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I know this is really personal, but I have been thinking about my own sexuality, my view of myself sexually, my ability to enjoy sex, etc and that I don’t have the words to describe how negatively and horribly sex addiction has affected all of that. I’m 4 months from d-day and one thing I am so glad I didn’t do, was want to have sex with him to “reclaim my territory”, which I read about in old posts. I think that’s the one thing I can think of that I don’t need a do over on. Anyway, at this point, I can’t imagine ever wanting to have sex with him again.I feel like I’m not ready to reclaim my sexuality yet, but I am starting to get a whisper that it’s still there , waiting to be reclaimed. For the last couple of years before d-day, I started undressing in the closet, wondering what was wrong with me. Are any of you still with your SA’s, having satisfying sex and comfortable and confident with your own sexuality? Is that possible with an SA, even in recovery?
Courtney,
I’m so glad that you posted this. I’ve been struggling with it lately. The last few nights I’ve had hot and steamy dreams about having sex (with various guys – no, not my SAH)….last night it was Ben Affleck – I didn’t even know I lusted over him!! LOL).
I had the “reclaim my territory” thing (although I only thought it was one affair at the time) – and then a “summer of love” (before the staggered disclosures) – and now I don’t want to get near my SAH, in fact, I’m darn right repulsed.
It really went downhill for me two months ago when he *finally* took an STD test (he didn’t do it for a YEAR!) – and turns out he has herpes. I know it could have been from his teen years – but it has made me want to stay away from him sexually.
I don’t know how to get over this – and feel like it may be the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.
I know there is a woman in LA who has written a book (it was posted on here recently) about Reclaiming Your Sex Life with an SAH. I also have a friend that struggles with this. I think it is a very common thing and there needs to be more help in this area…..or as SL would say, the help is “Run for the Hills!”.
Oh – and this is very personal – but I’ve never been a BOB kind of gal (I know – very strange – maybe I have sexual issues I need to deal with) – but I prefer the live variety.
One thing that my therapist in CA told me is to start slow….touching without sex, etc. I don’t even want to go there!
Deb
Courtney, we’re on about the same time frame – 4 months since DDay. I didn’t have any desire to “reclaim my territory” and haven’t had sex with my H since DDay. Right now I have no desire for my H and really, no desire, period. My H and I are separated but he comes home, usually on Sunday and we spend the day together then he spends the night and goes to work from here Monday morning. We sleep in the same bed but very little touching (he’s reached out and rested his hand on my shoulder but that’s about it) and definitely no sex. I also avoid changing my clothes, showering, etc. when he’s in the room. As I’ve said in other posts, he’s the only man I’ve been with sexually so my sexuality is totally enmeshed with him. I can’t imagine being with someone else and I can’t imagine being with him. Opening myself to someone literally and figuratively seems an impossibility right now. Maybe that will change sometime down the road but I just can’t imagine it. I think in my head, I can’t get over the fake perfection of the images he (and some enormous percentage of the male population) was/is viewing as reality. How could I possibly measure up to that? What man would want me? That’s the tape that plays in my head. I know the SA isn’t supposed to be about us but tell it to my heart and ego. It sure as hell feels personal to me. I feel rejected and unlovable in a sexual way.
“I feel unlovable and rejected in a sexual way”. I think we were not loved and were rejected because they were busy screwing skanks behind our backs. Left me feeling pretty shitty too. Who the hell do they think they are? Really, go pull that shit on somebody else and leave me the fuck alone. (I guess I’m bitter 🙂
oh daisy, daisy.
i just want to tell you, that from your posts, i really really like you. i can imagine that many many great men would want you.
i feel i want to say more but can’t express it. his shit is his. he didn’t treat you well enough because he wanted an illusion, not you.you deserve someone who sees YOU wants YOU. and i know it’s out there for you…
i don’t want to have sex with DW. i don’t even want to hug him, although i give him pity hugs occasionally. his actions, his brokenness, his cruelty are a cold shower times 1000.
i do want to have sex with other men though. i’m horny as hell, and with this new friendliness that i have, i have to be careful and watch myself…
but it feels great to want other men. men that deserve to be wanted.
“I feel unlovable and rejected in a sexual way”. yes, daisy, me, too.I’m getting a glimmer that I want to be ready like Lisa (Yeah, Lisa!) someday, don’t have a clue how to do that, and it is beginning to sound as though that may be very unlikely with my husband even if he got into recovery. So far, on this thread, no responders with a satisfying sex life and positive sense of their sexuality with their SA or recovering SA. No responders having sex currently with their SA’s.
Maybe my question was unrealistic. I’ll change it to” Is anyone here having sex with their SA or recovering SA? Forget the satisfying, and confident stuff.
OMG! This has really been an eye opener for me.My h made so many nasty cracks Pre Mar 10th about women being cows who I saw as the same size as me that I got it in my head my weight was a factor along with his porn addiction. I began dressing/undressing when he wasn’t around. I rarely shower when he’s in the bathroom, even now.
He’s told me since Mar 10th he finds me sexy and attractive but his actions toward me sexually say otherwise.
There will be a man again who will spark that fire in you and who will love you in and out and won’t be a sa.
Keep the faith
We haven’t in maybe 6 weeks. This whole month we’ve all been sick with flu off and on but I’m not hopeful it will pass. Up until then we had been and I was content. Self esteem repair takes awhile. Being overweight hasn’t helped me feel better either.
Gosh, you know Ill fess up. Sex, yes, definitely. Had immediate Hysterical bonding, as it’s known for in the cheating therapy speak. Never found my H too sexually attractive, I guess. Until I found out that he fucked Asian massage parlor prostitutes….fuck. Ya, then I went nuts and had sex and reclaimed him and now allow him to have sex with me when he knocks on my door..I sleep in separate quarters now. I actually enjoy sex now. Always gave it to him 3 times a week, but he also wanted other women and hookers were easy, money gets them whatever they desire. Ya, of course it’s sick. So is having sex with a man who had a one year affair with one woman and fell emotionally for her either in love or infatuation and had sex not 33 times in 8 years like my SA, but maybe 100s in one year. Am I in denial or minimizing? Nope. The truth is the truth and some day I hope to be set free but until then I’m having better sex than I’ve ever had in my entire life, and so is my H, and will continue until we separate.
Lisa, thank you so much. I really really like you too. There are so many lovely women here. Sometimes I just sit and ponder how this is possible. How is it possible that so many lovely, talented, intelligent, caring, warm women could be living in this hell? The pain of it all is just overwhelming. I would like to believe that there is something more out there for me but I just don’t. At least not now. Maybe it will come later. But I get strength and hope from reading your posts, Lisa and seeing you on the verge of reawakening. It’s beautiful – YOU’RE beautiful! I’m thrilled for you.
Courtney, your strength and insight amaze me. You are one kickass woman and I like that about you. Nap, your name should be Resiliant. You’ve been through so much and never whine about it; instead you find humor (black humor maybe but still funny as hell) in it and you carry on. And For-Now, well, you’re a kickass woman too and if your H is too stupid to see your worth well, then Fuck That.
Much love to you all,
DaisyI have sex when I want to. But, to be honest I have never been much of one to compare myself with other women. I probably have some kind of over inflated opinion of myself but I don’t dissect that too often. Anyway, I don’t worry about it. I either feel like having sex or I don’t. The sex issue is the least of my problems. Sex can just be sex but Love is a different animal….
I didn’t go near him for a long time but that was when I had intense feelings and couldn’t separate the fact of my reality with the fiction I had been living.
It’s been pretty good lately…
I did the hysterical bonding thing for about 6 weeks after the confrontation on 8/31. Then I found out all this other shit on 10/27 so haven’t had sex with SAH since right before that. I don’t compare myself to those women – that’s one thing I’ve very proud of – I’ve never thought this was about me. I know this is his issue. In fact, I was kind of grossed out the other day realizing that while there might have been an attractive one or two, I would guess that the majority of hookers are pretty skanky. I do still have a lot of interest in sex (I’m 40 and still in the peak years, I guess!) so I “take of myself” so that I’m not tempted to have sex with my SAH!
I don’t know how it was with the rest of you, but I never saw my h objectify an attractive woman the entire time I was with him. They were all average, at best. Some, pretty damn ugly!
I realized it was not about me, because Steve had an obsession with boobs -one of multiple issues. I have big knockers and it didn’t make a bit of difference to him, in fact he paid no attention to them, or any other part of my body.The sex thing took me awhile and I am still not sleeping with him at night.
I am not to the point of declaring my sex like a success!!
Part of the reason it is so easy for me to not have or want sex with my H is the lack of real intimacy I experienced when we were having sex. I know that’s a pretty standard thing with these SAs. While it was physically satisfying in that he always made sure I had an orgasm, it was “just fucking” as opposed to making love. I mean, I can take care of my own business, so what’s to miss? It would be different if it was an emotionally satisfying experience for me but it wasn’t and hasn’t been for a long time. Now I know it’s because he wasn’t really present there with me, I was just the convenient hole he used to satisfy himself while he had some fantasy playing in his head. I may be relatively inexperienced but I am extremely well read so I know what I was missing!
I realized a long time ago how I played into Greg’s addiction. We started dating when I was in my early 30’s. I was divorced, with three kids, but I still looked good in a skirt. That and the red hair meant attention from men. He liked that, liked that other men wanted me. I thought it was a pride thing back then. Now I know it was part of his perverted fantasies. I didn’t mind that he liked the way I looked, because I was sure he loved me for who I was also. How misguided. He never knew who I was, never really cared. But, wow, did I ever make HIM look good. He got hired at the company where he’s worked for the past 13 years because the owner was so impressed that he was marrying a woman with three kids. Such a GREAT guy! Anyway, eventually, he stopped “seeing” me at all. I disappeared into the endless sea of bodies that later included men and maybe rodents. Who knows? Now, I refuse to compare myself to other women, refuse to pit my 50-year-old body against anyone else’s. My body has been good to me. It has survived a lot of abuse that I, myself, heaped on it. I will be kind to it from now on and treat it with gratitude. My SA and I still have sex. It’s not terrible when we do. Old habits die hard.
I don’t have sex with my Xh. I have a charisma and we have ‘date nights’. The best $19.95 I’ve ever spent. Oh, and I don’t have to fake an orgasm.
Daisy, I love you too sister 🙂
Wow – I am feeling like a real dope. We have had almost no sex in the last 13 yrs. He always hugged and kissed and always complained I did not kiss long enough but sex was a no go. Even with Viagra he could not perform with me. In 13 yrs I bet we have tried less than 10 times and only once was he successful. He just couldn’t stay aroused which was SO great for my self esteem. I blamed it on myself, his antidepressant, his weight gain, his low T. But now I know it is because I couldn’t get my legs over my head with a dildo stuck in my ass and 3 other folks banging me from the front! Silly Me! Sorry ~ my anger is showing.
Anger is good
And you’re probably right
Really, though, why do we always take their lack of performance as OUR lack? That’s a misogynistic societal thing playing back through our psyche’s for sure. THEY are the ones who can’t perform. They are lacking. They are sexually disabled. And we hunch over and slink away like we’re defective.
Fuck that.
Sorry, Trish, it’s an inside joke from another thread.
You are no dope, you’re a normal, vibrant, healthy, beautiful, sexy woman who deserves a man who can get it up. Nuf said.
Thanks everyone for the responses, I am learning so much. Daisy, I think we are twins separated at birth. I laughed at your, “Im very well read, I know what I’m missing comment, because I thought, me too.
Trish, why would you even want to TRY to make it work with a man who can’t have sex with you? You’ve sacrificed a lot there. I mean, unless you just don’t like sex. I like sex. I want to keep having it. If he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, or if I got to the point where I’m so bleched-out by him I can’t work it up (and why the FUCK hasn’t that happened yet?!), I’ll go find someone else.
Trish, I love your anger! There is a dope in your relationship but it ain’t you, honey. I had to laugh at the visual (more black humor) but only because my H had a real fixation with anal too – and I often thought that if he was so sure I would love it if I would just try it, we’d start off with jamming a dildo up HIS ass so he could see how exciting it was for him. Of course, who knows, maybe he’s already been there and done that.
Ok, I am just going to say this thread makes me go Ewwwww. I cannot imagine having sex with someone after finding out that they had been to prostitutes or orgies or massage parlors or… I just really can’t get my head around you all being able to stomach sex with them or even want to talk about having sex with them.
Of course, I was never in you all’s position. By the time I found out about the extramarital sex, I was done.
I just have a hard time understanding how you all get it out of your heads- the mental pictures of what they do. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get it out of my head with someone else, let alone him.
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