Tell Me You're in a Dead Bedroom Without Telling Me You're in a Dead Bedroom
When was the last time you had sex?
Couples on r/deadbedrooms piped up:
My doctor advised me not to have sex for a month, and I didn’t bother to tell my partner.
I giggle when the doctor asks if I could be pregnant.
My teenage son took my condoms, and it took me years to realize my stash was gone.
The condoms I bought after our last pregnancy expired.
My wife asked if we have condoms, and I’m like “Yep, want to use them?”
”Just making sure we are safe.”
And they are never touched.I’ve never felt more lonely.
My wife has thanked me for not initiating sex when we are on vacation.
I’m uncomfortable watching sex scenes on TV with him next to me.
I didn’t get my IUD replaced, and he didn’t know.
I stay in the living room at night and wait for him to fall asleep in bed. I hate the feeling of being ignored/neglected.
We used to go to bed together, but I’m at that point where I don’t even want our feet to touch while in bed.
I get out of the shower, and I can freely put lotion on my body and get dressed without a single disruption, even when I do it right in front of his face.
For the first time in my life, I feel genuinely truly ugly.
I started waxing my privates, and he had no idea (yup, me, too).
I started crying during a rom-com. I tried to play it off about it being a sappy “chick” thing, but really, I was just sad comparing my sexless marriage to the happy couples on TV.
I forgot she had tattoos on her back.
We’re subscribed to every streaming service that’s out there.
My vibrator needs to be recharged every two days.
The box of Viagra he got a few years ago after I brought up the issue of our lack of intimacy remains untouched and probably expired.
The last time I went to the doctor, when I was filling out the electronic form on the tablet, when it asked if I was sexually active, I checked the “no” box.
I take birth control for my acne—no other reason.
The dog sleeps between us.
One of the best parts of marriage is that I can jerk off all the time.
I know exactly how many times I’ve had sex over the last seven years.
I move my wife’s panties to the side every week…to put her socks away.
She threw away her thongs and lingerie.
And finally:
I cheat.
I had so many of these experiences. Tell me yours in the comments.
(Isn’t this trippy?)
You are the writer, not I. And I enjoy your work immensely. You are a voice for a large but otherwise voiceless constituency. Perhaps my input could be fodder for a future essay.
Mine is a Competition Marriage.
Marriage is a competition.
A husband is an adversarial counterparty who needs to be overcome and defeated in order to be the Alpha Spouse.
It starts with correcting my grammar and goes on from there to scrutinizing and critiquing everything I do, say and every aspect of how I present. Under no circumstances can a husband be permitted to develop any enthusiasm or self confidence. If I “slip” and start acting natural something needs to get called out to push me down where I belong.
As long as she can be the “alpha” that’s all that matters. “Sex” is a word that does not exist.
My wife is perfectly satisfied in her marriage.
She gets to be superior. That’s all that matters.
For me, how I deal with it, I avoid her company at all cost. I have my own activities and friends and do everything (that’s enjoyable) without her.
To repair my self confidence I developed a side gig that’s therapeutic to me. I tried it out as a flyer a couple years ago. I got some positive responses and actually some referrals. I’m now kind of “in demand” as a side gig for this work. I am, as a part time side gig, a studio figure drawing art model. The institutes and colleges where I pose confirm to the classical format of the model posing nude. At first it was nerve wracking, and for the first pose in a new place, still is. I find that presenting, nude, before a room full of eyes focused on me acts like vitamins to my self confidence.
When one poses like that and frozen in a pose position ( a voluntary self-imposed bondage since one can not move or the pose is broken) you’re in the most nakedly exposed (literally and figuratively) position a person can be in. The only “defense” or “clothing” between you and absolute vulnerability is your self confidence. I wear no clothing and I am powerless to move an inch but I am fully clothed and defended my one thing and one thing only.
My self confidence.
I could not be less vulnerable if I were wearing a suit of armor.
That is how I re-inject to myself the confidence that she siphons out of me.
The last time I felt inspired to make a pass at her for sex we were on a tropical island with a parent group chaperoning our kids for a sailing regatta there. One dad found a breathtakingly beautiful deserted beach and took some of us to see it. I was so enthralled I decided I’d come back with her, surprise her and get naked, run into the sea, brung her in and have wild animal sex like savages under the glorious tropical sun. I went back where we were staying and tried to persuade yet to come on an adventure with me to see “the most beautiful deserted beach in the world.” She started talking about all the chores she had to do and no, not now, too much to do. I tried getting her to go 5 times. After the fifth ask I wondered if I should just blurt out what I had in mind. Then the realization retuned to me. I can’t get a simple”yes” out of my wife if I make a twenty slide PowerPoint presentation and survive a cross examination worthy of the Supreme Court.
It was then that I realized getting this woman to do one simple thing I ask her is impossible.
I haven’t made a pass at her since.
It was 2014.