He's Just Not Up for It Anymore (23 page)

HE’S JUST NOT UP FOR IT ANYMORE

room of the house except the bedroom. Perhaps they have made peace with the fact that their marriage is without passion but not without love, and that is considered to be fair exchange.

I don’t think we have a bad marriage. Sex is not the only thing we have. It would be better if we had it more, but I’m still happy. (Female, 28)

WHEN COUPLES CHOOSE TO PART

We found that ED, depression, anger, discovering a computer downloaded with pornography, or even an affair was usually not reason enough to call the divorce lawyer.

Of that small population that
did
divorce, what were the reasons?

The vast majority of the men said they were angry; they were also more likely to identify as bored, on medication, and depressed and to believe their spouses were unfaithful. They reported slightly less sexual dysfunction, perhaps indicating that they weren’t as fearful of competing in the world of single men. Only 11 percent of those who had an affair divorced.

As for the women, it astonished us that less than half identifying their husbands as gay left their marriage. Sexual dysfunction was rarely a reason to separate; even those who reported that their partners had ED and refused to get help were unlikely to leave. Women who self-identified as having an affair were slightly more likely to divorce than those who remained faithful.

MEN AND WOMEN ON THE COUCH

Contrary to the conventional wisdom that women are more likely than men to seek psychiatric help, about the same percentages (30%) should i stay or should i go?

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of women as men entered therapy, either alone or together. Both were somewhat more likely to divorce than those who didn’t seek counseling. It is possible that they did not stay with their therapist long enough, or that this was the wrong therapist for them, or that the therapist was incompetent. It may have been too little, too late. It is also feasible to imagine a therapist helping a couple separate with dignity, peace, and hope for the future.

FOR THE SAKE OF THE CHILDREN

Many couples put their own happiness in storage for the sake of their children. They may be noble—and they may be right. According to sociologist Paul Amato, an estimated 55–60 percent of children from divorced homes are not as happy as they used to be when their parents were together. However 40–45 percent are
more
content. Leaving a house filled with uncontrollable rage or simmering low-level anger can be a relief for children old enough to be aware of chronic tension.

Many children from single-parent households thrive, although it should be mentioned that children of divorce have twice the emotional problems of children from two (biological) parent households. In 2000, almost 40 percent of America’s children were living in a family other than one with their two biological parents.

Quite a few of our respondents said they were hanging in there just until their kids were old enough to leave the house. Of course, saying isn’t doing. One 78-year-old man said he and his 76-year-old wife were “staying together for the sake of our married daughters and seven grandchildren.” Children may provide an easy (or perhaps righteous) excuse to stay, while ignoring serious issues. Fear of being alone, loss of assets or financial support, familiarity, friends, and re-membrance of things past are all valid considerations and cannot be ignored.

The following 41-year-old man says he is angry and depressed, 198

HE’S JUST NOT UP FOR IT ANYMORE

and suffers from inhibited ejaculation, and that the rare times he is intimate with his wife, the sex is “boring.” His youngest child is 4.

On everything except sex, we’re really close. Our views on religion, money, and children are all similar. It’s just this one area that we’re really lacking in. Sometimes I think I’ll split the second our youngest reaches 18, and other times I figure “why bother?”

This man is trying to convince himself that his marriage would be ideal if it weren’t for the infrequent and “boring” sex. We doubt his wife would agree with this, especially since he takes no responsibility for their sexual problems.

He is, however, most likely speaking with bravado when he talks about “splitting” in fourteen years if he considers it worth the effort.

This guy probably isn’t going anywhere, unless his wife asks him to.

Others used their children as an excuse to sleepwalk through marriage, transforming their homes into prisons. They cross off days on their perpetual mental calendar, dreaming of the time they will be free at last. The following woman is an example of this. She is staying put until the children are grown.

I don’t think of myself as being married, I think of him as a good roommate. Our marriage should last about another two years until our youngest has graduated high school; I don’t want to shake up his world too much while he’s still living at home and in school. I’m also trying to increase my financial independence. (Female, 54)

In many of these situations, the children have become a convenient way for parents to fool themselves into believing they would be courageous enough to leave the marriage, if it weren’t for the kids. It can be a way for a man suffering from sexual dysfunction to ignore should i stay or should i go?

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his fear of being unable to satisfy a new partner. It can allow an angry woman, worn out by feeling undesirable and ignored, but unsure of being able to support herself, to avoid taking the risk.

Obviously, it is preferable for children to grow up in a loving two biological parent household. However, putting the children first is so clearly the “right thing to do” that the absence of love can be ignored, and self-righteousness can take the place of self-exploration. Without trying to understand
why
they are marking marital time, a couple may keep their marriage intact “until the children are grown” or even until the grandchildren are grown—but a life on hold is far from the ideal.

We encourage couples who are staying put “until” to analyze all the reasons why they are planning to divorce in the future. This should be done openly, honestly, and together. And without shifting responsibility to the kids.

There are many things that we would throw away . . .

If we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

(Oscar Wilde)

Some women won’t leave because they can’t stand the thought of anyone else replacing them in their husband’s world. The woman in the next quote told us she was unhappy in her marriage, enjoyed a good career, and had no children, but did not want to hand over her luxuri-ous life to a younger woman.

Last year my husband made partner and the $$$ are really flowing in—I’ll be damned if I’ll leave him when we have everything. Also realizing a young twentysomething would be close by to bag him (we are both 36 now).

What unfortunate reasons to stay in a marriage—the fear that someone else may snag the guy you don’t want, and that at 36 you’re too old to “bag” another successful man. This woman wrote that she and her 200

HE’S JUST NOT UP FOR IT ANYMORE

husband have been unfaithful to each other, and she is unhappy. Nevertheless, she is willing to put up with anything. We live in a society where many people consider a woman married to a big earner a success, even if the marriage is without intimacy and she’s bringing home the “$$$,”

too. If she thinks she may never hook as big a fish again, that becomes reason enough for her to remain unhappily married. For others, just the status of being married is the thing that can’t be tossed away, because they are afraid someone else will soon attach themselves to their ex, and there is too much risk in not having a readily available escort, or being alone on a Saturday night, or, most of all, never finding a replacement.

The concept of “I’d rather be married than single no matter the emotional price” seems archaic, but for some, it’s a way of life. The respondent we just quoted was honest enough to say something we suspect many others feel, but might not even want to admit to themselves.

The inability to discard a mate might also be attributed to this fear: if a women’s spouse has stopped being sexual with her, she may want to prevent him from becoming attached to, and therefore intimate, with somebody new, because if that were to happen she would have to face the unfortunate truth that she just wasn’t attractive to him, after all.

THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE

Physical and emotional abuse, drug addiction or alcoholism—any of these, without remorse and commitment to change, are reasons to consider divorce. It would be comforting to know that most people eventually get the courage to leave such relationships, wondering how they could have stayed so long. It is not possible, however, to know if this is really true. Reliable studies are rare since it is extremely difficult to quantify abuse. In addition, it is likely to be underreported or falsely reported.

Our survey and research focuses on marriages without passion, due to personal insecurities and private demons—a fear of intimacy, say, or a struggle with impotence. However, a man may stop having should i stay or should i go?

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sex for reasons that stem from the extreme edges of the norm, either his partner’s or his own. When this occurs, sometimes respect (and self-respect) are gone as well, resulting in behavior that is intolerable.

The majority of our respondents did not seem willing to live with an addict, eventually coming to the realization that when there is substance abuse or other kinds of long-term, untreated addiction, and the situation shows no signs of improving, it is time to go.

She got hooked on gambling. It was more important than the kids, me, or anything else. (Male, 66, divorced after fifteen years of marriage)

The future of the marriage is not good. My wife is seeing a therapist, but she still drinks heavily and that is a big reason we don’t have sex. (Male, 58, separated after twenty-three years of marriage)

Unlike the two men we just quoted, others decide to stay in a miserable situation. The woman quoted next is clinging to her “soul mate” in spite of what appears to be an extremely bleak partnership with a man who is doing nothing to change. She describes her husband as angry, depressed, and on libido-lowering medication. He suffers from ED, premature ejaculation, and inhibited orgasm, which is not surprising when she reveals his lifestyle. He stopped having sex with her in the first year of marriage.

He drinks Jim Beam to excess every day, smokes marijuana, and ingests cocaine. He runs away from home for days at a time. This is the third marriage for us both and I can honestly say that I love him with all my heart. I truly believed that I had found my soul mate. Nothing prepared me for the domestic abuse, the cruelty, or the disappointment. I am considering divorce. (Female, 49)

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HE’S JUST NOT UP FOR IT ANYMORE

Since it is clear that this woman isn’t staying married for religious reasons, and has gotten divorced twice before, it is puzzling that she is just “considering” divorce from a man she describes as cruel and abusive. Clearly she doesn’t do well at choosing husbands and should explore, perhaps with the support of a therapist or member of the clergy, why she is making such poor choices, and why she can write that she still loves a monster “with all my heart.”

The next woman we quote finally did leave, although it took extreme physical abuse to get her to do so. She describes a marriage that is intolerable in almost every way—and yet she stayed in it for more than ten years.

We separated because of the escalating violence from him. I did begin to have affairs in the last few months; it was my way to prove to myself men still found me desirable. I believed he had someone long before my affairs . . . I found pictures . . . and he came home later and later as time passed. (Female, 49) When a 66-year-old man, divorced after a twenty-five-year marriage, told us: “She was an alcoholic and was in love with the bottle,”

we asked him what he would have done differently, if he could do it all over again. He simply answered: “Learn the Serenity Prayer and follow its advice.”

The Serenity Prayer is attributed to theologian Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr, and it is beautiful in its simplicity—
God grant me the serenity/To accept the things I cannot change/Courage to change the things I
can/And wisdom to know the difference.
This obvious but often overlooked truth that we have no control over so many things, including the past and a spouse who refuses to stop behaving badly, can be a revelation. It took this man more than twenty years to realize he had no power over his wife’s alcoholism, but he did have control over his own life, and the courage to finally change it.

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WHAT WOMEN ARE

DOING ABOUT IT

It seems indisputable that whoever has the lowest level of desire controls the frequency of sex in a partnered relationship. If that happens to be the man, many women are dealing with the situation by turning to an additional partner. Twenty-four percent of the women said that they began having an affair
after
their husbands stopped being sexual. This number is considerably higher than the one published by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center (11.3%), or the 2006 Elle Magazine/MSNBC survey (14%), but they do not specify women in sexless marriages. Only 9 percent of our female respondents said that they were having an affair
before
their husbands stopped being passionate. It is interesting to note that although the men who choose to be nonsexual within their marriage are not having significantly more affairs than the national average, their wives are.

Can a person who is one-half of an equal partnership make
a unilateral decision to be celibate and expect fidelity?

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HE’S JUST NOT UP FOR IT ANYMORE

A 53-year-old woman, married for twenty-three years, put it like this: I am having a real affair, not online. My husband hasn’t touched me in fifteen years. I gained thirty pounds with my pregnancy in 1984 and have taken it off and put it back on over the years.