Question for gay men who were married. Just out if curiosity, how often did you have sex with your wife over the course of your marriage? Was lack of sex a primary cause for the split? Was it the most upsetting thing lacking from the relationship?
Hi! How often? At first we had sex often, and then it diminished over the first 10 years and then down to nothing, nada, zilch, for the last 5 years... Primary cause? Maybe, but there were other issues too. Can't say which reinforced the other... Most upsetting? I think so. She felt rejected (primarily because it too often fell to her to initiate), to the point where she stopped initiating, and I was very reluctant to initiate sex (it always felt like an obligation rather than something that came naturally). Here are questions for you: I believe you have a GF right? Do you see the same things (as outlined above) happening in your relationship (especially the part about initiating sex)?
Sex wasn't the issue. I could have had all the sex I wanted which amounted to a gym membership I didn't want. Say somebody offered you all the cavier you could eat but you did not care for it, how much would you eat? For me the mistake of marriage was seeking a long term emotional relationship I could not find among gay men. I hoped the LTR could overcome the gay issue. It can't in my experience. I loved my wife but the sexual component of love never completed a positive feedback loop I guess.
I had a girlfriend that I had dated for nearly a year but we split last month. Quite honestly the reasons for the split were not sexual at all as we always had sex quite frequently with both parties doing our share of initiating. I can definitely admit thought that there were times where like you say, it could feel to be a chore. Whether this is because we don't click very well at all sometimes (the primary reason for the split) or because I am gay is not something I can decide with certainty at this point. But I definitely couldn't see myself going five years without it lol.
You are only 22, give yourself a break. With time and experience you learn to concur libido just as you learned to control an unwanted erection as you entered puberty. It isn't a matter of level of libido but experience and control. ---------- Post added 3rd Jun 2013 at 09:57 AM ---------- Why control libido? I didn't feel good about myself after hetero sex over time the not right feeling grew. To avoid not feeling right (the chore grows) you control the libido. For me the feelings afterwards made it something to avoid.
If you will, please clarify this last post. When you say control libido what do you mean in regard to what I have said? What about in regard to yourself?
You indicated you could not go without sex for five years. Whale did five I did seven without sex. It has been 21 years since the gay sex I enjoy. I cannot speak for Whale or you but for me the pleasurable physical release was followed by a period of feeling I used my wife. This feeling grew over time and the bad "after feeling" eventually killed my ability to achieve physical release. I stopped having sex with my wife the day I had to fake an orgasm to end the sex. As that bad feeling grew I avoided sex and learned to control my libido. To the point of rejecting her advances. This was not a full on, full off situation. It started small and continued to grow. ---------- Post added 3rd Jun 2013 at 10:41 AM ---------- Any number of guys here will tell you they had to turn to Viagra to get an erection with their wife where once all worked spontaneously. And these same guys will tell you they NEVER needed Viagra with another man.
Man! To be 22 again with what I know now. If EC existed when I was 22 and I had found it, and listened to the stories of older closeted gays... How my life would be different. I had to go it alone with limited experience, "gay" treated like a disease you needed to be cured of, or straights laughing at the "gay plague" as HIV/AIDS burnt through the gay community like a wildfire. Without a single positive healthy role model to give direction. Gay marriage wasn't even a speck on the horizon. Like many of my generation we were on our own, babes in the woods and many of us made mistakes. Some small, some large, some deadly. Some would call my closeted choice cowardly but here I am today where many of the loud and proud of my generation are dead. Fear of HIV threw many into the closet. Sadly many, far too many died. Far different world today. Gay friendly professional support, gay marriage even. Make use of the open, positive, healthy gay resources. Ask questions as you are of those who lived the closeted life. Sort it out in a healthy manner. You are not alone today. I know when you are 22 the stories/advice of somebody three decades older is difficult to listen to. We older people see the common threads in all our stories and God how we wish we knew then what we know now. People can warn you about denial and the closet but people who have lived it... We will warn you off with feeling, passion and pain. Make use of your recources.
I'm going to need to imbibe a great deal of bourbon to tackle the sex with my wife question. That is a minefield. However, about once a week until last year.....I think it's called total dissociation....
Is that the thinking and the fantasy of someone other than who your are in bed with? I have often wondered how men can go for 10 years. I can see 1 - 3 years of sex with someone you are not totally sexually hot for, but interested for other reasons. 1) the thrill of giving and making someone else happy, it's hot to be thought of as hot. 2) to have children, which is a wonderful thing, and can be sexually exciting in a different way. But after that I would have a hard time going through it. I think some men in that situation find the wife loses interest in sex at just about the same time they find that they themselves are burning out on it. A sexless marriage with both partners ok with that part.
My situation is a bit different. My wife knew of my homosexual fantasies before she married me. We integrated it into our sex life for awhile, with a lot of role playing. But in addition to that, we had plain old straight sex. That was a mix I found quite congenial. After awhile, my wife got tired of the role-playing and fantasies. So we had purely hetero sex after that. There were times that I enjoyed that for what it was, and other times when I fantasized about being with a man. Over the past decade, my wife has shown less and less interest in sex. Some of that is age, some of it had to do with other tensions in our marriage (work-related, money-related), and I suppose some of it may have had to do with an unspoken resentment on her because she sensed that I wasn't entirely present with her. She walked in on me one night about six years ago when I was masturbating to gay porn in my office. This upset her, but I couldn't figure out why, since she had seen me do that before. But it led to a round of questions about whether I was gay (I said no) or bi (Yes). On top of this, my wife has been going through a sort of identity crisis since she retired. She is somewhat depressed and feels she has lost all interest in sex. So that was the context when I told her a couple of months ago that I felt as though I had shifted a few degrees in the gay direction over the past few years. So now we're trying to figure out what comes next. If she has no interest in sex, then maybe she'll agree that I should be able to have sex with men. But under what conditions?
Very similar here - only my wife participated w/me and another man before we married. She knew. She was there. I chose monogamy and marriage with her, and over the years felt incredibly lucky to have a rich, fulfilling and exclusive sex life with her. Then, as you said, it changed. Age? Health? Stress? Probably, I don't know, but I never would have seen this coming - a return to adolescence with all of the drive and desire and no one to share it with. It's awkward now -- beyond awkward. It's loaded with several years of hurt, and lack of vulnerability on her part. It's very weird, but at this point in late 50's I find myself saying/feeling things that are usually considered more the woman's voice to the man: "You're distant." "You don't express your feelings." "Work is more important to you." "You have a wall all around you." I've pretty much given up on things improving w/her and have virtually no expectations anymore of her. We live pretty separate lives w/tiny overlaps and fond memories. Now that the "Raising Kids Project" is finished and it's just us two - we're finding we've grown into quite different people. There's still love and respect - but no intimacy. Intimacy became threatening - and to this day I don't understand. So in a nutshell, I never lost interest in going down to the river for a hearty splash and a romp, but the river dried up on me. And now I find myself talking with you guys trying to figure out my next step - hearing about other oases filled with healing waters. I'm thirsty. But gratefully, I feel a little less alone among brethren with similar stories. I had no idea there were so many others like me and I'm finding a lot of comfort in that.
I was rather sexual with my girlfriend until months before the end of our relationship. I loved being intimate and close with her, and loved pleasuring her. In the end it was I who withdrew from the sexual part of our relationship, the more I thought I was gay, the more having sex (intercourse) with her meant in my head I was fantasizing about men. Now that IS f*cked up! Reality is, if you're gay you're wired to respond different. While getting your rocks off in any way possible works for a while, after a while I think the brain just stops compensating. It's just too much work and not worth it.
"Reality is, if you're gay you're wired to respond different." Wow, this took a really, really long time to accept. For the longest time I played the role, and accepted what I believed to be true. Sex was at times enjoyable, but now that I've heard some stories here on EC, it was never great. Even the good times came with some stress. I often coached myself through it. She is such a great person that it pains me to admit that there was stress in those most intimate moments. A certain breaking point came about 10 years ago when during foreplay the thought of a (super hot) friend of a friend, came charging into mind. It was extremely powerful, and the thought was quite enjoyable, but immediately shut me "down" if you know what I mean. I was never one to fantasize about another because I felt that that was cheating. However, once that one powerful thought rampaged into our bedroom, I never really recovered. From that moment on I had significant trouble performing. About 5 years ago we just gave up. I blamed her, she blamed me; it's been total stress ever since. Since coming out to her, I've apologized for holding her accountable for something that was not within her control. The truth is that I'm (we're?) just "wired differently." I guess that we can adapt to a situation, but it seems that eventually that's going to break down. I'm curious about our final straws; what was the last straw that finally forced you to accept, realize, come to terms with, whatever? Know what, I'll start a new thread. You all are awesome, and this forum has meant a lot to me. Weird that I have much less need for porn. I suppose that I'm getting a connection here that beforehand I needed to get from porn. Also strange, this is somehow more satisfying. Too bad we can't actually meet. This is odd developing, what feels like close relationships, with text and icons. Oh well, maybe somewhere someday. Thanks again to you all for helping me to realize that I'm not the only one. (Cue Etheridge)
This is not the first time we have seen this here at EC: the sudden halt of porn, or hookups (in my case). It seems as if our "awakening" has swept away the numbness and bad habits. Instead, we have found an urgent, pressing need to pay some serious attention to what we are and where we're going. At last!
Wow, this is a confronting thread. I'm currently in the questioning process, bi-gay-straight-whatever -- see my previously posted thread for some background. Ever since I started questioning, my sex drive really lowered. But I related that to the fact that the thoughts in my head were so overwhelming that I couldn't make any room in my head for anything else. Now that I'm in therapy, these thoughts have somewhat diminished. I also have more sex with my girlfriend and find her genuinely hot. When I see her, it really turns me on. Is that something that is independent of my orientation? Or is it something that can point me in a certain direction? Also, just like runnerrunner, I sometimes start fantasizing about a man while we are having sex. It's a major turn-off and I try to stop the fantasy to continue enjoying the sex. Up until now, it has never actually stopped me from having sex. Another note on that: I don't fantasize about a specific man (never have). As you can read in my earlier thread, I have never had a crush on any specific man (unless this is the denial talking...)
triaudi -- initially when I was working on this stuff with my shrink, I'd say sex increased with my girlfriend. Maybe more than ever I needed that physical/sexual contact and intimacy with someone, because, lets be frank, facing this stuff about yourself is scary as all hell. I still crave the intimacy I had with her. Sex with guys is a million times better than with a woman, but hook ups and friends with benefits are not the same as a partner. Yes, like you, it got to the point where I could only have sex with my girlfriend while fantasizing about men. After I while, it was too much of a mind f*ck to do that anymore (to have sex with her). All the best.
