Smarie78

It's missing. I mean, it isn't puzzling as to why, but I am curious if any of you reached this point as a result of getting tired and worn out by the alcoholic that your body even stopped responding to them. For the record, yes I am still involved in my relationship with Abf. I have taken some big steps in separating - going back to Alanon, therapy, volunteering during times I normally spend with him, saying no to him and not worrying about his feelings, etc.

But I (and certainly he) has noticed that I simply do not feel like having sex with him. I don't even like when he touches me. I feel I have love toward him, and I find him sexually attractive. But I do notice I don't feel a drop of hormones when he is near me. In fact when he starts getting touchy I just want to push his hand away....lately I actually do this whereas not long ago I would kind of pretend through it. This is obviously something he is very frustrated by as he has always been a man that has gotten his esteem by sex and his appeal. This no doubt would not shock me that he will find it elsewhere. This does not threaten me in the least. I simply just don't care about sex with him anymore.

Curious about it though and who has gone through it. By the way, I'm talking about sexual intimacy when NOT actively drinking. Not when you don't want it from them because they are drunk. But when they are sober/not drinking and you have periods of normalcy and you still don't want to be intimate even though they are in a "normal" sweet period.

dandylion

Smarie...lol...I think the Libido is smart. It knows when to run!

LexieCat

I have no libido when the person next to me is grossing me out. Perfectly normal response--like having an aversion to the taste of poison.

AnvilheadII

This no doubt would not shock me that he will find it elsewhere.

ahem, cough, i'll slap down a tenner and say he already HAS, is and does.

exactly WHAT are you still holding on to? why are you still so darn unwilling to just LET HIM GO? he's not a science project........

hopeful4

Me. And even after being divorced for three years, it has not come back. Sad, but true.

SmallButMighty

I stopped wanting to be intimate with my (now X) AH when I came to the realization I had no trust left in any way for the man. It wasn't a lack of love, it was a lack of trust. Hard to share yourself intimately with someone you don't trust. At least that's how it was for me.

atalose

I guess it’s hard to have sexual attraction and getting the hormones going towards someone who basically has showed you by cheating and many other gross and bizarre behaviors that they don’t give a sh*t about the relationship and you are showing you don’t give a sh*t about him……………….so really, what’s left? It’s like circling the drain isn’t it?


(“You have to learn to get up from the table when love is no longer being served”…………Nina Simone)

SparkleKitty

I've never really been able to separate my libido from my heart or my head. Trust and respect are huge parts of intimacy for me. Without those, no dice.

Ariesagain

The last time I had sex with my ex husband I felt nothing and then threw up afterward.

At that point, I knew at my core that first, it meant nothing to him...I could have been anybody: for all his "love" talk he really had nothing but contempt for me other than being useful arm candy.

And second, I was allowing myself to be used. I was participating in my own degradation. At that point, that stopped being something I could live with.

tomsteve

wasnt it confirmed a while ago he already has and is?

anodes7102

So true

anodes7102

Well said - lost trust is an intimacy killer!

Maudcat

Smarie, maybe you are just done with him?
I have read about how a damaged relationship, hurt, lack of trust, anger , resentment, etc. affects peoples' heads, esp. in the sex department.
Maybe all of your work to detach--know it's hard--is kicking in, and this is just another signal that you are ready to move on.
I think SmallButMighty's post hits it right on the head.

Smarie78

So very true! That's the thing though...he;s always "engaged" in the relationship in the sense that when he isn't on a drunken binge he is constantly at my attention (this too has been a problem in the relationship since the beginning...the overt availability, non-stop attention). His engagement level turned into a problem in the sense that after every binge he came back from, instead of diving into recovery, it turned into an obsession for him that I am going to leave him. Obviously his actions push me over and over, but he doesn't seem to do the real work it takes.

But you are spot on. He seems puzzled that I don't feel like being intimate, but it is exactly as you say....who feels sexy when their partner can't get it together and take responsibility for anything? It's hard to connect sexually with all the lying and deceit and the fact that I don't see him taking recovery to the level he should (I know this is codependency but just explaining why I'm not feeling so hot these days)

Nata1980

Exactly. For me - libido does not happen when I don't feel safe. I definitely have it for the right person tho....

Smarie78

All of it is starting to make so much sense. I saw my therapist today and told her all about it. She echoed so much of the above and too saw this as a point of growth in a strange way. Almost as a final symptom that there isn't much left for me to stay. In fact our relationship feels so much like a friendship lately. Our times together feel less romantic and less of a couple than they do a friendship. He is pushing the romance on overdrive - and not just sexually but just the obsessional attention, etc. but he doesn't realize that this does nothing for me. I don't care about sex with him or sweet words or attention overload...I care about recovery and responsibility. Something he is not proving to be ready for.

As for libido, I should have stated before....I am not missing it in general. In fact that area is alive and well! But I am missing it with him. And I agree, I think it is your body's way of rejecting what it knows is harmful. He has always been someone who gets his worth from his sex appeal (admittedly we all get ours from something so I am not judging him), so for him it's a huge shot that I am not responding. But you can't force it.

Ariesagain

"He has always been someone who gets his worth from his sex appeal (admittedly we all get ours from something so I am not judging him), so for him it's a huge shot that I am not responding. "

Hey, let's judge him, shall we?

He could be getting his self-worth by...

Being responsible
Being a good father
Being a good employee (hey, just being employed)
Not hurting people
Not cheating on you
Paying his own way

Relying on his "sex appeal" isn't going to work for much longer, with anyone...

Smarie78

Yes Aries - that is it exactly. Funny that everything you listed are the things that would turn me on. I always joke and say...hey wanna get me all hot and bothered? Be a good dad, take responsibility, etc. Quickest way to put me in the mood.

aliciagr

It happened to me for a while, and I think it was because the trust had been broken, and I didnt feel secure in my knowing who he was as a person anymore. What I knew and believed for so long, was affected by the changes and behaviors I saw when he was using.

53500

Ditto to all of this. Didn't you recently find his condoms? And they are not used with you?