Thank you for the suggestion. We had a really productive day today and are intending to pursue couples therapy, once we’ve healed enough in our individual therapy.

While my situation does rhyme with a lot of others, it has a bit more in common with being married to someone with cancer than the typical high-libido/low-libido issues. And, on top of that, communications failures and misunderstandings on both of our parts.

Sorry you’re going through this. She sounds like she’s being callous.

Somewhat initially, yes. She didn’t understand where I was coming from and what I was feeling. The size things was really fucked up but, that was nearly ten years ago now. The rest has been failures of communication, misunderstanding, and the sometimes myopic view that comes from being stuck in unresolved grief for 6 years. Now that she understands that it wasn’t just insecurity but feelings of long-term rejection cranked up to 11, she’s doing everything she can to help repair the damage and remasculate myself.

Shit still hurts down in this hole, but once upgraded to torchlight and am going to watch the LotR extended cuts, anhedonia be damned.

Don’t feel pressured to reply, reply more, nor even at all if you aren’t feeling it. I understand, and you owe no obligations. If I got you amped up, I apologize. If I didn’t, don’t worry that I apologized. Just chill and take it easy. You take care of you, one step at a time.

If by “amped up”, you mean “angered or upset”, nothing could be further from the case. I really appreciate your kindness and honest thoughtfulness, as well as perspective that you shared. I may or may not reply more thoroughly but I’ll definitely digest it a bit more.

I’m always up for a good read. Let me know if you happen to remember the title.

I hope I’m not offending you, but you posting this is a cry for help because you know how fucked up it is but are way too close and probably in a little bit of denial. It really fucking sucks but the only way to be happy is to end this relationship.

You are absolutely not offending me. Yes, I’d say that this has been more a cry into the void than a cry for help. There probably is some degree of denial in there, yes. But there’s also the fact that while the situation rhymes with others that are extremely predatory, golddigger things, it is not one. I am very deeply loved. I’ve been hurt, deeply, but most of the situation is not one where there is someone to blame. Which, makes it worse in some ways because there isn’t a concrete “enemy” that can be used to make things feel better, just abstract feelings and mental illness.

I have ADHD and was in a relationship with a person with undiagnosed (at the time) BPD, which was no picnic, and some of your writings give me flashbacks.

It’s funny that you should mention this because the worst stretch of time was when she was misdiagnosed with BPD and put on medication for it. They really fucked her up and she is constantly apologizing if anything about that time remotely comes up.

Overall, though, thank you very much. I want to spend some more time rereading what you wrote and giving a more thorough reply but right now, I’m about at my emotional limit and need to work on some self care and trying to be ok enough to message my therapist, not to mention taking in the work week.

Somewhat. They’ve had to contend when both the undermined confidence and my other meds, which is a challenge. Right now? There’s no way in Hel, Hades, or your favored choice of underworld that anything’s happening down there. The pills will only work if you’re capable of arousal, which I’m not particularly at this anhedonic juncture.

Huge red flag bro. That’s not a fuck up on your part, that is a reasonable question to ask at this point in your relationship after everything that has transpired.

In this case, it’s not as red flag as it would seem. She has huge guilt baggage from having cheated on her high school boyfriend who was an alcoholic who neglected her physically and emotionally. On my end, it was the insecurity that I was feeling picking the worst case scenario that I could think of and using it for emotional self-harm, without caring about how deeply the implied accusation would hurt her.

Hugs brother. I hope you find happiness soon, life is too short to spend it with someone not emotionally invested in the relationship.

Thank you very much! And really, that’s one of the worst parts of the situation. She IS emotionally invested and is overcome by shame and guilt over what’s happened. Knowing that it’s happening but because she is choosing it or because she genuinely isn’t interested in me kinda fucks me up more. At least if it were willful, I’d have someone concrete to blame.

I really do appreciate the out-of-the box thinking but, the hot wife/cuckold fetish isn’t for me. Power play and humiliation don’t do it for me, evoking emotional pain, instead of eroticism. For me, it would be more likely to cause needing to check myself into an inpatient psych faculty (I did a good bit of catastrophizing the other night). For any potential non-monogamy, I would need security, egality, and the ability to give each other a high five for our experiences.

Seriously, good suggestion though, if I were into such a thing/psychologically compatible with it. Maybe someone will have their interest piqued and land blissfully in a new-to-them fetish.

Man, this is a lot more than I’d trust some strangers on the internet to help with. Counseling (as a couple but especially for you) is the only advice I feel comfortable offering, as in, “my advice for you is to seek more qualified advice.”

I’d absolutely agree in most cases. I’m still a bit reeling and fucked up at the moment and needed to get it out before my next appointment and to get myself to even being ok sending messages about it to my therapist. I’m definitely intending to get into couples’ therapy again - last one wasn’t a good fit.

You clearly feel opposed to opening the relationship. For the time being, until these problems are well addressed, I wouldn’t consider that an option at all. It takes a lot of security and trust in each other to make a nonmanogamous relationship work which neither of you seem like you have.

Yeah. It feels a bit fucked up to me that I’d still be a bit ok with her being with another woman but, I don’t have any insecurity about having a vagina and I would genuinely be happy about her getting to explore that side of her identity. I certainly felt a lot more secure previously but without a healthy sex life in our relationship, yeah, there’s no way NOT to feel insecure when feeling frustrated like that. Add to that the introduction of insecurity about a part of me that I have no ability to change (without surgery that risks even more loss of functionality). If we had a healthy sex life, hey, I know I’m not swinging 8" and would be happy for her but right now, it’s not gonna happen.

Your wife frankly sounds like a bitch. I’m sorry if you’re offended at being told that

No. I’m not going to call you wrong or be offended. She absolutely has been in the past and regrets it deeply. There was a lot of good that came out of our previous attempt at couples therapy and she’s made concrete changes, in addition to apologies.

and I understand I’m kind of filling a stereotype of online relationship advice commenters, but I’d really be considering if your relationship with her is something you think both of you can/want to put effort into building or if you two have just grown too incompatible.

While this is sound advice, I think that, in ways, we’re in a bit of the opposite situation. Our increasing comfort with one another and our respective therapy allows us to better express ourselves than before, which also amplifies our ability to hurt one another, which is further augmented by my recently-discovered RSD. I’m not the most compatible with most people that I’ve had long-term relationships with due to my ADHD and all of the fun symptoms that I’m still working through.

At this point, I’d be taking a hard stock of your life and where you want it to end up.

Well, I certainly didn’t sign up for this. I still want to have kids and it’s looking less likely every year. But, even as low as I am now, I’m madly in love with her and she with me. Our fucked up brains are just great at causing unintentional harm from time to time. Most of the time, it’s good.