CW: depressive relationship stuff, sex, generally being a SadSack.
First off, both myself (37M) and my wife (36F) are in individual therapy and we’ve been married for about a decade now. She went through life with untreated anxiety, depression, and emotional dysregulation (turns out, likely on the spectrum) as well as complicated grief and I am working through a life of untreated ADHD, childhood trauma (great mix!), and sexual dysfunction. These are important to the situation but also putting it out that we’re already getting help.
So early in our marriage, I woke up about 3am on a work night to loud voices, as she and our roommate were up drinking in the living room, which our room was next to. I was incredibly annoyed but then, clear as day, hear her say “MrSadSack has a small dick.” Up until this point, I’d never felt insecure about my size as I’m about average and rarely had a problem getting sexual partners off (more to it than PIV - toys, oral, etc). When I brought it up, she assured me that it was more that she was used to longer but less girth and that she enjoyed my girth much better. Any time that it has come up she’s assured me that she basically didn’t know what she was saying at the time and is very happy with my size.
Fast forward to any 4 years into the marriage and my wife loses her mother. She is hit by the deepest grief that I’ve ever seen. Her libido goes away and I get to be on the receiving end of her anger phase of grief (with extra from from ADHD/RSD and early childhood trauma making my particularly sensitive to anger). Before anyone takes me the wrong way, yes, of course someone who is dealing with the fresh loss of a parent isn’t going to be interest in sex. I mention it because it’s what she attributes as the point where her libido changed.
And after six years, it hasn’t come back. It’s marginally better as she’s no longer on hormonal birth control and gets some drive when ovulating but outside of that, it’s generally a dead bedroom. It’s also a bit better because early on she was misdiagnosed and put on meds that seriously messed her up, leading to any sexual advances or interest being angrily rejected. So, as asked, I gave her space but the years of rejection really undermined my sexual confidence.
During the course of this I also developed ED due to a mix of hormonal imbalance, medication (hooray for antidepressants and ADHD med side effects), and stress as the sole provider due to my wife’s legitimately debilitating anxiety and packing. I was put on TRT with supplemental tadalafil to try to overcome the hormonal imbalance and compensate for the medications’ side effects. It isn’t always effective, however, I generally give her multiple orgasms when we sleep together.
We’ve discussed non-monogamy in the past as I’ve been generally comfortable with the idea and am ambiamourous. Generally, it’s been limited to allowing her to explore her bisexuality with other women, with her insisting that she has no interesting in being with any other guy. However, she’s also offered it for me to sleep with other women because my already fairly high libido has only been increased by the TRT, leaving me sexually frustrated nearly 24/7.
Recently, she brought up the idea of opening the relationship again. I responded that, yes, I really think that she should see about exploring that side of her sexuality and that I was ok if she wanted to see women without me but would also be down if they wanted me to join (but not required). So…I rather misread that. She was interested in hooking up with a guy. I hesitated but accepted, not sure why I was feeling off about it but stated that I wanted us to learn more about it before really getting into it as she hasn’t had any experience with consensual non-monogamy and we’ve been monogamous since the beginning.
We installed Bumble and she helped me create a profile. She immediately got a match and started chatting. As a guy, who is honest about being married and looking for casual non-monogamy, of course, I got nada, with the app not helping by giving 9/10 potential matches clearly stating that they only wanted long-term, monogamous relationships (I fucking hate those apps). The kick in the gut came when she started making plans to hookup with the match on the weekend. I have trouble with my emotions, and am about the least jealous person that I’ve ever met, so, it took me a bit to realize that I was feeling terrible and figure out a bit of why. We talked and she called it off, and we both uninstalled that shitty app.
Fast forward to this week and I finally managed to process why, as someone who is very much open to non-monogamy, why it was bothering me. Probably, a bit obvious to someone with a less fucked up brain or more experience with non-monogamy. From my perspective, I’ve been supporting her financially, emotionally, and getting her mental healthcare that she didn’t have access to when she really needed it. I stood by patiently, giving her space to work through her extremely prolonged grief, while sexually frustrated out of my mind and having little but rejection for years. It wouldn’t be us high-fiving and being happy for each other’s sexual experiences, it would be me, sitting home alone, possibly working, still sexually frustrated, and while the woman that I love and lust after goes out and sleeps with a stranger. I tried to communicate this to her as I wanted her to understand what’s going on in my head. I failed epically but eventually got some of it across. But during the course of the last 24 hours, she’s finally been honest in that the ED is a problem, she has been thinking about fucking other guys, and she was just trying to spare my feelings over the years and did, in fact, mean it at the time when she told my roommate/best friend at the time that she thought I had a small dick.
So, here I am, probably about as emasculated as a guy can be without cheating or physical emasculation, with insecurities and anxiety that I didn’t even know I had paid bare and stamped “confirmed”. Sexual self-confidence completely shattered but still sexually frustrated. How do I recover from that? How do we as a couple?
Radical acceptance maybe. But I don’t think that I’m comfortable anymore with pursuing non-monogamy. Who is going to be interested in pursuing a casual relationship with a married man who’s wife doesn’t want to sleep with him but wants to sleep with guys who are more well-endowed and functional? I don’t even have confidence going for me anymore. Nor do I have a cuckold fetish.
She’s trying. Putting up affirmations for me and asked me for a date to a film that I’ve been really looking forward to, which I fucked up by asking her, with my newfound insecurity, if she had cheated on me during our relationship and she’s not talking to me at the moment. I’m just feeling defeated by life, genetics, and whatever the fuck else there is to be defeated by. I’m glad that I’m already in antidepressants because I’d be in a much darker hole.
I’d absolutely agree in most cases. I’m still a bit reeling and fucked up at the moment and needed to get it out before my next appointment and to get myself to even being ok sending messages about it to my therapist. I’m definitely intending to get into couples’ therapy again - last one wasn’t a good fit.
Yeah. It feels a bit fucked up to me that I’d still be a bit ok with her being with another woman but, I don’t have any insecurity about having a vagina and I would genuinely be happy about her getting to explore that side of her identity. I certainly felt a lot more secure previously but without a healthy sex life in our relationship, yeah, there’s no way NOT to feel insecure when feeling frustrated like that. Add to that the introduction of insecurity about a part of me that I have no ability to change (without surgery that risks even more loss of functionality). If we had a healthy sex life, hey, I know I’m not swinging 8" and would be happy for her but right now, it’s not gonna happen.
No. I’m not going to call you wrong or be offended. She absolutely has been in the past and regrets it deeply. There was a lot of good that came out of our previous attempt at couples therapy and she’s made concrete changes, in addition to apologies.
While this is sound advice, I think that, in ways, we’re in a bit of the opposite situation. Our increasing comfort with one another and our respective therapy allows us to better express ourselves than before, which also amplifies our ability to hurt one another, which is further augmented by my recently-discovered RSD. I’m not the most compatible with most people that I’ve had long-term relationships with due to my ADHD and all of the fun symptoms that I’m still working through.
Well, I certainly didn’t sign up for this. I still want to have kids and it’s looking less likely every year. But, even as low as I am now, I’m madly in love with her and she with me. Our fucked up brains are just great at causing unintentional harm from time to time. Most of the time, it’s good.
Crackpot idea - if you’re both already paying for therapy individually and had limited success with couples therapy (assuming the couples therapist was not one of your therapists), maybe your therapists be open to having a session with the four of you?
You already have rapport with them and they know your individual histories so could save a lot of time setting the stage that way. Would be interesting seeing what the therapists would say to each other. Or if meeting isn’t possible, maybe could ask your therapists if they’d contact each other to help gain insight?
Sorry you’re going through this. She sounds like she’s being callous.
If you do decide there’s a shred of hope and desire to saving this relationship and all you can change is yourself, then I can offer what has helped my partner and I. Building a habit of affection without the expectation of sex. As in, not lingering too long waiting for the other to “signal the go ahead” for sex. Just a quick but meaningful hug or kiss when nearby, then going back to minding our own business. Also keeping on top of the chores and decisions. Partial contributor to our dead bedroom was because there is nothing more unsexy than thinking of all the things that still need doing. If there’s been a dynamic that she feels like she’s had to run the household (making sure chores are done, meal planning, groceries are bought and put away, social things organized, birthdays are remembered, etc) then she might feel like your mother. And obviously women are biologically wired not to be attracted to their children.
Thank you for the suggestion. We had a really productive day today and are intending to pursue couples therapy, once we’ve healed enough in our individual therapy.
While my situation does rhyme with a lot of others, it has a bit more in common with being married to someone with cancer than the typical high-libido/low-libido issues. And, on top of that, communications failures and misunderstandings on both of our parts.
Somewhat initially, yes. She didn’t understand where I was coming from and what I was feeling. The size things was really fucked up but, that was nearly ten years ago now. The rest has been failures of communication, misunderstanding, and the sometimes myopic view that comes from being stuck in unresolved grief for 6 years. Now that she understands that it wasn’t just insecurity but feelings of long-term rejection cranked up to 11, she’s doing everything she can to help repair the damage and remasculate myself.
Shit still hurts down in this hole, but once upgraded to torchlight and am going to watch the LotR extended cuts, anhedonia be damned.
Don’t let your RSD get to you in this post. Convince yourself I wrote this for another person.
Bro, you are in a bad way, and I’m going to talk to you like no therapist ever would, because they have certain obligations and will dance around things until you finally get it on your own while they waste years of your life waiting for you to do so. I have ADHD and was in a relationship with a person with undiagnosed (at the time) BPD, which was no picnic, and some of your writings give me flashbacks.
I will be blunt with you, because I wish someone had been blunt with me and gave me direct advice. Get out, the relationship is not worth it, and the really unfortunate thing is that you can only really comprehend this properly once you are out.
If I could give you a gift, it would be to advance your life 15 years into the future when you are well out of this relationship – the moment you finally snapped you were so fed up and realized there was more to life is all but a distant memory – so that you finally have some perspective and relief. Your future self is glad that’s all in the past, and that you are finally safe and free of the toxicity you were living in.
I wish you knew how truly miserable this phrase is. You think you know, but you don’t, I can tell from how you defend things. I used to tell myself that same thing.
Stop trying to justify it. That’s what I did. I can tell you this is a bad defense. Things are much better with a partner without a fucked up brain, or at least a lesser one. I’d bet money that you’d find your brain less fucked up without hers around. Just because you are both fucked up doesn’t mean you can help each other, it makes it worse. Just because you are both fucked up, doesn’t mean you deserve each other or are right for each other even with therapy.
Isn’t that telling you something?
Yes, and? So what? This can be true even while she is still hurting you and you are miserable. People think this is mutually exclusive, but it isn’t. “I’m madly in love with her and she with me” what does this even matter if you are miserable?
That’s nice and all, but what good is this if you are still getting hurt and are miserable?
You have been patient, more than patient. You think there is an end in sight to your misery while remaining in this relationship, but it’s an illusion.
In my opinion, you’ve been strung along enough. You’ve given it way more than enough time for you to be happy, it’s time to try something new, something different, free of the encumbrances of this relationship. It’s probably scary to you. I know it was for me. But damn if it isn’t eye opening to be in a relationship where you aren’t being made miserable, your partner genuinely cares about you, and the physicality is a match. It’s exciting, refreshing, freeing. You can start fresh and put all that you’ve learned to use with someone who genuinely makes you happy, and you do the same for them. Things can get better.
It’s funny that you should mention this because the worst stretch of time was when she was misdiagnosed with BPD and put on medication for it. They really fucked her up and she is constantly apologizing if anything about that time remotely comes up.
Overall, though, thank you very much. I want to spend some more time rereading what you wrote and giving a more thorough reply but right now, I’m about at my emotional limit and need to work on some self care and trying to be ok enough to message my therapist, not to mention taking in the work week.
Sorry to hear that. My ex was neglected in a bunch of ways as a child, and both her parents are narcissists. She may never fully heal from that, but she is better now than when we were together, she took the time to focus on herself better. That said, I’d never go back to her in a million years, I will never be able to be the person she needs. I can see the person she was supposed to be, she can too, but there’s nothing I can do, the damage was done before I even met her.
Don’t feel pressured to reply, reply more, nor even at all if you aren’t feeling it. I understand, and you owe no obligations. If I got you amped up, I apologize. If I didn’t, don’t worry that I apologized. Just chill and take it easy. You take care of you, one step at a time.
If by “amped up”, you mean “angered or upset”, nothing could be further from the case. I really appreciate your kindness and honest thoughtfulness, as well as perspective that you shared. I may or may not reply more thoroughly but I’ll definitely digest it a bit more.