oh Amy no

[ysobel]

Dear Amy: I have been to therapy off and on throughout the course of my 40-plus-year marriage.

The advice I’ve been given is to pray about it, to find a hobby or to get a divorce.

My wife is my best friend and I love her dearly, but when it comes to love and affection, she is not interested. We have slept in separate bedrooms for most of our marriage. There is never any hand holding, cuddling or intimacy.

When I tell her how lonely I am, she basically ignores me. She is not willing to attend couples’ therapy and is perfectly content with our platonic relationship.

I have hobbies and grandchildren to occupy my days, but I’m extremely lonely. I’m in great shape for my age and hope to live another 30 years.

I can’t bear to think that I will live out the rest of my life being lonesome and wanting a woman’s affection. I’ve been faithful through all of this, but worry about giving in to temptation someday.

Any advice?

— Suffering from Touch Deprivation

Suffering: I don’t know about praying this loneliness away, but I’d add an idea to your basket of solicited advice: If you are unwilling to leave your marriage in order to pursue the possibility of other relationships, you could approach your wife to see if she is willing to “open” your marriage so that you could both step out, possibly for a trial period of a few months.

If you two are best friends and great roommates, she may be willing to participate in this experiment.

There is a substantial downside to this sort of trial: harsh judgment from children, family members and friends, as well as the loneliness and disappointment that so often accompanies dating.

Comments

[ambyr]

I would love to know whether the many people giving this “open your marriage for a trial period” advice have ever considered the other side of this equation: that is, assuming he honestly represents the situation, the likelihood that any other woman is going to jump at the chance to be his one-night stand or fuckbuddy is fairly low. What’s in it for her, this hypothetical other woman? Dick, as they say, is abundant, and frequently available on better terms than this.

[minoanmiss]

"Relationship malfunctioning, add more people" is a trick that does not work.

[lethe1]

Does he use "lonely" as a euphemism for lacking sex/cuddles/intimacy? Because I don't understand how he can be lonely and simultaneously claim his wife is his best friend. It also seems strange that as his best friend, she wouldn't be upset about his feeling lonely.

[melannen]

Is it really true that people are married to their "best friends" but won't hold their hands or hug them?

I do get that some people are completely touch-averse, and that's something that needs to be worked out in a marriage. But LW can't decide if a) he's lonely, b) he's touch-starved, or c) he's not content with a 'platonic' relationship.

LW it's possible to have a platonic relationship that isn't lonely and that involves a lot of touch! Is it possible - just possible - that the reason she doesn't like cuddling with you is that cuddling with you always turns into being pestered for sex? Is it possible she ignores you when you talk about being 'lonely' because you've spent years using 'lonely' as a code-word for 'I am owed sex'? Because that's a different problem than what you're claiming you're asking about.

[jadelennox]

or is it possible she's your best friend but you're not hers? Maybe she's not that into you. If she won't go to therapy with you or discuss your loneliness, then no matter whose fault it is (or nobody's), then she's not willing to discuss your misery with you. "End this miserable situation with a person who doesn't care that you're lonely, touch-starved, or a horny mf"; "decide to maintain the charade while seeking emotional or sexual fulfillment elsewhere"; or "suck it up" seem to be the only practical choices, regardless of morality or fairness, if she doesn't want to fix things.

[melannen]

Yeah, that's kind of what I was going for with the question about "best friends". LW if she ignores you when you ask for a hug because you're lonely, and you think you're best friends, you need a better metric for what a best friend is!

It doesn't really matter why she's ignoring you or whose fault it is, you first need to figure out that maybe you aren't best friends anymore.

[cimorene]

My guess is that all of it - lonely, touch-starved, and even therapy - is code for wanting sexual contact with this guy. The therapy would likely be to fix the lack of sex, in his mind, and the reason he says she "basically" ignores him is probably that she DOES take a platonic interest when he claims to be lonely but she isn't willing to provide any sexual contact, just talking or activities together perhaps.

It probably doesn't matter, because there's not much you can do with someone who's unwilling to negotiate. Though if she DOES literally ignore verbal pleas of loneliness and he's dying for lack of hugs, I'm kinda astonished that he even thinks of her as his best friend in the first place. That seems almost ludicrously uncaring.

[shanaqui]

Is it really true that people are married to their "best friends" but won't hold their hands or hug them?

Yes. I will hug or hold hands in to comfort my wife if they are upset, but I won't want to if I'm just asked to do so at apparently-to-me random, and I will rarely give spontaneous hugs outside of my wife being upset. I'm getting more and more touch averse over time, too, unfortunately.

I've tried stuff like "daily initiating one hug or other friendly touch", and boy does it suck for me.

[castiron]

Edited because my original response was TMI.

I could see the LW finding someone if he's looking for a woman around his age in a similar situation -- wanting sex and affection that she's not getting from her husband, but otherwise content with her marriage. I don't know *how* he'd find such a woman, but they exist.

If LW's looking for a hot young single, though, yeah, what's in it for her?

[shirou]

But LW can't decide if a) he's lonely, b) he's touch-starved, or c) he's not content with a 'platonic' relationship.

I agree, but I also think that experiencing a mix of emotions and confusion about conflicting feelings is reasonable in LW's situation.

[gingicat]

When I was going through that, it was a definite sign that I had a whole lot of not-so-repressed anger toward my spouse. Dumping the therapist who always took my side and getting a therapist for both of us who specializes in neirodiverse couples helped a LOT.

[resonant]

I read it that way too -- he's saying he's lonely and touch-starved because he thinks that sounds more acceptable and makes him look better than saying he wants sex and his wife doesn't. (And, in fairness to him, that's true. There's nothing wrong with wanting a marriage with sex in it, but "I want it and she doesn't" is not generally viewed with a lot of sympathy.)

If the problem is truly just a deficit of touch, there are ways to solve that within a monogamous relationship. But I don't know what you do with an otherwise good marriage with irreconcilable libido differences.

[laurajv]

From experience, one way to handle it is to just...accept your sex life is going to be mostly solo, and focus on making that very good for yourself and a priority for you, rather than grim resentful "I have to masturbate because my spouse won't have sex with me as much as I want".

as a bonus, that attitude makes it easier to tolerate friendly, non-sexual touch from your spouse. When there's a bad libido mismatch, non-sexual touch can be EXTREMELY fraught. You can definitely end up touch-starved because you avoid non-sexual touch that has become unpleasant in very weird ways, like your body gets aroused by it and your mind gets angry it's not going to end up being sexual, etc.

[resonant]

Huh. My question was more or less rhetorical because I didn't think there was a useful answer, but that looks like a useful answer!

Also interesting that non-sexual touch is fraught for the partner with the higher libido, because it's fraught in the other direction, too -- feels like a demand rather than an offer.

[laurajv]

I can see it being felt as a demand, for sure. As the higher-libido partner in my marriage, I found the unpleasantness of non-sexual touch incredibly weird and upsetting, and it took some difficult conversations to figure out .

[sathari]

Heh, actually, I'd consider a dude (assuming he was physically attractive to me, reasonably pleasant in personality, and willing to pay attention in bed) who is also already permanently partnered and thus getting most of his social and physical maintenance needs met by someone who is not me, and just wants the occasional "Netflix and chill" (preferably at a hotel), to be my personal version of the "golden unicorn". Dick may be plentiful, but too much of it comes with really bad strings attached--- like dudes who expect you will want to rearrange your life around them and/or arrange their lives for them at the expense of yours.

[fred_mouse]

I am aware of women who prefer relationships with married men. I've known some of them. One of them was quite clear that none of them were leaving their wives for her, and the one that tried turning up on the doorstep with a suitcase got sent straight home (that marriage didn't last, but it wasn't that relationship that was the problem)

..so yes, there are women who are interested in that, and depending on the age of women that LW finds attractive, there may be widows who are interested in a predominantly sexual relationship but are not at all interested in acquiring another husband for their 'later years'.

ETA: d'oh, threadfail, thought I was replying to the person you replied to.

[sathari]

No problem! In fact, good answer! :D

[fred_mouse]

:)