I have only been married for a little less than 4 years now, and have begun looking for help in groups similar to this one. When my wife and I were still dating it felt like we took every available opportunity to make out, even while waiting at red lights. We would also take any opportunity to simply hold each other in our arms, almost like a release from the stresses of the world, or so it seemed to me. We had known each other for a little over a year, began dating, and were married a little over a year and a half later. Once we were married the making out, the holding each other just to simply hold each other, and many other small physical intimate acts were reserved for only when we were having sex. This left holding hands in public, and quick kisses hello and goodbye outside of the bedroom. At first that was alright because we were having sex about twice a week, sometimes more sometimes less depending on what was going on. This was a little less than I would have preferred, but I was understanding of the fact that she had less of a sex drive than a male in his late 20s, and I never wanted to make her feel pressured about sex (we waited till we were married to have sex). I was still discouraged by this lack of physical intimacy outside of sex and tried on many occasions to talk to her about this. I was met with resistance, being told that any contact like that will only lead to sex. Each time, after a long discussion, I would convince her that making out, and holding each other doesn't have to lead to sex, because it certainly didn't before we were married (we lived together before we were married also). She would agree that I had a point, and that she would allow the above named contact with me. This never held up though. I would get shooed away as an annoyance when I would simply try to hold my own wife, and get yelled for trying to make out with her. Suggesting that we do these activities instead of being spontaneous had similar results. I was upset by this, but we were having sex enough that I accepted this and stopped bringing it up. Then the sex started to become less frequent.

When we were in the early part of our marriage, sex was pretty frequent, around twice a week like I said before. Then this became once a week, then once a week with me having to put a lot of effort into getting her to agree to even this. This trend continued through our marriage to the point I'm at now, I'm lucky if I can get sex once a month, more often it's once every 2 months. This infrequency of sex initially began as her joking saying that "that takes care of you for this month". Then that joke became a reality. Now the joke she says after sex is that I'm good for the next 6 months, which makes me think that this 2 month period will only increase in duration between sexual encounters. This is another area I have talked to my wife about with no success, she'll make jokes about me wanting to have sex with her, and tell me that it's too bad when I say yes to wanting any physical intimacy. This was only made more frustrating when she began accusing me of cheating on her.

I began attending school about 3 years ago, including summer semesters to speed things along. The problems arose when my wife began accusing me of cheating on her at least once a semester, usually more than that. When I say accusing I mean like multi-day fights, where my only defense is knowing I have never cheated on my wife, and have never had intentions, or even thoughts of it. --As a quick clarification; 1. My wife was in a bad relationship before were her ex-boyfriend cheated on her a lot, and had a porn addiction; 2. I have never considered cheating in any relationship I have ever been in; 3. Once my wife and I first started talking I stopped looking at other women, and porn completely to eliminate any potential for concerns about cheating from being in our relationship.-- When my wife and I first started dating I have get the passwords to all my social media and email accounts, as well as letting her look through my phone whenever she wanted. I did this in hopes that this would help her overcome her past bad relationship, and eliminate the concern of me every even considering cheating on her. I was wrong.

The accusations about cheating would start as her joking at first, with me asking if she really was worried about that. I was repeatedly assured that was not the case, it was all a joke, until it wasn't anymore. This happens every time before the fighting starts, it may go on a while before hand. I have tried talking to her about that as well, asking her to not joke about that because it always leads to fights. She will agree, then continue the joking, and laugh when I ask her, all but beg her really, to not joke about that anymore and just talk to me if she thinks I'm cheating. This kind of brings me to where I'm at now.

I don't even bother trying to initiate sex anymore since the answer will always be no. Sex is only initiated be her once she notices my frustration has reached a point that I'm more irritable. I have fought of feelings of self doubt, feeling like I'm completely undesirable despite being in decent physical condition. I find myself sometimes wishing my wife would cheat on me so I could get out of this relationship, or just tell me she wants a divorce. I quickly hate myself for thinking that way because, despite everything, I do still love my wife. I only wish she felt a desire for me as something more than a friend and a roommate, which is all I am anymore it feels like. The more thoughts I get like this the more I blame myself, I know I must not be meeting a need in her life and I just don't know it.

The most recent worry on my mind that I despise myself for is that a woman at a store my wife and I frequent, sometimes together, sometimes alone has started flirting with me. While I don't hate myself for her flirting with me, I do hate myself for liking that she's flirting with me. I never realized how much feeling desired by another in a situation like this could impact me. Because of some, most likely innocent, flirting I find myself thinking of cheating on my wife, and hate myself all the more. I still have no actual desire to cheat on my wife, but a couple of encounters over a couple week period has me imagining being desired and having my needs met by another.

I guess the entire reason I'm here is for support to stay faithful, or at least get suggestions on what to do with my marriage. Whether that be trying to talk to her again (any suggestions appreciated on this one especially), just stick it out and hope something changes for the better, bite the bullet and get a divorce, or start looking at porn again and taking care of myself and hoping that's good enough to make life tolerable. To me though the one thing I want to avoid is cheating, no matter how tempting it might be, and I'm hoping that this group can help me keep this desire from growing more.

Given the length of this, I'll be surprised if anyone reads this whole thing, let alone responds. Just writing out my feelings on this is relieving though.