20 Year Marriage - Stay or Go

We’ve been married 20 years. I always had my blinkers on and thought we were solid and I always thought we had a pretty good sex life (he is the only man I’ve eve slept with). 5 years ago I saw an email (we have access to each others accounts) where he signed up as ‘wife not put out’ looking out for local hookups. I confronted him and he said he was just curious. Anyway, over time we visited a counselor and works things through, but the trust was gone. Fast forward 2 years and we moved to a different town. I moved with the kids first while he finished up with work. We’ve got 3 kids 16, 14 & 12. We have each other on find my friends and I rang one afternoon when I really needed to talk about something and I was sent to voicemail, his location showed he was at a random house. When he called me back he said he was still at work. I never called him on it but did check his location after work a few times over the next couple of weeks, always the same house for about half an hour. After I confronted him, he said he was doing work at a woman’s house. After asking what’s he’d find there he denied, denied, denied anything ever happened. She just happened to move a week after I found out.

Anyway, more counseling and moving forward, I wasn’t ready to destroy our family unit.

He is the golden boy, everyone loves him. He is a great dad but to me he is like a 44 year old kid.

The last few years he can’t get hard. Sex is a freakin joke, no matter how hard I try and effort I put in. After another unsuccessful attempt the other night I asked if he got hard watching porn. He said he does and maybe he needs to cut back on it. I said maybe it’s me who doesn’t do it for me, he said maybe it is. It broke my heart. The other night I was unwell and vomiting in the middle of the night, he never checked on me. When I got back into bed he just said “you alright now”. Geez I’m sick of being a room mate who cleans and cooks (and works). But I’m reluctant to throw away 20 years marriage. But I don’t think I can spend the rest of my life like this. I don’t want to break my family up, I’ll be the bad guy but I’ve done nothing wrong? Any advice??

Check out chumplady.com and see if any of that resonates

What did counselling achieve?

I don’t think he should necessarily get out of bed to check on you vomiting during the night. You are an adult.

So I’m unsure of the relevance of that point.

As far as cheating goes, you don’t have any concrete evidence apart from that 5 years ago he signed up to a site.

But no evidence to suggest he took it further.

What does he do for work? Is it feasible that he actually was working at someone’s house?

As for him being able to get it up watching porn, have you ever watched it with him?

And as for his response that maybe it is you, have you actually considered the fact that perhaps that’s because of 5 year long issues and an inability to rebuild trust?

Trust needs to be placed in another. Not earned as many people believe. If the trust you place is clearly broken , then you choose to accept or leave.

But to stay with someone and not trust them , no relationship can survive that.

I have no idea if he ever cheated, you don’t either.

But you mistrust him and check up on him constantly.

He knows that .

So place trust or leave.

"But I don’t think I can spend the rest of my life like this. I don’t want to break my family up, I’ll be the bad guy but I’ve done nothing wrong?"

- Until you sort out what you really want, I'm not sure anyone can help you.

The best thing to do is privately and confidentially make appts with and consult and attorney and a therapist. Discuss the logistical options you have in a divorce with an attorney. Discuss your current issues and your thoughts on staying vs going with a therapist.

At 44 there are a host of things that can cause ED, including situational ED. It is often one of the first symptoms of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, depression, neurological problems and a host of other problems. How is his health in general? Is he obese or a smoker, heavy drinker, drug user, etc?

You are foolishly pointing fingers at porn and your attractiveness, but at his age the multitude of factors contributing to ED is too great. He as well may think it's due to lack of novelty/excitement and be in denial about his age/health. However it must be him who chooses to do something about it and get to a doctor.

You don't seem ready to leave and you don't seem ready to address the facts or committed to resolving problems, including leaving him if your contempt is this intensive. You, as well, would benefit from individual objective therapy.

We’ve been married 20 years.We’ve got 3 kids 16, 14 & 12.

Anyway, more counseling and moving forward, I wasn’t ready to destroy our family unit.

 

he is like a 44 year old kid.

The last few years he can’t get hard.

I said maybe it’s me who doesn’t do it for me, he said maybe it is

You shouldn't spend the rest of your life that. You'll spend countless hours wondering and worrying about what is going on. Exhaust your options before pulling the plug and breaking the family up. He vowed to be with you forever and that needs to be something he can't forget. I'd say try the counseling again, talk to each about expectations and see how that goes. Trust has to be established again without a doubt.

This will probably not be a popular opinion, but as a woman myself have you ever thought that maybe your actions have driven him to this behavior? “Sex is a freakin joke” but could this be because he can sense you’re not really into it or trying because of how hurt you are? He’s not concerned about your vomiting, maybe because he’s tired of the way you treat him? Is it possible that he obviously still loves you, but he’s not getting his needs met by you in other ways (not even sex) which is why he is not sympathetic? Just maybe if you could let the resentment go and wake up every day and say ‘how can I make his day better’ that maybe he would do the same? You sound very hurt and I’m not diminishing your feelings. But I would say marriage is a two way street and maybe you don’t realize what you have done to this relationship as well? After 20 years you obviously care for each other but you can’t place blame on only one person. Maybe just take an inward approach instead of blaming it all on him. I don’t condone cheating and I don’t condone lying. But sometimes we create those things without realizing what we are doing to our significant others.