I’ve been lurking here for a while, but I finally feel like I need to put my thoughts down. I’ve been married for 16 years, and our bedroom has been dead for 10 of those years. For the last 2 years, we’ve had separate bedrooms.

Yesterday, I finally gathered up the courage and had “the talk.” I told her how hurt, alone, and rejected I felt, and I asked if there was anything we could do to have even just a little bit of intimacy.

Her response? She admitted that she has very low libido and, on top of that, she doesn’t feel attracted to me anymore. She loves me and the life we’ve built, but she can’t ever see us having sex again.

Like most people here, I’m HL, and one of the things that kept me going all this time was the hope that something would change. But now I know it won’t, and I just feel… lost. I yearn for connection, for intimacy, but it feels like that door is completely closed now.

I don’t know how to process this. I feel so utterly alone, and like there’s no way out of this. It’s like I’ve been holding onto something that was never really there.

No advice needed, I just needed a space to vomit all of this out.