I feel like I’ve finally found my people.

36m, marred since 2013. In 2016, wife had two separate, unrelated, but significant medical events that (among other, more major things) eliminated her libido and made sex in any position painful for her. Sex between us stopped shortly thereafter, and won’t resume.

My DB has been going on for 5 years now, so I’ve gone through a lot of the feelings I see folks navigating with here: depression, anger, mourning, more depression, more anger, depression plus anger at myself for being depressed and angry about it, etc etc. You guys know the drill.

After 5 years, my perspective has finally shifted to accepting this new reality as “Act 2” of my marriage/life. In Act 2, my primary focus is on being good provider for my wife and daughter. That requires me to unashamedly make my own needs more of a priority. I make time for golf, running, woodworking, and yes, sex with others. Sex is done without her knowledge or consent. It’s infrequent, but it happens.

I also prioritize “therapy.” I have a small community of similarly aged people IRL that have spouses with similar issues. Most I’ve met through PT/OT/SLT. We share laughs, tears, and fears. Mostly tears though. We quickly learned that each one of us has sex with other people; most do so without their spouse’s knowledge or consent. We each have our own justifications, but in the end, we do what we feel we need to do in order to be there for our spouses.

I don’t have any special or magic insight here. I still struggling with this, just like you all do. I just hope everyone here realizes, if they haven’t already, that your needs matter, too. You matter.