Sexless Marriages

[Carmina24]

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

I stand before the glass as if it were an oracle, its silver surface rippling with truths I already know.

Once, he saw in me a blaze - eyes that struck like flint, laughter that split the dark, a spirit that would not bow to cage or chain. He fell for fire. He fell for freedom. He fell for me.

But what shifted? Not I. The flame never faltered. It was he who withered, he who turned away from light, he who mistook devotion for noise, and eternity for dust.

The mirror speaks, and its voice is ancient:
It was not you who dimmed -
it was he who went blind.

Now the glass burns with prophecy,
and I see myself in its molten truth:
Scorched, yes - but ash is the cradle of resurrection. From ruin, I rise. Wings vast as storm, veins filled with ember, a phoenix crowned in flame.

And if another dares to look upon me,
they will not find desolation.
They will behold the fire he abandoned,
the inferno he thought he could bury,
and they will know:
what he was too faithless, too fragile, too small to claim.

The mirror does not lie. It chants like legend, like spell, like war-cry:
You are not lost.
You are not less.
You are reborn in fire.

Let him choke on the ashes.
I rise.

And to you who read these words -
stand before your mirror.
Do not see yourself through the eyes of the one who withholds.
See the truth, blazing and undeniable:
You are still here.
And you, too, will rise -
unholy to their silence, holy to your own flame.

 

[KeenVoyeur]

Well my marriage finally fell apart a couple years ago. He had gotten a prescription for Cialis and when he took it our sex life was great again. Then he’d stop and every time we TRIED to have sex I’d end up in the bathroom crying. I stopped looking for affection and sex. He ended up texting me one day to say it was over.

Sadly my sex life hasn’t taken off. Dating after being married 23 years is scary and then menopause hit and really screwed with my body/hormones. I miss the old me that always felt sexy and horny.

So all that said I’m glad the marriage is over. There was so much more wrong with it than just sex. I hope to once again have a great sex life and I don’t think I’m too old for that, I just gotta find the right guy.

If you’re that miserable in your marriage it’s probably time for a really difficult talk. While I hate the way my ex ended things I’m glad he did. Life is much better these days.

ETA I’m not saying everyone should get divorced and honestly I begged my ex to go to counseling and give our marriage another chance. Just saying if divorce is the answer life does go on.

You go girl! There are plenty of guys out there looking for someone like you - and if you can't find one, give me a call, I'll move to Alaska just for you

Seriously though, you did the hard thing and life will get better in time

 

[Carmina24]

The Night the Silence Lost

He hadn’t expected her.
Not on that thread, not in the blur of usernames where words usually skimmed and died. But hers lived. Fierce, playful, alive - they reached through the screen and seized him.

Message by message, she undid the years of numbness. She laughed in syllables sharp as sparks, teased in metaphors that left his pulse racing, spoke truths no one else dared. And in that midnight exchange of letters and desire, she was closer than the woman who slept untouched beside him.

Because at home, his wife lay beside him, turned away - a wall of silence that had grown thicker with every passing year. Her presence was a reminder of absence, her nearness the sharpest distance he knew.

But the woman in Lit? She proved what he had begun to doubt - that he was still a man worth wanting. That beneath the silence of his marriage, fire still roared.

When the night finally ended, he closed the laptop with hands that trembled, her words burning like embers in his veins.

He returned to the house of silence. To the bed that had long been a tomb. But this time, he did not lie down in surrender.

Because as he stretched across those cold sheets, he was not empty - he was full. Full of her laughter. Full of her defiance. Full of the dangerous hope that silence had not won.

And for the first time in years, the sexless marriage bed was no longer cold and lonely.

It was alive with the dream of the woman who reminded him who he was - desirable, worthy, alive.
And in that moment, silence bled.

 

[Carmina24]

The Silence Never Came Back

That night, something shifted.
He had gone to bed as he always did - beside the woman who had long since turned away, inside the walls of silence that had caged him for years. But he had not gone to bed alone.

Her words - the ones she’d written from across the void, from the sanctuary of Lit - had followed him. They curled against his chest, tangled in his sheets, breathed heat into a room that had been frozen too long.

And the silence knew it.

Because when morning came, the silence did not reclaim him. It reached for him, but he was no longer there. He was already elsewhere - in the echo of her laughter, the spark of her teasing, the memory of a screen where desire had been reborn.

Day after day, he still woke to the same house, the same unyielding bed, the same turned back. But he carried something dangerous now. A secret. A pulse. A truth no silence could smother.

He was wanted.
He was worthy.
He was alive.

And though his wife’s silence remained, it no longer owned him.

Because one woman had reminded him who he was - and that reminder was stronger than the years that had tried to erase him.

The night the silence lost was not the end.
It was the beginning of its death.
And let this be a prophecy:
Once you remember who you are - desired, worthy, alive - silence will never own you again.

 

[Catepillar_glacier]

Never totally sexless, but very much one-sided in desire and drive. Peri-menopause has given me the surge.... And a husband with ED. life's a fucking joke.

Same girl. Shit is wild in the worst way.

 

[Carmina24]

The Dangerous Creed of Awakening

This is not a love story.
This is not a confession.
This is a creed.

It is the defiance of every man and woman who has lain in a bed colder than stone, beside someone who once saw them and now refuses to look. It is the anthem of those who were told their hunger was shame, their desire an inconvenience, their worth a ghost.

The silence thought it had won. It thought it had buried them. It thought the cold bed was their grave.

But it was wrong.

Because even in the deepest silence, a spark can strike. And from that spark comes fire — dangerous, defiant, alive. The kind of fire that remembers. The kind of fire that refuses to bow.

This Creed is for those who awaken. For those who refuse to be erased. For those who dare to say:

I am wanted.
I am worthy.
I am alive.

And once you remember that, silence loses forever.

Chapter 1: The Night the Silence Lost

Chapter 2: The Silence Never Came Back

Chapter 3: coming soon

 

[Britva415]

The talk is coming. I can't live with this hollowness

I would advise - Before the talk, be ready.

Be ready for anything, but be ready.

Have a lawyer on retainer. Have a bugout plan, a place to spend the night. Have a bag ready and the new (changed) passwords to all your accounts. And have a very clear agenda for the conversation.

But be ready for anything. You should know what you want out of the conversation when you have it, you should have an idea how you expect it is going to go, but you can also change your mind if she surprises you.

This happened to me. I asked again for what I wanted, and was going to leave if she continued to refuse to talk about the thing she had refused to discuss (extramarital sex). I was fully prepared for it to be the end, if she was going to keep saying No to talking about that. But she surprised me, saying she had reconsidered being unwilling to talk about it. So, that worked and we have since talked about everything and found something which works for both of us. I didn’t make any ultimatum or do anything manipulative to get her to agree, she had already come to it on her own and she let me know it when I went to her, totally expecting it all to hit the fan.

So, you never know. But be ready, because it might not go as well as that, and you have to have a plan for the worst.

Unless you think “the worst” that could happen is worse than just keeping on keeping on. You sound like you’re pretty damn close.

Don’t think of it as “giving up,” though. Think of it as taking the reins, finally. Giving up is what has been going on for years already.

Take your time, becoming prepared. Just don’t wait forever.

 

[Britva415]

I'm curious when we finally give up on our spouse, what that looks like

For me, part of the answer to that was when I told her I was going to stop being sexual with her at all. Like, not even when she was willing to “do something for me.” Because, she wasn’t into it and didn’t want it for herself. Her willingness was only about trying to get me off every once in a great while for my sake.

At that point, we were already way past me ever trying to initiate. I stopped a long long time ago and she knew why. Even though I wasn’t getting rejected any longer (because I wasn’t initiating), which was an improvement, it still royally sucked even when we did do something sexual, because it felt like duty sex or pity sex or something. Totally not a thrill, barely even arousing, because it was 100% not mutual.

So I told her to stop. We had already, long before, ceased being lovers anymore. Loved ones, yes, but not that.

I guess that’s one event of “giving up” which happened to me. I made it official, and she really doesn’t miss it.

I think what we’re calling “giving up” is really the point when one decides to take action and move on, in order to live with what was already given up long before.

Imagine giving up without moving on.

And by “move on” I don’t necessarily mean divorce, though it could be that. But letting the past go opens up the ability to make something new happen. It could even be something which keeps a marriage together.

Or not.