[RandomDude]

My wife and I are in the sh-tter, so now it's a system shock of having sex multiple times a day to nothing at all with not much hope of reconciliation. But I'd rather have nothing at all then to put up with her again. Still... I'm curious

How did you guys survive for years at a time? Just the hand? How to handle the temptation of cheating especially when there's so many women out there waiting for love? Also if it is just the hand, is it just me, or have you guys noticed erection problems during intercourse with later dates after being too used to the hand? I suffered that during long draughts/fights with my wife, or STBXW whatever.

Anyways, I don't know if I can survive a year seperation without finding a new woman on the side in the meantime if my wife and I decide to call it quits. Stupid law, can't even divorce without seperation.

 

[Tango]

I have been wondering the same thing myself. I personally won't screw around on him, so I take matters into,my own hands.

 

[RandomDude]

How about during seperation?

 

[PBear]

How about during seperation?

Well, I started seeing someone shortly after separating, but I was very sure my marriage was over. But many people don't agree with that mindset. I think you really run a risk of complicating things, if reconciliation is on the table later.

C

 

[RandomDude]

Damn... then that's going to mean it's going to be a while before I get anything at all then at this rate. One mistake in my life is bad enough, not living another so I won't cheat, but it may take a while before I'm sure that it's over, unless my wife helps me out a little and mention the D word again or something... now that would be fun

Just hope it's not something like a year or something, but would definitely be one hell of a break!

 

[Trying2figureitout]

I manage by working the issue and see sexless as a temporary state in our marriage.... been almost three years with very little sex I feel we are almost back to a sexual marriage... takes time to recover. Shes getting closer everyday just a matter of time. I will not cheat becuse of lack of sex... instead I learn to love my wife in different ways until she comes back around sexually.

The hand helps.

 

[IndyTMI]

My penis has had more of my hand time than anything else. Has it affected intercourse? No. I've been in a 13 year marriage that has slowly dwindled down to a couple times a month. I do think it has slightly affected BJ's & HJ's...or my wife is just really bad at them...I think it is a combination of both. So, I masturbate about 16 to 20 times a month and only get nookie a couple times a month. That sounds like fun, right?
While masturbating has kept me from going outside the marriage, I have had it up to my bald head with touching myself...I have a beautiful wife that could be taking care of my needs, but she doesn't quite see it that way. Things are about to change.
I refuse to live this way much longer. Either she adjusts and meets her marriage commitment, or she will have to find someone else to roommate with.
That really bothers me at night...laying there, desiring sex, knowing I have a perfectly capable wife to share intimate time with, yet she is content on starving me...

 

[KendalMintcake]

A bit confused here - sounds like you are saying you are about to separate and you expect to be a good boy while separated. That seems to contradict the reason for separating entirely. I would just assume that separation is the green light to go do whatever you want...
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[Lon]

live in a sexless marriage? Or just without sex?

For me, I wasn't living in a sexless marriage, i was slowly dying in it.

As for going without sex while not in a relationship, well it's no fun but you realize that you don't need it to survive, in fact there are lots of other things that still bring some joy. Some people can still get sexual needs met by others while not in a relationship, but I just don't work that way, so when I need I take care of my own pleasure, but it's not entirely satisfactory and I'd rather just get to the point where I feel confident being in a relationship again.

 

[ScarletBegonias]

I'm not getting any and I'm HD.I orgasm daily...sometimes twice or thrice on weekends You do what you have to do til you're ready for intimacy with another person.

 

[thunderstruck]

But I'd rather have nothing at all then to put up with her again. Still... I'm curious

Anyways, I don't know if I can survive a year seperation without finding a new woman on the side...

Read your 1st line above again. That should help you get through. And, yeah, you'll survive. I didn't think I could either, but then the Army sent me to Saudi for 7 months. Not a whole lot of ways to get in trouble over there. I survived.

 

[RandomDude]

Yeah, I guess I can hold out, slowly getting into the new routine... my brain has been going all over the place recently... think I'm calming down now

 

[Terry_CO]

My wife and I are in the sh-tter, so now it's a system shock of having sex multiple times a day to nothing at all with not much hope of reconciliation. But I'd rather have nothing at all then to put up with her again. Still... I'm curious

How did you guys survive for years at a time? Just the hand? How to handle the temptation of cheating especially when there's so many women out there waiting for love? Also if it is just the hand, is it just me, or have you guys noticed erection problems during intercourse with later dates after being too used to the hand? I suffered that during long draughts/fights with my wife, or STBXW whatever.

Anyways, I don't know if I can survive a year seperation without finding a new woman on the side in the meantime if my wife and I decide to call it quits. Stupid law, can't even divorce without seperation.

I survived years of total drought. I mean complete. I will NOT cheat, so that left only one relief - polishing the bayonet And I polished the heck out of it! My porn collection was diverse and thorough :smthumbup:

I believe that if I am married, if I want to play the field and give up on the marriage, the first order of business is to dissolve the marriage, assuming it is dead on the vine and not merely in need of some TLC. Once it's dissolved, then and only then will I find someone else. Even if she cheats, which my ex didn't, by the way.

And no, whacking off all those years had no effect on performance later with other women. Maybe because I wasn't trying to kill it

 

[BeachGuy]

I've yet to read a post on TAM of anyone who went longer than I did without. And yet here I sit, still breathing. Make no mistake...it bites big time. But I survived. For several years. Focused on raising my younger kids, started a side business, bought a motorcycle......

 

[ARF]

My sex life has been a work in progress for a majority of my marriage. I used to place all the blame on the fact my wife is LD. Although that was still the primary cause, there was plenty I could be doing.

This site has been great for me. I have changed things about myself that I never really noticed I was doing. I took on some of the blame for our lack of sex. I become more assertive about our sex life. I didn't beat a dead horse, but I kept the topic on the forefront. I started doing the things again that I knew my wife liked.

We started branching out a little sexually. Experimented with some toys. Found a great one that helps her reach orgasm while we are having sex. Its amazing what regular orgasms will do for a woman's sex drive. it is also amazing how providing those orgasms, with help or not, take a load off...both literally and figuratively.

Our sexless periods depressed me. I felt sorry for myself and almost quit trying. I kept at it. Continued to try to make improvements. During our first pregnancy and after my child was born, there was a 15 month period of no sex. Through effort by both of us, woith me taking the lead, we are about once a week.

It sucked...but it can change and be worth it.

 

[JoeHenderson]

My sex life has been a work in progress for a majority of my marriage. I used to place all the blame on the face my wife is LD. Although that was still the primary cause, there was plenty I could be doing.

This site has been great for me. I have changed things about myself that I never really noticed I was doing. I took on some of the blame for our lack of sex. I become more assertive about our sex life. I didn't beat a dead horse, but I kept the topic on the forefront. I started doing the things again that I knew my wife liked.

We started branching out a little sexually. Experimented with some toys. Found a great one that helps her reach orgasm while we are having sex. Its amazing what regular orgasms will do for a woman's sex drive. it is also amazing how providing those orgasms, with help or not, take a load off...both literally and figuratively.

Our sexless periods depressed me. I felt sorry for myself and almost quit trying. I kept at it. Continued to try to make improvements. During our first pregnancy and after my child was born, there was a 15 month period of no sex. Through effort by both of us, woith me taking the lead, we are about once a week.

It sucked...but it can change and be worth it.

Thanks for posting this. This is what I'm working toward. I need to focus more on what I'm going to do. Tonight I will purchase the Married Man's Sex Life Primer. We'll see where it gets me.

 

[RandomDude]

Funny really, I tried porn, didn't do it for me

But then I thought of my STBX and the good times when we actually had good sex and away I went - yay. Then afterwards, I kicked myself and had a shower and threw up, disgusted with myself.

Bleh, never doing that again

 

[DTO]

I would suggest sexless marriages (unless mutually agreed-upon) rarely survive over the long term. The reason is that too much frustration and resentment over the mismatch in effort and expectations build up for them to last.

Based on personal experience and what I've read, the following is a typical series of events in a sexually unsatisfying marriage:

1. At some point in the marriage, one spouse alone cuts back sex (frequency, variety, and/or enthusiasm) to unacceptably low levels if not refuses sex althogether. For a variety of reasons, it becomes unimportant.

2. The refused spouse will try to manage the situation by trying to earn sex, appease the refuser, or just waiting it out. But, the sex does not return, so efforts to manage the situation fail.

3. The refused spouse starts to distance himself or herself from the refuser. This can be out of anger or out of simple self-preservation (avoiding a painful situation). And the distance can take several forms: less together time, more time out with friends or at work, less contribution to the household, perhaps even an EA or PA.

4. The refuser sees this distance forming and becomes angry about it. The refuser is self-centered and/or lacks empathy, and does not understand or refuses to acknowledge that failing to meet his or her spouse's physical need carries negative consequences. As a result, the refuser thinks he or she is being punished unfairly ("you should treat me the same even if we don't have sex") and may retaliate in response.

5. (3) and (4) repeat in a vicious cycle until a crisis point is reached and the relationship is fixed or ended.

The key here is the refuser's expectation that they should suffer no negative consequences as a result of that refusal. This expectation is simply unrealistic.

I recall only one gentleman here on TAM is managing to make this work while feeling okay about it. But, IIRC that is due in big part to his wife accepting a significant amount of distance and accepts visible reminders of his unhappiness. He uses porn to meet his needs and does his own thing to a large extent - most refusing wives would not tolerate this (esp. the porn). Also, he is able to stay positive despite not having his wife - something not all guys are able to do.

So, back to you (the OP). The mere fact you are asking "how you people do it" says to me that you will not be able to tolerate the current situation forever. That being the case, you (knowing what comes next) need to resolve this issue to your satisfaction before resentment sets in further (which makes resolution more difficult if not impossible).

Or, you need to develop an exit strategy as favorable to you as possible. If you can't go happily without sex indefinitely, your unhappiness will manifest somehow in your relationship. If your wife is obtuse or indifferent enough to deny sex for long periods of time, she almost certainly will not tolerate you pulling back from her. Without eventual resolution of the sex problem, she will at some point bail on you even if you decide to tough it out and do your own thing.

 

[russ101]

I agree with DTO, in my case, my wife's refusal to have sex, has caused me to really not care about her needs, and in return she is definitely noticing the difference. She used to really enjoy foot and neck massages from me after a long day of work. I stopped them completely. She knows why too. I told her as long as were acting like roomates, I wouldn't give a roomate a foot massage, so any massages are out of the question until we start acting like husband and wife again. She also wants me to fill up her gas tank and generally take care of her car. I told her I wouldn't fill up my roomates gas tank, so handle it yourself (I still change her oil, only because she would run the car into the ground if I didn't and we would be stuck buying a new one!). There are more, but you get the idea. Is this good for a marriage, NO but neither is denying a spouses biggest need indefinitley. DTO is right on with their analogy.

 

[working_together]

Random, in my opinion, I think if you and your wife are officially over, one of you moves out, and the thought of R is not in the picture, then having sex with other people causes no harm. I know many think that they should wait for the divorce, but really? what difference does it make, it's just a paper finalizing what was already over. I only waited a couple of months, but I also knew I didn't want anything serious, I just had needs like everyone else.