Hello Jen. This is my first post, as I saw your post and felt as if I was reading a note from my younger self. Your story is my story, from the honeymoon, to the mother-in-law; from the hurt, to the anger, to the despair. The first reason for no intimacy was religious convictions. Then it was because he was stressed out at work; then because I hadn’t met his demands for the type of house to keep, the type of lingerie to wear; then because I had the lights on and he wanted them off; then because it was a Monday and not a Friday, then because it was a Friday and not a Sunday.
It took years for me to realize that maybe it wasn’t me who had the problem; that no matter how many of my husband’s requests were met, I would always be given some new excuse as to why we couldn’t have sex. We met with multiple counselors, within the church and outside of it, and whenever the counselor would finally see through the excuses and focus on my husband, he would declare that I somehow manipulated the counselor and he would quit going. We would have to find another counselor, and the cycle would start all over again.
Nothing fixed this situation, because my husband has no desire to fix it. He is not swayed by threats of me leaving, he does not seem to believe that withholding sex is a sin, and tells me he can show me that he loves me in other ways, disregarding that I would also like physical intimacy.
We have been married 15 years now, and I have spent 13 of them angry for what I viewed as the ultimate deception. I believed he knew all along that he had no intention of having sex with me, and wanted a wife so he looked “normal” to everyone on the outside. Then one day I stumbled upon an article about asexuality. Everything in this article pointed to my husband. I saw our situation in a new light, and I was able to approach him and discuss it without anger. The more my husband learned about it, the more he opened up to me. He was able to talk to me about the fact that he does not care for certain physical contact. He does not like kissing, sensual touching, or sex. He does like holding hands, holding me in bed. I no longer believe he tricked me into marrying him - I truly believe he didn’t realize there was anything different about him from a heterosexual man with sexual desires.
I’m sorry that I don’t have any answers for you, as it is not easy at all. But having that anger off my back, and having a mutual understanding of where my husband is coming from has helped our relationship immensely, even though we are a work-in-progress. I don’t know if I would have stayed with him if I could do it all over again (I also ended up pregnant after one time having sex, so I stayed for my child). If you are serious about trying to work it out though, please don’t tell him there is something wrong with him, and that it’s not normal. If there IS something wrong with him, the counselor will uncover it, and your husband can hear it from them. It may be that there is nothing wrong with him at all, and that is just who he is as a person.
I don’t know if we can send PMs on this site, but if you’d like to talk privately feel free to contact me.
