I'm a 40-year-old straight (closeted bi-curious) woman married for twenty years to a very kind, hardworking, and devoted man. We married young and had a child right away. We have grown up together and are now enjoying the empty nest. Except here's the rub... or lack thereof...

We have never had much of a sex life. The first few years were sparse due to us raising an infant/toddler, and me not making sex a priority. Come to think of it, we haven't had much intimacy at all, which bothers me. When things do actually transpire, it is vanilla at best. I make sure he is satisfied, he rolls over and falls asleep. No cuddling, kissing, or conversation. (All things I've tactfully let him know are important to me.)
I please him in ways he has told me he enjoys. He rarely initiates or gives oral sex. I have to ask for it. And so on and so forth. We have had droughts. This current one is by far the worst. So with no kid in the house, and no need to use any auditory restraint, he won't touch me. I have tried to talk with him. He promises he isn't being unfaithful, he promises me that he is still attracted to me. All I can drag out of him is, "I am just not up for it... I don't know why."

I am in my prime. I think about sex 10-20 times a day. I fantasize about my husband and I. However after being rejected for the fiftieth time (give or take) I told him that I give up. I'm hurt. I'm full of resentment. I just want to walk away. However, we made a promise to each other. Forever means forever. So "DTMFA" is not an option. Now I can't even watch people displaying affection on TV, movies, or in public. It just makes me resent him more. And I cry. I just want to feel his touch.

What can I do? I've tried bringing new and adventurous kink to the bedroom. I have tried patience. I've initiated. I've tried toys. I've tried romance. I've tried everything. This hurts so much. We are not in a place financially to acquire professional/clinical counsel, however, he has seen his doc and his equipment checks out okay. Please tell me what to do. Cheating would break his heart, but celibacy is breaking mine. I feel trapped in a box and am slowly running out of air.

Craving A Sex Encounter Dammit

Do what you need to do to stay married and stay sane... if you're determined to stay married because "forever" means "a life sentence without the possibility of parole" "forever." What I usually mean by that is: go find a similarly situated/frustrated married man and/or woman and fuck him or her and/or both without guilt.

But if you really can't leave and you really can't cheat... well, then I see a lot of masturbation and vodka and resentment and chardonnay in your future.

I’ve given a lot of advice to married people in your shoes over the years, CASED. (Dig through my archives you’ll find plenty of relevant advice.) And I get it, really, I do: you don’t want to cheat (because cheaters are terrible people), you don’t want to leave (because you made a promise), you don’t want to endure a sexless existence (because it's going to make you miserable). But if your partner isn't going to change—and after twenty years, CASED, he's most likely not going to change—then one of the first two things (not cheating, not leaving) will have to change in order for the third thing (your sexless existence) to change... as I've told ten or eleven million other men and women who've written me identical letters over the last few decades.

And since longtime readers were probably humming my answer to themselves before they even finished reading your letter, a bonus question to complicate the picture...

I'd been married about three years when I started having an affair. It went on about seven months. I got pregnant, had to come clean to my husband, and deal with the fallout. I ended up getting an abortion and my husband came with me. It was a heinous situation—I had been trying to get pregnant earlier that same year and this was a heartbreaking choice. My husband wanted to work on things but I needed a separation to clear my head and decide what to do. So, flash forward to now, two months later: We have been officially separated for one month. It's clear that I want to work on my marriage and cease any and all infidelity. He's willing to forgive me for the affair, which is wonderful.

Here's the thing: I continued to see the other guy (let's call him Todd) even after telling my husband it was over. I broke up with Todd last week, and he threatened to contact my husband and tell him everything unless I tell him first. The reason he gave for doing this is because "it's not fair." Essentially Todd feels like I owe him something for the time we spent together. He also feels like I owe him something because the baby could have been his and I had an abortion. So that's problem one. Problem two: Todd and I work together, and he's acting like we're still together. He writes me little notes and sends me texts even though I haven't responded to anything. This was after a weekend of no contact. So now I have to break up with him again, which will suck, but I'm mostly worried about him contacting my husband and ruining our chance at reconciliation.

The only way I can think of out of this is to come clean to my husband first, but I don't want to let Todd control my actions, and I don't think it would help anything. It would just hurt my husband more and ruin any chance we have at starting over. Everything I've read online says that I must tell my husband, it's the only way to start over and take control over the situation back, it's the only morally righteous thing, etc. What do you think I should do?

Trying To Clean Up My Mess

I think you should take some personal responsibility, TTCUMM.

This wasn't a sexless marriage (you were trying to have a baby with your husband, I presume), this wasn't a case where the maxim "do what you need to do to stay married and stay sane" applies. You had an affair because you wanted to fuck a freaking coworker despite the monogamous commitment you'd made to your husband—a man who wasn't neglecting you sexually and that you were in a position to leave if you'd realized he wasn't what you wanted or monogamy wasn't what you wanted or both.

Which means it wasn't Todd who put your marriage in danger and then imperiled your chances at reconciliation with your husband. It was you. Todd sounds awful, I'll grant you, but you made the decision to fuck Todd and then to keep fucking Todd after you'd promised your husband you'd stop fucking Todd. But you didn't terminate the affair. And unlike your husband, TTCUMM, Todd knows everything—or the most damaging thing, i.e. he knows that you continued to lie to the husband you either wanted to reconcile with or convinced yourself you wanted to reconcile with. And now Todd is threatening to disclose the second half the affair to your husband in order to punish you or sabotage your marriage or both.

You don't have any choice here, TTCUMM: you're gonna have to tell your husband the affair with Todd only ended last week. (If it ended last week—what was that about needing to break up with him again?) Perhaps the fact that you're currently separated will play in your favor; separation is often understood to allow for seeing other people, although your husband surely will be wounded—or have his barely scabbed over wounds ripped back open—when he learns you were fucking Todd during your separation.

But the reality here is... you're trapped: your husband is either going to find out from you or he's going to find out from Todd and the odds of your marriage surviving this disclosure, which you say you want (but do you?), will be ever-so-slightly better if your husband hears it from you and not your affair partner/impregnator.

To be clear: I think cheating is understandable and permissible in some circumstances (see the letter above); there are even cases where cheating is the right thing to do. And as Esther Perel says, the victim of the affair is not always the victim of the marriage. (Here's a good example of that.) But cheating early on in a childless marriage when you're free to go and/or free to renegotiate the terms of the relationship? It's understandable (people cheat, desire is powerful, people screw up, etc.), but not permissible and certainly not the right thing to do.