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We had HB for 3 months and now it is a nice every other day (Hey, My man is 49 Lol!!)

The way he knows my body....both the beautiful parts and the rest. The way he knows exactly what to do to make me go crazy. Making Love is and always has been for 25 years.

When I get depressed about the process (we are 7 months out) I think about dating again and trying to find someone who know me like that....It makes me even more dedicated to successful R.

How important is the sex element to you?

The sex is a huge reason why I have a relationship with my H. It's the best I've ever had. I had quite a bit of aex before I met him, I think. I wasn't inexperienced. I don't have much faith that I'd find someone else who does it like he does.

It has a different feel now, though. There no emotional connection for me anymore. It's a purely physical experience for me. I get mine and I'm done. I also don't have much desire to have sex with him anymore. I was almost always the initiator. Since I've stopped, we usually have sex only once or twice a month. We're both 50. Idk how much that factors into things.

Ok, so we know or have been told that a wonderful sex life is good for our marriage and overall health and well being.

Sex under the right circumstances is a beautiful thing.

I personally don’t or can’t have Sex unless the Love is there.

When I felt Unconditional love than love making came naturally and it was easy, natural and beautiful.

My WH has different ideals. He can Fuck and has fucked others without any emotion involved. He didn’t think past the end of his penis.

I am not willing or allowing myself to be a Fuck in the Reconciliation process.

My WH has stated that he never made love to AP.

Don’t get depressed over never finding someone else to sexually satisfy you. I think this defeats the purpose of reconciliation.

Find your Unconditional Love 🙏🏼

I was almost always the initiator.

Same with me. Now I want her to take the initiative, but because I was always the initiator, it feels awkward because 1) I question the authenticity and 2) it is something she is not used to doing so maybe it is just awkward and 3) because she is not used to initiating, she doesn't initiate as frequently as I would like, which in turns makes me question her desire for me.

It's all a mind-fark.

We don’t have sex anymore. It followed this pattern:

He told me it was important to him that I initiate, so he knew I really wanted to.

That became me initiating 100% of the time.

I told him I no longer wanted to be in the pattern of being the only one to initiate.

He did not start initiating.

I stopped initiating.

We have not had sex in over a year.

Now, our relationship is over but for being co-parents. I don’t intend to have sex with him again, and I believe he feels the same.

[This message edited by Darkness Falls at 11:12 AM, June 8th (Monday)]

We did the HB thing too which is a total mind fuck at first. Sex 3-4 times a day does take the sting out of the “I haven’t been attracted to you in over 2 years” comment. We gradually reduced to once a day then after being mad at him for a week for stuff that used to never bother me I’m going back into insane mode, he’s tired.

I dread the dating thing more because of how much the dating world had changed in the last 20 years, texting was still rare when we met and online dating was still relatively new. Most of the single men I know are in their 70’s I have no idea where the single men in my area are. If we can’t make this work I see myself being single for a long time.

A lot! We did not have sex for 10 years. Ya, not a typo. We have reconnected and we are both somewhat physically disfunctional. So what! We have fun and the best sex of our life.

I think having a healthy sex life is an important part of a relationship, but I can personally attest that a relationship can also survive without this. After my wife's affair we did go through a mini version of HB where we had sex more frequently than we had for years. However, its now shrunk back to pre-affair level, driven by her lack of desire. Which of course is 100% opposite of her desire level during her affair. We have reconciled happily and successfully and this would be the one area that we still suffer. I wouldnt so much as call it a tension point as something that Ive needed to accept as part of the reconciliation 'package'.

because she is not used to initiating, she doesn't initiate as frequently as I would like, which in turns makes me question her desire for me.

It's all a mind-fark.

Ain't that the truth!

My husband says, of course, he finds me attractive. I'm the only one he wants to be with and have sex with. But, he rarely initiates having sex. I can't blame that on age. He's always been like that. I think it's a fear of rejection. The few times I have turned him down, he got butthurt.

Interestingly, he almost always only initiates during my fertile phase. It's like he senses when I could potentially get pregnant, even now when we are done having babies and I'm 50, so that factory is pretty much shut down, anyway.

I can't think of once when he has turned me down. I guess that's a good thing. He always does most of the work during sex, makes sure I get mine. He's enthusiastic and attentive.

If I weren’t sexually attracted to my H and our sex life wasn’t some of the best I’ve experienced, I likely would not have considered R. We hit HB hard and furious almost from the start. That smoldering flame 🔥 just exploded and kept going for months. The fact both of us felt similarly about how good it was, always had been, helped me get through those early years of recovery. Because it was often during those times we also were at our most vulnerable selves emotionally. Hours upon hours of making love, crying, screaming, more crying, more fucking. For the first time in years I saw how much dust had gathered on the bedroom ceiling fan 🤣

Today things have settled into something far more manageable and sane 😁. But the sexual and physical parts of our relationship are still very important. And sometimes I still, 6 years out, get pissed off thinking that he spoiled this for me when he chose to share it with others while married to me and without my knowledge. So at times it’s triggers, but I still enjoy sex and making love with my H. As he says, who knew 60 year olds can still be this attractive and attracted to one another! For us it confirms a deep connection between us that was there from the beginning. For me, I continue to need that validation from him and it has helped our R succeed to know we still share this powerful connection, which also helps to lower our guard so we can talk about hard stuff and still feel safe.

I am the WS, but I think psychmom said a lot of things that would be my/our sentiments. Our sex life definitely played into things for me, I don't know how much of a factor as compared to other elements, but it was and always has been an affirmation and a culmination of our overall compatibility.

And just like she said:

get pissed off thinking that he spoiled this for me when he chose to share it with others while married to me and without my knowledge. So at times it’s triggers,

For me I do get pissed at myself, and there has been times where sex triggers me to feel that deep remorse and regret to the extent I will cry. I am not a cryer, but I mourn the fact that I gave that part of myself away to someone else, and that it really only should have belonged to him. There was always a special feeling of sharing that special, intimate time with him where I felt...pure? Not sure how to describe, but it's gone now. I think that's part of the package that at times there is always going to be an elephant in the room? Maybe that will fade more as time goes along.

And just like she said:

"I get pissed off thinking that he spoiled this for me when he chose to share it with others while married to me and without my knowledge. So at times it’s a trigger"

For me I do get pissed at myself, and there has been times where sex triggers me to feel that deep remorse and regret to the extent I will cry. I am not a cryer, but I mourn the fact that I gave that part of myself away to someone else, and that it really only should have belonged to him. There was always a special feeling of sharing that special, intimate time with him where I felt...pure? Not sure how to describe, but it's gone now. I think that's part of the package that at times there is always going to be an elephant in the room? Maybe that will fade more as time goes along.

It's interesting to hear this from the Wayard perspective, Hikingout. I'm not sure my H sees it as you do, because he's pretty good at compartmentalizing these things. I don't want to say it's a "male" thing, so I'll just leave it as a "mr psych" thing.

It gets complicated in that as a BS I had no choice in this, this is something someone else did (my WH) that took this away from me. For him, it was his choice to share his body with others. I don't know . . . some days I feel I'm over it and can move on, other days it just seems so wrong at the most fundamental level that I feel I can't go on with him over this. It's still a battle, because sex DOES matter to me. And I expected that I would be his last sex partner and I thought that was special, blah, blah, blah. But then he chose to engage in sex with others, blowing out of the water any notion of mine that this was our special place, something special that only the two of us shared. It's a huge hurdle to overcome.

But I meant to thank you for offering your perspective!

Oh and I really didn’t mean to make it seem like it’s the exact same experience by any means! For me, it was a choice, and I totally get it wasn’t for you.

But sex does trigger what I call, “the elephant in the room.” We are being intimate and I wonder to myself is he thinking about me doing this with someone else? And then I will think about that too and feel humiliated of my actions. I don’t often cry- I basically have learned to try and change that channel as fast as possible but when I start down that path. But sometimes I can’t stop thinking about how I do flippantly and carelessly was this intimate with someone else. It doesn’t happen as often as it used to but it does happen. How I overvalued the Ap who didn’t derseve it and undervalued him who should have deserved the world.

I also have the elephant in the room when we disagree- different elephant. I have to fight back the urge to let down my part of the argument because Inthink in the back of our minds we are both thinking “but you cheated and now you have demands?” We have talked about it, and he feels it’s mostly just me with the “guilt elephant”. I hope that makes more sense, but I do mourn the way I had purity as his wife.

Hi hikingout thank you for sharing the feeling. i have to say that i have the same feeling as your husband, that my WS doesnt initiating sex, despite the fact that i told her a couple of time that i want to see and feel it, that i am the one she wants, not the one she needs.

Did you tell him how you feel? what was his reaction?

My wife has not told me, and by reading your post i want to assume that is the reason for her not initiating sex (i was always the one who initiated sex). but the fact that she travel to another country to see that guy and did that with him always makes me thing why cant I be that guy? If you say your husband deserves the world why cant you show him that?

To answer your question whether your husband thought about you and the other guy had sex when you guys intimate, YES he absolutely did, just like I did, not all the time but yes. And it hurts because my wife/you still havent been able to you me/your husband we are the one you guys want, that having sex with us make you guys happy, that the desire is still there in you guys. Not doing anything just make things worse, make us think that we may, one day, have to suffer the pain again, because we are not the ONLY ones NOW in your hearts that can make you wants to do it.

Feistyredhead I did laugh at you saying your H is 49! Mine is 62 and we’re still at 3-5 times a week! He’s always been highly sexed. But I’m pleased to see so many of you say things that have bothered me. We’ve always had a really good sex life. I kind of felt it was ‘our thing’, so that made what he did a real kick in the teeth. I think if our sexual life had been rubbish I’d obviously have been upset, but not as much as I was/am. Something we’ve shared so beautifully for so long is the worst thing he could share with some old skank. And I’m ‘lucky’ in that he ‘only’ sexted her. He never liked her and I found out just before they were planning to have sex, but he still shared something that should’ve been mine, night after night for a few months. Does that make sense? My first husband left me for his AP. Our sex life was never great so I never had these feelings, although I was obviously devastated.

Hi Jerry,

There is a lot in your post that I really didn't say. I didn't say I don't try and give him the world, or that I don't initiate. I just meant that at the time of the affair I overvalued the AP and undervalued him. I think you might have projected a little from what I said, that's okay but I wanted to point it out.

But, I am going to try and answer from my situation.

We have talked about it, yes. I know he thought about it a lot in the beginning, and only does once in a while now. We have learned that sometimes sex is going to be ruined but to stay open to each other when it is and use that as a time to talk about what we are feeling. That was effective for us, because the first couple of times one or both of us were upset and we turned away from each other rather than staying with the feelings and comforting. I think that practice has helped it become less and less over time.

He does know I feel humiliated that I made the decisions I did. He knows that sometimes that humiliation comes up during sex. I usually push past it and remember to focus on the now.

My real intention for even responding after I wrote what Psych mom wrote is I think those WS who get remorseful, and maybe aren't the greatest compartmentalizers can have some of that remorseful emotion come up during sex. (She is right, I am not a good compartmentalizer)

The issue you are having is commonly stated here among BH's. I do not know why your wife does not initiate, but I will speculate why a lot of women in general do not. There is a lot of writings out there about us being more responders of initiation. We are often slow boil type with our desire. We often need the overtures to feel the arousal rather than feeling the arousal causing us to make overtures. I don't think that's all women but there are enough of a majority that there is a lot written on the subject and a lot of women here report that as being true.

So, I will explain it from my point of view only and you can maybe use it to ask your wife questions. But I do not know why your wife struggles with this.

I have always enjoyed sex with my husband, felt attracted to him, and we have always had good chemistry. But, for the majority of our marriage he did most of the initiating. I would say 75%-80% of the time. Often, I might have not been thinking about sex but a few minutes into touching, I was very focused on it. It just might not have even occurred to me to go for it that night.

After infidelity it's natural that the BS is going to look for signs of rejection or the WS not being there for the right reasons. A continued pattern can then become very insulting and rubs salt in the wound.

Affairs are sexual. As your wife has gone to explain the whys of the affair, you have probably heard a lot of reasons that had nothing to do with sex. That makes it all the more confusing for you, I understand. But, the motivations behind affairs are usually not sexual.

There are a lottttt of threads that get very toxic around the topic you are asking, but it's very much a popular BS topic. For me, I came to this site and did learn here how that lack of initiation would be another abrasion, another way of hurting him. So I worked on it and I do initiate more. But it's something I have to be mindful of - the desire for him really wasn't more or less than before. I mean at times we were more emotionally connected or things were charged so during those times probably more. But, overall, I always desired him and that just continued in our post-affair marriage.

I do think that a WS being sensitive to that needing of the rebalance is important for healing the relationship. If you are telling her you feel X, and you would feel it would help your marriage building to see more initiation, then I don't think that's an unreasonable request. I feel like if she cares about the pain she caused, and wants a better marriage she can put some effort there. It should not be ignored.

At the same time, she should be fixing what was broken inside of her to make such a devastating decision. I think understanding all aspects of it will help you to have a better dialogue with her on the subject.

[This message edited by hikingout at 10:50 AM, June 11th (Thursday)]

Affairs are sexual. As your wife has gone to explain the whys of the affair, you have probably heard a lot of reasons that had nothing to do with sex. That makes it all the more confusing for you, I understand. But, the motivations behind affairs are usually not sexual.

I think you touched on a very important aspect of affairs. I always enjoy reading your posts because you very eloquently describe specific aspects of the affair that causes the pain.

I have listened to my WW, and while she is still developing her whys, I have heard a laundry list of non-sexual reasons/rationalizations. Everything from I spend too much time working, I was not intimate, she wanted to feel "desired", she wanted more help with the kids, I stopped "doing" things with her, mid-life crisis, etc, etc, etc...All of it is/was pure BS, except for the working too hard thing. We had a fairly active sex life (3-4 times per week). Her affair was preceded by 2 awesome vacations, one of which was our 20th anniversary (She literally started the affair one week after this). And we were scheduled to go skiing in Colorado prior to the COVID lockdown.

But like you said, the reasons for the affair where are supposedly non-sexual, but ultimately sex / passion / desire was a huge component because she initiated with him by getting ready, driving to his house, purchasing new lingerie, and on and on.....

So, as I lay in bed, and my mind starts to wander, I think of these things. And they are totally juxtaposed to what she is telling me that 1) sexually I am the best she has ever had, 2) she still finds me attractive, and 3) she knows that I am experiencing some physical side effects as a result of her actions.

The debate over the emotions a BH feels versus a BW feels will be endless debated, but for me, that confusion you mentioned strikes at the very heart of my pain. I hear all these non-sexual reasons, but in the end, she simply desired someone more than me. That is why I need her to initiate authentically, but I know she struggles with this. Like I said, it is a total and complete mind-fark....

Hi Slapjack,

I don't want to thread jack this much further but I did want to try and respond to your post.

Sex has a different importance level from person to person. Our marriage is a lot of what you described, sex 3-4 times a week. Nice vacations. Get a long well. It's probably almost a cliché to say this at this point but my husband hands down is the best sex I have ever had. People challenge me on that from time to time, but it's absolutely true.

I think what is hard to digest is that affairs are not because of your marriage. They are not because of anything you were or weren't as a husband. They are really all lying in the issues of the adulterer themselves. We have this narrative as a society - if a man has an affair, then his wife must have been depriving him of sex. Um, there are a helluva a lot of wives on this site that were giving their husbands a lot of sex. If a woman has an affair, they are seeking romance. Again, we have a lot of men on here who showed their wife all sorts of love. My own husband showed me a lot of love.

None of my motivations towards having an affair were sexual, but I had a sexual affair. I have come to believe, for me, the sexual aspect was just part of the total reversion to living out a caricature of my youth. The thing about affairs that is probably the most seductive of all is imagining yourself in a different way. The AP doesn't know you fart in bed, or are cranky when you don't eat, or look like a total hag before you put on your makeup, or you don't do a thing to help parent your kids, or whatever it is you are. So, it's a blank shiny mirror in front of you where you picture yourself this certain way, and believe they see it too. It's self-adulation at it's finest and that's why so many people talk about the compliments, and the ego kibbles, but really this is about feeding a fantasy you are having about yourself.

Now, you would be a wet blanket if you didn't want to present yourself exciting sexually, right? That's just part of the persona. What is really happening is you don't like yourself, you might be bored with your life, you might be overwhelmed because you are in a crisis, you might have been numbing yourself or in a deep depression. The affair is an escape from that reality. You are living in a fantasy world, with a fantasy relationship, and romantic relationships include sex. It just wasn't something you directly set out to get from point A to point B.

Meaning, you don't wake up and think "I just need to have sex with someone else". Well, I mean some people do. Some people hire prostitutes or webcam girls, or there are probably some who liked a previous lover more and returned to them. But for the masses, the high is how the affair makes you feel about yourself. It's very difficult to see that when you haven't stooped to doing it, you are naturally going to translate what happens so literally.

We just leave this perplexing disjointed picture for the one who didn't go off the rails.

I don't know if that helps at all, but again I am one person who has had one experience, I have read a lot of experiences and there are lots of variances. But, what you are relaying in your situation sounds very familiar to mine - from the marital circumstance to a lot of the fumbling reasons initially given.

I now know all the reasons for mine, and I am mindful of the things that lead to those reasons. Not one of them has to do with being dissatisfied with my sex life with my husband. But, on the surface, from the outside looking in I can absolutely understand why that is perplexing to you, or was to my husband, or to all the other men and women I have seen on this site whose spouse had an EA/PA.

[This message edited by hikingout at 1:16 PM, June 11th (Thursday)]

So, it's a blank shiny mirror in front of you where you picture yourself this certain way, and believe they see it too. It's self-adulation at it's finest and that's why so many people talk about the compliments, and the ego kibbles, but really this is about feeding a fantasy you are having about yourself.

Now, you would be a wet blanket if you didn't want to present yourself exciting sexually, right? That's just part of the persona. What is really happening is you don't like yourself, you might be bored with your life, you might be overwhelmed because you are in a crisis, you might have been numbing yourself or in a deep depression. The affair is an escape from that reality. You are living in a fantasy world, with a fantasy relationship, and romantic relationships include sex.

First, and I think I speak for most BHs here, your insights are invaluable, so don't feel like your hijacking a thread ever. There is a plethora of information for BW, and not so much for BHs. Or at least that is my experience in scraping the bottom of the internet barrel.

To the point quoted above, how do did you reconcile reality and the fantasy? IOW, if the affair was a blank mirror, is it fair to say that that reflection is something you should want? All the sexiness, excitement, adventure, etc should be something you should seek? I would argue yes, but with your spouse, not the AP. And herein lies the conundrum.

I have watched a few videos of Esther Perel, and she echoes the exact same sentiments you point out. That the affair has nothing to do with the betrayed and the marriage. In a lot of cases, that makes sense somewhat, however, she never provides insight into the hard truth that for some reason, all of those reflections that you want to see (and should see in a good/faithful marriage) can be shared with the mundanities of life?

In a healthy marriage, shouldn't there be balance between the routines of life and all of the good aspects of that mirror? And if not, then it is about the marriage? Jeebus, am I making any sense?

Yes, it does make sense. And, it's been a while since I mentioned it, but I did try and decipher a bit of who I was trying to be in the affair versus who I am.

I kept the idea I wanted to be more young and vibrant for as long as possible. So, I started exercising regularly, adjusted my diet, and I am in better health and have more energy than I did in my twenties. I find that I respect myself more for taking care of myself, and that self care does translate into helping you with the self love you were lacking by trying to be something else. Being fitter makes me feel a little bit of magic I was lacking. And, I get a ton of endorphins from running.

As I shared before, we had an active sex life prior to the A and we have one now, so I guess maybe that part was more always there. But, when you compare the "two selves" as such, the reality of it is with my husband I am more genuine and authentic to what I want. For the Ap, it was actually more of a show to match what I wanted to convey. That being said, that doesn't mean that my genuine and authentic with my husband is boring for him at all...but he has a much more realistic picture of my sexuality. That is SUSTAINABLE because it's how I like to enjoy it. The other way, not so much. Does that make sense?

So, yes, in some ways the A did help me grasp some things I was missing in who I was that I had lost touch with over time. But, there was a ton of stuff in the affair that was nothing more than a reversion back to youth, and I am not that person anymore, nor do I believe I want to be. Some of that element was more about separation from reality, the escapism as such. I am a middle aged lady, I don't need to be cool. I am okay with just trying to be kind.

[This message edited by hikingout at 2:42 PM, June 11th (Thursday)]