Stopped sex with BPD wife

[badknees1]

I have not had intercourse with BPD wife iin 10 plus years. We've been married 37. Our physical intimacy has always been sketchy after we married. No sex on our wedding night. I did see some red flags from day one of our relationship, which went physical fast. The love bombing was too much to resist and she looked so hot. But I knew something was off. I was always conforming, letting her decide things for me. I was drawn in. Next thing I know I was married. Satisfying her sexually became more of a duty and I was constantly criticized on my technique. For years sex was the focal point of our fights. Then as I fell off my pedestal in other areas,  I found it less and less to be intimate with a person who felt I was inept, immature, raised improperly, irrespinsible, unromantic, cheap, emmotional, unmanly, etc, etc. So now at 65 I feel my youthfull drive is gone with a bitter, frustrated BPD wife. This has crushed her to feel so sexually ignored. But how do you get it on with her,  while she sees you as a fool, and all the other names you ve been called, been raged at
and  accused of. Cant bring myself to it. Anybody feel the same?

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[StartingHealing]

badknees1

I feel you.

 The spouse has done the same crap to me. 

My hardware  is still operational without pharmaceutical help. 

It has been told to me that this is part and parcel of the "don't leave me" aspect of BPDs.  By bringing you down, devaluing you, that means that your less likely to leave them.  F-ed up for sure.

And I was also told that sex and manliness are typical targets for them to attack.

Been thinking that if I get the chance I would hire a professional to experience sex again, without all the "it's your duty" "performance etc. etc"

Things were going good enough that I thought that I could become intimate with her again (different post).  Man did I get the cart in front of the horse on that one.

[AskingWhy]

I know with BPD men, sex is not a source of intimacy, butva source for soothing free-floating anxiety or a weapon (withholding) against a partner.

My uBPD H also love bombed me.  We were married in three months.  I regret it now 25 years later.

Due to boundary problems, my H is enmeshed with his adult D, who has two small children with her H.  My H finds emotional fulfillment with his D and her children.  The D was very unhealthily attached to her F when she was a teen and young adult until she found her own codependent man. She dated him, likely slept with him on the first date (love bombed him), moved into his apartment in two weeks and was engaged within a year.  

At 65, you are not an old man. Many emotionally healthy women desire men your age.  I am 60.  For many years, my H called me c@nt, among other names.  I now know my H is mentally ill.  I no longer feel what I felt for him when we met now that I see clearly the dynamics.

I don't want a H who talks to his D like she's his mistress snd his grandchildren are his own children. H now wants to move 2000 miles to be closer to her.  

You know what's happening.  37 years?  You must decide your next move.  

Best wishes.  I know how painful BPD can be.

[GaGrl]

My H was legally married to his uBPD/NPD ex for 31 years. They no longer had a sexual relationship after 19 years, and several years after that she moved out and left him with the house and near-adult children.

Ex had been sequentially and constantly unfaithful from 18 months into their marriage. He had married her in SE Asia during an Army assignment in 1972, and she admitted she married him to come to the U.S. Early in the relationship, they argued, and she to!d him no one had ever told her "No" before.

When my H and I reconnected (we had known each other as teens), his entire life with the Ex dissolved. We married, established independent relationships with his adult children, and have been happy and stable beyond belief.

H was 55 (now 71), I was 52 (now 68). The possibilities are really amazing.

[olafinski]

Hi,
I am a bit younger, 50 this year. We are married for 15 years and for the last 10 years it is more or less like you described. I have an additional problem (diabetes T1, diagnosed at 35) and because of that I need viagra to sustain erection.
Our sexual problem is that she needs everything to happen at the exactly the way she wants it to happen, otherwise "she does not like it". I had a quite active life and in a way I do not need a lot of sex. Especially after my problems started, it is just not anymore that important because it can not be spontaneous and for me it kills a lot of it's value for me.
But the bigger issue is that a particular pose that she needs for her is putting me on my hands holding my body and when I come into that position I find it really hard to "keep it up". So it always turns out into a disappointment.
Also, her being very often mad at me pushes me away from her sexually. It is really hard to see her as a sexual partner when I am most of the time afraid of what she might say or do. Perhaps some guys can work like that, but I am more on the sensitive side, emotional type, and thou I had a lot of lovers back in the days, I always needed some emotional connection first. I could never "just do it". Always would need to at least phantasise some kind of romantic relationship with a woman to be able to enjoy sex with her.
So we are in a really bad spot. She puts it on the table every now and then, saying that nothing is solved. When I started with viagra we have a couple of OK tries but then she started complaining that she hates it when it is planned ahead. So I started taking viagra more often, as precaution, but it then created a situation where she felt that I am in a way pushing her (this was all VERY VERY subtle... no pressure at all).
Then it normally started to manifest on us both, with her eating more and more sweets to overcome I guess this lack of intimacy (we spend a lot of time together but mostly talking and doing stuff needed to be done). As she was used to be really thin which she never managed to have back after her 2nd birth, her self-image became totally off and she started feeling ashamed ("people that know me from before are shocked...") which resulted in total isolation and negative spiral.

I am really not sure what to do. I would love to somehow restore our intimacy as it was really incredible at the start, we were really compatible and I felt with her in a way I never felt before with a woman, a feeling of total compatibility hard to explain. We had our son out of total love and in that period it somehow all worked OK (though I have to admit that it always needed to happen in the way she wanted it, but it also worked for me).

I am following this thread and would really like to know some other thoughts on what can be done when intimacy with a BPD partner is lost for a longer period... as OP wrote, I feel know that she does not see me as sexual partner at all.

[once removed]

how do you get it on with her,  while she sees you as a fool, and all the other names you ve been called, been raged at
and  accused of.

likewise, how do you get it on with a person that youve been married to this long, but dont necessarily know, and dont feel particularly fond toward?

it sounds like the two of you rushed into marriage, and you wouldnt be the first. its one of the main reasons couples divorce.

having said that, something has kept the two of you together, and in each others close company for quite a long time. i would start there.

people talk about how men are more physically oriented, and women more emotionally...that women need that emotional connection to have sex, and men need more of a physical one.

i would argue that both sexes, at least within the confines of marriage, need trust, intimacy, and love, in order to "perform".

your problem is kind of a chicken or the egg thing. how do you build love, trust, and intimacy? by building love, trust, and intimacy.

like i said, something here has worked and kept the two of you together. figure out what that is. build on it.

[zondolit]

I just want to say I love hearing (and especially from men) how intimacy is desired for sex. This is such a good and beautiful thing yet perhaps in relationships with a BPD person we begin to see it as a problem.

Is intimacy possible with someone with BPD? That is the question I have.