” and I would have to do that, on the kitchen floor, basement floor, outside, wherever we were).

Later after D-Day I brought up why did he cheat? he actually said he wasn’t getting enough sex though we did his special BJ move three weeks before I found out about Schmoopie, and pointed this out to him. I said, “but wait. we did do this!” and he complained that I ruined it for him in the middle of the act because I complained that I was getting dizzy and my knees hurt on the hard kitchen floor. This is the selfish prick that OW has now “captured” away from me and has living in her expensive new house in the suburbs.

Oh yes, and other friends later told me that Cheater complained to them about my illness because it was inconvenient for him to have to keep picking me up from work when I got vertigo; and also that I was “faking” my symptoms. Six months after DDay (the last time I spoke to him before full NC), he told me to my face that he now has vertigo, only his is “worse” than mine because he’s up on a ladder at work when he supposedly gets it. I do know now that this man is nuts.

Tempest
Tempest
9 years ago
Reply to  Margaret

Margaret–Karma will dictate that your X gets a terrible bout of vertigo while at the top of a 20-foot ladder.

What a d*ck.

Margaret
Margaret
9 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

LOL, thanks Tempest!

Tempest
Tempest
9 years ago
Reply to  KudzuGirl

Oh, the (bad) memories. Yes, while dating mine forced me to have sex while I had the flu because he had needs. Wish I’d vomited on him at the time.

DaisyDupedNoMore
DaisyDupedNoMore
9 years ago
Reply to  KudzuGirl

Ha, KudzuGirl between the horrible morning sickness which lasted all day for the first trimester in both my pregnancies and his distaste for my pregnant body, my STBX wouldn’t come near me. In hindsight, I’m guessing these were the first two “offenses” I committed that “caused” his cheating. Whatever…

KudzuGirl
KudzuGirl
9 years ago

Thanks for this Chump Lady. I’m a younger chump who has only been with one person, my husband. Even before the EAs (and likely PAs) became a factor, I never felt I was good enough in the relationship. I used to think that sex was something to be explored together. Even with my religious background, the only thing I really had anything against was stuff involving other people and anything physically painful. That leaves a lot of things on the table, but it wasn’t good enough. That and he’s never allowed me to express any reservations about doing anything he asks without some sort of emotional abuse/fallout.

At the end of the day, I’m a Chump who likes quite a few kinky things. I still get accused of not wanting him even though we have sex nearly every day (TMI, sorry). I’m sure if/when we break up he’ll claim he was in a sexless marriage. I just can’t imagine going through this with someone else. My plans if we ever do break up involve lots of time with my kids and a variety of hobbies. So what if I’m not even 30. I don’t care to ever be judged like this again. Stick a fork in me, I’m done.

Tempest
Tempest
9 years ago
Reply to  KudzuGirl

KudzuGirl: There will come a time when you won’t care what he says after the breakup. Cheaters say anything to justify their cheating; they will say anything to justify the breakup. It’s to save face, because they always want to control the narrative in their own favor.

I actually gave my STBX a statement saying that EVERYthing in the relationship was my fault that he could show his friends just to GET him to leave at one point. (Not true–he was a narcissistic, controlling bastard, but after awhile I preferred to take all the blame and be without him, than to enforce the truth & still have him hovering around).

JBaby
JBaby
9 years ago
Reply to  KudzuGirl

Kudzu, omg, you are me ten years ago. “if/when we break up” breaks my heart. Like your just waiting for it to happen. This is your life too, my dear. Take the wheel and steer it to somewhere you want to go. Away from the jerry springer studio and toward Hawaii 🙂

Goodmazel
Goodmazel
9 years ago

Dan gaslights when he says it’s kind to lie to your spouse about an affair. Oh, yes these shitheads are really kind. Kind to themselves. I did not want to be lied to about an affair. I never wanted to be in a relationship with a cheater. I told stbx this when we were dating. I asked him repeatedly if he was involved with someone else because I felt it. He lied and lied and lied. Told me I was crazy. Told his family I was jealous. Jealousy happens not to be my vice. He had lying narratives for all his various lives. When I was in the midst of that I felt dehumanized. After finding out about his particularly sickening affair with the then president of the board of BABS I felt raped. She used Dan to justify herself. Dan does an injustice by throwing the experiences, realities and lives of people who have been deceived by cheaters under the bus. There was really no way I could have known, and I wanted to. My life is so much better now. I am learning to love my body again. I know now that HIS withholding sex had nothing to do with me. Thanks CL, for talking back. It’s bad enough to feel degraded, Dan has to tell us we want that.

Divorce Minister
Divorce Minister
9 years ago
Reply to  Goodmazel

Lies don’t protect the chump from STDs. Bet Don would want to know if his partner gave him a life-threatening disease as a consequence of not honoring his word to him.

Red
Red
9 years ago

“…or from the rubbernecking bystanders in your life theorizing on why you Weren’t Enough to Keep Them.”

I still remember when I told my sister that we were getting divorced, the first thing her husband asked me was how often we’d been having sex. “About three times a week,” I said.

His jaw dropped. “Three times a week?! I can’t remember the last time I got it 3x a week! What an *sshole!”

No one ever asked me that question again.

Smart is Hard
Smart is Hard
9 years ago
Reply to  Red

Similar circumstances-when we started the first abortive round of couples derpathy I offered up that we slept together at least twice a week, except for a few weeks after I had surgery. It stops the assumptions cold. Doesn’t make him less of an asshat, though.

Tempest
Tempest
9 years ago
Reply to  Red

During my H’s affair, we were having sex 4 times a week. He was boinking her twice a week, and finally realized he couldn’t keep up that pace and a decision would have to be made. While I’m glad he dropped her in favor of me (though I didn’t find this out for 8 years), part of me wishes I’d been set free 8 years ago.

Tempest
Tempest
9 years ago

Let me add one more point of discussion–some of us DO become unenthusiastic in bed with cheaters because of the way they treat us. I grew to DREAD sex with H because I didn’t feel emotionally safe with him, and sex was just one more arena in which he could judge me. So I started viewing it as a marital chore, akin to taking out the recycling.

I had started the relationship as a very sexual person, and then came to the point, frankly, where I would have sex thinking, “Why am I doing this? I don’t even like him.” He then used my lack of enthusiasm as a way to justify his affair. These cheaters will do anything to avoid ultimate responsibility for anything–they deny that their emotional abuse has an effect on their partner’s sex drive & psychology. Then they use that as a way to add insult to injury by having an affair on top of it.

Once I threw the cheater out of the house, my sexual interest revived immediately (sadly, with nowhere to go as I’m pretty sure I’ll steer clear of men for a good long while. 24 years in a sporadically-abusive relationship will do that to you. Time to focus on me & my daughters)

sewingchump
sewingchump
8 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

I felt like I was a good sexual partner in the beginning. He was my first and only and I tried to please him by doing what he would like. But as our marriage has worn on, and he’s becoming increasingly emotionally abusive, I have absolutely 0 libido because of it. I have no desire to have sex with him. He’s given me some very, very humiliating experiences in the bedroom and the connection for me is lost. He’s made it all out to be my fault. I do EVERYTHING – I’m the breadwinner, butcher, baker and candlestick maker – and he can’t even initiate the sex. That’s my job. He’s always indirectly telling me that if I don’t act like I want it (every minute of the day), he’s not going to make any effort either. No instead, he just bullies or shames me into wanting it. But then when I do genuinely want sex, and I’ve initiated and done all the work – fresh out of a lovely bath, I smell great and get something tantalizing on and then prance around – he’s in the middle of something and I’ll have to wait hours until he’s ready. It’s the most incredible lose-lose game I’ve EVER played. In fact, our whole marriage is a game and I’m SICK to death of playing. So excited when the morose killjoy that he is has only the pleasure of masturbating to look forward to (Divorce Day coming in March 2016 – YAYAYAYAYAYA!!!).

MrsVain
MrsVain
9 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Man. and Wow!!! i was super sexual when we first got together. i know i showed a few things he never even thought of much less tried before me. BJ in the car, artic blows, sex in just about any position in just about any place. as long as the kids werent around it was a free for all. i love “baptising” everything. the new kitchen table, the new truck, every room in the new house. sometimes if we were alone driving, we stopped somewhere on the side of the road. i was actually happy that i found someone who was as adventurous as i was. i think i might still be the same way but what slowed me down was the kids. (we had 5 total) they are definitely cock blockers. and then i just got soooOOOOoooo stressed. which it is hard to perform when you are worried if you are going to lose the house.

But there was 2 things with the XH that also hindered our sex life. the main one being he NEVER initiated sex. his idea of letting me know that he was horny was to poke me in the ass with his woody when we were in bed. God i HATED that after a while. and the other thing was he came quick. i mean really quick. the only saving grace with that was that he would be ready to go again in a second or two. but damn it would kill the mood if i was just about there, (women are like diesels) and he would be done and i would have to start all over. i actually read that premature ejaculation was a symptom of BPD. which i am convinced is my XH. apparently it is also a symptom of passive aggressiveness which my XH also is. i read that as they get older it develops into erectile dysfunction. GOD I hope SO!!!

but in the end, i wasnt having much sex with him. well, the last 3 months of 2013 i didnt have ANY sex with him. i used to struggle with that thinking that must have been the reason he turned to MOW. it still bothers me. however i just COULDNT do it. 2013 was a series of massive fuckup on his part. i was still struggling with my own issues and he was dropping bomb after bomb. i couldnt get my head straight. i still tried to met his sexual needs. but in aug/sept 2013 he started looking at dating sites, the ones that show a full picture of everything she has to offer and porn site (not alot of porn, seems he was more interested in just looking at what other women had to offer) i am not a prude. it bothered me but i dealt with it. even gave the XH MORE sex. but one terrible and humiliating day after a really good session of morning sex (one of my better performances i have to say) he got up, got dressed and got on the computer….yep you got it. to look at some more exposed available singles in your area. i walked around in my shirt and undies and didnt even get a second look (or a first look at that). after that i just couldnt do it. no matter how many times he poked my ass, i couldnt get past the thought of that morning. (still hurts writing this down) i loved him. i wanted sex with him. i desired him even after this. a few times i attempted to but by that time he was spending most of the night in the garage, coming in a 2/3 in the morning. or was in bed by 7 and i really wanted to do something with him, but it seemed like so much work especially when he was pretending to be asleep. i probably could have still got some, but the hurt of knowing he would rather pretending sleep then talk killed it.

that is actually one of the excuse he gave me at one time. was that i wasnt having sex with him. mindfucked me like crazy because i really wasnt. but like you say, when you are working hard at a job, coming home and doing everything, kids homework, and by the time you go to bed you are just exhausted. it would have been nice if he would have taken the time to start my engine. i NEVER said no. i actually think sex is a great cure for a headache. but no. it was also my job if we had sex……

apparently the sex is great with the MOW. i hear that having sex while on meth is actually mind blowing. so it kills me that he is getting his. and she is better then i ever was because i dont use meth.

Nat1
Nat1
9 years ago
Reply to  MrsVain

I stopped having sex with my x 7 months before he left, but like many others here he never initiated it, he never put much effort into it, to be honest he even kept his orgasms secret, no sound or clue. On that last time, I don’t even know why now, after it was over I cried and cried. He didn’t even ask why. The next morning he said he’d heard me crying and still didn’t ask why. I decided right then and there that if he wanted it, it would have to be up to him to work out how to get it. He did just that. With the 22 year old he went off and got pregnant. I used to be horny as the devil. But after 17 years I feel confused, and self conscious, and old and tired. And sad! What a waste!

Patsy
Patsy
9 years ago
Reply to  Nat1

Thank you for all these comments, thank goodness I am not alone with these feelings.

PianoMom
PianoMom
9 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Yes, THIS! I started to feel like, (sorry, TMI) why don’t I just roll over and you can give me the shaft up the you know where, because that’s how I feel I’m being treated. You are so right, Tempest, when you stated that these cheaters refuse their fair share of the family responsibilities. I was constantly propping him up emotionally, listening to his complaining and whining, while I had a million things to do. He worked part-time and shashayed his way around, doing what he felt like, shopping for clothes, food, listening to his music, (under the guise that it was necessary for “his livelihood” as a musician) while I knocked my brains out running my business and taking care of everything else. On top of this, he was regularly drunk because “he was so unhappy.” Two DWI’s and a domestic dispute as a result of his drinking, and of course, he drank ‘because of me’. Whatever. At that point, he had lost his 80 pounds and grew his hair to his shoulders, and was wearing his little tight undies and tight jeans (47 years old, midlife crisis) and yes, I no long felt safe with the asshole he was in the process of becoming.

PianoMom
PianoMom
9 years ago
Reply to  PianoMom

The point was, why would I want to look forward to sex with someone who I’m not even connected with, who only cares about himself? It was all about him and his needs…I honestly think he felt I wasn’t needy because I had to compensate for his lack of responsibility. Sex was a chore, another thing on the list of “things to do for him” and everyone else. Blech – gave me anxiety at the end.

DaisyDupedNoMore
DaisyDupedNoMore
9 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Yes Tempest! Exactly! Sex became a very unpleasant chore when emotional intimacy (what little was there to begin with) went by the wayside. The “routine” which involved no kissing and almost no touching except for straight to the genitals was so awful that I literally had to go to another place in my head to get through it. And like some of the other commenters, I thought the sexual part of my life was dead and gone but it has come roaring back lately. I’m 52 so I don’t think much of my chances of finding another partner at this point in my life and it took more two years post D-Day #2 to want to have one but if one should come along, I will greet him with a lot of pent up “enthusiasm.”

ItsAJourney
ItsAJourney
9 years ago

Ditto that. I can’t remember the last time he kissed me. He would tell me he didn’t like to kiss, but after Dday he wanted to be sensitive, and wouldn’t leave me alone about kissing him. I told him I wanted to start slow… a hug here or there, but he would always try to take it further. We are now “no contact,” as in, he isn’t allowed to touch me.

ringinonmyownbell
ringinonmyownbell
9 years ago

“The “routine” which involved no kissing and almost no touching except for straight to the genitals was so awful that I literally had to go to another place in my head to get through it.” This is so true…Mine was a terrible lover… terrible kisser too… he hated to be touched. He hated to touch me… hated seeing pregnant bellies moving with babies inside. All he wanted to do was a direct assault on my genitals… In fact early on he told me… Sometimes (always) I dont’ want to make love, I just want to fuck. That pretty much described my life in retrospect. I just got fucked.

DaisyDupedNoMore
DaisyDupedNoMore
9 years ago

“That pretty much described my life in retrospect. I just got fucked.” That made me LOL ROMOB. I’ve been mulling over this thread all morning and my conclusion is that if my STBX had been half as good at making love (as opposed to fucking) as he was at fucking with my mind, we wouldn’t have ended up on our way to divorce.

ItsAJourney
ItsAJourney
9 years ago

I love it Daisy! I hope the lucky guy is well deserving of you!!

DaisyDupedNoMore
DaisyDupedNoMore
9 years ago
Reply to  ItsAJourney

Thanks IAJ!! Good luck moving forward with your fucktard removal plan. 🙂 When I first read your comment about “serving him” in the new year, at first I thought you meant *serving* him as in sexually and I was all creeped out on your behalf. I’m glad you meant the OTHER kind of serving him. LOL

Tempest
Tempest
9 years ago

Even when the routine is better, sex with a selfish, critical bastard is no good. Mine was skilled in a technical sense, but sex after having been criticized several times that day/week does make your mind transport elsewhere to even be able to participate.

I started fantasizing that I was having sex with someone much less “sexy” but KIND. After a while in a lonely relationship, someone who is NICE becomes sexier than someone wearing Armani well.

sewingchump
sewingchump
8 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

AMEN Tempest! Amen! Someone who is kind would be the most sexy thing I can think of. I DREAM of someone who is kind.

NoMoreNarcs
NoMoreNarcs
9 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

“Nice” is totally hot!

DaisyDupedNoMore
DaisyDupedNoMore
9 years ago
Reply to  NoMoreNarcs

I agree NMN – nice is TOTALLY hot!! My poor little STBX sausage would be soooo suprised if he knew the lengths I would go to show appreciation for a nice man!

Tempest
Tempest
9 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

I should add that a number of these cheaters also appear to do much less than their fair share of parenting & housework, then complain that their overworked partners are too tired during sex. Chumps are always placed in a lose-lose situation, because the entitled need to always have win-win options.

CRHCHK
CRHCHK
9 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

This is how I felt too. For a long time our sex life was fun and frequent and adventurous, but after our son was born I felt so exhausted and unsexy and it became something I had to do for him along with working full time and doing a majority of the housework and childcare. After that point, he never again made me feel loved. He had to have his needs met, but complained that I wasn’t into it, that i rarely initiated etc. I felt so incredibly guilty. I wanted to be into it but he refused to consider my need for emotional connection. Once a week was about all I could pull off, but, without even realizing it, I feared losing him because of not being the perfect sex machine that would drop everything to provide him with a BJ. Fucking asshole quit trying once he met her and even though I wasn’t sure what was going on, I started the pick-me dance. He actually said, “you’ve made significant improvements” at one point, well into his affair. What a dick.
Yesterday would’ve been our 13th anniversary. Thankfully most of this last year we’ve been separated. Divorce will finalized after the new year. I am slowly moving forward. Thanks to CL and chump nation for your daily support.

Chumpita
Chumpita
9 years ago
Reply to  CRHCHK

Same here…very intense sexual relationship until our kids were born. He had his first EA (though now I think it was really an OW) a year after our first daughter was born. I was always exhausted, breastfeeding and working full time. He said I was a prude, and also defended two male colleagues of his who cheated on their wives (who had babies at the same time as I had) by saying that one of them was “frigid” and the other was “mean.” That always bothered me, but I didn´t see it as a red flag at the time. Once at the beginning of the relationship he asked me to have anal sex and I said I had never done it before (I did have other sexual relationships before but not many long term ones) and it sounded uncomfortable but if he would show me how, I would do it. He took it as a rejection and the topic never came up again. After the girls were born he also began watching porn and what really offended me is that he took viagra on a second honeymoon we had. He couldn´t do anything, and I thought it was because he was getting middle age depressed. The point is, I am getting the feeling that it was not so much about me, but about his unspoken needs and the madonna/whore thing. The other vibe I get sometimes is that maybe he is closeted gay or so extremely narcissistic that he wants someone exactly like him. I met the final OW recently and she is the ugliest of the three OWs and speaks exactly like him. She is very masculine and I know she is really into anal. So maybe they are both bisexual. In any case, I don´t buy the sex excuse for healthy people with open minds. Cheaters just want to cheat. My husband NEVER asked me to do anything special for him, and he never went past the same two or three things he showed me from the beginning. But after Dday he complained about everything that he never talked about before.He would never go to bed with me arguing that my bedtime was too early (11 pm) and most recently he would pile on layers of pijamas, sweat pants, etc complaining that he was cold. I think he was trying to be faithful to his OW. Asshole…

kim
kim
9 years ago
Reply to  Chumpita

Haha …layer of pajamas ! Mine used to build a wall of pillows between us.

ringinonmyownbell
ringinonmyownbell
9 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

This whole business of being chumps and being the house slaves (please please I mean no disrespect to African American members) Is something we need to talk about. We are chumpy in all areas of our life. My kids have made it clear in some instances that my only real value is my roll as house slave. They have no clue, how much time, energy, sacrafice of professional and personal growth it took to get them raised in this circumstance. But their dad, always swooped in as the good guy. You don’t have to do chores that mean old mom.. I will take you out to dinner. Need money, here… I just came back from visiting my 29 year old daughter withwhom I have a difficult relationship. She was just so ugly… in terms of her words, her approach to me and everyone else. I am very disheartened at the moment.

Tempest
Tempest
9 years ago

Ringin..–I know, it is disheartening to see some of the same entitled traits in our children that we saw in our spouses/X-spouses. I would firmly let your daughter know that ugliness is not permitted, and reduce your contact with her until she gets the message. You don’t need to deal with bad treatment from her on top of bad treatment from your cheater. I’m going through some of that with how my 13-year old talks to me, but she (and my 19-year old) have actually been better and rallied to my defense now that their overly-critical father is not having a negative effect on them.

Mehphista
Mehphista
9 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Tempest, we obvs shop for T shirts in the same store, LOL!

Hang in there, ringin! I am less than a year into solo parenting (x is 1000s of miles away). ‘My house, my rules’ takes a while to get there, but it gets there.

And yep, I have a really hard time distinguishing between Mr Fab type BS, and normal teenager in 21st century BS.

x-Meh

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

I agree. I lost interest in sex after all the repeated rejections and put downs.
I was also exhausted from working three jobs and doing the bulk of the housework.
These cluster b disordered types are incapable of intimacy.
As for this Dan Savages position, he neglects the fact that many times the faithful partner was not satisfied, as well. Doesn’t he consider that by lying about one’s commitment to abiding by the vows, the cheater deprives the faithful partner of choosing similar experiences?
When my first wife embarked on her serial cheating , I was still young enough and decent looking enough to have had many similar opportunities. But, I refrained in reliance on our agreement.

Mehphista
Mehphista
9 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Oooooh, been there, done that, burned the Tshirt. Sex with Mr Fab was always wham bam thankya ma’am. Narcissists use their lovers as masturbation aids, pretty much. Then they withdraw, and leave you wondering.

I got the “I only cheated because you are frigid.” line. I calmly pointed out that the criteria for a good sex life is to actually get in bed with your wife while she is awake, instead of drinking Scotch until 4 am every night. LOL, not much he could say to that, having been caught with reams of FB wuv notes to his Schmoopie.

love to all in Chump Nation!

x-Meh

zyx321
zyx321
9 years ago

This topic always bugged me, wondering if ex and/or his supporters said this of me. Yes, I was inexperienced when married, but I always asked if H wanted to try something else, etc. By the end of the marriage (in hindsight) I was always the one who initiated sex. Heck, a month before DDAY I even wrote H a “sex” letter (as he was working temporarily our of town, and the last visits home were, ahem, less than satisfying. I was always made to feel it was me, that H had to work hard in bed because I was too tough to please. In the time of false MC H even brought up the letter as proof we were not compatible. He’d say things like “I just want to do __, you did not do that?” WTF? What about EVERY TIME I asked?

Now I know it was not me at all! It was exH and his affairs. Now the story is, he stayed married to me for 13 yrs even though he was not “in love with me”. Poor little baby boy…What a cross to bear, having unsatisfying sex with someone you do not love, dreaming of who knows who…. Now he plays the sacrifice card, and told daughter that is what he learned, do not sacrifice your happiness for others.
Coward. Liar. Sorry, you do not get to claim sacrificial status if you never told your spouse what you wanted or needed.

chumppalla
chumppalla
9 years ago
Reply to  zyx321

Um, excuse me sir . . . that’s not sacrifice, that’s CAKE. Sacrifice involves giving something up or going without, not having extra helpings.

DUH.

Drew
Drew
9 years ago
Reply to  zyx321

My ex’s spin is ” I stayed married because of the kids.” What no one knows is that he had plenty of opportunities to walk away. We dated for seven years and never lived in the same town while attending college. So long distance for quite a while. Poor sausage. If we were so incompatible why marry?!?

Lyn
Lyn
9 years ago

When you feel like you don’t measure up, when you’re pressured to give in to things that are clearly uncomfortable for you, when you feel more like something to be used to release pent up frustration instead of a person, when it becomes boring due to lack of emotional intimacy, when you are constantly criticized for not being sexy enough, then it’s hard to feel very good about your sexuality.

After 36 years with the same person I thought I was just done in that department, that I was some used up sexless thing. Boy, was I surprised to find out that with someone who’s caring and tender I’m perfectly capable. There’s nothing wrong with me.

KudzuGirl
KudzuGirl
9 years ago
Reply to  Lyn

Does it really come back? The feeling of being a sexually viable person, I mean. I look in the mirror and I see that I’m not horrific to look at. There are a few stretch marks on my stomach thanks to two pregnancies, but my shape is the same as it was when I was 22. Thing is, I just feel dead inside when it comes to sex. Men notice me, but the idea of being with anyone else is enough to give me a mini panic attack. After all the horror stories I’ve heard from my single friends about dating expectations in the under 35 set, I know I just don’t measure up.

In short, is it possible to get to a place where you can share yourself sexually with another person while still being able to let them go if they’re no good for you emotionally? The letting go part is hard for me. I feel compelled to meet their needs at the expense of my own. That’s the one thing I’d love to change about myself.

moving forward
moving forward
9 years ago
Reply to  KudzuGirl

The answer is Y E S it comes back.

There is NOTHING wrong with you.

Read my comments below.

Foollisa1969
Foollisa1969
9 years ago
Reply to  moving forward

Yes. Yes. Yes. It is coming back. As someone here once said “I thought those romantic love making hot sex stories were just a good marketing trick” , that is how I felt most of my marriage. Then after my break up with narcistic xh, a dear friend dared to make a pass at me, him being divorced and chumped and all … Lord I was so nervous. But ya know, I was honest, to him and myself, gave what I could and he is as giving a woman would want…and within a few days of trying out… We ware having the love making story of my life. It is all about trust, loving yourself and the other, listening and caring. And he is laughing his ass off now, because you know, after hearing all those stories about me how dispassionate I was (from x, he knows him too), he tells me he has never met a woman who is so passionate, so loving and having so much fun in the bedroom as I. When we touch…. when I turn to him, my hair stands up straight and we fall into love, as easy peasy as God has meant it. It never ceases to amaze me how easy and nice it can be, I still need to pinch myself every now and then, after 20 years of mental abuse in all aspects and so too at sex, that will take time. Ofcourse it helps immensly that I knew this man for a long time (hence the trust and easy honesty). So take time, trust you first and him later. I am not that religious, but I thank God for this love. Whatever else happens – I am normal and I am capable of love, and I enjoy it :-). He is my BF now. Sounds nice ha? Take time time time. It will come!

Chumpita
Chumpita
9 years ago
Reply to  Foollisa1969

It sounds like CL should begin a dating site for chumps to meet other chumps, like she did!

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Foollisa1969

Thanks, Tempest. Based on my research and talking to a lot of guys, once the prostrate is removed, sex is over.
I know with the DaVinci deal that dome function may be possible, but it is said to be a very feeble substitute. No ejaculating, not much rigidity etc.
I have 5 kids, so the prime directive has been accomplished.
So, no biggie. My GF may feel differently. But, this whole deal is beyond my control.

chumppalla
chumppalla
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Well, we’d all like to have it all, of course. But I’ll take a guy with good strong character over a good strong woody EVERY day of the week. Please and thank you.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat and they are all fun 😉

chumppalla
chumppalla
9 years ago
Reply to  Foollisa1969

awesome!!!!

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  moving forward

Well , at this age, 60, it does not seem to be coming back for me. Muscle mass is less, gray hair, can hit a golf ball 250 max, etc.
I have come to accept that, despite the propaganda and drugs ( they work but the side effects on me are horrific) , that a sex life is a thing of the past.
I asked my urologist if this was normal as some of my contemporaries claim a high level of interest in sex still.
He told me that , most likely , they are lying and that if I really wanted the truth, I should ask their wives and girlfriends about it.
I think we are brainwashed into denying the realities of aging and need to accept certain things and be happy with where we are at.
I played golf with a young guy recently who could knock it way past me. I easily beat him by accepting my limitations and focusing on my strengths.

MrsVain
MrsVain
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

that totally makes me sad. i was looking forward to growing old with my XH. we had wild and fun sex and i was looking forward to being able to grow into the next level with him.

NOT having to worry about starting all over with someone new. and knowing that sex as you get older changes, makes me really really sad. i am 45. i know i cant swing from the chandler anymore and the ropes give me rashes now.

i hate losing all that history with my husband and having to start over at my age.

ItsAJourney
ItsAJourney
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Arnold, it sounds as if you might benefit from testosterone supplements. ED drugs are a band-aid fix. Find a Dr. that specializes in hormone replacement. I know people who are using it, and it makes a world of difference in your energy, stamina, and general health. You sound like an active guy who’s not ready to slow down. Check it out.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  ItsAJourney

I will, thanks.
But , right now, I am taking testosterone blocking meds(some generic Avodart- finesteride) as my PSA shot up and my biopsy showe “highly suspicious cells”.
Both brothers just had prostrate cancer and surgery.
Frankly, I would prefer to just have mine cut out now do I can at least retain muscle mass by stopping taking the drug.
But, thanks. I will still inquire.

Patsy
Patsy
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Oops – sorry Arnold – this is when I wish we could delete stupid posts – didn’t read the first sentence about PSA and cells. My sincere apologies, wish you all the best. Loved that you beat the young guy through finesse though.

Patsy
Patsy
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Arnold, just keep having blood tests for that hormone rise that indicates cancer, eat lots of cabbage and other cruciform vegetables, and leave your prostate alone! There are procedures which widen the ureter where it goes through the prostate, so the annoying dribble of a thickened/enlarged prostate doesn’t have to ruin your life either. Good luck.

ANR
ANR
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Good luck, Arnold. My father had prostate cancer (as did both his brothers). His story isn’t all that encouraging, so I’ll just wish you the best and leave it at that. And also mention that being on testosterone blocking drugs isn’t the same as the normal drop in libido and stamina that comes with aging.

Tempest
Tempest
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Arnold: If you get your prostate out, GET A VERY EXPERIENCED SURGEON. The stats on ED (sometimes permanent) after having the prostate removed are very alarming, but stats are much better for people who have done it lots of times.

NoMoreNarcs
NoMoreNarcs
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

“I easily beat him by accepting my limitations and focusing on my strengths.”

Exactly!

Entropy sucks, but I ask, why is the youthful experience the normative one? Age brings a different set of parameters – that can be managed.

A, you still play golf, right?

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  NoMoreNarcs

I do and I can still break par. But I do
It differently, wit finesse vs power, now.
I have a good relationship with my girlfriend but it would be nuts to expect me to be some type of young stud at this age. Just is not possible and I accept that.

Lyn
Lyn
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

I appreciate when the man I’m currently dating just wants to hold me, or watch TV with me, and that everything is not always about sex. Intimate connection is a byproduct of emotional connection. I think that was a big difference between me and my ex. I used to believe we could go a month without saying a word to each other but as long as we were having regular sex he’d say everything was “fine.” It often felt like just one more chore I had to do before I could go to sleep when I was really exhausted.

sam
sam
9 years ago
Reply to  NoMoreNarcs

I’m in my 50s. Nothing works the way it used to, but I am enjoying the best sex of my life. Middle age sex is more creative and more enjoyable because you aren’t worried about the stuff you were worried about 20 years ago. If you enjoy each other, and there are so many ways to do that, you don’t need to worry about “performance” rather focus on connection.

Kira
Kira
9 years ago
Reply to  KudzuGirl

Yes it does. But I don’t think it bounces back quickly, at least not for me or some of the Chumps I know IRL. I always get annoyed when in movies/TV the Chump finds someone immediately after the affair, and it all works out for the best! It took me several years to even feel like dating, and then I found BF, and yeah… I’m all over him every chance I get. 😉

The thing I felt and that the Chumps I know IRL all talked about, I think we all get “pressure” to just move on all ready. Why aren’t we over it yet? Why don’t we just find someone new? Why are we still upset? I felt that pressure from myself and from outside sources. A therapist once told me it takes TIME and there is no specific amount.

conniered
conniered
9 years ago
Reply to  Kira

I have had that same experience. I think that the desire of some folks is that they see all the good in us and want to see us happy and to see that we have moved beyond the pain and sadness. It’s a lot to bare for those that love and support us to stand on the sidelines and be a witness to it all.

I am NOT ready to date right now but I am looking forward to the day that I am. I know it will come one day. It would be careless (and damaging to the healing process) of me to jump into a relationship right now. My son needs me more than I need sex right now. and I am ok with that.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  conniered

I see no stigma at all re being single for either gender.
I also see nothing wrong with needing my spouse or GF, just like I need my buddies.
So, saying someone needs a man or woman like a fish needs a bicycle seems absurd.
My friends, my spouse etc are needed unless I want to be isolated and lonely.

redless
redless
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

I understand the concept of “fish bicycle blah blah”. I do not NEED a man or a woman because they can not give me the basics I NEED to live, i.e. ability to breathe, sleep, create shelter. However, I do WANT a spouse, a friend, etc. That is my take on.

MrsVain
MrsVain
9 years ago
Reply to  redless

i guess that is why i am so f*cked up over this divorce. i was raised and i still believe that a woman needs a good man and a man needs a good woman. i am satisfied with who and what i am. i can do all of this shit by myself. the problem is I DONT WANT TO…..

besides i also know my limits. there are just some things that you need done that only a man can do. i HATE HATE HATE it when people tell me “your not alone you have your kids” or “you do have someone who loves you, your kids love you”……not being ungrateful for having the love of my children but honestly IT IS NOT THE SAME kind of love that a man gives you. i get hugs and kisses from my boys all the time. but it is still not the same as having a grown man hug and kiss you. i talk to my boys everyday, but it is still not the same as having a man talk to you, care for you and be interested in what you have to say. friends help but still it is not the same as having a MAN be in love with you.

that is what i miss the most. it hurts so bad being alone and not loved. and knowing that the person you love is loving someone else.

Datdamwuf
Datdamwuf
9 years ago
Reply to  Kira

I heart that Kira, I watched “The Single Moms Club” last night and it pissed me off completely. Every single one of them was hooked up with a guy at the end. Because you know a single woman has to have a man to be complete, blech. Not uplifting at alL

Tempest
Tempest
9 years ago
Reply to  Datdamwuf

Dat–Was it Gloria Steinem who said, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”?

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Yeah, fucking patriarchy. When will they ( men) accept their disposability and uselessness.

Tempest
Tempest
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Please do not put words in my mouth, Arnold. The quote is meant to convey that a woman can be whole by herself. Presumably, the same can be said for men.

We should CHOOSE to want each other; not seek out each other because we feel deficient in some way.

movin_on
movin_on
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Hi Arnold. I don’t think any of the ladies really feel that men are disposable. After all, we were married once upon a time (and some still are). I would like your opinion – do you feel that there is more of a stigma to being a single woman than being a single man? I think there is, and perhaps that’s where the frustration comes from for the ladies like me. I don’t want to speak for anyone, but that’s how I’m interpreting it (and I don’t mean to hijack the thread….maybe a post for another day?)

Wiser Finally
Wiser Finally
9 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Schorn

This is a sad post for me because I have had no one interested in me since my divorce 10 years ago. No dating, no companionship and definitely no sex. Oh except for a brief and very humiliating encounter with a womanizer three years ago that left me feeling even lonelier and even less desirable than before I met him. Sex with my husband was always difficult for reasons that I never understood until after our divorce. There was always some emotional component missing… and eventually it became clear (and he confirmed it) that he was never 100% in the marriage. I learned later that he spent our entire 15 year marriage pining after the wife of his best friend. She was “the one” who got away and even though we lived far from this couple and never saw them, he confessed that she was always in his head. In essence he had some weird fantasy emotional affair going on vicariously and I think I always detected some very subtle anger in him during sex that I wasn’t her. In any case, sex was never fun and joyful and I honestly couldn’t figure out what the big deal was about it. Sex? Meh, who needs it. Eventually it was more a chore than anything else and I always felt lacking and guilty, that there was something wrong with me and my libido, that I just wasn’t a terribly sexual person. If I hadn’t felt it was “required” in the marriage, I would have flatly refused to have anything more to do with it. After the divorce I had no desire to date and certainly no desire for sex for the first five years – and I knew that, well who’s going to want a 50+ woman who doesn’t like sex?

Then along came the womanizer and to my utter astonishment I discovered that I am a very warm and passionate sexual person with plenty to give. My desire for him was through the roof. I felt like the heroine in one of those “becoming sexually awakened” novels. This was a revelation and the only good thing to come out of the experience. Yet at the same time, it was a very difficult thing too, because as soon as this wonderful door opened for me, it got slammed shut again as I got dumped in a careless and humiliating way. Then I suffered all the agonies of rejection and real loneliness and sexual frustration as I now knew what I was missing and had no way to get it back. And that’s where it stands today. I am a well-educated, well-traveled woman and I have a dream job in a beautiful natural location, but the price is living in a small, isolated and extremely limited rural town where there are NO decent single men here. I’ve been doing some on-line dating but nothing has come of it. With each month that passes, I lose more and more of my confidence. What do you do when you want to have quality sex (that involves real affection, kindness and intimacy) and no one is interested?

MrsVain
MrsVain
9 years ago
Reply to  Wiser Finally

that is my fear too. i HATE being single…. and i live in a small rural area with no decent single men my age here. all the decent guys my age are married….happily married and will remain so (because they are decent good guys) all the other guys are the left overs that everyone has been thru and nobody wants. (or are all under age) seriously, 48 year old men, riding bikes around cuz they lost their license. still using drugs and peddling it. or hanging around the bars…more interested in drinking then looking for a good woman (and yet they still get the bar flies). no job, hence peddling drugs on the side, or they are with someone but trolling for someone else, their own kids dont even want anything to do with them. i damn sure dont want anything to do with them. the people in this town disgust me with the way they live, their ethics and non values/morals.

beside that i go to work, come home and tend to the house and children. and go to work again. the ONLY other thing i do is go to the childrens soccer games (which i dont have going on right now) and practices. i seriously doubt i will find my TRUE LOVE in these conditions. i was so super happy to be married and not having to play all the games these single people play. i took it for granted that i would grow old and NOT have to worry about my looks or my body. not that i am ugly or huge fat or anything but i damn sure cant compete with what is out there. i have morals also so no trolling for unhappily married men that hang around my cousins (which is how MOW found my XH)

i have been turning down me all thoughout my marriage, it is hard just to turn that off now. i am STILL way to sexually attracted to my XH and cant even think of having another man touch me that way. (which having his disappear is actually a very very good thing for me because i am sure that if i saw him everyday i would end up seducing him.) i was so into being married, and having my family that i dont really have friends. i have acquaintances, we had a few married couples as friends but no single people in my little world. i used to have my f*ck buddies before i was marriage but that little black book of names is gone and i have no idea where they are, much less what they been doing all these years. i am dreadfully afraid that i am going to be alone forever.

DaisyDupedNoMore
DaisyDupedNoMore
9 years ago
Reply to  Wiser Finally

I wish I knew. I’m right there with you Wiser.

Datdamwuf
Datdamwuf
9 years ago
Reply to  KudzuGirl

KudzuGirl, I hope you are seeing a good therapist – I feel for you so much. Jedi Hugs!

Patty
Patty
9 years ago

Cheating is about the kind of person the CHEATER is, not the kind of mate the chump is. If you have made a bad match and don’t want to do the work to make it a good match, then end the match. No need to be a cheating, lying, piece of crap.

MrsVain
MrsVain
9 years ago
Reply to  Patty

honestly….my XH and i were a bad match. we didnt want the same things out of life. we were not raised with the same morals and values. it took me a long long long time to see that but truthfully, if my XH did not cheat. i would still be with him.

i dont know if that would be a good thing or a bad thing. but i just wanted to throw it out there. that was the single and the ONLY reason i would divorce him besides maybe physical abuse and he never hit me even when i pushed his drunk ass off the bed.

sunshine
sunshine
9 years ago

Great article, Chump Lady. Bullshit article, Dan. Dan’s whole premise is based on a major flaw: he wants to be lied to, so he assumes everyone else wants to be lied to also. Sorry, Dan, but you can’t just blanket assume that everyone is like you. You are an exception on this one. Most people would rather be hit with the truth than kissed with a lie. Even when I get told a very ugly, unwelcome truth (like that my husband was a serial cheater from day 1), there is something so right about finally hearing the truth. In this case, it actually made me feel whole, made me sigh deeply to finally have all the puzzle pieces of my shattered life fit together so clearly.

And as far as people cheating because chumps suck at sex, that is ridiculous. People cheat for all kinds of reasons: because they have no self-control, because they need to prove to the world that they’re desirable, because they’re bored, because they have no morals, because they can, etc, etc. But every reason for cheating is always about the CHEATER and their lack of consideration for the chump, NOT about the Chump. My Ex told me matter of factly that I was WAY better in the sack than the OW (now wife). But she was Ms. Moneybags and (was so ugly and desperate that she) would put up with his cheating and still support him. And I feel like that pretty well summarizes most OW: they are so desperate and pathetic that they’ll date a married guy, cause they can’t get a single one. Dan is just letting his own personal experiences color his vision on this one.

Chumpita
Chumpita
9 years ago
Reply to  sunshine

From what I am reading here, it is the Cheaters who are bad at sex, not the Chumps. Cheaters make the excuse that Chumps are bad so that they can cheat, but they are the ones who are lacking in character, respect, love and appreciation…

Syringa
Syringa
9 years ago
Reply to  sunshine

Yes Sunshine….My XH told me many times that ‘I was the best sex he ever had’ and I believed him. I really did. But the OW had a great job and made lots of money and spent it all on him and she’s also super ugly….I mean make a train take a dirt road ugly…..and desperate and pathetic and will put up with his lying, cheating ass for the rest of her life. Seriously. She knows he is a cheater and that he cheats on her and that’s just fine with her as long as he comes home every night. It seems to be working fantastic for both of them.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  sunshine

I bet a lot of us had sex with our spouses before marriage. So, if we were so deficient, why marry us?

MrsVain
MrsVain
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

that is the stage i am at now….why did he even marry me in the first place.

Margaret
Margaret
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

excellent point Arnold, though we know the truth, right? usually for the money and the stability, as well as the front of appearing to be a respectable family man or woman, right? while carrying on like a major slut in their secret life.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Margaret

I think it is more likely that we were not at all deficient and that in the initial stages of courtship, our cheaters felt we were very adequate .
But , bills, jobs, kids and familiarity take over and our cheaters have unrealistic, infantile expectations( expectations that they, themselves, could not meet if we had them, as well).
They get bored and horny for strange, then become critical of us.
Honestly , neither of my wives was overly creative or imaginative in the sex area. I did not care and was content with what we had.
I often see cheaters hold their spouse to a standard they , themselves, fall far short of.
I remember my XW , upon being discovered, laying a long list of my deficiencies on me. When I told her I had a list that was at least as extensive, she was, truly, incredulous. It shocked her( although I never rd tied it) that anyone could be less than absolutely thrilled with her.

Kelly
Kelly
9 years ago
Reply to  sunshine

“Most people would rather be hit with the truth than kissed with a lie. Even when I get told a very ugly, unwelcome truth (like that my husband was a serial cheater from day 1), there is something so right about finally hearing the truth. In this case, it actually made me feel whole, made me sigh deeply to finally have all the puzzle pieces of my shattered life fit together so clearly.”

You nailed that, Sunshine! I felt the same way, that the pieces of the puzzle were falling back into place when I found out my ex was leading a completely double life. I realized that I was finally done with the lies.

Margaret
Margaret
9 years ago
Reply to  sunshine

sunshine, well said. My Ex even volunteered this tidbit to me when I didn’t even ask: “I don’t know why you think the sex with her is all hearts and flowers, Margaret! It’s JUST. SEX. OKAY!!??” But this from a man who woudn’t know how to even attempt hearts and flowers because it was always, all about him and his dick. For awhile I was jealous and hurt and fantasized that he was somehow being kind and loving to her but I absolutely know better. He is a misognyist pig who gets off on “control,” not on sexuality or sensuality or intimacy. Like so many other narcissists and sociopaths.

DoneNow
DoneNow
9 years ago

I’ve been struggling with this one too. I don’t know why I care what other people think. Maybe because I was married and faithful and loved sex with my husband for 22 years, and never even wandered into flirting with other men. I know he’s told people I have “problems” with sex. I’ve known from the beginning that the only one of us who had a “problem” was him. Sex was so important to him, especially early in our relationship, that I was afraid to let him be in situations where he might feel lonely. Even though we moved a lot and he travelled for his job, I always made sure he was never alone for too long. Plenty of other issues too-experimenting with porn, and lots of secret stuff I still don’t know about. When his problems became so damaging to our relationship that our sex life suffered because of his cheating and use of prostitutes (which I didn’t know about), suddenly I was “cold and withholding.” No talking about intimacy or feelings, he just liked to say that having more sex and attention was the answer to every problem. I really think he has a borderline personality disorder, to go along with his NPD. So when people give me that look-the one that says “Maybe it was your fault,” I just want to scream. Do they really think he would have stayed for 22 years with someone who didn’t like sex?? How many marriages survive that for more than a few years?

Yes, I know that paragraph is riddled with my emotional issues-I did have issues. They just weren’t the ones he claims I have!

Drew
Drew
9 years ago

Yes, married for twenty years. Ex was my first. It was good for a long time, never enough though. It was either pouring down in buckets or a drought. He was selfish in bed, not very creative, or spontaneous. He seemed embarrassed later on, less engaged mentally. I think sex was “dirty” to him, and it was hard for him to have sex when I carried a little extra weight. It was hard to engage sometimes because he never was a very supportive of me out of bed and was always sabatoging/disparaging my interests. My ex always held the spotlight, until we all discovered that we were great on our own. Sex was about him and twenty different positions all in the same session. I felt like a gymnast and wanted to stay in one position so I could get off. No kissing either after his affair started. Big disconnect there. And my body stopped responding as well. I’d like to think I’m hard wired for monogamy because I loved sex for a long time. Loved that it never got old. I imagine it’s pretty spectacular when two people are committed…It’s a great thing when it works. When the relationship is there. At some point nothing works with a Cheater. I stopped because I felt used (about the time he must have been juggling us both). Always wanted it though, like a drug. Wanted the intimacy and good time and I like sex. He was withholding too, would get home from work and jack off to porn rather than have it off with me. Sad days. In the end I could not compete with new pussy.

ffghtr67
ffghtr67
9 years ago

Probably TMI also but one of the biggest mind games my ex hit me with was how great of a lover her OM was. How he did things to her that I “would never do and that I could never do.” That his crank was so much bigger than mine and went “so deep inside her.” That “sometimes she just liked to fuck” and she actually said to me that she “just wanted someone who could perform.” Also that she had realized she was a “submissive” and “liked being told what to do.” WTF? She said this as my heart was broken days after finding out about her cheating. Complete mind-fuckery. I will always remember those comments; really did a number on my self-esteem. I’ll be in therapy for a while because of that and I now know why some people in this situation are homicidal or suicidal.

I was happy with where our sex life was, but in truth, in over 20 years of marriage I always had to initiate sex with her, was often rejected, ignored, or minimized sexually. When I did try to kink it up with sex-talk or whatever, it was met with indifference from her. Meanwhile, she goes all Fifty Shades of Whore with the first douche who flirted with her. I guess I will just take my little penis and try to find someone who will love me for me or just be alone for the rest of my life.

Patsy
Patsy
9 years ago
Reply to  ffghtr67

Such cruelty Ff, I am trying to work out if she was being sadistic or just plain selfish (ff doesn’t have feelings). But even when they don’t say stuff it is all cruel. I was a loving giving person and I really loved him, but have to know what my H didn’t spell out in the way yours did: that the sex they had was his best ever. Just hurts.

jobin
jobin
9 years ago
Reply to  ffghtr67

wow, from one guy to another – that is fucking brutal. I totally agree it was meant to deflect and hurt – truth (as you know) matters NOT ONE BIT to a cheater.

The sheer capacity for cruelty in some people is mind boggling. I actually asked my spouse today – quite calmly and truly just trying to understand – why she told me some very hurtful things about them. I wanted to know what was in her mind – did she resent me for ‘breaking them up’, even subconsciously?

She said she honestly couldn’t remember saying them, and didn’t know why she would – except maybe to try and express what they had was ‘real’ and not ‘fake’ and that that should somehow make me feel better…. (Don’t try and understand it – it will just give you a headache)

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  jobin

Oh, Christ, jobin. That reminds me of the time my XW came in T 2 in the morning and woke me up to describe,in detail, the physique of the young bike racing pro she had been with all night.
Post divorce, when I stupidly asked her why she had piled on like that she came up with the explanation that she thought, since I was a former athlete, that i would be I trigger by his physical prowess and thus distracted from any anger I might have about her being out so late, again.
Now, my XW graduate magna cum
from law school . Yet, this explanation. As thought to be plausible by her.
In reality, what she was trying to do was to provoke me I to doing something she could use against me in the divorce.
Fortunately, I just did not really give a shit by that point and I just rolled back over to sleep.

CheeseHeadChump
CheeseHeadChump
9 years ago
Reply to  ffghtr67

Ffghtr, I can empathize with the insecurity and humiliation comments like this bring. During our short lived reconciliation, I found pictures on the ex’s cell that she had taken and sent to the OM of boxes of Magnum condoms, obviously planning for their meet-up and intimating details they shared. When confronted, she spun lie upon lie until I pressured her enough, then she feigned disgust that I’d think she was interested in his apparently ginormous unit.

But I see now that if she’d rather chase that than work on our marriage and raise our 5 YO daughter together, we clearly don’t share the same values. You deserve much better, her comments to you when you were in pain only demonstrate her lack of anything valuable.(empathy, basic decency, etc.)

BTW, thanks for your service. My dad was a FF for 35 years, it’s a tough job.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  ffghtr67

Seems a fairly common deal for women cheaters, the old “crank is bigger deal”.
These abusers know how to hurt you. They are cruel assholes.
My first wife did something similar and it took forever for me to recover somewhat.
I know women get something similar from their male abusers.
And, do not expect an apology. They never give them.

Eilonwy
Eilonwy
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

I think you are right, Arnold. The go-to insult women levy against men is about size; the go-to insult men levy against women is frigidity. Both are intended to make the target feel like there is something essentially wrong with them, something they’ll need to apologize about forever. I think it goes back to the principal that these jerks are terribly predictable!

chumppalla
chumppalla
9 years ago
Reply to  ffghtr67

FFghtr, I am so sorry, too. Even if those things she said were true for her, which I very sincerely doubt, there is not One Single Reason I can think of to tell someone that, other than to intentionally try to destroy them. That is so cruel and deliberately calculated, she sounds like a sociopath. At best, a completely delusional Narc. WTF-ever, she is sub-human and I hope you have an awesome therapist who helps you scrape that shit off of you and throw it back at her where it originated.

There are so many of us here that would give just about anything for a good, true partner. Know your worth.

Tempest
Tempest
9 years ago
Reply to  ffghtr67

Oh, ffghtr67, I am so sorry!! Your ex-wife is a bully and cruel to her very core. Please realize she said those things because cheaters are almost always entitled fucktards who need to WIN every situation. The worst are the bullies who want to kick someone even when they are already down. It has more to do with her character and need for absolute power over you than it does with the truth.

You will find someone more worthy, but it sounds like some healing time is in order.

just another chump
just another chump
9 years ago

This one brought up a lot of painful memories. I still have many moments of self doubt. I found out about his infidelity after we separated by finding his Ashley Madison chats which he left on the “family” computer.

I spent a few months drinking too much wine and feeling that I was so unsexy I deserved to be cheated on. And had monster-in-law ditto that too. It’s hard to feel self confident when you get dumped after years of loyalty and realize that you’ve slowly broken away from all your former friends and family in order to dedicate your life to a self absorbed creep.

Anybody else ignore the overtly sexual red flags:

excessive porn watching
BJs but nothing for you
trying new moves after a stint away
complaining about inability to have sex because you’re sick, tired, asleep, in labour (yeah he wanted a BJ then… should have agreed and bitten down on the contraction)
discussing lingerie but not buying it for you
calling other women “good friends” and friends (good meaning good in the sack I guess)
and the list goes on

Best 250 lbs I ever lost!

Lyn
Lyn
9 years ago

Yes, I experienced these issues:

trying new moves after a stint away
complaining about inability to have sex because you’re sick, tired, asleep
obsession with Victoria Secret catalogs and lingerie
calling other women “good friends”

chumppalla
chumppalla
9 years ago

Demanding BJ’s while you’re in labor???????? OMG! This has GOT to be a contender for a Chumplady cartoon!!!! CL?????????????

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  chumppalla

I wonde how the hell
we married folks like this to begin with. Was the mask that good or did I just have blinders on?

just another chump
just another chump
9 years ago
Reply to  chumppalla

Just to clarify I was not in lreal labour. Doctor said it was false labour and since jacktard was already awake he figured why the heck not. Still sticks with me as a truly ignorant way to treat your wife.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago

Thanks for clarifying. Now, I can see his desire as being somewhat reasonable, even an efficient use of time. 🙂

FreeVixen
FreeVixen
9 years ago

Funny, my cheating husband was the vanilla of the two of us. I spent years trying to get him to branch out to meet more of my needs, being sexually bored, and experimenting to see if there are other things that HE really likes. Turns out that what does it for him is cheating. Good luck with that one, OW! I’ll be over here finding the man who likes what I like.

conniered
conniered
9 years ago

I loath Dan Savage. Anyone who publicly advocates lying to “protect” the ones you love is a selfish prick. No one I know wants to be lied to. Ever. Not even little kids and, believe me, they know when they are being lied to.

His anti-bullying campaign is a farce. Some christian kids got up and walked out of his presentation at a school and he proceeded to bully them about it. What the hell? (there’s video of it as well) He can’t tolerate anyone who thinks differently than him. I doubt he allows anyone to disagree with him.

HIs opinions have no place here as he does not believe in or advocate monogamy. We are chumps because we value that very thing. And we are wired for it.

Margaret
Margaret
9 years ago
Reply to  conniered

he’s a narc

Kelly
Kelly
9 years ago

The oddest thing for me after finding out my ex was a serial cheater, living a double life for at least 17 of our 25 year marriage, and having multiple affairs and group sex, was the thought that he literally sucked in bed, from the beginning, even when we were young and healthy, and certainly as we got older. When we married, I was the one with limited experience, but I realized it from the first. I tried to talk to him about it when we were in our 30’s but the conversation was too hard and he got too upset.

My first question to him after he admitted these activities was to ask him if he used Viagra because I could not imagine him performing well for one let alone two women.

So to find out on D-Day that he was just living this other life…..well I started researching. Was he a sociopath or narcissist? I thought so, and a lot of the literature said that most sociopaths/narcs are “sex addicts”. And I found that sex addicts are so into porn and internet porn, that this has spawned a generation of men for whom even Viagra no longer works as their brains are conditioned to respond to the instant electronic gratification involved in pornography and nowadays online porn. Most of these guys need more and different to continue getting off, hence the extremes like group sex and orgies.

So the ironic thing is that my ex, the gigolo, sucked in bed. I just shake my head now that he is engaged to marry one of his long-term AP’s. What they must be I to to still get him to get off, sickening.

I am now remarried and in a healthy sexual and romantic relationship. The differences are night and day all around, including in the bed.

Boy they are pitiful creatures.

movin_on
movin_on
9 years ago
Reply to  Kelly

Kelly, I had the same experience. Sex was marginal at best and infrequent when we were dating. The worst advice I ever got (thanks Mom) was that “it would get better with time.” It didn’t. I was cut off from sex from the moment we got married. I was turned down so often that I finally stopped trying to initiate. We had sex *twice* in the last *seven* years of our marriage. I did everything – tried to talk about it rationally, got angry, dragged us to counseling and finally got really mean. I’m sure he told his many side pieces that we were sexless, implying it was my choice and he was a poor sausage. It most certainly was not. I was as unhappy as he was, but I was the only one trying to drag us out while he cheated with dozens of OWs. Ick. (oh, and I had “goodbye” sex with him right before I moved out and it blew his mind. See what you could have been having all those years, sucka??!!)

KitKat
KitKat
9 years ago
Reply to  movin_on

This sounds like my story exactly! The second we got married, he cut me off too. When we were dating, he would brag about all the crazy sexual things he had done with other women and I was thinking, after wondering why he was so descriptive about his past sex life, that I would love to do those things too. Never once was he interested in doing any of that with me. And believe me, I tried to get some of that going on – he always had an excuse why he wouldn’t.
Right before I married him, one of my coworkers who was about 15 years older had just gotten involved with a guy that ended up being her second husband and she was always talking about the great sex they were having. I may have mentioned that I was jealous and she said not to worry, as men age they become more attentive lovers. I patiently waited for cheater to become one of those guys. No dice on that.
Towards the end, I was getting fed up always being the initiator and getting turned down and during a fight, I said he needed to see a doctor for his sexual dysfunction. He got himself a porn star girlfriend instead and had the balls to tell me one of the reasons was having no sexual “spark” with me. Well, no shit when you turn me down for 15 years. I think he has a life dysfunction.

movin_on
movin_on
9 years ago
Reply to  KitKat

“Life dysfunction” – HA!!! I feel ya, sister.

Datdamwuf
Datdamwuf
9 years ago
Reply to  Kelly

“And I found that sex addicts are so into porn and internet porn, that this has spawned a generation of men for whom even Viagra no longer works as their brains are conditioned to respond to the instant electronic gratification involved in pornography and nowadays online porn.”

Yes, my ex was really awesome in the sex department until he cut me off. He denied me sex for years because he was unable to come any longer. Hours of internet porn every day, at first he could get himself off to the porn, eventually he couldn’t even do that. He refused to get any help other than try the blue pill. So he thought some strange would fix it. He told me once while drunk that he’d had this issue in previous relationships. Then he later denied saying that. AND he told everyone we hadn’t had sex in years because of me. Asshole. I begged for sex, I did everything I could to be attractive to him, it also never occurred to me that a loving spouse would have sex for my sake even if he couldn’t get off completely…I’ll never put my needs so far down again.

I had to suppress my sex drive to stay with him, I am not sure I will ever get it back. That is my fear.

kb
kb
9 years ago
Reply to  Datdamwuf

In Making Money, two of the major characters stumble upon the former bank chairman’s sex gadget/costume room. One of the characters remarks that it’s (the sex toys) is a bit like horseradish. It does a great job of sparking up the beef sandwich. Then you kick it up another notch by adding more. Pretty soon, you’re not interested in the beef, just the horseradish.

One of the early red flags in our marriage was that STBX never had a huge sex drive. He thought he did, but really, his drive worked like this: when he wanted sex, he wanted sex. When he didn’t, he didn’t. This meant that I could never initiate sex because he was too busy, too tired, or whatever. Another related red flag occurred when we had to go to the urologist because he had a kidney stone. One of the interns mentioned something about having to keep the pipes clear through regular (2x per week) sex. I thought his eyes would bug out of his head because no way was he up for that often! Finally, and this was something I realized only after reading Chump Lady, was the fact that he liked sex when there was some risk of getting caught.

So in retrospect, I ended up marrying a man whose sex drive was not only on the low side, but who also needed some spice to get it up in the first place! He wants horseradish (but had not graduated to sex toys).

In that sense, I can’t compete with OW in bed because he’s having affair sex. It’s always risque, as well as risky. 😉 Also, I know she has toys.

I am sure that he tells her that I’m not interested in sex. I am equally sure that once I’m out of the picture, she’ll discover that those 10-minute quickies where he tells her passionately that he wants to fuck her?–well, that’s what she’ll get: 10 minutes of fast fucking. 😀

NorthernLight
NorthernLight
9 years ago
Reply to  kb

My ex seemed more interested when there was a risk of getting caught.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  kb

From what I have read, 10 minutes is on the high side for most intercourse. This is why there is foreplay.

kb
kb
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

That includes the foreplay. 😉 The actual mechanisms of sex are not biologically geared toward lasting all that long, you are correct.

Kelly
Kelly
9 years ago
Reply to  Datdamwuf

DDW, I can tell you that when I first married ex, I too wanted to have sex much more than he did, and then began to suppress my sex drive. But when I finally found a normal man and got into a healthy relationship, even now at 53 my sex life is so much better than it EVER was with ex who I married in my 20’s. But I know you’ve been through some awfully special circles of hell.

Moving Liquid
Moving Liquid
9 years ago

My husband was getting kinkier the longer we were together. I told myself that it was all okay if that’s what he wanted/needed to get off. But for the last few years he constantly talked about which of his friends I’d like to fuck. And I’d say, “How about none of them?” He wanted me to flirt with men in real life and have phone sex with strangers. I just kept dodging those requests. Near the end, in the middle of sex, he’d start talking about me having sex with someone else. I’d try to go along with it for the sake of his satisfaction, if you get my drift. But later on I’d say to him, “You know I don’t want to do that, so don’t get any ideas.” He’d say he understood, but now that he’s cheated I feel he was just projecting on to me what he’d like to do himself.

And yes, like others here, near the end he was really degrading to me in the sack, which was messing with my head and self esteem.

Occasionally, too, he’d claim that we weren’t having sex enough, but our schedule was so out of whack. He’d stay up until 3 or 4 a.m. then he’d sleep until 1pm, then talk to his family on the phone until 4 p.m. and go out with his friends by 6pm, so our window of opportunity for sex was not huge. But yeah, it’s all my fault.

One of the things that makes me the saddest is the idea that I may not make love again. He may have robbed me of that sort of intimacy for the rest of my life. I fucking hate him for that.

After we separated (before I knew there was another woman) he had me over twice to fuck me and that’s just what he did, like a prostitute, and the second he was done he hopped out of bed — no intimacy whatsoever. I was desperately tying to make him love me again and he took advantage of that. I wonder if the OW knows he cheated on her with his wife.

Gah.

Tempest
Tempest
9 years ago
Reply to  Moving Liquid

ML–same thing here. After his affair (before I knew about it), my cheater posted a picture of me in lingerie on Adult Friend Finder without my permission, and would get excited talking about me screwing other men. This talk continued sporadically for 8 years until I found evidence of his affair. I think it is either projection, or they crave sexual novelty SOOO much that they will take it any way they can.

I hope my STBX is happy–he put sex as a higher priority than me, his children, his home, and even his public standing. Now he’s paying the cost for that, having lost me, his second daughter (who won’t speak to him), and his home.

I may never be intimate again, either, because ANY red flag whatsoever will cause me to leave a relationship pronto. I know you were in your marriage roughly the same amount of time as me (20ish years, right?). That insidious wearing down of one’s psyche after years with an entitled prick is difficult to come back from. Healing is a full time job right now.

Kara
Kara
9 years ago
Reply to  Moving Liquid

Moving Liquid, I would bet that he was pressuring you to flirt and phone sex with other men so he could turn around and use it against you later when he inevitably cheated. So when you got mad at him for it, he could pull the “Well you did XYZ” card. Which is a complete false equivalent.

But cheaters are masters of false equivalents aren’t they?

NWBiblio
NWBiblio
9 years ago
Reply to  Moving Liquid

Never is a very long time, ML. And if you can remain open to it, you may someday have a partner, one who cares for you and isn’t degrading. Before I was married, I’d been with quite a few guys and had had a really great time, so I can say with 100% certainty that there are some fantastic men out there who are great in the sack and not at all degrading. Some of them seemed to feel like my body was an oasis of pleasure for them — how nice it was to be on the receiving end of that sort of adoration, huh? Hang in there, ML.

Moving Liquid
Moving Liquid
9 years ago
Reply to  NWBiblio

NWB, thanks. As down as I sound, I do have hope that love, in all its forms, will happen for me again. You know how we often talk about narcs being addictive? Well, I do fear that after him “normal” lovemaking might seem boring. Just one more area I need to recover from. I’m hanging in — you do the same! xox

Psyche
Psyche
9 years ago
Reply to  Moving Liquid

ML, I had exactly the same concern myself. Good news from the other side, though: you don’t have to worry! CL is right: chumps are giving. And sex can be spectacular. So, so much better than the cheap sparkles from a narc (when they bothered to sparkle). You don’t have to weigh something plain and reliable against sparkles — it’s more like comparing actual gold and diamonds to a glitter-covered turd! Trust me, nothing boring here!

moving forward
moving forward
9 years ago

These types of articles make me really sad and also very angry. We aren’t living in the 50s.

Good sex is about good communication. It is about having the maturity to talk to one another about sensitive…urm…things.

I know this now.

Sex educators, like Mr Savage, should be reinforcing this.

At the end of my marriage – while the exH was sleeping with a 25 year old – he was having…urm…problems ‘getting it up’ with me. As a complete idiot and having no self-esteem left, I internalized this problem and believed I must be hideous. I did not know how to talk about this problem. I tried. He just let me believe that it was me. I believed that I would never have sex again after DDay. Who would want me?

I have since learned that cheating is the reason for 50% of men with erectile issues. HALF of all men! Talk about that Playboy!

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  moving forward

I bet past a certain age it is not infidelity that causes ED half the time. Take a look at the arteries in aging men. Also T levels are way down.

Maree
Maree
9 years ago
Reply to  moving forward

mf, your last comment … “I have since learned that cheating is the reason for 50% of men with erectile issues. HALF of all men!” My ex of 37 years was starting to have erectile issues and I suggested that he discuss it with his doctor on his annual physical check. Well he did and when he got home I asked what the doctor said. My ex stated that the doctor said that since he had been with one person (me) for so long, he needed to have sex with someone else to get the ‘spark’ back and then my ex tried to make a joke of it. Suffice to say he is having plenty of sex with 18 year old prostitutes now. I bumped into an old neighbour of ours recently who commented that when he say my ex a little while ago, that the ex looked “absolutely terrible” The karma bus is making its way towards him slowly. Poetic justice I would say!!

FoolMeTwice
FoolMeTwice
9 years ago
Reply to  Maree

No reputable doctor would make a comment like that or prescribe that kind of treatment. Nice try on your ex’s part to line up an expert witness to justify his prostitution habit!

Maree
Maree
9 years ago
Reply to  Maree

saw my ex !!

NWBiblio
NWBiblio
9 years ago

Oh, Dan Savage. What a tangled relationship I’ve had with you!

I wrote to him a couple of times during my marriage because *I* was the one who felt our marriage was sexless. I had been a pretty wild girl before I married XH and was unprepared for his level of inexperience. I thought we might grow together, but he was never interested in the growing part. Long story short: he got his, I did not get mine. Ever.

So I wrote to Dan: What do I do? Am I crazy? And Dan reassured me (personal email from his camp) that I was not crazy. He did not advocate me to step outside the marriage, though I confess I considered it. But I knew that was wrong so I stuck it out & hoped it’d get better. It didn’t.

But now Dan says he wants to be lied to. Well, then XH should marry Dan, I guess (he won’t, of course, because homosexual men are “gross” per XH), because most people I know do not want to be lied to, especially by their life partners. It’d be like me writing a column about cooking and everything would have ginger in it because I love ginger so much. It should occur to me that some people don’t like ginger. — Also, in this example, you could substitute “STDs” for “ginger.”

I don’t know if I’ll ever find another partner or relationship, but I’m glad to be away from that chronically disappointing sexless relationship. Sometimes it’s my only comfort when I think of OW’s impending disappointment as she eventually realizes his “quickness” is no longer because of the newness of the relationship. He’s your 2-minute problem now, Honey.

kimmie
kimmie
9 years ago
Reply to  NWBiblio

So much talk of STDs, I felt compelled to jump in here. I’ve not shared my story but I plan on it one day. My husband(yes still my husband) managed to give me HPV16 which resulted in cervical cancer. All of this after 26 years of marriage. My one and only partner EVER. It is absolutely traumatic and a long time suffering. Two radical surgeries, 15 rounds of chemo and now 2years past d day, still feel so sad , and so stuck . STDs are real and can result in death all because of some selfish asshole would rather not “hurt us with the truth ” WHAT BULL SHIT !

Maree
Maree
9 years ago
Reply to  kimmie

kimmie, I do hope you are healthy now. What are you doing still married to this bloke? I am sure you have your reasons but it can’t be because you love him surely. I would be sick just at the sight of him and ready to commit justifiable homicide. Do take care.

Dr. I Can't Believe I'm a Chump
Dr. I Can't Believe I'm a Chump
9 years ago

I have no problem being labeled vanilla. The only person who gets to know that is my partner. If monogamy is want I want, that’s what I want. I feel no urge to justify that to someone who thinks I am not “evolved” because of a particular value that is important to me. I do not see how it is “sex positive” to discount something that makes me feel comfortable sexually.

Dr. I Can't Believe I'm a Chump
Dr. I Can't Believe I'm a Chump
9 years ago

I was actually the one who wanted it more. . . Or so I thought. I also did not think he was missing out in the variety department, but if he wanted to fuck stupid, then yeah, he was missing out.

I doubt you are vanilla, Arnold, and even so, you’re right. The point of intimacy is to experience closeness and that is best done through communication.

MrsVain
MrsVain
9 years ago

now that was funny…..and made me actually laugh..

“if he wanted to fuck stupid” lmao!! yes, i think my XH wanted someone stupid to fuck.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago

I think I was pretty vanilla , too.
But, why cheat if she wanted more variety? Why not ask or divorce?

kb
kb
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

This. I can see that there would be problems if each spouse has very different expectations and needs for sexual intimacy. For example, if one spouse wants to have sex three or more times per week while the other partner wants sex once every ten days–that’s a very big mismatch in sexual needs! But the answer is either compromise, which brings each spouse a bit out of their comfort zone, or divorce.

Cheating is not the compromise position!

ByeByeCheater
ByeByeCheater
9 years ago

Ugh, these a-holes are so much alike. He was my first and only and he said he had only been with one person one time before me. We had sex before we married and after we married, sex was the only thing on his mind – all the time, his way only, and immediately. I tried to explain to him that I needed more from him from a foreplay standpoint but he took that as criticism and simply ignored my request. Eventually he got mad that I brought it up more than once and would pout, stomp off, refuse to talk, blame me, etc. Being a chump, I became the blow up doll that was mentioned in an earlier post. My mentality was just do it and get it over with. Oddly, he often asked ‘did you get there?’ like he cared and of course, I would lie. Most often he rolled over and fell asleep afterward, another way to ignore me. We did have periods of time in our relationship that we didn’t have sex – for me, I was fine with it because I hated the feeling of being used simply for his satisfaction. He of course would say that I didn’t like sex and he didn’t want to force himself on me.

Over the 24 years of our marriage I learned how to make it good for me or as least as best as I could. Yes, like most of you, I was supposed to get our daughter to school in the morning, work all day at a job equally as stressful as his, cook, clean, help with homework, take care of the bills, get our daughter off to bed and then satisfy him after he was done watching movies he’d seen 100 times or a game.

Looking back now, I realize that he treated me no better than he probably treated the whores and prostitutes that he’s been with over the years.

Once his many years of cheating was exposed, he did the typical blame shifting – I didn’t like sex, I refused to have sex with him, etc. And I’ve posted his classic line here before – our marriage was barely consummated.

I’m not sure what it will be like to have a genuinely loving, giving, and caring man in my life but I certainly hope to find out one day.

Irish
Irish
9 years ago
Reply to  ByeByeCheater

Oh, this hurts. I so wanted to believe I found a man who thought I was beautiful, truly loved me, made me feel special. And he love bombed me. I was a single mom with a 4yo son. I really was not wanting marriage. I wanted to date, and raise my boy. I had been ppretty traumatized by my divorce from alcoholic cheater #1. And was pissed off at men in general. He just made me feel special. He was ”traditional”. Never married. 6 years younger than me. Called constantly. Showed up unexpectedly. Just overwhelmed me. Flowers. Planted trees in my yard without asking. He presented himself as a Christian man, who had just not been able to get any woman ”to the altar” yet. He just lied and lied. About who he was. We dated for 2 years. Had a huge wedding. I quit my job after our honeymoon. He lost his job 6 mo after that. Started a business that I supported. But he was so emotionally distant. Pushed me away. He could not touch me in any way except a sexual way. I was busy with 5 kids by then. Tired and worn. He ran it into the ground and I used my credit and my retirement to keep it going. Lost it all. My insurance,my retirement, my excellent credit rating…..he neglected to tell me that he had a predilection, no, an ADDICTION, to porn. He was viewing hours and hours porn every night and was too tired to make the business work. I figured it out 6 years and pregnant with our 3rd child. Caught him with his pants down, hand on his junk. If someone had hit me with a bat, it would’ve been less painful. Anyway, he always made feel like a porn performer after that. I found about 16,000 photos on our hard drive when I ran a recovery on it. He would try to make me have multiple orgasms till I cried because it hurt. He started having ED because his pornography addiction. It only took him seconds to orgasm when he functioned. But eventually half mast was all he could muster. I tried to help him stop the porn. Counselors,every book Amazon offered on the subject. Was supportive. Tried not to push or question him because that would trigger guilt and shame and drive him back to the porn. I spent the next 8 years tying to manage anything that might trigger a return to porn. I tried to be what he wanted. Tried to act like the women he wanted. Screened ever movie before viewing so it wouldn’t trigger a porn frenzy. I seated myself between him and any skimpy dressed women to keep him from looking…..oh God this is so painful. Nothing I did was enough. I wasn’t enough to keep him from the porn. I finally just figured this was my personal hell that I had to keep going for my kids. He could never keep a job. Guess why? He finally got a job back at the sheriffs department. 5 years in and l figured out he was doing it again. Around that time, it was discovered that his fathere had molested 3 of his granddaughters. Not my girls, my SILS teenage daughters. Over a 5 year period. That was it for me. I filed a report with the police department. And let him know I knew what he was looking at porn again. This time I threw his ass out. But I don’t think I will ever be able to let any man get close to me again. Ever. Sexually I feel ruined. I could not even look in his eyes anymore when we had sex ,because I did not want him to have that part of me anymore. I felt defiled and sick but obligated to let him have sex with me, or else he would go back to porn. I hate even telling anyone what a fucking stupidass chump I was. One time, Sebastian a discussion about how porn was just fantasy and the pictures were airbrushed and photoshopped. He looked at me and said ”NO! You don’t understand! These were videos of that men had then if their wives! Raw footage! And These ladies were fuckin’ beautiful! ” He had such a obsessed look in his eyes. I wawanted to slap the living shit out of him. But, because I was trying not to shame him or trigger him back to porn, I just turned away and went to bed. I am so glad he is gone. But I am bitter towards men in general. I feel used. And old and ugly and and and…………
Thanks reading this far if you have.. sorry for the rant, just feeling so depressed lately.

Kelly
Kelly
9 years ago
Reply to  Irish

Ah Irish, I am so sorry, these cheaters just suck. They are sick sick sick. Go to counseling, start concentrating on yourself, it does get a bit better over time. (((Hugs)))

CalamityJane
CalamityJane
9 years ago
Reply to  Irish

Rave on Irish. Get it all out. Get out all the bullshit this mf’r put in your head. One day it will all be gone and the wounds will begin to heal, I promise. You were with a scoundrel. A man without conscience. Rave on ….

Irish
Irish
9 years ago
Reply to  CalamityJane

Thank you Calamity Jane for replying to my post. I am hurting so much right now.. thanks for taking the time to read it.

MrsVain
MrsVain
9 years ago
Reply to  ByeByeCheater

my Xh was actually really good in bed. genuinely loving, giving and caring in bed. it was everywhere else in life that he sucked at loving, giving and caring… but that is the way it is with borderline men. for them it is all in the seduction, and prowess in bed. they are unable to do everyday love, for them it has to be the honeymoon love. the thrill of being new and exciting. the discovery of what she enjoys. the excitment of cant get enough of each other…… That is what he is into.

after you finally get your fill, everyday stresses take their toll and the new wears off. he doesnt know how to keep it going and just magically falls out of love with you.

but ya, it still hurts like hell, knowing that his relationship is so sexually satisfying and they cant get enough of each other and are in new love. it kills me that he loves her. he just fucking met her but he loves her. they are sooOOooo fucking happy together. the hell with me, who still loves him. who stood by his side. who put up with all sorts of his crap.

DaisyDupedNoMore
DaisyDupedNoMore
9 years ago
Reply to  ByeByeCheater

“I’m not sure what it will be like to have a genuinely loving, giving, and caring man in my life but I certainly hope to find out one day.” Me too ByeBye, for both of us.

GladIt'sOver
GladIt'sOver
9 years ago

I admit I don’t really know who Dan Savage is, but the various quotes from his articles CL occasionally posts remind me so much of my ex. Who is also an “anti-bullying advocate” by the way, so that triggers me right there.

As to the “sexless marriage” bullshit, I spent 20 years in a nearly sexless marriage because HE hardly ever wanted to get it on. I begged, I read up on all sorts of techniques and positions, I read books on how to improve a marriage, I bought sex toys, I indulged his weird fetish, I had loving, concerned discussions, I suggested ex get his testosterone level checked to find out if there was a medical reason for why he was so disinterested, I lay down naked on the living room floor in front of him….. you name it, I did it.

HE was the one who didn’t want sex in the marriage, not me. Of course, now I know why he got so angry and replied, “There is NOTHING wrong with my testosterone level,” after I suggested he see a doctor. He was getting PLENTY of sex that entire marriage, just not with me, and usually not with women.

Whoever the fuck Dan Savage is, he sounds exactly like an NPD cheater to me, and I should know, I spent 20 years married to the KING of NPD cheaters.

sam
sam
9 years ago

Well, I’ve been in LTRs with three guys who couldn’t perform regularly. They all cheated on me, one with hookers. They all eventually blamed it on me.

I mentioned this to my current partner and as we were talking more about it I said ‘I don’t think I’m a bad lay?’ to which he replied ‘NO you are NOT. You are amazing and I have no idea what was wrong with those guys but they were dopes.’

Ego boost for sure and given our current level of enjoying each other I KNOW he isn’t just saying that.

JC
JC
9 years ago

I had thought this was fairly common, but maybe not:

My ex, over the course of a years, limited our sexual exploration. She increasingly insisted that our lovemaking had to be tender and… Frankly… Dull. Fun new things, or even old things, were slowly forbidden, so I was left with same-old same-old in my repertoire.

None too surprisingly, when she started banging her AP, she compared the wild sex with him to the tame sex with me. And we all know who wins that comparison. He didn’t have to follow years of rules she’d placed on me, so he was sexier and more passionate than I was.

Lesson learned. If you meet your wife’s demands that you be boring, then she’ll eventually get bored with you. And if she sucks at life, she’ll mount someone else instead of talking to you about it.

It is great to be in a new relationship, where everything is on the table, and I assertively pursue what I want. I don’t do anything that makes my girlfriend too uncomfortable, but I do remember that variety is the spice of life.

scaredandconfused
scaredandconfused
6 years ago
Reply to  JC

I know this thread is super old but I’m a newbie reading lots of archives because I’m sick in bed today. I had to comment because this is exactly what happened with my husband the cheater. Right after he started his one night stands (I found out 5 years later) he started being very restrictive with our sex life. No lights on ever; hardly any kissing; no real affection anymore; and no communication about preferences. So then I get told he’s been unhappy in bed with me for years (news to me… but you also restricted me to boring land) and amazingly, every single one of these other women just “get” him immediately and it’s always better with them. I have begged for more excitement, for him to open up and talk to me about what would please him, what feels good Or doesn’t, etc and he says it’s a turn off to discuss it. And he said the other women perform perfectly without him having to say anything. Sigh. I feel horrible about myself but really suspect it’s always better out there because he’s turned on by the sneaking around. It’s just cruel.

chumppalla
chumppalla
9 years ago
Reply to  JC

Whether you meet your cheater’s demands or not, your cheater is going to get bored with you and mount someone else. ‘Cuz the cheaters gonna cheat cheat cheat cheat cheat and the liar’s gonna lie lie lie lie lie. THAT’s the only lesson you need to learn.

Kelly
Kelly
9 years ago
Reply to  chumppalla

Yup

kb
kb
9 years ago
Reply to  chumppalla

This.

sam
sam
9 years ago
Reply to  JC

Now, I have an amazing partner and we ask for what we want, we talk, we experiment, we enjoy. Never a dull moment for us! Amazing what communication does for a relationship!

Divorce Minister
Divorce Minister
9 years ago

What a shallow and low view of sex Savage presents!

Death penalties in the Judeo-Christian world acknowledged the devastation of adultery. It is not just a body function. Sexual intercourse unites the individual mind, body, and soul with their partner. That’s why it hurts so much when we get cheated upon. It’s soul rape–i.e. a spouse inviting another partner into the marriage bed without consent. It’s a deep, deep violation of the faithful spouse soul.

He’s an idiot to suggest lies make it better. It’s the lies that leave the most lasting devastation in my experience. You have no idea how many or for how long for sure when dealing with a liar. And you have to unplug and fight the lies they used to blame-shift upon you in order to live with their crappy, cheating ways. Those are the toughest to defeat…like the cruel lies about how you had it coming to you. They are designed to exploit an intimate weakness and destroy you–worth and all. Lies do not help. They are part and parcel to the cancer that is adultery.

LovedAJackass
LovedAJackass
9 years ago

And in practical terms, adultery exposes the partner to disease, the chance of a pregnancy outside of the marriage, and catastrophic economic consequences for the whole family unit. Adultery destabilizes the family, as we know. It also undermines the spiritual union between a couple, as DM says. And it involves lying (another top 10 commandment) and often coveting what others have. So all told, a recipe for becoming a person with corrupted values.

conniered
conniered
9 years ago

Right on Divorce Minister. Adultery is what I call a “Top 10 Sins”. God put it in the Ten Commandants for a reason. It is devastating and so destructive to so many lives. If GOD said it was bad, then it’s BAD. Nothing Dan Savage or anyone else says can change that.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  conniered

Savage ignores the theft/fraud aspect of infidelity.
We all have limited time here on Earth. So, if you induce someone to rely on your vow/contract and thus deprive the person of opportunities to direct his or her own life, you have stolen previous time.
I am 60 now. Lived in a virtually sexless marriage for a long time when I was younger(not sexless for her, apparently).
How can I ever get back those years, that sexual ability I had in youth? These things were stolen from me.

Maree
Maree
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Arnold, you have mentioned previously the sex you missed out on when younger. Unfortunately, you cannot get that time back, however, you sound like you are in a nice, stable relationship now. Try to enjoy that. We were all young once and the damage done to us by our cheaters can’t be undone but hopefully can be improved upon. You sound like a decent guy and you should start to enjoy the now. I should take my own advice I think!!

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Maree

Something about the injustice gets me very pissed off, Maree.
I think it would be easier for me if I had retained the ability to
perform fully.

Maree
Maree
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Arnold, this response is a bit long winded but I have only ever been with one man and I use that term loosely and that was my ex husband. I don’t regret that for one moment because that is the choice that I made and it hasn’t changed for me and I am nearly 63 years old. However, I know that as we both got closer to the 60 mark he wanted others more than when we were younger because he was losing the ability to perform fully. I find now that the issues regarding ageing are that women are made fully aware of what to expect and blokes aren’t. Males think that they can and will go on forever when the opposite is the truth. I am wondering if the male ‘menopause’ should be discussed more openly? What do you think? But at the end of the day I personally think that if you really love someone, going without sex is a small price to pay if that someone loves you in return. My sister and her husband are a prime example of this. They have been married for 42 years and have health issues and sex is no longer part of their lives at 64 years of age but they have walked side by side the whole way and they would not have it any other way. A great example of true love in my estimation.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Maree

Some guys are just incredibly closed off to admitting any vulnerability. Admitting to ED , to some men, is the equivalent to baring your neck to a predator.
Example: My 64 year d friend, sees the super hot, 20 year old beverage cart girl approach and comments that he would love to fuck her.
I look at him incredulously and I form him that she would vomit if either if us removed our clothes.
He knows this. He has eyes and a mirror but still had to pretend there was the possibility that she would find him attractive.
Not sure s out how women come to look at aging, but many guys are in complete denial about its effects.(at least the guys I hang with).
Another guy friend, mid 50’s, ask me if I have any Viagra and, if so, can I give him one.
So, I do. Next week I ask him how it worked for him. He tells me he never used it as he does not need it.
How fucking transparent and sad. He could not even admit to a fellow user that he had a. Issue.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Precious time

sam
sam
9 years ago

I would rather deal with a break up than living a lie and/or being lied to. Savage completely misses the mark with this one.

Chumpy
Chumpy
9 years ago

Dan Savage do you really believe you can be lied to and not expect the truth to reveal itself later on down the road? Insanity!!

“I think sex was “dirty” to him
I always had to initiate sex with her, was often rejected, ignored, or minimized sexually. When I did try to kink it up with sex-talk or whatever, it was met with indifference from her.”

Trigger, trigger, trigger!!! This was our bedroom. When I first married him I was a tad ashamed of my sexual history and he didn’t help with the comments he made about things he heard. (The rumor mill was over the top versus the reality) I knew my past lovers were not long term partner material and somehow this attitude made me feel like our sex life was special. He was the only man I submitted to which years later when I shared this with him he seemed very uncomfortable with the information. He ended our honeymoon over a bj. In the midst of it he just blew up, got out of bed and started packing. Divorce was the topic on the drive home. My self worth went straight into the toilet. When we became lovers again almost 30 years later I brought this incident up and he denied it happening at first, then he said it was because my teeth got in the way?

“I suggested ex get his testosterone level checked to find out if there was a medical reason for why he was so disinterested..” I did this as well this time around because even the ED pills weren’t working. I did it because HE was the one that complained about our situation. HE wanted to experience “US” again. He had a long term medical condition that ED is a consequence but the pills were not working. I reassured him if low T wasn’t the problem it didn’t matter to me. There are other ways to satisfy someone you love. He had a history of strokes so I wasn’t totally comfortable with either medical intervention. I really did love and care for the man.

“I have since learned that cheating is the reason for 50% of men with erectile issues.” This explains it all. I really thought the marriage/relationship was immune from cheating because of his low drive and the ED. It took almost a month before I could accept that when he asked if I had cheated he was actually projecting his cheating onto me. He doesn’t have a cell phone or internet and couldn’t use a computer to save his life. When he was in Europe the lady who takes care of his cats said he left a 1950’s smut book out in the open. Her Mom saw it and started looking at it. It was what made me realize that who he was and our entire relationship had been a lie. I’d not ever seen this book and people don’t start cheating behavior in their 60’s. 

MrsVain
MrsVain
9 years ago
Reply to  Chumpy

i was stupid enough to think that our marriage was immune to cheating also because my XH was just so shy about sex and never initated it. basically i never thought he had the balls to hit on another woman….i was completely unprepared and ignorant to the fact that he wouldnt have to. he is really sexy, and very attractive, so of course some unmoral woman who didnt care that he was married and had children would hit on him!! and he just didnt have the balls to tell her no.

i always gave my XH too much credit. i completely believed that he would have the integrity to stay faithful.i also have to admit that reading all this about aging men not being able to ‘get it up” might have been yet another reason he cheated on me. if he was feeling less of a man because he was having trouble getting it up and this hood rat was able to give him a woody, i wonder if he was stupid enough to think it was because she was the ONE and not because of other factors in our marriage that could have been fixed.

MrsVain
MrsVain
9 years ago
Reply to  MrsVain

but of course he wouldnt have said anything to me about it.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Chumpy

Actually , I think that lying about cheating does result in never being found out in most cases.

Chumptotheend\
Chumptotheend\
9 years ago

This sure did strike a nerve! My H and I have been together for over 15 years and from the very beginning sex was really great! From my perspective we both gave everything to each other and it was always exciting. There have been times when I came home from work to find flower petals all the way from the front door back to the bedroom and a bed covered in flower petals where I found him all clean and shiney! He also had the house all cleaned up and dinner cooked and all of this was not unusual behavior for him. We also would experiment with so much other stuff like doing it in a raft floating down a river ( It was fairly secluded ) or on the back roof of the house in the middle of the night ( at those angles even missionary position is quite different) and we shared our fantasies and we role played and we would try it in different locations and different positions we were both very enthusiastic. I know TMI but there is so much and it really was fulfilling for both of us. He has always had the attitude that he needed to do a good job. And I trusted him with everything I thought felt and dreamed and for many, many, years I thought he did with me too! We were always very honest about things but then the last 2-3 years things changed and I don’t know what happened. But then again I do. There came a time when I hit menopause that some things were causing me to feel very yucky about my own sense of being sexy and I know that I backed off a bit. I didn’t think this was a problem because a couple of times he had complained that just sometimes he wanted to be the initiator. It was a medical issue but I got it treated and even though it took some months to straighten out eventually every thing resolved. However by this time he was complaining that he needed more sex but he wasn’t pressuring me but after thinking it through I understood and I started doing everything I could think of make myself feel more sexy and to revive that old spark. And it worked for a while but then after another year or so he developed a medical condition that causes him severe debilitating pain at times and to treat this the doctors ( believe me we went to so many different doctors to get him relief ) prescribe him some pretty potent pain killers. Well they do take care of his pain and I don’t want him to suffer but they also are so potent that when he has to take them he is mostly half awake. There have been times when he was like that and tried to get amorous but its like being pawed by a drunk….yuuk! No he doesn’t have to take them constantly so I just tried to keep it to those times when he was clear headed. I don’t know if this was what it was that caused his self esteem to drop but it did. I could see it. But I also couldn’t get into sex when he was like that and would push him away. Then about 3 years ago through a social situation we met a woman who was a friend of a friend. Apparently she decided that he was what she wanted and she went after him with a vengeance. She started approaching him when I wasn’t immediately there and telling him that I was saying terrible things about him or that I was doing something to undermine him or that I was chasing some other guy and making a fool of him ( which wasn’t even close to the truth nor could any rational person think such ) and even that it was obvious to her that not only did I not love him but that I didn’t even like him very much. I won’t get into some of the crap that she claimed I either said or did but when he first approached me about it I was shocked that she was doing this and I told him that I didn’t know what her game was but I was sure she had one going and that we should avoid her because she was being very deceitful. He agreed but over time she continued to orchestrate situations where she could be around him without me present. And she continued her campaign. Even though he didn’t believe her at first eventually he started to and she would often say some of the most terrible things in front of other people and he would be so imbarrrased and she would put it in a way that any attempt he made to defend me sounded feeble. She then started adding in how attractive she found him and how she would treat him so much better. He hadn’t been complaining but she planted some pretty powerful seeds. I really don’t think he ever intended to be unfaithful until over time and after she continued to malign me even though he told me about it eventually he started to see things she was saying even though they weren’t real. I am not trying to excuse him but I really feel that she is a skilled manipulator and over time the effect was a form of brainwashing. I know that at one point she told him that she wanted him and it would be all fun and games and no drama! Given the way that things had deteriorated because of her efforts and knowing him I understand that he found that an attractive offer. She basically was offering sex with no strings attached. Of course that was a lie too! She intended from the beginning to get him for her own. She wanted someone who would take care of her and she saw a man who did his part with me and he is a very attractive man. He might be 54 but he has not one gray hair on his head of thick dark hair and not one ounce of fat on his muscular body which he got from years and years of physical labor. It is this physical labor however that eventually caused his medical condition for which he takes the pain killers. I also think she is a closet addict and saw in him a source for her own addiction. Of course she wanted him he is everything I ever wanted too! Due to his condition and not being able to work from it his self esteem was suffering as he felt lost and useless. There wasn’t much I could do about changing that even though I really tried to make him feel useful and needed. For many months this went on and he didn’t cheat but eventually she wore him down. I could tell and/or feel it immediately. I confronted him even though I didn’t have anything that indicated that there was something going on except my gut feeling. Of course he denied it emphatically! This entire time I was really making an effort to help him improve his self esteem and to make him feel sexy again except when he was on those painkillers. I was also working fulltime and then coming home and cooking him a full meal and we were still doing all of the things that we love to do together as a couple like playing chess, having sex and going fishing, etc… Then a couple of months later he told me that he had been seeing her and all the other bs that comes with D-day. the rewriting of our marriage history, however he told me that none of it was my fault that I had been a great wife and everything he could’ve asked for but he wasn’t in love with me anymore and was in love with her and that he had been thinking about moving out and in with her. Not only was I incredibly hurt and shocked and pissed. My reaction was no way was I going to sit down and allow them to run off into the sunset together while I was left behind to pay the price. It all fell together for me about what had been happening and I told him that it was BS that he allowed this woman to convince him of lies and drive a wedge between us so that she could have him because she was on the lookout for some one to take care of her. She doesn’t work by the way and is incompetent in most aspects of her life and also had been using constant crisis in her life that I maintain she created deliberately to appeal to his need to feel useful as she would have him go and save her giving him the warm fuzzy for being her knight in shining armor. Of course I was unaware that she had been asking him to do things for a long time. I told him how betrayed I felt that he had come to believe anything she said. His reaction was that he didn’t want to lose me and he didn’t know how he had come to think that he wanted her and he did call her and when she didn’t answer he left her a message that he was sorry but that he was a married man and he wanted his marriage and he had made a mistake with her. He said he didn’t know why he had ever had anything to do with her. Then of course she wouldn’t let it go. she constantly called him and would try to guilt him into doing something to help her in one of her many daily crisis. He said that he did feel that he owed her something because he had made her promises that he wasn’t keeping even though he didn’t know why he had. He was telling me every time she called and asked for something and if he felt that he needed to help he involved me. I know he was thinking that she would get the message that if I was the one who showed up to help her instead of him every time she would quit asking. But she didn’t. She tried to claim that he had lied to her and that she didn’t know he was married but that was crap because we met her together at the same time and had seen her in a few social situations where we were a married couple. She had full knowledge that we were married. Even so she played her cards so well because she started to claim that she was so helpless and that because of him she was now homeless and helpless and without even one friend and that even her family had rejected her. Now my H has always been a kind person and has never turned anyone away that asked him for help, not friends, not strangers. Knowing his personality he felt totally compelled to help her. She claimed that when she met him she was just fine and that she had a home and a job and friends and had lost all of them because of him. I won’t go into the mental gymnastics she had to do to try to support that but it was crap. She had started losing a bunch of weight throughout this time and had gotten very skinny. He even told me that because she had lost so much weight so fast that her skin just hung and he kind of thought it was gross and he even told me that the first time they tried to have sex he just couldn’t get an erection. That had never been a problem to this day for me and him. Me well I had probably put on 20 lbs over the last 15 years but he hadn’t ever complained about it before. Suddenly he started complaining about it and in such a way as to exaggerate it to the point where he said that I was as big as a house and that he thought my belly hung down to my knees. Now unless I am completely delusional that is not anywhere near the situation. I still have some curves and just a little spare tire. Some call it a muffin top but I don’t break out in a sweat going through the salad bar or anything like that and am actually quite muscular and strong. I don’t even have the flab that jiggles under the bicep mine is muscle. I barely weigh 170lbs which is overweight but only about 20 lbs more than my normal of 150. I’ve always been a bit chunky or as some say full figured. He has always enjoyed it. That’s not the only thing about him that changed. Suddenly some of the foods he has always liked he doesn’t and some that he didn’t he does. There is a change in his taste of music too. And this seems even more significant to me because he has always been quite particular about what he likes and doesn’t like in music and his taste has been pretty sophisticated. Well I consider folks that that appreciate Frank Zappa and some of the other more progressive rock bands along with classical, blues and jazz as having sophisticated taste and these were some of the things he liked long before he and I were together and continued after. Suddenly he is not interested in any of that he is tuning into pop radio. There is so much different that I have felt it has been like invasion of the body snatchers pun intended. She continues to pursue him and I know he feels guilty as if he lead her on. She plays her games and hasn’t shown herself to be anything but a parasite on not only our marriage but society in general. She is everything he has always found distasteful in women but he somehow doesn’t see it all the time. Now over time because she won’t go away my resisting her is starting to make me look like a heartless bitch. this is especially true when she calls to ask him for help because she says she has no groceries or that she has a flat tire or what ever else she can come up with for him to rescue her from. She caught on that I would come but she also knows that I am not available all the time since I work and that he is on disability he is usually available so she calls for help when I am working. When I complain about it recently his response is so then divorce me but I won’t ignore a friend when they need help. I always counter with she is not a friend at all but a destructive force. I truly believe that he has convinced himself that she is just a friend and so he doesn’t see why he shouldn’t help her. I am not normally a jealous person because I have always felt that there was nothing wrong with me and I know that I am as honest as a person comes and as well intentioned and try to do what’s right in any situation because I believe that is the only way a person can live and still look themselves in the eye in the mirror. My husband has also always believed this but suddenly he is blind to what is right. This woman has him thinking up is down and black is white and good is bad and wrong is right. I don’t know maybe I am making excuses for him but he suddenly has said things like how much more sexy she is than me and that I am boring and that he is not interested in sex with me. but then he turns around and says that he doesn’t want her and he doesn’t want to lose me. She won’t quit calling even though he has told her more than a hundred times that he doesn’t want to see her. I just really resent the whole situation. I have always felt that I was pretty much grounded in reality but when the reality you know seems to be false and you are not getting any consistent information about it even from trusted sources or myself then it really makes you want to lose it. I really feel that if I were to give up it would be a tragedy for him and me and our family. I know without a doubt that he would be miserable with her. I don’t think she could keep up the illusion that she has enchanted him with if he were with her 24/7. I am at my wits end. I’m really not trying to play the pick me dance. My perspective is there is no picking because his turn to pick was over when we got married and that she is pretty evil and he would hate her if she hadn’t created this illusion for him. I just don’t know what to do.

chumppalla
chumppalla
9 years ago
Reply to  Chumptotheend\

It sounds to me like you are ascribing magical powers to the OW that she doesn’t really have. Nobody else on the planet can in any way cause your husband to be a fucktard besides your husband. Sounds to me like he’s just like all the other cake-eaters and knows exactly how to play you. I would recommend skipping marriage counseling. But individual counseling for you might help you decide what to do FOR YOU.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Chumptotheend\

Your husband sounds like a very weak and unintelligent man. Probably genetic. So , best to divorce him.
He, truly, sounds pathetic.

Moving Liquid
Moving Liquid
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Hahahaha, Arnold. Agreed.

LovedAJackass
LovedAJackass
9 years ago
Reply to  Chumptotheend\

If I am following your post correctly, he is both telling her not to call but comparing you unfavorably to her?

You wrote: “He suddenly has said things like how much more sexy she is than me and that I am boring and that he is not interested in sex with me. but then he turns around and says that he doesn’t want her and he doesn’t want to lose me.” That’s pretty much the pick-me dance. I would find a good therapist and sit down to talk about three things: 1) Whether he is willing to be rid of this woman totally. 2) How that will be accomplished. 3) How to get back to a more mutual and enjoyable sex life, given his pain issue. 4) Your deal breakers, which should included emotional and physical infidelity, as well as emotional abuse (comparing you to another woman unfavorably).

You mention jealousy. That emotion gets a bad rap. It is altogether appropriate to be jealous if someone is pitting you against another woman in a competition for his affection, time, and loyalty. Back in our teenage years, kids tried to make their “boy/girlfriends” jealous in order to feed their own need for attention. That’s bad at 15 but inexcusable in an adult. It’s clear that you are very emotional and hurt about all of this.

Years ago, I was involved with a man whose XW interrupted every weekend and holiday and special occasion with some bogus emergency, often aided by their 2 teenage children. (They had been divorced a decade before I became involved with him). Well, I got tired of it and one night when she called, I went with him. She was shocked. That was the end of that–she never did it again. Just food for thought. I

ChChChChump
ChChChChump
9 years ago
Reply to  Chumptotheend\

If he will agree to request an Order of Protection/Injunction Against Harassment, that might be a place to start. In most jurisdictions they are relatively easy to get. He then would need to follow through: CALL THE POLICE at EVERY attempted contact. If she is really in serious harm, the police can HELP her, put her in touch with social services, and that ought to reduce the guilt of your H for saying no.

Good luck and I hope he agrees to it.

ChutesandLadders
ChutesandLadders
9 years ago

Mine was disinterested in sex all along, too. I had enjoyed a really fun sex life during my college years, so I knew what I was missing. I was a hole to him, nothing more. After orgasm, he refused to be touched or touch me. He threw towels at me to clean up right after. He turned me over doggy style every single time. It was humiliating. He moved out of our bedroom 14 months into our marriage when I was pregnant with our first child and only returned when I wanted sex. If he wanted sex, I had to have it on the dirty mattress with no sheets in the basement with him. If I suggested we move to “our” bedroom, he would pout and not talk to me for weeks.

The things I thought I had to endure because I was married! Again, ALL HERS NOW! HAHAHAHAHA. My son told me that dear old dad has moved out of the bimbo’s room and into the “office.” Right on schedule.

LovedAJackass
LovedAJackass
9 years ago

Dear God in heaven, I am so glad you are out of that.

Nord
Nord
9 years ago

Well, thank goodness he isn’t giving a pass to serial adulterers or people who are vicious and manipulative. I guess that means I was right to chuck the ole ball and chain out when I did.

Dan needs to shut the fuck up about this.

Luziana
Luziana
9 years ago

How do I say this? I’m not the hottest potato in the casserole to look at but I’m very, very good in bed. Wen ex and I got together, he was full of enthusiasm. Over time, I increasingly had to initiate. I think his sexual interest was tied to his narcissistic estimation, so when he no longer valued me, he was no longer interested in me sexually. In retrospect, after he changed his loyalties to the OW that I did not know existed, he felt like he was cheating on her. With his wife. “If I just wanted a fuck, I could get that anywhere.” he said. To his WIFE.

I remember a conversation we had close to the end when he still was denying there was anyone else. He told me that sex wasn’t important to him, had never been important to him, and attention and love were more important to him.It was just so bizarre because for the whole first two years we’d been so close, For him. I think sex is the glue he uses to bond with a woman, but what he wants out of it is unquestioning worship. And because he is a soulless, empty headed sociopath, of course he never saw sex as intimacy, love or attention. It’s just a transaction to him.

Plus, I am a very fat positive person, but his eating habits and weight had gotten to the point where making any effort in bed was exhausting or injurious for him. the fact that he and Schmoopie lasted only a few months indicates she wasn’t too impressed with his skills either.

Me? I’m not giving away this good stuff on the undeserving ever again. I can wait, or I can put it on the shelf. It’s not going to rust or spoil. It’s good vintage!

Moving Liquid
Moving Liquid
9 years ago
Reply to  Luziana

Luz, love your comment. If I am honest I think I’m pretty okay in the sack myself. And like you, I’d rather keep my skills to myself than waste them on someone who might hurt me.

LovedAJackass
LovedAJackass
9 years ago
Reply to  Luziana

You’ve described the Jackass perfectly. Once he took up with the MOW, he wouldn’t touch me. He certainly couldn’t cheat on her. His loss. I can’t complain about his skills, but it does concern me that I didn’t catch the narcissistic aspect until a year into the thing.

NamedforVera2
NamedforVera2
9 years ago

I love you all…. Yes, I too have very good skillz… and yet, I became increasingly uninteresting to Ex. He almost never initiated (except during a weird period of time in the middle of our 25 year marriage, so…15 years ago? when he would try and start sex, rather aggressively, when we were both in our sleep.)

I believe the illusion of good sex that cheaters have with their cheater-pals is the endorphin rush they get from the secrecy, novelty and all that crap, e.g., from the cheating itself, not from the actual sex (in many cases). In other words, I don’t think the trade-downs are all that special, nor can they probably spell Kama-Sutra, most of them.

In the couple week period when I was pretty much in shock, couldn’t yet imagine giving up the life I had built–I thought we had built it, d’oh!–we did the hysterical bonding thing…I blew his sox off with my, as I say mad skillz. I suppose it was a form of pick me, (pick me fucking?). But when that all blew over, so to speak, I was done, done, done; with him, with the marriage, with that life. I had told him that he’d better come clean with me because if I kept finding lies, there would come a point when it was Over, and we all know how that non-fairytale turns out with a cheater.

Now I’m free of him, but I cannot imagine ever trusting anyone again, to be intimate with. Maybe in the nursing home, when the aides aren’t looking.

KK
KK
9 years ago

As far as Dan Savage is concerned, I would say, consider the source. Most homosexuals do not value monogamy.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  KK

Pretty bigoted remark re gay people. And, who cares about Savage’s orientation? WTF?

ANC
ANC
9 years ago
Reply to  KK

I know plenty of faithful gays and lesbians.

Psyche
Psyche
9 years ago
Reply to  KK

No, that’s not fair. I know many homosexuals in longterm (decades long) committed relationships; they are no less likely to be monogamous than my heterosexual friends. Human beings of all stripes can be cheaters: that reflects on their individual (poor) character, not on their group.

KK
KK
9 years ago

I was speaking only of my experience with people I have known. I just have no desire to give any weight to what Dan Savage, a cheater, who happens to be gay, has to say about relationships.

Datdamwuf
Datdamwuf
9 years ago
Reply to  KK

Take your bigoted shit elsewhere KK

KK
KK
9 years ago
Reply to  Datdamwuf

I’m not a bigot, datdamwuf. Bigots have no tolerance for difference of opinions; which is what you have done to me. Have a blessed day.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  KK

She is a member of the patriarchy, Dat.

KK
KK
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Not sure about that, Arnold. But, like you, I am an ex-chump; which is why I joined this group. I honestly did not mean to offend anyone by my first comment. My first thought after reading this article was, “Who the heck cares what Dan Savage has to say?” I try not to get worked up over people who have different beliefs or opinions. I don’t read his stuff because I already know his attitude toward cheating and belief in being “monogamish” = cheating. The same way I wouldn’t read a relationship advice blog by Tori Spelling or take skydiving lessons from a professional roller skater. It makes no sense. In the same way I dismiss the things my ex says, I dismiss Dan Savage and all other cheater apologists.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  KK

I was kidding about the patriarchy deal, kk.
The thing I found objectionable was lumping all gay people I to the infidelity/promiscuity realm.
I have a few close friends who are gay and they are honest and faithful, more so than many of the heterosexual men and women I know.
We use stereotypes, IMO, as a shortcut to real thinking and analysis.
Dan Savage’s opinion on this is not wrong, simplistic and primitive because he is gay. It is because he is not a very thoughtful or insightful person in this area.
Clearly, he has not considered the STD. Issue, the paternity fraud issue, or the deprivation of similar opportunities for excitement among the betrayed brought about by lying.
CL , repeatedly , points out that the gravitas of the harm done is not the desire for variety, but the fraud that is perpetrated by the lying.
Savage completely overlooks the aforementioned risks and theft and merely focuses on what he perceives as the unnatural nature of monogamy.
If one is of that belief , fine. But, have the courage of your convictions and don’t misrepresent yourself( Savage, that is).

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  KK

Your statement was not limited to people you know.

KK
KK
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

You’re correct, Arnold. If it was limited to the people I know, it would have said, “all”. I said, “most”, meaning I’m sure there are those who believe in monogamy. I don’t want to start an argument over a different point of view based on different life experiences and observations.

ANC
ANC
9 years ago

Dear God! This IS where my cheater loves to blame shift me about. I was the cause of his serial wandering dick. He has serially, in ALL of his relationships, cheated on his partner. Lucky me, I married him!

Gads! I have had other serious relationships and bad Roman Catholic me…I did not come into my marriage as a virgin. I have always enjoyed the wonderful emotional and physical intimacy in a worthy relationship. (Have to include worthy because my only ONS in my 20’s was not fulfilling.)
Anyhow, the cheater claims I never initiated sex. Well, really after about yr 2 or 5 he as so checked out emotionally that the physical aspect felt like prostitution.

Does anyone else feel like the cheater’s devaluation and dismissal of YOU was akin to robbing you of your sexuality? I feel like he stole my sexuality while stomping all over me. I am reclaiming myself in every aspect of my life. I want a deep, meaningful, hot&sexy ADULT relationship. This part makes me sad because of the years of being with the manipulative creep, jumping through every , I have been duped and used in every way.

jobin
jobin
9 years ago
Reply to  ANC

Robbed of my sexuality? ABSOLUTELY! I could not be intimate for months, and when we tried, horrible images and movies and thoughts would destroy my mood (and ability to continue). I am 2 years out and STILL seriously wonder if I will ever be able to ‘let go’ like I used to and truly enjoy sex.

Just another reason I hate cheating and cheaters and cheater apologists so very very much

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  jobin

I cannot let go anymore. Trusting I. That area is long gone.

ANC
ANC
9 years ago
Reply to  ANC

Should be “every hoop to make him happy”

NamedforVera2
NamedforVera2
9 years ago
Reply to  ANC

Yes, ANC, yes, very much so. And then in the breakup, he put in into (very nasty) words…designed to hurt as much as possible. My rational self calls BS, my emotional self is very wounded and mistrustful of…anybody. Because i don’t think I could withstand that kind of abuse a 2nd time.

People who haven’t been through the wash-rinse-repeat cycle with these creeps really don’t ‘get’ how terrible awful horrible they can be, like taking a melon-baller to your heart and soul and scooping them out, leaving you bleed and empty. And you know that they do it on purpose. Ugh. Nasty nasty. So glad I’m not them, is all I can say.

Patsy
Patsy
9 years ago

4 x week, loves a bit of him, into playing and absolutely adored him. Nope, this area wasn’t the reason he cheated. The reason he gave? ‘It was an exciting new c**t and exciting new pair of t**s’. Literal quote.

ByeByeCheater
ByeByeCheater
9 years ago
Reply to  Patsy

What a jerk, Patsy. You deserve so much better.

jobin
jobin
9 years ago

Yeah, this is a sore spot for this guy too… Even though I have been told repeatedly ‘it wasn’t about that’ (sex just… happens apparently), and that it was and is much better with me, because we are more comfortable with each other, it still begs the question – why?

And of course I feel the judgements of others – I must have been failing ‘in the bedroom’ or she wouldn’t have needed the scumbag.

I will always be bewildered by how my spouse sees sex as not that big a deal, because, you know, they totally stopped once I found out.

I fucking hate every part of cheating.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  jobin

Oh fuck-“sex just happens”. Lots of introspection there. I would get out before some other shit just happens, like getting stabbed or her burning the house down with you in it.

jobin
jobin
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Have you ever felt so exhausted by it all that you think ‘oh well, at least then I could get some rest!’ Haha!

I certainly agree though – I will never, ever forget when she said ‘that’s just what happens’ when I asked HOW?!? WHY?!? I was so fucking angry I actually saw red. I always thought that was just an expression.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  jobin

It is exhausting, jobin.
Here is the deal with the personality disordered: you will never get a straight answer from one.
They either claim they forget or deny saying shit.
Or , even more commonly, they artfully and with aplomb turn the conversation back to you. Trying to discuss something with these folks that they want to avoid is like trying to hold a greased pig.
Google DARVO. This is the tactic they use.

jobin
jobin
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Will do, I have seen that term before – but never looked it up.

Thanks, Arnold

Portia
Portia
9 years ago

From what I have learned about the personality disorder(s) most of these fellows suffer from, whatever we do or say or think has very little to do with their actions. They operate on some type of a cycle where they go through the same steps (with a few adaptations/ variations depending on their “prey”) over and over again. It is a compulsion for them — ultimately as harmful for them as it is to us. But they do not “feel” or “think” as we do. If you think of character as a set of characteristics which makes you have good character, or bad/defective character, they are missing components and will NEVER be able to have or understand any need for good character.

When they initially meet us, they divide us into a category of useful or not. We may be considered useful because when they attach to us they appear “normal” and they can use us for security, money, to have their children, help their career — things like that. Sex may not be the primary reason for our usefulness. They pretend to be intimate, but actually they are incapable. They compartmentalize their interactions with others, and if we were not picked to be a “sex buddy” they only go through the motions with us. Again, this makes them appear “normal”. If we were picked to be a “sex buddy” and have limited other usefulness, they will try to act out all their perversions on the buddy — a free of charge porno sex worker for them to play with. All parts are interchangeable, and all pleasure is only viewed from their perspective.

As far as their parts being able to function — along with age, extensive use of porn and prostitutes causes further decline into greater levels of depravity. It takes more and more twisting — way beyond kinky — for them to be pleased. Their response level starts shutting down. They are never really content or happy — they can only be “pleasured” for a moment or two. The seeking and staging of the event is actually more important than the action — having a new partner just puts a little “different” into the action — but the new will wear off rapidly. It’s all about the chase — there is no plan for a long term conquest, because there is always plenty of prey out there. They have no real concept of not being able to continue this behavior forever.

So whenever you read a BS article that tells you how to “save” your relationship or “affair proof” your relationship — know it is BS!!! Normal people do not do serial cheating. Normal people have character and values and can actually do intimacy. Normal people may get tired of being married or may have other outside interests cause them to grow apart, and a relationship can end for many reasons other than cheating. But cheaters will always find a reason to cheat. They are “entitled” to seek their happiness at everyone else’s expense. NOTHING you do or say will make any difference. When you are no longer useful — or when they have new and shiny useful — they will move on!. It is sad that they look at the world this way, but if you understand it you will quit asking yourself “What could I have done or said differently to have made this work?” The answer is nothing — you were useful until they found someone more useful, or at least useful in a different way. Then they didn’t need you any more. That’s all.

KitKat
KitKat
9 years ago
Reply to  Portia

This is a great comment Portia. Especially paragraph 2 which explains some things I have been struggling with lately.

GladIt'sOver
GladIt'sOver
9 years ago
Reply to  Portia

Portia, every word here is spot on. For the disordered, other people are nothing more than supporting actors in the constant movie about themeselves that plays inside their heads.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  GladIt'sOver

Exactly, Glad.
And, you know what ( bet you do), you will almost never find a disordered type that has any insight into this.
You can point out their I consistent thinking, their hypocrisy, their double standards etc and no light bulb goes on.
See, these folks can acknowledge all these things but they filter their analysis through a value system that is fundamentally different than a normal person, a value system where they completely accept that they are not held to the same standards or rules as the peasantry.
Example:(I have described this before) Wife is confronted with the fact that she has spent 112 out if 180 nights out until 2. AM or so.
She looks at me with disdain and incredulity and says” Of course I get more time off than you( we had 2 toddlers, one with Down Syndrome and Autism). I have more friends than you( not true. It’ s just my friends did not bother to ask me out at night as they knew I would be taking care of my kids).
So how do you respond? She acknowledged the factual basis of the evidence . It was just In her world, this was completely okay.

Syringa
Syringa
9 years ago
Reply to  Portia

Portia you are absolutely right. These people truly aren’t ‘real’ people and nothing makes them happy. As soon as I married XH he started insisting that we sell my beautiful home and buy something ‘better.’ He claimed to ‘hate the neighborhood’ and came up with all the reasons why we needed to move. I had no idea at the time he was crazy and wanted to make him happy so reluctantly agreed to put it up for sale. I think I had it up for sale three different times while we were married and luckily it never sold.

He would get an idea in his head and try running up one side of me and down the other to get his way. We would have been in debt thousands of dollars and bankrupt if I hadn’t finally dug my heels in and said NO! He wanted everything he saw and never gave one thought to how we were going to pay for it. We wouldn’t have one thing paid for and he’d be lusting after the next. When we went looking at investment property he wanted to buy every meth shed and crumbling shack we looked at. I finally figured out he was fucking nuts and quit playing.

That’s when he found OW who went along with all all his hair brained ideas and bought him that Harley which he rode for a whole year before he got bored with that too.

And if I was honest with myself there was never any true intimacy in our relationship. No snuggling or cuddling after sex. He’d rocket up out of bed the second the deed was over. When I would reach for his hand when we were out he’d hold on for about five seconds. He never once reached over and gave me a pat or a peck in public. When he insisted we renew our wedding vows on our anniversary I was actually very, very embarrassed at the end of the ceremony when he pecked me on the lips like he was my brother in front of people. I even said something to him afterwards. It was NOT a loving gesture.

Yes…I was useful until he found someone more useful. That’s all it’s about. OW was more useful than I was. She thinks she’s special but it’s only a matter of time before she outlives her usefulness too.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago

My XW’s dad told me” Arnold, it is no coincidence that when things got tight ,financially, Laurie started cheating.”
Yeah, things got tight because she was spending like a maniac . I was working g two extra pArt time jobs to try to stay afloat.

Boudica Reborn
Boudica Reborn
9 years ago

My “Old-fashioned” husband asked my parents for my hand in marriage before he proposed to me, and wanted to wait until our wedding night to have sex the first time due to our spiritual beliefs. I was so very impressed with his integrity – until I found out four months into our marriage he was still carrying on with his “ex” very married mistress before and during our marriage. On that special night we wed – he couldn’t perform, which I chalked up to fatigue and performance anxiety. When that also happened during our very relaxing honeymoon I begged him to have a physical exam – in case it was something like high blood pressure or low T. He passed the exam with flying colors. I realized too late that his sex “trigger” was illicit sex – like with the OW, and voyeurism and exhibitionism (which his OW also enjoys, and has participated in with him). Since I was his official wife, and therefore “sanctified”, I had no appeal to him. Our sex life was truly a non-event – and I’m no prude, I’ll don a French Maid or Naughty Nurse costume with the best of them! There’s more to his “dilemma”, but it’s so bizarre, I’m not sure my fellow chumps would believe it – I’M having a hard time wrapping my brain around it. When I finally left, he wanted to “reconcile” by seeking counseling. Ten days later, he called and stated he suddenly wanted a divorce – sending me blank do-it-yourself divorce papers his friend made up. He hastily wanted me to sign and notarize the papers and send back to him before HE signed, notarized and HE WOULD FILE with the court. BIG RED FLAG. I felt that would be like signing my name to a blank check – he could fill in anything he wanted before he filed those papers at the courthouse. So I refused and …I went through an attorney and I filed properly through the court first- still waiting for the “new” papers to be served to him . My lawyer, who knows my/his story and has heard/seen it all called my STBX “crazier than bat shit”, and stated that it’s common for sexual deviants to wed a nice, kind, loving, reputable woman as their “cover” (does it sound like something a Chump would get sucked into?) According to her, I was his cover. Does this ring a bell with anyone else? Any additional advice and/or insight? Chump Nation, you are like a lifeline to reality for me. Thank you!

ANC
ANC
9 years ago
Reply to  Boudica Reborn

Yea. My friends now refer to me as the Beard. Me and my kids were his tools of normalcy. I was the appropriate tool to present professionally and socially. His MOW and other non-paid fuck buddies were waaaay more fun than me! They all partied like rock stars. Nothing is more pathetic than a bunch of wrinkled old bags trying to hang with random 20somethings at bars. He really hated it when I told him highschool ended 30 yrs ago for me. I want an adult to have fun with. Not a 50yr old who thinks he is 18 and pounding Jaeger Bombs with random frat guys.

ANC
ANC
9 years ago
Reply to  ANC

Need to add…I did ask him why he keep the Mary Kay Pig covered from his work buddies. He stated she just wasn’t good enough to present to people either socially or professionally. (But really, when you travel all over the place and set up your fuckbuddy in a nearby hotel and then go sight seeing with her, someone somewhere must have noticed his special friend.)

Boudica Reborn
Boudica Reborn
9 years ago

By the way, Chump Lady, I LOVE your drawing on this one. If you put a beard on that guy, he would resemble my husband, and the back hair just kills it! My sincere compliments!

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Boudica Reborn

I have no back hair. But, I wonder when did folks start seeing it as a bad, repulsive thing?
I would imagine guys with it are now self conscious with it being considered gross.
Same with all this focus on shaving privates and waxing? SInce when are our bodies in their natural state repulsive?

Boudica Reborn
Boudica Reborn
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

To Arnold:
I’m so sorry to offend you with the back hair comment. It’s just that my STBX had back hair that HE found embarrassing. I reassured him numerous times that I made no difference to me, and when he was still unconvinced, I would help him remove it with an electric shaver so he would feel better about his appearance. Now I realize it may have been for the MOW, but still, I didn’t have any problem with it because it was a part of him, and I loved him whole-heartedly, just not wisely it appears. Again, my apologizes.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Boudica Reborn

No need to apologize. I do not have back hair.
But, I sometimes wonder if when we criticize or ridicule an ex cheating spouse for some physical characteristic , we may be maki by another betrayed spouse who is already insecure about attractiveness because of the cheating , feel even more self conscious.
I see this , also , when the affair partners are described as less attractive, less educated etc.
What if we have a betrayed spouse who is less educated, less financially successful or attractive physically and he or she sees these descriptions. He or she might feel that if he or she had been better in those areas, the cheating would not have occurred.
It just struck me that if a nice , faithful , loving guy had back hair, that ridiculing that trait might make him feel worse after he had been cheated on.

Moving Liquid
Moving Liquid
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

I sometimes cringe when the OW is described as old, wrinkly, fat, etc. as part of the negative description of her. As far as I’m concerned those things shouldn’t be included in the insults. Just stick to lying, cheating, backstabbing cunt.

But I don’t say anything because I know the person who wrote that is in pain.

ANC
ANC
9 years ago
Reply to  Moving Liquid

I get it I know my cheater’s self esteem sucks so his fuckbuddy targets were also idiots with no self esteem, and those people tended to be his age and had physical aspects about themselves that they did not like, usually a lot of extra weight and added yrs. Only the porn chicks and sex workers were young and nubile.

Personally, I enjoy aging, love my wrinkles, love my stretch marks. I’m not afraid to get older, wiser and remain an active participant in life.

Moving Liquid
Moving Liquid
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

For me (and I imagine most of us) hair or lack of it is all wonderful if we’re in love. The ONLY complaint I had about an ex husband is to PLEASE trim his nose hair b/c it felt icky when he kissed me. Otherwise it’s all good.

My STBX was always getting on me to shave and trim down there. He can kiss my (hairy) &^$%.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Moving Liquid

I would say it is fine even if you are not in love. It is just hair for God’s sake. Hairy people are attractive, too.

Shechump
Shechump
9 years ago

There is certainly something said to feel like you’re not alone. I can combine 3-4 comments from above and had the same thing happen to me.
Just married – and night of honeymoon was a revelation (looking back). He was too tired from the wedding for sex so just wanted a BJ. Well, damn – I was tired too but wanted to satisfy my new hubby. That lead to an embarrassing amount of years living with a sexless marriage. I was a new bride who cried myself to sleep almost every night. He had no interest in my body then, and not much in the 35 yrs that followed.
I am proud to say I kept myself in good physical shape but it never seemed to turn him on.
He was so lousy at wanting to please me that I don’t think it even entered his mind.

One of the red-flags I should have had a few years back was when he insisted on a hand job and I had just broken my wrist! Hadn’t had it treated yet but it was black and blue and flopping around. I still can’t believe I gave him one that night! He HAD to have his 3-4 weekly bj’s or hj’s every year we were married.
Yep – did the counselling thing about how unhappy I was with our intimacy – meaning his complete no interest in sex towards ME. His answer was he didn’t like the therapist who said we’d probably get divorced over this and he said he was just different from other men and hoped I’d understand. He was perfect in every other way, however. A great husband who had me on a pedestal.

Eventually, I tried to tell him how important foreplay was so all I ever asked him for was a back rub or a back tickle, anything to get me in the mood and anything to show he actually cared about my needs. Nope – I never got one of either – EVER! (he was one who was turned off by the smell of a woman and I tried to always be fresh for him, knowing this.)
Right now, I’m so angry about that and wonder why I wasn’t as angry earlier. He ripped me off – and I had a good sex life prior to marrying him.

In my mind, if I was pleasing him in bed 3 times a week with bi’s and various toys that made it so much better for him, I figured he would never cheat on me. It was a stupid un-written coda that I undertook because I loved this man with all my heart and convinced myself the sex wasn’t as important as our true love and our wonderful life together. I even gladly declared to folks when we were discussing fun issues of our marriages (and I thought most people we lying – I’d actually say, hey – we have sex 3-4 times a week! woot).

Once, when he walked in on me when I was doing my regular Wand masturbation – he immediately stripped off his clothes and expected a blow job. Talk about wrecking my orgasm.

Because of his low interest in women, and the fact he seemed satisfied with the sex he was getting, I never thought in a million years somebody else would come along. He had too many hang-ups (mama/whore syndrome for one). It was shocking. I mean, who would want this lousy lover in bed? How could he possibly know how to satisfy another woman?
Guess that hurt me a lot, especially my self-esteem.
Getting all dressed up for a fancy evening, my come-fuck-me-boots on, lots of sexual come-ons with feet under the table – no underwear on (wink wink) – none of it meant a good fuck at the end of the night.

I, too, am feeling like I’ve been celibate for over 35 yrs for this man. I hate him for it. But, I never should have put up with it. I have no clue how I’d even be able to have sex again as the rejection for so many years did a number on my self-esteem.

If guys only knew a little on how to turn a woman on – none of these which he ever did:
Flowers unexpectidly (so simple a gesture but women are such suckers for romance).
Romancing – like a b’day or xmas gift well thought out (he never did that).
A kiss on the back of the neck unexpectedly while preparing a meal.
Well, I had few needs but those would have shown me he felt romantically towards me.

So, bottom line – when he told me he had NEVER been romantically attracted to me ( and I guess he was to this other woman), it made sense. Thanks asshole.

I WANT MY SEX LIFE BACK!

Moving Liquid
Moving Liquid
9 years ago
Reply to  Shechump

OMG the number of women on this site who basically serviced their men is so alarming. That’s just all kinds of fucked up.

no more free cake
no more free cake
9 years ago
Reply to  Moving Liquid

It is impossible to try to please any of these NPD freaks. I would never stay with a man that treated me poorly in bed or anywhere else for that matter. Giving the guy a bj on my wedding night and that’s it cause he’s so “tired” – no thanks. I would’ve left the hotel and went home. If any man makes you feel that you need to treat him like an extra special king, you’re with someone that is trouble. There are no rewards for staying with people like that. Not to mention that some of these folks seem to have sexual hang ups, yet they always seem to be looking for some strange.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Moving Liquid

I think many of us, men and women, tried hard to keep our spouses happy and satisfied.
Once you figure out that the cluster b personality disordered are bottomless pits of need who can never be content, you see how futile it was to try.

Drew
Drew
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

I agree wholeheartedly. My marriage was a lesson in futility. My ex was not as invested as I was and he checked out. Let’s not kid ourselves either. Disordered people cheat. It’s no wonder Chumps can’t wrap our heads around their fucked up behavior. And for the most part they do act “normal” very well. I don’t believe my ex grew a new soul just cause he hooked up with someone else. He is the same crap person. On the other hand, Chumps are kind, loving, intelligent, and-wouldn’t you know-great in bed! But we can not have the fairy tale if the Prince/Princess remains a frog. (My Apologies to frogs everywhere.) You just do the best you can. I believe wholeheartedly in moving forward. And it’s not easy but, this, our one precious life, requires it.
PS to those who question their sexuality/attractiveness/wtfever. It really wasn’t anything about YOU. And to the men here, the best sex I ever had was with someone who loved me and made me laugh. It is the little things. A hug. Coffee together in the morning. Looking into your lover’s eyes. Someone really listening. And wasn’t this missing with our exes?

ItsAJourney
ItsAJourney
9 years ago

The past couple years have been crazy, and I’ve often wondered how porn affects sexual behavior. My husband is in the bathroom every night with his smart phone, and I assume it’s because he’s masturbating to porn. Before D day he was experiencing ED, but refused to acknowledge the symptoms. He began using blue pills, but by then I didn’t want anything to do with him.

His desire for sex definitely seemed more like a drug addiction than affection. I always thought I was a bit “out there” for thinking sex could be a legitimate addiction. After all, it’s not listed in the DSM. However, if other people had witnessed his behavior before a “hit” and after, they would have seen the same drug-like trance. When he needed sex he would appear mentally blank, and his behavior was erratic. It’s crazy. At least now psychologists are beginning to take sex addiction seriously.

This article proves, for me, that he won’t be “recovering” any time soon. He’s still chasing the high, and his behavior will likely become increasingly risky. Sad.
http://www.everydayhealth.com/news/erection-problems-this-habit-may-why/

CalamityJane
CalamityJane
9 years ago
Reply to  ItsAJourney

Lust, Anger, Love by Maureen Canning is an excellent resource to understand Sexual Addiction. Erectile disfunction is a big red flag for SA. They can no longer function in bed with a loved one because of what porn does to the rewiring of their brain. We are not dangerous enough. We are reality and they need truly fucked up sexual deviation to get it up. They visuals become more and more deviant to make the dick work.

It is pathetic and sad. Love does NOT EXIST in this world.

Your Brain on Porn is a good website for people with SA. But, let me warn you. It’s a cesspool. Learning about this shit fucks up your head. And it has become more prevalent among young people.

You really need to continue to take care of yourself. There is NOTHING you can do for him. His brain is rewired. Only he can help himself. Stay with ChumpLady and move on.

Gosh darn, I am so sorry for any young mother or father with children who have to deal with this crap. You cannot compete against a fantasy and you share a child with these addicts. It is no different than using drugs to escape reality and it’s not recognized in the courts as a disorder that I am aware. These fuckers know how to hide it so well. I was truly duped. They are working to get it on the DSM.

Sex has never been an issue for me, so I knew immediately it wasn’t my problem on DD with my boyfriend, but that is from experience and maturity. If I were in my twenties or thirties I would have been devastated.

All I can repeat over and over again is it’s not YOU. THEY HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM.

ItsAJourney
ItsAJourney
9 years ago
Reply to  CalamityJane

I get you Calamity Jane. Rest assured I’m not thinking I can fix him. I’ve just never put ED and porn together… until people on this site started mentioning the connection. I’m interested because my husband had ED… while he was cheating! Yup, he had to take blue pills to cheat on me. He was only 45 at the time, which I think is too young for the typical male.

Now that I’ve read more, it makes perfect sense that the brain would become resistant to “sex chemicals,” which sustain an erection. Also, I now realize just how bad things are. He is still using porn, and I’ve spied searches on a hook-up website. He’s in deep, and has no desire to give up his “drug”. It also makes me feel less crazy; I told my therapist (his therapist now) that his behavior was similar to an addicts, and that he seemed to be addicted to sex. She made me feel like I was being dramatic, or making a big deal out of what was really a relationship issue.

It all makes sense to me now… and I’m not crazy.

chumpanzee
chumpanzee
9 years ago
Reply to  ItsAJourney

My cheater also would not leave porn alone. He had this problem for years before we split up. I would even come home from work and find that he’d been using MY computer to look at his filth. Ii hurt me that he wanted to look at other women doing disgusting things. I couldn’t understand it at all, back then we had a decent sex life, I kept myself in good shape, etc. Same old chump story.

Fights and arguments We had several following repeated discoveries of his forays into internet porn. At first, he was ashamed and apologized. Promised not to do it anymore. Later on, “I” was to blame, “I” drove him to it because “I” wasn’t meeting his needs, being sexy enough, etc.

I finally gave up even confronting him about it because it was useless. He did take it more underground, and I was having so many other REAL LIFE issues – job layoff, death of a parent, major surgery, finances – that I just couldn’t deal with the porn as well. You only have so much energy to spend, and you need to pick your battles. Just thinking about it now makes me sad and tired all over again.

Years and years of looking at porn. Along with the repeated cheating, his porn habit and alcohol addiction killed our marriage. And yes, he suffered from severe ED for the last dozen years.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  CalamityJane

I wonder if there is not a female equivalent of porn addiction involving unrealistic expectations in men, too.
Not so much on the physical/visual aspects( although there is some of this) , but in the elevated expectation of either a man’s ability to be the big daddy or to be super romantic ( the old Ronald Coleman: “And, now I am going to kiss you , very very quickly and very, very hard.”)
I mean working all day , then taking care of kids and chores when one gets home, may make it impossible for the guy to recreate whatever Harlequin Romance character his spouse has been fantasizing about.
I think these Harlequin deals are porno aimed at women and may make it difficult for them to get aroused by Joe Average.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

And, check out the guys on the covers if those novels. Other than myself, of course, I know few men who can compete with Fabio and the like.

CalamityJane
CalamityJane
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

“I wonder if there is not a female equivalent of porn addiction involving unrealistic expectations in men, too.”

Yes, there are. They have expectations of men that are unrealistic. Romance novels are fantasy. No man could live up to the story in a romance novel just like no woman could live up to the sexual antics of a porn mag…forever till death do us part.

It’s ALL FAKE. That is why liar cheater fakers need chumps. We are reality. They can’t live permanently in fakedom.

Personally, I am not a romance novel type of gal.

If he can make me laugh, he can be hairy head to toe, short or tall. Endowed or not. He will have me at the first chuckle….as long as he has a job, is responsible, kind to others and NOT INTO PORNOGRAPHY!!!!!!!

Shechump
Shechump
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

I’m sorry but I have to laugh, Arnold. First, I admit – I have never read a Harlequin Romance but my older sister seemed to get orgasms from them. I just can’t even guess that was about soft porn, other than the guys’ jaw on the cover. I was born a little later and got my first sex book at 13 – The Happy Hooker. Me and the g/f’s moved on to Deep Throat, just to learn techniques for this mysterious thing called a man. And, it was all downhill from there and I learned to masterbate to the thrilling idea of a penis – tho I’d never seen one! (yes, it was disappointing the first time I saw this inflated thing. Scary even.)

Was it porn? Nope, it was actually pretty good pre-pubescent ummm..foreplay.
Words – not visual – full-on- fucking like today. Porn was something bikers did.

TMI – my first orgasm was at 13 when I climbed a pole for gym.
Man, I climbed that pole for a long time after.

Maybe I’ll go read a Harlequin Romance to see if that will turn me on. lol

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Shechump

Try reading it while climbing a pole. Might be good for a multiple.

tflan386
tflan386
9 years ago

I know several men whose wives have multiple sclerosis, or cancer, or Parkinson’s disease. All long term, chronic illnesses that keep these women fatigued and debilitated. None of these men have cheated on their wives despite the fact that their sex lives must be strained or at times non-existent. They wouldn’t countenance betraying these ill women, just to satisfy their primal urges. Decent men like this do exist. They put others needs ahead of their own. Too bad, we’ve not had the privilege of marrying such honourable men.

CalamityJane
CalamityJane
9 years ago
Reply to  tflan386

Too bad is right, Tflan386. I know these men exist. I broke up with a good man when I was young to be with and later marry my first husband who was a flashy, sparkly, entitled piece of shit and except for the two beautiful daughters I had with him, not a day goes by that I don’t regret it. I have paid my dues for my bad judgement. I think, I hope and I pray that I have paid that debt in full.

Because of this website, and everyone here, I feel like I will be able to choose a good man to be in my life, again.

cheaterssuck
cheaterssuck
9 years ago

I believe Dan Savage has also been quoted saying: “. The cultural expectation should be if there’s infidelity, the marriage is more important than fidelity” Spoken like a true cheater! Why should the marriage be more important than fidelity?

I thought I liked him. Why not stay single if you want “strange” all the time?

ohthisagain
ohthisagain
9 years ago

My emotionally distant husband treated me like a blow-up doll with no real intimacy in the beginning years of our marriage. Accordingly, I didn’t put out much, probably once every one to two weeks. Only to find out he was addicted to porn, emailing Craigslist hookers and setting up dating profiles on every site possible.

So, we go to counseling. I take a close, chump-driven look at myself and see that I should have put out more. So I do. 4-5 nights a week he had a willing partner who was enthusiastic and orgasmic. Most of these nights he got a blow job too. What did this get me? An “emotional” affair with a ho-worker.

Word to the wise young chumps. They don’t change no matter how much you try to sit pretty.

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago

Or, how about soap operas or shows like “sex in the city”.
Do they give an unrealistic expectation to women that may make it impossible for an average guy to excite them.
What if you have back hair and a low paying, low status job and a beer gut? But, you are super nice and kind etc.
Would watching these shows cause a woman to be less attracted to you? Does watching desensitize women to a average men?

Shechump
Shechump
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Arnold – I think women are wired differently. I know this is an old topic between men and women, but if I’m in the majority, most women really don’t care about size. If they say they do – it’s because they want to blow up the man’s self-esteem and say – oh my, what a Man you are! Inflating their ego. But, unequivocally, the best sex I had prior to marriage were men with just fine penis’ – not over the top in size at all. My husbands’ was a little bigger, even tho it wasn’t important to me. But, what I found out was – HE thought size was important to HIM. So, he wanted it to be worshipped for what it was. My vagina was worth nothing in this arena.

I’m not sure if the men with smaller junk felt more the need to please a woman? If it was – well, all the power to him and me.

I just don’t get how size matters to an orgasm for a woman. Such a false impression men seem to have.

ItsAJourney
ItsAJourney
9 years ago
Reply to  Shechump

My husband is well endowed, and I used to daydream that he’d contracted a horrible VD and it rotted off! LOL… true story. He looooves his dick, and nothing else seems to be as important. However, sometimes at night, I DO dream of getting affection, and it’s almost like having a dream that you can fly.

I agree with the ladies here. Being well endowed means nothing. It’s a novelty for a short time… buy a huge dildo if that’ll cure the need.

Shechump
Shechump
9 years ago

tflan- ‘ know several men whose wives have multiple sclerosis, or cancer, or Parkinson’s disease. All long term, chronic illnesses that keep these women fatigued and debilitated. None of these men have cheated on their wives despite the fact that their sex lives must be strained or at times non-existent.’

There are multitudes of stories like this that I hope continue on for generations.
I hope this doesn’t come across as insulting to anyone – however, it seems like the last generation (my parents ages – now dead) did not have the access to Porn that the kids start getting at 14 today.
What do these kids do – click a button that says they’re over 21?

I’m sure my Dad never would have looked at that stuff. Maybe Playboy, but now the world has full access to all fetishes (supreme court allowing causing small animals with heels?!!) and hard core porn, even to the 80 yr olds out there. We live in a different world.

And I seriously worry about the young men growing up and the real women who meet the and try to please them – after they’ve seen all that porn by 21.

We’re the pendulum to swing back?

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago
Reply to  Shechump

Lots of drawbacks in each generation. No porn back then, at least not the quantity of today.
But, hell, being black or gay was no
picnic back then.

Shechump
Shechump
9 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

We live in wonderful times for sure, Arnold. Equal rights for everybody. But, I believe hard-core porn is affecting a new generation in a very harmful way. I feel sorry for anybody with young boys. Most girls don’t watch that shit unless it’s to see how the girl is dressed or her hair done (i.e. Sex and the City) Maybe you’ve seen that TED talk on what porn is doing to our young boys these days. . And, now that they’re getting older, they have a name for it. Sexual addiction. Is that even in Merrium Webster today? Probably.

ANC
ANC
9 years ago
Reply to  Shechump

Honestly, sex and the city was soft core porn for women. Like watching any movie on skinnymax. (Cinemax). Not realistic. Super fantasy wrapped in cool clothes, which were affordable to the majority of viewers.

ANC
ANC
9 years ago
Reply to  ANC

Should me NOT affordable

Arnold
Arnold
9 years ago

Yes, it is pervasive and harms both genders.