I bet I’m going to regret posting this, but I’m not sure where else to turn with this. If you don’t want to hear a middle aged woman talk about sex, just back out now.
My husband and I were together for 20+ years prior to his affair. We had ups and downs in our sex life—I’m a CSA survivor, we both came out of ultra conservative religious communities with problematic approaches to sex, and we had the normal ups and downs with babies, small kids, life stress, etc. He’s always had a somewhat stronger drive and more appetite for experimentation than me, but over the years we were consistent with frequency, our bodies have always worked well together, and our norm was regular good sex interspersed with occasions of spectacular sex.
After d-day we were in hard core hysterical bonding mode for close to nine months, with a generous side of sexual pick-me dancing from me that I wasn’t even fully cognizant of.
One night, in the middle of sex, wearing something more risqué than I tend to be comfortable with and that he didn’t really notice as something new and out there for me, something in me snapped. I felt broken and disgusted with myself. It was a healthy realization for me. I wanted my husband, I wanted our relationship, I wanted to reconcile, and I wanted a sex life with him, but I was done performing.
Our sex life since then has been regular, but pretty vanilla and lacking the pre-affair experimentation and fireworks. It’s been complicated by our recovery process, and over the last year a lot of the physical changes that come with nearing 50 have complicated things further and made me even less inclined to be fun and free and experimental. We still have sex regularly (I do have a sex drive), but it’s cut and dried. This has hit my husband pretty hard. He feels like I’m hiding my body from him, having sex only on my terms, and not compromising and trying to build a good faith sexual relationship between partners. He’s not wrong, but somehow I just don’t have it in me. Having basic sex feels natural and good, but i have this huge block in my head about doing anything performative (even wearing basic lingerie) or experimental/adventurous. The thought of it makes me feel sick and distressed and sad, to be honest.
At this point I don’t know what is affair related or just marriage and stage of life related, but it’s at least somewhat about the change in my head and heart with the betrayal. I feel like the sex life we had before was built on the trust I had in him. I don’t have that trust anymore, which is actually healthier and I feel good about the level of trust I have in him and the relationship. But it’s not a level that seems to allow for sexual vulnerability on my part.
Thoughts? Empathy? Advice? I’m sequestered in my room with Covid over Christmas and it’s giving me too much time to think.
