I am new to this forum, so I should briefly tell you about me. I am 49 year old male and will be celebrating 28 years of marriage this coming August. My wife is also 48, and we have 5 children, ages 26 to 15. (Two of which still live at home.)
I am retired from a big city police dept. after 22 years of service, and currently enjoy being a SAHD, restoring our 100+ yr. old home, and landscaping the large yard. My wife works as a nurse at a local hospital.
My problem and concern is one that has been growing for several years now, and I realize and want this to change.
My wife and I have not had sex in over two months, and she doesn't seem to care if we ever do. I understand that we are no longer in our 20's and full of hormonal lust for each other, but we aren't exactly getting around with walkers or canes yet either.
Yesterday, my wife, 17 year old daughter, and I were at the store looking at swimsuits for my daughter. My daughter was looking over the bikinis, and my wife said, "No, those aren't appropriate, they don't cover enough." Which caused me some pause. I didn't say anything until today, when I saw my wife watching, "The Evolution of the Bikini" video on the internet.
The internet video portrayal of the bikini was one of labeling the swimsuit as invented by a man to stimulate lustful, objectifying thoughts of women much like when a man thinks of using power tools.
I couldn't take it anymore, and voiced my disagreement with the video's conclusions.
I reminded my wife that she wore several bikinis when we were dating, and asked her if she thought that she was immoral for wearing them. She replied, "Yes, I probably was, but I was young and stupid too."
Now, this may not seem like a big deal, but this comes in a long string of other statements that have bothered and upset me.
We started dating back in the 80's and after a year of exclusive dating we lost our virginity to each other at the age of 19. We continued our serious relationship for 2 more years and got married at the age of 21. And trust me, we had more hot and heavy "porn-like" sex in those 2 years than even after getting married.
Needless to say, we were excited and eagerly anticipated getting married and not having to sneak our sexual encounters in my, or her parents homes. Finally, after moving out and getting married we could enjoy each other whenever, or wherever in our apartment we wanted.
Sadly, that didn't happen. After getting married, sex dropped to once or twice a week. Okay, I was a bit disappointed, but fine with it. Supporting oneself is a big step.
The years started rolling by, jobs, careers, homes came and went, our children were born, grew up and moved out.
If you charted our sexual activity over the last 20 years it would look like a stock market report. Some times it was high and climbing, other times it was low and infrequent. I think that's normal for most married couples.
However, I have noticed in conversations with my wife, that she regrets most of the things we did together when we were dating.
She now heavily regrets all the petting and sexual touching we did to each other before marriage.
She extremely regrets losing her virginity before we were married.
All of which I remember with great fondness and warmth thinking that she loved, and trusted me enough to share that physical part of her with me, and I with her. That was a part of her that attracted me. We were a perfect match sexually for each other, and she voiced the same to me at that time.
I hate it now when she starts the complaints about her past sexual regrets. It really hurts.
I might be able to understand it if she had lost her virginity to some jerk boyfriend, that abused her and left, but she married me and we have been married for nearly 28 years with 5 children.
Which brings us to the present. Now she is telling our daughter that when she was young she never wore a bikini or dressed in short-shorts, tank tops, or anything "immodest". Which is a bold-faced lie and very hypocritical.
Which brings me to my problem. I feel like my wife now regrets marrying me, could care less to have sex with me, and is trying to rewrite and erase our past because she now doesn't like who she was when she was younger.
She is now trying to mold our daughter into someone she thinks she should have been.
Her whole attitude about sex has completely changed from one of fun, playfulness and enjoyment with someone you love, to something shameful, dirty, disgusting and perverted.
What happened to us?
I am retired from a big city police dept. after 22 years of service, and currently enjoy being a SAHD, restoring our 100+ yr. old home, and landscaping the large yard. My wife works as a nurse at a local hospital.
My problem and concern is one that has been growing for several years now, and I realize and want this to change.
My wife and I have not had sex in over two months, and she doesn't seem to care if we ever do. I understand that we are no longer in our 20's and full of hormonal lust for each other, but we aren't exactly getting around with walkers or canes yet either.
Yesterday, my wife, 17 year old daughter, and I were at the store looking at swimsuits for my daughter. My daughter was looking over the bikinis, and my wife said, "No, those aren't appropriate, they don't cover enough." Which caused me some pause. I didn't say anything until today, when I saw my wife watching, "The Evolution of the Bikini" video on the internet.
The internet video portrayal of the bikini was one of labeling the swimsuit as invented by a man to stimulate lustful, objectifying thoughts of women much like when a man thinks of using power tools.
I couldn't take it anymore, and voiced my disagreement with the video's conclusions.
I reminded my wife that she wore several bikinis when we were dating, and asked her if she thought that she was immoral for wearing them. She replied, "Yes, I probably was, but I was young and stupid too."
Now, this may not seem like a big deal, but this comes in a long string of other statements that have bothered and upset me.
We started dating back in the 80's and after a year of exclusive dating we lost our virginity to each other at the age of 19. We continued our serious relationship for 2 more years and got married at the age of 21. And trust me, we had more hot and heavy "porn-like" sex in those 2 years than even after getting married.
Needless to say, we were excited and eagerly anticipated getting married and not having to sneak our sexual encounters in my, or her parents homes. Finally, after moving out and getting married we could enjoy each other whenever, or wherever in our apartment we wanted.
Sadly, that didn't happen. After getting married, sex dropped to once or twice a week. Okay, I was a bit disappointed, but fine with it. Supporting oneself is a big step.
The years started rolling by, jobs, careers, homes came and went, our children were born, grew up and moved out.
If you charted our sexual activity over the last 20 years it would look like a stock market report. Some times it was high and climbing, other times it was low and infrequent. I think that's normal for most married couples.
However, I have noticed in conversations with my wife, that she regrets most of the things we did together when we were dating.
She now heavily regrets all the petting and sexual touching we did to each other before marriage.
She extremely regrets losing her virginity before we were married.
All of which I remember with great fondness and warmth thinking that she loved, and trusted me enough to share that physical part of her with me, and I with her. That was a part of her that attracted me. We were a perfect match sexually for each other, and she voiced the same to me at that time.
I hate it now when she starts the complaints about her past sexual regrets. It really hurts.
I might be able to understand it if she had lost her virginity to some jerk boyfriend, that abused her and left, but she married me and we have been married for nearly 28 years with 5 children.
Which brings us to the present. Now she is telling our daughter that when she was young she never wore a bikini or dressed in short-shorts, tank tops, or anything "immodest". Which is a bold-faced lie and very hypocritical.
Which brings me to my problem. I feel like my wife now regrets marrying me, could care less to have sex with me, and is trying to rewrite and erase our past because she now doesn't like who she was when she was younger.
She is now trying to mold our daughter into someone she thinks she should have been.
Her whole attitude about sex has completely changed from one of fun, playfulness and enjoyment with someone you love, to something shameful, dirty, disgusting and perverted.
What happened to us?