I had my first virtual therapy session on January 9th. He was great, asked a lot of questions that many of you have asked me, but then gave me advice on things to do and to work on with my spouse. He was accepting about my sexuality and being on Chaturbate (but he didn’t know what it is!?).
First, he commented that her libido isn’t normal. Having a low libido for six months or a year is fine, but not years. It doesn’t have to be expressed sexually either. One can be affectionate and have their libido fulfilled. So her absence of anything was concerning to him. He said I should ask her to go to a doctor to get checked out. That I’m concerned about her health and want her to be happy. If she physically checks out fine, then maybe is depression or something else. But to start the process and try to get better. In addition, I really just need affection. I want to make love, not have sex, and “forcing” her into it doesn’t make me feel good.
Secondly, he said I should get PReP and Doxy Pep to be prepared. I’m already taking risks being online and starting to meet guys, even though platonic, but it’s a small leap to where I wish I had the medicine.
In all, I think it was a valuable hour, and hopefully established the relationship. We had to end early because the hour was up, but we were continuously conversing which is a wildly radical difference from my previous experience. I’m probably much more different and more comfortable talking about my life because of my experience talking to everyone on CB about it, but regardless, it helped more and made the time valuable.
It’s not typical therapy where I go once a week, or some set schedule. It’s virtual and on-demand though my work where I get 6 free sessions. So I plan to spread them out a little bit and in the meanwhile, work on the things he suggested.
Except I’ve doubled down on my commitment to not meet any guys sexually. So I’ll skip the medicine for now since it does have a shelf life, and the hassle isn’t worth it.
I’m committing to work on our marriage and improve it and then come out to her when I feel we’re in a good place and that coming out would likely have the best chance to succeed.
Some great questions he asked:
- If you had an open marriage, would you seek to be with women as well?
- I said I just want her. I wouldn’t seek any other women exclusively. I’d be involved with a couple or threesome that involved a woman, but otherwise wouldn’t seek a relationship with just a woman.
- If you come out and she says no to an open marriage, what will you do?
- I don’t know. I’m going to punt on this and worry about it if it happens.
So I waited to try and schedule time to talk to her. It was difficult to arrange this for 2 weeks. In the meanwhile, on Saturday, January 20th, I had a tense conversation with my spouse. Earlier that day she says I was grumpy and “told her” to make a grocery list “I need you to make a grocery list, please”. I don’t remember it that way, I think I said “Would you make a grocery list, please”? Regardless, she says she was pissed. But she never does anything about it. Just lets it bottle up inside her. I then went to my older son and ended up in a fight over him going to the grocery store with me. He has a school assignment to make some food. I think he should be the one to go to the store and shop for them since it’s his work. It’s also a way to get him off the computer, for which my spouse complains they spend too much time on. My son escalated to my spouse. I came and tried to “warn” her that he was coming down and the situation. She thinks I was dragging her into it, but it was him going to approach her regardless. He eventually says “fine, but I won’t go with dad.” She says okay and goes. I’ve done the grocery shopping 99% of the time for the last 3 years because it gets me out of the house (I WFH so I don’t leave much). Not that I have to do so, but I feel like she invalidated me by placating him.
A bunch of other old things were brought up and she stepped away to cool off. Fine, smart move really. I approached her about 10 minutes later and we started chatting again and I was trying to focus on how do we solve the problems? When she thinks I’m grumpy, call me out on it then, and let’s deal with it then (if we can). I asked if she thought we could get back to where we were when we got married — I thought we were great. She says she regrets not speaking up then about things. This makes me feel like I don’t know who I married. That she just put up an illusion for me, for whatever reason. I can’t see a possible reason this would be beneficial.
Regardless, we chatted a few more minutes and then she said she wanted to go watch TV with our younger son because she values that. I called her out that choosing TV over talking about us and trying to resolve our problems — what message does that send? After a minute more of discussing this, we kept talking, so to her credit, she didn’t choose it. Finally, I asked her if she wanted to keep trying to rebuild our relationship? She says it feels like “1 step forward, 2 steps backwards.” I feel the same. For all the progress we made, it feels like we aren’t getting anywhere. She said it was all she could handle for tonight so we went our separate ways.
Later, we chatted briefly a bit more. She asked about something I did that night if that would be subverting. I said no and explained why. She asked why I don’t intervene when she’s fighting with the boys. I said because I thought she’d yell at me. (I’ve also thought that she doesn’t need me and I don’t want to give the impression she does or gang up against the kids, but I didn’t think of that until later.) She then said we should book a time to chat. So I pitched mid-day Monday. Baby steps. But then we didn’t kiss goodnight. Kinda expected that, but still makes it feel real. It really hit me.
Sunday I felt it was all over. We were going to get a divorce. I started looking at things and thinking “Do I want that? Is that ‘mine’?” I tried to think about where to live. None of these thoughts were fun. I did have a sense of relief in that now I knew how it was all going to end. I could start to see my future instead of being in a state of quagmire.
Monday we finally had a good talk. We hashed a lot out, came to some agreements, are going to keep trying, and give a little more effort and basically try harder. I brought up the libido issues my therapist pointed out and she said she has been ignoring the doctor but will go get checked out. We had a make out session on the couch later that night (I licked a boob for about 5 minutes). While it was sexual, it was not sex, so it’s the affection and desire I need more of. I still had to initiate, but you can’t change everything in one day so I’ll take the progress and enjoy what I got. We ended up have good sex that night. Talking lots during it and there wasn’t “a clock” to try and hurry up. She even orgasmed. I always want her to, but she doesn’t care if she does or not. I asked afterwards why she said yes to sex on a Monday?! She said she was trying to be more flexible. I’ll take it.
So things were generally better and trying to be more communicative and not assume anything about the other person for a week. Then came my work trip. Then when I got home, she and our younger son were sick, and now I’m sick. But it feels like we’ve fallen back to our old habits of less communication. Maybe it’s just sick and work travel stress, so I’m willing to give it a pass. Also, skipping a testosterone injection causing my testosterone levels to drop combined with poor sleep due to travel made me tired again, and feel like a zombie.
But this past weekend she did say “I feel like I’m the only one that finds broken things around here.” That hurts. I’ll concede she finds more, but not all. That invalidates the things I do. And I do want to fix things that maybe aren’t broken, but need fixing. The wood floors need to be redone. We need new carpet. I got 3 quotes to redo the wood floor a year ago. It ended waiting for her to decide which she wanted to use as I didn’t have a preference. I’m still waiting.
So I don’t have anything major to conclude with. I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster going from it’s all over to good sex to better to back to old habits. But at least we tried for a short bit, and perhaps after the illness passes from the family, some better sleep and testosterone levels back up, it’ll go back to getting better. During the week after our big chat, I thought we were on the right track again and could see that I could conceivably come out to her in six month or so. Now, I’m not so sure again.
So this is the big update I’ve been needing to publish. I should do more frequent postings so it’s not as big a post with major changes and issues.