I'll do what I can. What would you like advice on?

That isn't what she said. You're just being passive aggressive and silly again. It isn't wrong to say, "This is not what I signed up for," when someone is ambushing you. If you have a problem with that idea, you're being narcissistic.

Do you think your wife owes you sex? Do you think she owes you any kind of sex you want? Is marrying someone consent to whatever they want to do whenever and forever regardless of whether or not they like it? Take the pissing and whining to the ATM, withdraw a few hundred bucks and do your exploring with a hooker before you decide it's worth destroying your marriage for orgasms.

Sincerely, someone whose husband figured out he was asexual after his manopause, and managed to get over it because we were always honest with each other, polyamorous, and didn't marry to have a legally obligated hole or shaft to exploit.

Hello Haley :-)

Your husband is probably not Gay, but if his orientation means that you are sexually incompatible, then you may have to grieve as if he is Gay. It may be difficult to see this right now, but it is actually very freeing when things are made clear. Sit down with him and have a talk about it. Try your best not to be judgemental about his orientation, but do be judgmental about the fact that he should have kept you informed and been honest with you and himself about who he was. Sometimes it\'s not about self honesty though. Sometimes it\'s just biology. When a man\'s overall sex drive begins to wane between 30-60 depending on the guy, his range narrows significantly. This is why many Gay men come out in their 30\'s and 40\'s. Sometimes they truly do not know that their orientation had boundaries because when they were young and the hormones were raging, they could do anything they set their minds to. It\'s not that their feelings for you or the sex with you was fake. They were just horny enough to make room for all sorts that when they get older, they are no longer able to manage.

At some point, you will have to figure out whether you\'re his beard or his wife, the same as if he was Gay. If it turns out that you were a beard, just a status object or breeder, you may want out of that relationship. If, on the other hand, he does actually love you as a companion and not just a convenience, even though you will have to open or extend the marriage to get your needs met, you may want to stay in.

If you do decide to stay in, give yourself time to grieve for the lost sexual connection between you two. Find a friend, preferably one who is French, Brazilian, or from another culture wherein people marry for life and just make the necessary adjustments along the way, but one who understands your situation well enough not to push you in that direction, and let it happen naturally. You will need to bend their ear for awhile. It could take you a year or two to adjust your mind to really hearing their wisdom, or you may just jump right into it.

Once you get to that point, you and he will basically have separate sex lives, but you can still show each other affection...but don\'t rush this. When I went through it, there were some years before I was able to kiss my husband on the lips again. It reminded me too much of the loss.

...and it is a loss. Don\'t listen to people who tell you that sex isn\'t important in a marriage. It is very important. It\'s as important as a mother feeding her child. Sure, there is formula and someone else can feed them, but it\'s not the same and doesn\'t have the same meaning. That meaning is hard wired into our DNA, and were it not, we would be snakes. So if your husband isn\'t into sex, this is not what you signed up for, something is missing, and it is time to renegotiate. He will have to find some way of compensating for the lack of sex. One good thing he can do for you is to be a protector.

Since you will be sexually \"on the market\" again, and trying to find partners who are caring but okay with your non conventional situation, you will need him to help you to vet partners and handle any drama that may occur. Since he\'s not going to penetrate, he\'s got to step up the protection. So when you put him on a diet, make sure he exercises, and make sure the firearms are all in good repair, you don\'t want to hear any guff or whining about that.

By the same, if he warns you that a guy is bad news, you should listen. He will have irrational fears from time to time that you would leave him for someone just for the sex, but continuing to take care of him and mind his health and abilities as a protector and provider and companion usually allay those fears eventually. Still, if he tells you be careful of someone, take heed because men know men better than we can possibly know men.

Orientation is a complicated thing, and so is marriage. There is no \"happily ever after\". There is forging and maintaining a relationship with a human being made of flesh, blood, and bone just like you and me...and love is a madness. It is a beautiful madness that doesn\'t break over sex. If it does, then maybe it wasn\'t love...and if that\'s the case, then that\'s okay. I\'ve seen men and women in your situation who, upon self exploration, realized that their non sexual or differently oriented partner was their beard in a way. Some missed the signs that the person was maybe not into the sex as much as they were, or getting as good things out of it as they were. You shouldn\'t judge yourself too much either.

Just whatever you do, don\'t let it set and fester into resentment. A relationship takes work, even if in the end, you are better off as just friends. Both of you can learn and grow from this.

Good luck, and Blessings! :-)

I never understood that. Where I wouldn\'t penalize a guy for being circumcised, I do get a sort of pang of horror when I see it. There\'s this giant scar all the way around, and you wonder, \"I wonder how this one is broken...\"

Every man who has had that inflicted on him has some kind of dysfunction. There is nerve damage, circulation problems that come out as they age...people should not do this to boys. Ever.

That doesn\'t make any sense. Men are usually better writers on relationships than women.

...but thank you. I am flattered.

If you\'re curious as to what happened, my mother was shot when I was a baby, and my father saved my and her life. From there, he was the one who did most of the practical caring for me and nurturing me until I was six years old. So as fractured femininity goes, I\'m an Electra with a touch of Athena.

So no, I am not exactly the most estrogenic thinker, but I\'ve been through the paces of womanhood. I don\'t claim to have all the answers, but I do know some things.

I don\'t really know what to tell you guys. It\'s Nature. That\'s it. You will break your mind trying to find the reason in it if you don\'t simply accept Nature.

My theory is that it has something to do with a rough subconscious calculation of genetic fitness. Our dominance is mostly for the sake of motherhood and emergencies, but in a partner, most of us are seeking someone more \"man\" than we are.

Well, I see that you\'re from the land of cats riding unicorns over rainbows...

Hello Tiffany :-) This is a good question. Basically, you have to learn to let go of the need for consensus because men don\'t really need it. Their question is whether or not something will break something. If the issue itself is not a matter of integrity, try not to let the argument or who wins it become the matter of integrity.

Ask him to humor you or try it your way, even if he thinks your idea is bad or not the best idea. If it\'s about something that\'s not even really his domain, tell him that it\'s hard for you to take the responsibility without having the authority to decide how something gets done.

Just basically try to nip possible personality conflicts in the bud. Tell him that you understand his point of view, but yours is different.

Hugh, under good circumstances, when everybody\'s comfortable with themselves and in synch with their partner, whether or not they have intercourse and how, is up to them. Not every guy even likes intercourse, and it may be a relief to them when their wife no longer demands it of them.
The problem is when there is a mismatch, or when someone changes too much and causes a division, or when people confuse a short term fascination or exploration with identity.
A mismatch, even when it\'s due to a life change, is nobody\'s fault. Deciding that because sometimes one prefers to be passive in bed, that one is all-around submissive, and bringing that identity issue into the marriage is when it becomes a problem that a guy who is not truly submissive would feel alienated because of a lack of intercourse. This is not to say that submissive guys never like intercourse. It\'s just kind of rare to the point that it begs the question.
A marriage isn\'t a thousand night stand. It\'s the beginning of a family unit. Because men compartmentalize sex from making love, they can also compartmentalize kinky sex from marital sex is they want. It\'s okay to like different flavors in different situations and with different people.
It\'s only recently that western women have decided that sex with one woman has to be a man\'s everything all the time, and that women should be unnaturally flexible, spinning too many plates at once. This is just not how humans work.