extremely tough marriage problem, intimacy issues

[Complex]

Hi everyone, just joined Loveforum, nice to meet all of you.

Before I jump into my long and tangled story, I just want to say that I'm not looking for sympathy--I know that I have responsibility for the actions that got me into this sticky situation. I'm not going to pretend that I'm an innocent saint who's being hit with a hard fate; I brought it on myself and now what I'm trying to do is figure out how to resolve the situation in the way that keeps everyone else safe, because it's up to me to fix it. So here we go:

I've been married to my wife for 3 years now. She's a Chinese immigrant. We met 7 years before we got married, when I was working in China, and we had a long-distance relationship for all 7 years. So we only had a chance to really "live together" for the 3 months that she was on her fiancee visa before we got married.

About 2 years ago we stopped having sex. It had always been me initiating sex to begin with because she's very passive due to her culture and the particulars of her personal history. I stopped initiating, and she never started. It happened at a time when things became very stressful in our life--my grandmother died of a sudden illness and my wife came with me to help comfort her through her last terrible suffering. At this same time I got a very challenging new job that involved a lot of responsibility and many very humbling experiences for me, a job that I still have today.

My parents love my wife and have taken her into their lives as their own daughter. I can't really see her as a sex partner at this point; I see her as a family member whom I have to protect and honor. Sex just feels like it would be a violation of our close and affectionate relationship.

We did couples counseling for several months, at my request; my wife doesn't really think that anything is wrong. She wasn't having sex with anyone before we met, so a sexless marriage is not a big deal for her. She's just happy to be out of dirty polluted corrupt loveless China and be in a nice clean country with new parents who care about her (her mother was always very childish and never really gave her any love or acted as a supportive adult). We stopped going to couples therapy because my wife kept asking "when are you going to be cured so that we can stop spending our money on this?" Psychotherapy doesn't have any kind of respect in traditional Chinese culture, and that's the background she grew up in; she just sees it as a peculiar Western custom.

I've tried going to several different counselors individually; eventually we always get to the problem that my wife is not present and that I can't make much progress if she's not involved.

A big problem is that we are very different people in our sex desires. She has never had sex with anyone else (she's in her mid 30s) or even had another boyfriend or kissed anyone else, and she's very traditional in her taste; straight soft sensitive intercourse is about all she can handle. I'm very kinky, been with a lot of different women, into all kinds of bondage, role-playing, and harder sex in general.

The sex difference was never a big issue for us during our long-distance relationship; it was a time in our lives when both of us were very lonely and confused, and being in a relationship made each other feel stable. We would see each other once or twice a year, have a passionate, emotionally raw week together, cry a lot, and then go back to emailing and telephoning each other. So we grew closer in our hearts without ever confronting the challenges posed by our very different sex interests.

I'm very sex-hungry at this point and have no way to satisfy the desire: I want sex but I don't want it with my wife, because there is just so much emotional challenge there and it has been so long that it feels just _wrong_ to start doing it again. I just don't feel horny for her; yes i get aroused when we're touching each other but I feel very uncomfortable about following through, and she feels the same way. It feels like I would be forcing both of us to have sex against our will, and that feels painful and wrong. And I know that no matter what, it will never be the kind of sex that I want, because she can't handle that and doesn't want to.

I gave up masturbating several months ago, hoping that would fix things, but now it's just made things worse--I just feel constantly tense and frustrated.

The last piece in the puzzle is the economic one: she has no money or friends or job of her own here, so if we were to get divorced she would have no real means of support. And my parents did not raise me to be the kind of man who kicks a woman out onto the street when she becomes "inconvenient." Even though we have a prenuptial agreement, I'd still have to support her and keep watch over her if we got divorced, even if she remarried; I have lifetime financial responsibility for her due to the I-864 that I signed as a condition of her permanent residency. So I feel like I can never be free, no matter what.

I think it would also break my parents' hearts if they lost their favorite daughter-in-law because their son was being immature about his sex desire.

I care strongly about my wife's safety and happiness, but I'm also very frustrated that I'm not having the sex life that I hope for, and it seems like if things stay this way then I will never have sex again. I can't talk to her about it because she becomes very upset when I try to start discussing relationship issues with her (she's afraid that it means I'm trying to leave her). She has made it clear that an open marriage is not acceptable for her, so I can't ethically have a sexual relationship with another woman, and doing so would be toxic to my relationship with my wife (and probably with the other woman as well).

Basically, I think I made a mistake in getting married. At the time it seemed like the only reasonable thing to do--we couldn't bear to just end our relationship, and I wanted to rescue her from the crushing poverty and hopelessness that China held for her. But we should have been stronger, or, rather, I should have been stronger. I guess I didn't know how important a good sex life would be for me, and I underestimated how difficult it would be to arrange the relationship the way that I wanted. I didn't know it at the time. Now I recognize and accept that I made choices that put my wife and I in a very difficult and sad situation.

At least we don't have children. I am thankful for that every day.

So, I put myself in a bad place. Counseling hasn't worked, and I don't have a lot of money to spend on that anyways. So...

...what should I do? I can't turn back the clock. I have to deal with the here and now. It's a messy situation, but I need to be strong and do something about it. What should I do?

[Wakeup]

Talk to your parents and tell them that you have a room-mate, not a wife (no need to go into your kink with them)?
Talk to a lawyer and find out what he thinks you can do?
Tell your wife that you expect her to see a sex therapist with you and if she doesn't go with the intent to become sexual with you on a more compatible level, then you will be having outside sexual relationships while you remain her life-mate?
Leave and fulfil your financial obligation to wife and state?
Thank your higher power that she has had a less then stellar relationship with her mother or she'd be after you to bring her parents over too.

That's all I got. Good luck, you're going to need it.

[JustTooMuch]

Does your wife understand how close you are to leaving the marriage? Perhaps if she knows how dire of a situation it is, she will consent to getting help with her sexuality. Are there any Eastern medicinal counseling places available? If so she might be more open to counseling with someone of her own culture. I honestly think you should explain to her exactly where you are. Additionally, if you chose to stay with your wife you should address your own sexuality and see if you can come up with a compromise. I don't see her ever being into anything hardcore. But maybe you could find satisfaction in sexual message and eroticism. Just a thought.

Best of luck...

[michelle23]

I think you should get a divorce. You could forget the prenup and make sure she gets enough money to help her get back on her feet over the next 2-3 years. You should NOT have married her and some people would say "you made your bed so lie in it" but then you would probably eventually cheat which I do not agree with so your only option left is to leave her.

Let this be a lesson to you. Make sure your next woman is compatible with you and not just sexually-in every way.

I dont think any amount of sex therapy or counselling will fix this as she doesnt even understand that it is an issue. Maybe she grew up thinking sex is bad or dirty or maybe she never heard of it before she met you. Anyway nothing you do can change her mentality.

[freepsky]

I think you should get a divorce. You could forget the prenup and make sure she gets enough money to help her get back on her feet over the next 2-3 years. You should NOT have married her and some people would say "you made your bed so lie in it" but then you would probably eventually cheat which I do not agree with so your only option left is to leave her.

Let this be a lesson to you. Make sure your next woman is compatible with you and not just sexually-in every way.

I'm a woman and I fully agree.

[HeartIsAching]

I lived in a loveless, sexless relationship with a person of the opposite sex for years. At one point she had been my lover, but after years of non-love, non-sex, I started calling her my roommate.

[Complex]

Thank you all for your advice. It is probably a good idea for me to talk to a family law attorney at this point. It's hard because this is a sexless marriage but not a loveless one; I come home every day and feel that we have warm affection with each other. We are each other's cuddly stuffed animals. I feel that we stand to lose a lot of emotional security if we separate. we are, in a way,a family. but I need to remember that security is only valuable if it maintains my ability to experience pleasure.

[hassankhe]

I think you should get a divorce. You could forget the prenup and make sure she gets enough money to help her get back on her feet over the next 2-3 years. You should NOT have married her and some people would say "you made your bed so lie in it" but then you would probably eventually cheat which I do not agree with so your only option left is to leave her.

Let this be a lesson to you. Make sure your next woman is compatible with you and not just sexually-in every way.

I dont think any amount of sex therapy or counselling will fix this as she doesnt even understand that it is an issue. Maybe she grew up thinking sex is bad or dirty or maybe she never heard of it before she met you. Anyway nothing you do can change her mentality.

I agree with that

[michelle23]

sex is a physical and emotional need in a relationship. it doesnt matter how much love, affection and cuddles there is-your unhappy and want more than that. time to leave.

good luck

[dem862]

Well, it is easier to find sex than to find love. Your situation is not new or unique. A great many marriages end up sexless. It sounds like you still love your wife. You took responsibility for her when you brought her over from China and married her. It seems the nature of your relationship is that you agreed to provide her with financial support and she agreed to provide you with wifely duties. I am hearing that she is willing to have sex with you, if you initiate it and it is not too kinky, but you no longer have sexual feelings for her. She appears to be a loving wife in all other ways.

You say leaving her will be difficult because you have a generally recognized obligation to support this woman, perhaps for the rest of her life. You are contemplating discarding all of her positive contributions to your life, but you will retain the burden of financial support.

It is not unusual for a man in this situation to seek discrete sexual alternatives. Consider her daily contributions to your life versus your need for sexual outlet (which statistically is generally once or twice a week for the general population). I think you should consider the greatest good in this situation that would result in the least suffering to the fewest people.

[michelle23]

thats bad advice dem. cheating is not the answer here. it may be for you but its wrong to encourage others to do that. and its not gonna make the OP any happier coz hes looking for the whole package with one woman.

[Boisdevie]

Heres my advice. Try not to marry somebody you don't really know and haven't spent a significant amout of time with, ideally by living together. You've got yourself into a crappy situation and it's all of your own making. Well done.

[dem862]

thats bad advice dem. cheating is not the answer here. it may be for you but its wrong to encourage others to do that. and its not gonna make the OP any happier coz hes looking for the whole package with one woman.

The advice wasn't for you Michelle. Well all know your life is perfect and you and your boyfriend of 5 years who you met at 19 will never cheat because you are so happy together. But the OP has a real problem and there are real people involved with lives and feelings. Ultimately it is up to him as to whether or not a sexual alternative would make him happy. The fact is that not all people are fortunate enough to find love even once, much less twice. He does still have feelings for his wife. The fact is that discrete sex is extremely easy to obtain in modern adult society. The fact is there is a huge industry of gigantic proportions to provide sex to men in sexless marriages and many millions of men are partaking in this as you read this, all over the world, probably even in your village. I would not normally encourage this behavior, but it sounded to me like the OP is going to have to support this woman anyway, and she is providing some household duties that have value if he were to need to hire someone else to do them. This is not the typical sexless marriage problem because he is obligated to support this woman. It is going to be a costly matter for him to support another person in an independent living situation, think apartment. It is difficult to date when you are giving up a significant portion of your income, this I know from personal experience.

[michelle23]

its still wrong. he married her, he got himself into this mess and now he needs to get himself out of it. having his cake and eating it too is wrong. if everyone jumped off a bridge would you follow them? just coz other people are doing it doesnt make it ok. and if he really wanted to cheat he would have done so by now.

its not right to hurt her over and over again. shes not stupid and shell figure it out. its better to end the marriage

[dem862]

Well, why throw the baby out with the bath water? There are still positive aspects to his marriage. The sex is the only problem.

I don't think he would be hurting her over and over again. She is afraid of losing his financial support. She doesn't care about a sexual relationship, she just doesn't want to lose his emotional and financial support. There are women whose husbands have affairs and the women are quite happy to oblige and look the other way. This is obviously not a marriage between equals. I don't think your conventional wisdom applies.