YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I'm so frustrated right now, I've got to get this off my chest. I've been married for 13 years. I've been faithful the entire time, never so much as flirted with another woman. My wife is absolutely beautiful to me, and although she's had weight issues, that has never affected my desire for her. Sometimes it's affected her libido, but I roll with the punches. Overall, we had a great sex life for the first six years of marriage.

My wife had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis as a child, although it went into remission before I met her. However, when we had kids, her arthritis came out of remission. It is quite severe, affecting practically every joint in her body. Between that and two kids, our sex life became pretty much non-existent for several years. And the thing is, I understood. Completely. This stupid disease took our ability to have sex away, but I get that. It was certainly not her fault, and I never tried to make her feel guilty, and I certainly never cheated on her.

About two years ago, she gets onto a medication that actually helps, and things are great, for about three months. Then, everything dries up. Sex is infrequent and perfunctory, and the RA affects a great many joints, including knuckles, wrists and jaw, so oral and even handjobs aren't an option. Then, about two months ago, she tells me that A) she's not really attracted to me since I gained weight (I'm 6', 215 lbs; some extra weight around the middle, but I'm not obese or anything) and B) she hasn't wanted to tell me, but she thinks the sex has never really been very good, and I was just good in comparison to her previous shitty partners.

I am now so angry, and so frustrated, with her. First off, her weight was NEVER an issue to me, and now I'm getting that same bullshit from her. Second, any weight I put on came after the sex stopped; my therapist thinks that I use food as a replacement physical activity instead of sex. Third, what a fucking double standard. If a man told their wife "You know, I'm not having sex with you because you got so fat. Plus, I don't think you've ever really been a particularly good lay," people would be coming out of the woodwork to tell her to divorce the piece of shit.

About a year ago, in the middle of a dry spell, my wife suddenly has a herpes outbreak. Her first, nothing like that has ever happened before. She came home and accused me of giving it to her, when I know that's not true. We figured it must have simply been dormant until now, but now I don't know. She takes lots of business trips, and I know she finds her boss attractive, and he hits on her.

The thing of it is, I love my wife. She's brilliant, and funny, and a good mother. She's, 99% of the time, loving and affectionate towards me. But I'm not going to act like a goddamn sitcom husband, begging for sex. I'm honestly considering trying to find a sex partner outside of the marriage. No emotion, just physical release, discrete, and if my wife comes around, I'll break it off. The thing is, I know this doesn't sound like a good idea, but it definitely sounds better than being celibate and resentful, or begging her for sex once every six months and feeling like shit afterwards. I'm not ready to just pack up that part of my life and only have sex on the rare occasions she's in the mood (Twice in 2007, for example). I don't know.

Hi, man. I can relate to your struggle in a broad sense (complex and mutually unsatisfying sexuality in a marriage involving medical issues, long dry spells and double standards?) though the specifics are pretty different. I can understand the frustration you feel as well as the pain from her comments.

I have a few observations/questions/suggestions. Have you gone to any kind of counseling together? Because maybe I'm reading between the lines, but I don't think this is only about the sex. Obviously there are differences in expectations and respect/consideration. I'm not sure what to think about the herpes. Do you have other reasons to suspect infidelity beyond that? If you love her and you want to figure out a solution with her, I hope that you can consider counseling as a vehicle for you to both learn to be more open and honest about your feelings and wants and needs. I am feeling like a hypocrite saying this because in ways, I have only taken baby steps to fix that. But this is your thread, not mine, and I hope that it works better for you.

With regard to looking outward for fulfillment, I have concerns, by not necessarily for the usual reasons. Bluntly, I'm nit sure that it will be easy for you to find a partner with whom it will just be physical and not emotional. And if you are not only getting physical needs met but also emotional needs, that is going to make your situation much more difficult and confusing if you do really love your wife. Trust me on this. Secondly, you have suspicions about her fidelity, and she has already falsely accused you of infidelity. If you cheat and she catches you, bluntly, you are screwed. Everything wrong with the marriage will be your fault. If she is cheating now or decides to then, she will consider it justified. I'm not trying to tell you what to of, but give you some things to consider.

You still have the opportunity to take the high road by deciding what status in the marriage would be ideal to you and what would be unacceptable, and make a genuine effort to work with her, just the two of you or in counseling to get there. If its not going to work, what at the other options? If there are other reasons that you want to stay together and not divorce, suggesting an open relationship? There either has to be room in the marriage for both of your needs or the marriage won't work. I hope that things improve for you, I really do.

gt thanks for sharing.

If I may offer my thoughts, keeping in mind I am a rake, and: single/never married/no children.

In complex situations like yours, I like to tease out individual situations, to get a little clarity. Of course, feel free to disagree with anything I say here. You know you best.

As I see it, you have situations with:

* Of all the sucky things that really suck in life, RA has to be among the suckiest. I hope she finds healing.
* Your weight gain/loss (215 lbs at 6 feet seems pretty normal; I am 5-10, 200 lbs and feel fine)
* Her weight gain/loss
* Her stated lack of desire for you since your "weight gain"
* Her disappointment in your sexual performance
* You have children. Hooray!
* Your wife has herpes, of unknown origin
* She is frequently wonderful

So for all the good things, hooray!

Of the sucky things, your story is sadly common.

Even if I wasn't a rake, I'd have a dim view of "monogamy" due to books like "The Red Queen" and "Sex and Dawn". As far as sex-positive commentators:

* If I had a nickel for every Nancy Friday respondent who starts "I am a happily married woman who deeply desires [multiple partners/LGBT experiences/paraphilias/etc]." Female sexuality is powerful, and should be celebrated.

* Dan Savage, on his podcast, frequently has callers with your situation. One married partner unilaterally decides to stop being GGG and is shocked- shocked!- when the partner strays.

The only analogy I can offer from my life is that alot of the women I date are some level of bisexual. I am many things, but as a cisgender male, I can never satisfy these women's bisexual needs for a woman. Never. Why then, should I be shocked if they go get those needs met by a woman?

Another issue is the question of decreasing female sexual response at a certain age. A recent New York Times magazine cover story dealt with this, and you may want to check it out.

In my humble, and very possible incorrect opinion, you and your wife are players, actors, in a drama that has few likely happy outcomes.

I do not blame either of you. Personally I blame the creaky institution of "monogamy". When you two got married you publicly agreed to a bunch of statements that may be difficult, impossible, and/or unpleasant to fulfill.

Like you say, whatever you say or do will make you look like a jerk.

For example, 13 years is plenty of time to express her dissatisfaction with your sexual technique. Could she have used her words to express this? Surely part of being GGG is expressing one's needs.

You are in a tough situation, man. I wish you well.

Well, here's a quick update. I spoke with my wife, and she doesn't even remember saying I was bad in bed, which is terrible either way. She's either lying, which is shitty, or it was just something she doesn't believe and she just said it to hurt me.

I've been thinking about her herpes, and I don't think there's anything devious behind it. I just don't think my wife would do anything with someone else. Then again, I'm sure she thinks the same about me...

It's funny that you mentioned Dan Savage, oak, because in between my post and reading your response, I read Dan Savage's new book, and called his podcast. The response I got from Dan on the podcast was pretty much the same as the chapter of the book: do what you have to do to stay married and stay sane, and to ask for permission, after she had offered it four years ago (which I turned down), would hurt her more.

So I did. In order to keep the emotion out of it, because I don't want to be tempted to form an emotional connection, I made it a financial transaction, shall we say. I met a lovely girl, was very safe and discrete, and could not perform. I thought it would just be sex, but clearly I have much more of an emotional requirement to sex than I realized. It felt good to take an action in favor of myself, to be "selfish" for a change, but it was clearly not what I thought it would be.

So, I'm back to where I was before.

Do I read correctly that you heard from the man himself, Dan Savage? And your call was on one of the podcasts? If so, sweet!

(btw, I just read his book and it made me double-triple-scared of monogamy. I am such a not-monogamous person. In general it is a great book.)

I am glad you sought out advice from a number of sources.

As far as your "failure to launch", sometimes it takes a few tries for our body processes to catch up with our emotional lives. In other words, one failure to launch is just that: one experience.

I am sorry you ended up in the same situation. At least you tried. Something could change in the future.

gt1, I can relate in many ways. I don't think I could have a sexual encounter without emotional connection even though sometimes I think I want the same thing that you thought you wanted. I am glad that you took action for yourself and allowed yourself to be selfish. It seems like you learned some things from the process about what you truly need and I hope you are able to use that insight going forward. I am an occasional listener to Mr Savage but have been slacking off lately, and I have to say I greatly admire your courage in reaching out to him. I wish I had the guts to do things like that.