Expectations

Here’s a dirty little secret – I’m in my mid 40s and I feel like I’m basically post-sexual. My wife is not really interested in sex any longer. Or rather, she’s not interested in initiating sex at all. Hell, she barely touches me these days. I don’t doubt for one hot second that she still loves me, but I just don’t think that sex even registers with her any longer. Granted, we have a lot of irons in the fire right now, so sex for both of us is kind of at the bottom of the list of priorities. But it’s been so long since she has touched me – sometimes even trying to get a hug out of her is hard.

I was talking with my therapist about this last week and what I really want to say to her is “I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you, but if you’re not interested in sex or touch any longer, I want to find someone who is interested in that to meet that need in me.” I’m not sure how that would go over. I mean, at least it would be honest. It’s not something I can say right now – the soonest I could do it is later this year when, at least theoretically, a lot of things in our life will have calmed down.

But the truth is I miss being touched. It’s not even about the sex. I get a lot more satisfaction from loving touch than I do from sex. And if she were ok with it and if I were to try to find that elsewhere, I would definitely look for a man to fulfill that. It would feel less likely being unfaithful to my marriage vows, even though it is JUST as unfaithful to my marriage vows as being with a woman. But the fact remains that crave a man’s touch like nothing else these days. It’s so bad that I went to a doctor’s appointment not terribly long ago and I liked it when the doctor touched me – not in a sexual, oh-I’m-hard-now type of way, but in the oh-look-someone’s-touching-me-and-that-feels-good kind of way.  It reminds me of how when I was in college and I would go touch the backs of the male mannequins in department stores, figuring that was as close to touching a man as I’d ever get.

I guess I don’t think it’s an unreasonable expectation to want to be touched. Maybe the unreasonable part is to want it from a man when you’re married to a woman. I don’t know. It’s not like I have any prospects or anything, so to bring this up with her now would just be angst producing in a household that has more than its share of angst and drama right now. I don’t want to add to it. The one thing I won’t do is cheat or go behind her back to get that touch. I’d rather not have it than do that to my family.