Let's talk about sex - Al-Anon Family Group

parfait624 · Veteran Member

Let's talk about sex

Crazy Frog · Veteran Member

I have the same pb. 10 years with no sex.
we just went through counseling and nothing logical or rational came out of it, no explanation. i have come to the conclusion alcoholism affects intimacy, some people get super horny, some can't get it up. sorry for the crudeness.
it would be helpful to hear what everybody has to say on the subject.

parfait624 · Veteran Member

It is so frustrating. Most people would say he is sleeping with someone else. Not the case never was. Never a problem of not being able to "get it up" (makes me giggle lol) but wanting everything but sex. I know the issue is going to come up. I wonder if it is a control thing?

Mattie · ~*Service Worker*~

My take on it is that people can be just as messed up and fearful about sex as about anything else. I think there are all kinds of relationships between addicts and sex, from those who want it all the time to those who want it only when drunk, or only when sober, or never at all. A therapist I went to said that a colleague of hers is a sex therapist and that sexuality is extremely hard to "therapize" -- most of her clients do not make much improvement. The ones that do well are the people who were uninformed or naive about sex. The others are more stuck in their ways. Addiction is hard enough to deal with without having to hope the person's attitude to sexuality undergoes a huge change. It's difficult. The other question is why we stay with people who are so rejecting. That's a whole nother ball of wax.

Keep on taking good care of yourself.

White Rabbit · ~*Service Worker*~

It was my experience that when my AH was relapsing, we almost never had sex. He was always either too drunk or passed out. At the time I really felt like there was something wrong with ME - some reason that I wasn't good enough. Nope. Turns out it had absolutely nothing to do with me.

parfait624 · Veteran Member

maybe it has to do with the gambling addiction then. Or that he is plain selfish from being an addict.

roonpugs · Member

Mine is opposite, it's like he "NEEDS" to have sex to feel good about himself it would seem. And if I don't then he seems to be upset, whether it's mad or gives me the silent treatment, and I just wan't to make him happy so I cave in whether it suits my needs or not to keep the peace and make my husband happy and so he doesn't go somewhere else.

Otie · Senior Member

Dear parfait624, I am glad you brought up this subject. It would help if people could be more open with this subject because it is such an important part of intimate relationships.

I have heard it said that "sex is only 10% of a relationship when it is good, and 90% when it is't good" I have found this to be very true!

I do think it is too much of a generalization that MOST addicts are after sex. I suspect that applies MORE often to a younger population who are still riding the tide of testosterone and have not had the ravages of alcohol (etc), and aging process, on their physical bodies. Sex has so many components----psychological, phisiological, relational, cultural.....

I hear that you feel hurt by your situation. I trust that some others can post something to help you. I can only offer that you should not have to hide your sexual/intimacy needs from a partner any more that you would any other needs.

Respectfully, Otie.

parfait624 · Veteran Member

I don't plan on keeping this from him, if we are going to talk then it's all out on the table. In an adult partnership sex is important and this choice has nothing to do with religion. So it must be addressed.

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

All I know is my experience.

I didn't know what was going on when my AH seemed uninterested. Hurt me. Been interested since I was a kid.

Wasn't me. He finally told me he couldn't do it, plus he was afraid to try. I sure did not care, would have liked just to be held, I loved him.

He could be with the woman of ill repute, as he did not care what she thought.

He cared what I thought.

Drugs took away everything he ever really felt. I don't know if you have ever been on pain pills, but i know when I am I could not care less about it.

My emotions are so dulled.

Anyway it is so sad what the disease takes. They are so sick. love,debilyn

parfait624 · Veteran Member

Debilyn good point.....if he didn't care what someone thought why would it matter. But he did care what I thought of him and that was the difference maybe. So many different things...frustrating no matter how you look at it.

sisdragonfly1957 · Veteran Member

I can so relate to this. My b/f just goes thru life in a haze. I have been thru sooo any different scenerios with him. It's like different every month, or two months he's different in what he wants in the way of sex. I'm at the point I just don't really care anymore, and that's SAD!! for Both of us!

Corgi2 · Veteran Member

I know that I do this with my Abf without even knowing it. I think its my way of getting back at him for hurting my feelings. And I also have a hard time being attracted to him when he has hurt me so bad. I love him to death and want to work things out, but I can relate to you because sometimes I withhold sex and it creates a huge issue in our relationship!

danielle0516 · Senior Member

Thank you for posting this topic and great choice of title (too bad you couldn't put a music note in there!) ;)

I've read all the comments and hope more people post as I think this is an interesting topic and maybe easier to talk about online as opposed to in person meetings (for some).

My AH would have sex with me pretty much whenever I wanted it. But I always, almost exclusively, would be the one to initiate it. Interesting, seeing as usually this is the other way around with the guy "always having" to initiate sex. (But... I know in an alcoholic relationship the norm or general rules don't apply)

Sometimes it would be every day or every couple days for a few weeks, and other times would be once a month or less - depending on how he was behaving, was he drinking, ect...

I can talk forever about this but to sum up, there were very few times where he turned me down, there were a couple times where it didn't work (this is the 'couldn't get it up part')... and that, imo, was probably all psychological - times when he was nervous or anxious (never drunk though as I couldn't stand being around him, never mind sleeping with him, while he was drunk).

Before my AH got really bad, back when he only drank once a week, I still almost always initiated sex and I'm pretty convinced that if I never initiated it, we rarely would have had it, if at all..... and since my AH is a big people pleaser I sometimes wonder if he really didn't want to have sex but just did anyway (although, he was 'into it' so... maybe I'm over-analyzing).

I hope you stick with recovery for yourself... and there are always the toys! ;) hehe.

Take care,
Danielle

flopadopilus · ~*Service Worker*~

Oh boy very interesting subject indeed! Sex and alcohol lots of control to be had. The first 5 years all the sex I wanted and some cheating on his part, I was young and so was he, next 5 years my A used to withhold from me as punishment and he wasn't very affectionate, I would have to walk on eggshells for awhile and earn it. After 10 years I was finally worthy of marriage since we had a 7 year old and I stuck through so much on and off cray rrrelationship. Fastforward 5 years and I stopped initiating because I heard no much more than yes, we rarely had sex and I know he used porn. Fastforward to filing of divorce he told me he knew he messed up by shutting me down and when I stopped asking he couldn't because he feared rejection so he exclusively used porn. So for him what started out as a control issue backfired big time, because we went a long time without. Even now it is a control thing, we live seperatley have been seperated for a year except for 3 weeks last September and when he thinks he can't have me all of a sudden wants to be charming and hang out and watch a movie that means (SEX), and it worked for him through our past seperations. I had such a low self worth that I just wanted to feel loved and sex was the only way I knew how to get intimacy from him. I have stopped the insanity and am just at the point I am seeing my errors in it and have to take this time alone to build up my self worth so as not to be used for sex all the while mistaken it for love in my future, Hard lesson learned.

Aloha · ~*Service Worker*~

I have a different experience in that my exAH turned out to be closeted gay. Towards the end there, it just made some sense that we stopped being intimate and that he found every excuse under the sun not to have sex because he really would have rather been having sex with a man.

Alcoholism was one of is escapes from the deep shame he apparently felt about being gay. Or really, part of his insanity was a continuous denial about being gay despite making plenty of efforts online to meet with men for sexual get-togethers.

It did relieve me to know it was not my fault - there was nothing wrong with ME where the lack of sex was concerned. It was all his deal.

Reading AA's Big Book has helped me somewhat with the infidelity stuff - knowing the A's just never going to be pleased with anything that he already has. There's a continuous looking outside of himself to make himself feel better.

member922 · Senior Member

I also like this topic.

It seems like sex with my a is the glue that always makes things start up with us again. We have an awesome sex life. Neither of us withholds it, but if we are fighting we go without it for a week at a time. I don't think he has gone to other women during the breakups, but I think if we went long enough on a break he might. My big downfall is that I don't want to be with anyone else. We have gotten to a closeness in that dept, like I'm sure everyone does in time, that I don't want anyone else to have with me.

Interesting though, the longer I go without, the easier it is. With him, the opposite. That is probably one of the reasons he won't go away. I have a deep feeling that it isn't the only thing though.

One more thing that makes it harder to end the relationship for good. Ahhh, there's always some excuse...

parfait624 · Veteran Member

Member922 you also go through the back and fourth? That's my story too! Together for a year and a half, broke up for a year and a half. Got back together ABF said cured by the program. Blissful perfect eight months then insanity, then break up, gets blamed on me. I'm not good enough, now agrees to talk about things. Withholds sex although we have awesome chemistry. So maybe all this is part of the diesese of addiction. Aloha.....good reminder that they aren't pleased with anything they already have, even if sober always thinking they are the best and can do better.

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

parfait624 wrote:
We had sex before and we were together for eight months before our latest break. Nothing for me he only wants me to pleasure him(sorry graphic). He did have sex with one person a few times while we were broken up with one random person although he says he couldn't perform. He had previous issues and I was the only person that he didn't have them with. So what is all this? Has anyone else experianced the with holding of sex?

HI Everyone

I have been following this discussion and am concerned that no one has brought up the fact that STD's are running rampant in our society and if my boyfriend and I had split and he had relations with someone else I would not have sex with him UNLESS he was tested. Actually that may be the reason he only wants the above.

I also consider sex an important part of a relationship and not a bargaining chip If I felt that it was using sex to manipulate me I would be so turned off I would no longer be interested.

I suggest that you continue to focus on your needs and take care of you

Take what you like and leave the rest

Very Very Tired · Senior Member

hotrod, I'm glad you mentioned STDs. Because affairs are one part of my AH's alcoholism, this is an issue I have had to face. It was a humiliating and humbling experience to have to go my doctor, the person who delivered both of my children and who has been my doc for 15+ years, and explain why I needed to be tested (I'm fine, but I will have to be re-tested because I made the mistake of thinking the affairs were over when they weren't).

Just last night I had to set an important boundary: I have to be physically and emotionally safe before I can have a physical relationship with my AH. I need to know I am the only one. And I need him to be tested for STDs.

This boundary isn't about control or withholding sex. This is about, as you said hotrod, focusing on my needs and taking care of ME.

It was an extremely difficult boundary for me to set and enforce because my co-dependent brain says, "Do whatever it takes to make him happy." Yet, if I focus on only pleasing AH, then my emotional and physical needs get neglected. Yes, I have fear that AH will run back to his affair persons. I am trying to let go and let God guide me through this.

Yes, it hurts that my AH would, as parfait said, choose a "random" someone rather than his wife. Yet, I also see that in his alcoholic world, this is all about him and his needs, as illogical as those needs may seem to me.

danielle0516 · Senior Member

I think hotrod raised a good point. If my AH was sleeping around, I would not have sex with him and risk getting some STD. I also don't have much experience and can't relate to those where sex is used to manipulate in a relationship...

Luckily my husband never slept around (before me and up until now) - he's a very emotional, sensitive guy and equates sex with a meaningful relationship... (although he did have a long distance (with an old school friend) emotional affair that lasted a couple months. I cannot at all picture him going out and hitting on some woman, sweet talking and seducing her then being not nervous or not anxious enough to actually perform with this new person - it is so not him. One thing I am grateful for.

Sex has never been much of an issue in our relationship, other than me wondering why I ususally have to initiate it (but that was before he started drinking daily that I wondered that)... and after he lost his job and was drinknig everyday where I thought he would die any minute, sex didn't even cross my mind, now that he is newly sober.... again, I'm not really thinking about it.

A few years ago my sister gave me and my husband a book on our anniversary called something like "The 7 keys to great relationships" or something like that. The book was based on research after having followed happily married couples for a number of years. In order to qualify for the study, each member in the relationship, when asked "on a scale from 1-10 how would you rate your relationhsip or how happy you are with your relationship" In order to qualify each partner had to answer 9 or 10.

Anyway, so they found that sex had absolutely nothing to do with having a happy relationship - trust was at the top of the list for most all of the couples and, if I remember correctly, having your own interests and persuing things separately, was also at the top - (so not losing yourself in the relationship and doing everything together but still being individuals. I remember the book saying that often something that attracts people to one another in the begining are what the other person is interested in, some cool thing they do, but then oftent times when two people get caught up in the relationship those individual interests are dropped (she used to be into yoga or painting but then stopped after being in the relationship for a while) .... the happy couples keep doing them.

Although, they also weren't addicts so... apples and oranges. Still, interesting stuff nonetheless...

danielle0516 · Senior Member

I feel I should clarify ...

I say I would not have sex with my husband if he was sleeping around...... BUT, if you asked me 5 years ago:

"If your husband turned into an alcoholic and lost his job, had a mental break down, had an emotional affair, took out a secret credit cards behind your back, got into thousands of dollars of debt behind your back, stole from you and drove drunk with your daughter in the car"...

- Would you still stay with him??

I would have said: "HELL no!!"

Well.... looky looky how I would have been wrong.

I can't presume to know what I would do in a situation without actually being in that situation. I can only say what I hope I would do - and that would be, in this case, not to have sex with him if he was sleeping around.

I don't believe in the saying "follow your heart" ... I am trying to follow my head and use my brain instead....

danielle

parfait624 · Veteran Member

That is a good point on the STD's although cheating has never been an issue for me personally a break is a break. Even though I do believe that my ABF isn't sleeping with other women as a precaution because you never know it is important to make him get tested. Also it shows he really is willing to go the extra mile and it is about respect.

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