SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Curious about how sex resumed post infidelity. I wouldn't mind hearing perspectives from WW and the BS. Brief background. DDay was 12/18/20. I had been having casual sex with strangers and escorts for 8 years. We have been together 11 years. I 100% gave her access to everything and told her the truth about every question she asked. She even saw videos of my affairs. As painful as it was to disclose everything at once I just did it. I was done lying and just needed to get everything out. She was no doubt crushed and badly traumatized. I have completely owned my terrible behaviors and have taken all the blame for betraying her, putting her at risk, putting our family at risk(3 kids), and living a double life. I have and will continue to work as hard as I can to save my marriage and be the husband she always deserved. I have been in IC counseling since DDay and we have been in Marriage counseling since DDay too. We started a new MC in July who has been incredibly helpful compared to our first MC, who did very little if anything to help us. My wife is as happy as she can be with my response and we are attempting R. A brief background about my wife and some current concerns. Let me preface this with the fact that I am not justifying any of my previous behaviors in anyway. My wife has always battled alcoholism and depression. I was always forthcoming about my dissatisfaction with my wife always needing to be drunk to have sex throughout our entire marriage. She used to say it was because she didn't feel sexy and the alcohol helped. Post DDay her story changed and she said she never wanted sex because she never felt connected to me, and my affairs explained why to her. Now, understandably, she will not have sex with me because the trauma and triggers regarding sex. Over time I developed belief that my wife was not attracted to me sexually and needed alcohol to go through with sex. We might have had sober sex once a year on average. She has always battled depression. We had the typical hysterical bonding sex early after DDay. After the initial phase sex was happening on occasion, but rarely and alcohol had to be involved. My wife has now been sober for over a month, but sex has completely gone away. I am proud of her staying sober, and I am glad to know if we have sex again it will be with her feelings not muted with the booze. I now know that feeling wanted meets my psychological need for esteem. I will not go back to my old ways, continue to shit on my integrity, and lose my family because of to meet his need. Can anyone add some perspective on how long if ever it took for sex to return? Does sex ever improve for the BS, and is it always tainted. Now my wife is a better looking person that me. I am in good shape and nice looking, but women have never thrown themselves at me etc. I seriously wonder if she is attracted to me in that way. Our first year together the sex was great, but I wonder if I have just done to much damage at this point. I honestly think she deserves to be with someone she desires in that way.

I would like to help you, but this doesn't sound like the typical "sex after betrayal" scenario. Dead bedrooms pop up here from time to time (though it's not as frequent as most people assume; we regularly hear BS tell us that "I was completely blindsided because our sex life was terrific"). Your history of infrequent sex, paired with your WW drinking heavily every time it happens, indicates to me that there's something else going on with her. If she were on the site, I would encourage her to pursue individual counseling for now rather than marriage counseling. She needs a lot of healing for herself before you hire someone whose primary goal is getting you back together.

I'm with BSR on this. It's hard to remotely get to the underpinnings of each of your issues and which issue came first, which issue exacerbated other issues. We all can agree that a DB is no reason to cheat. And, as BSR stated, a dead bedroom is a matter of relative perception that is often seen in mismatched sexual needs.

A Dead Bedroom, sexual needs mismatch, and feelings of inadequacy are already difficult issues to resolve on thier own without the added complication of infidelity.

Intimacy is usually at root of such issues. Not the physical kind of intimacy, but rather emotional intimacy. Emotional intimacy is rooted in deep trust. If someone can't emotionally open up to you, expose thier innerself to you, make themself vulnerable to you, emotionally-mentally naked, then they're not going to be able to manifest that physically.

Unfortunately, trust has been damaged.

Post DD I was able to have sex with my WW, but love making was difficult. The specialness was gone. The trust was gone.

Your BS needs to feel special and not just another one of your hook-ups.

There are many factors involved in DB's, everything from poor chemistry, labido mispatch, insecurity and body immage issues which lead to inhibitions, religious and or FOO inhibitions, past sexual trauma, stress, resentments and anxiety, lack of emotional connection...

and the list goes on, and you just added to this list.

The last issue "Lack of Emotional Connection" is a big one with the ladies. If they don't feel deeply loved, special and appreciated...

I've had some experiance with partners who needed alcohol to get in the mood. I too questioned if it was because they did not desire me or were not attracted to me. I craved sober love making vs drunk shallow sex. I wanted my partner conscious and fully in the moment. I would then react to my fears and suspicions with passive aggresive games, ploys and pouting that just exascerbated the situation. I got my shit together and tried a more mature-enlightened approach. Turned out, after some deep-intimate honest loving discussion, that she had inhibitions born from very personal insecurities and past sexual trauma. She trusted me with this profoundly personal revelation. She made herself vulnerable to me with this information and this drew us closer together. It was from here we were able to work the problem, very patiently, by degrees, at her pace.

Your affairs are going to be a huge setback in the resolution of the pre affair issues and the evolution of those issues and, now, the post affair issues and the spin-off metastatic issues. This is going to take some deep IC and loving patience.

I believe the place to start is by sewing the seeds of trust, trust leads to emotional intimacy, which leads to physcial intimacy.