My Husband And I Had Sex Five Times In 12 Years

My husband and I had sex five times in 12 years.

For those of you doing the math, that's once every 29 months.

It just wasn't enough.

I needed more, much more it turns out, than these several shades of gray.

I'm currently in the process of divorce. The only thing I know for certain about the time I spent with my husband is that I was supposed to have children with this man. They are my heartbeats, my reason for living. That is the one positive I've been able to hold onto during our "divorce wars".

The warning signs were there early.

Over the first few months of dating, my ex and I had lots of sex, and we soon moved in together. I found, however, that I was typically the one who initiated our lovemaking. I started to resent that and eventually made a deliberate choice to stop trying. Once I stopped initiating, we stopped having sex.

Yet, I liked him as a friend. He was smart, good looking, kind, interesting to talk to and no one had ever gone to such measures to be with me, so I stuck it out.

I longed for him to take charge, to create some level of intimacy. But that never happened. The longer we went without sex, the angrier I got. I turned to working out. I was in the gym five days a week and went from a size 10 to a size 4.

Two sexless years later, a job opportunity moved us to New York. Our sexless spell continued. We drove to Montauk and he proposed. I hated the ring. The reality though is that it wasn't about the ring -- it was about the passionless relationship I was in. The ring was a symbol of that.

I said "yes" to his proposal. We didn't have sex that night -- a harbinger of things to come. We didn't have sex on our wedding night. We didn't have sex on our honeymoon. We didn't have sex the entire first year of our marriage. The first time we did get naked under the sheets, our son was created. Almost two sexless years later we tried again and created our daughter after two tries.

I sought out a therapist to try and understand why I was angry all the time. My main hurt was that my husband wouldn't touch me. He wouldn't set up a date night so we could connect. The final slap in the face occurred when we were going to therapy together. "She needs therapy more than I do," he told the therapist. We stopped attending the sessions.

He started to sleep on the couch. After a year of him sleeping in a different room, I eventually met and fell in love with another man, and yes, I had an affair. After having gone so long without sex, without basic human touch, I fell hard for this person. He was passionate, he liked to kiss, hold hands and dance. He would look at me in such a way that I blushed because even without words I knew he wanted to devour me.

My ex was fully aware of the relationship. I even would ask him for his advice. The entire situation was awkward, stressful, embarrassing and I felt like a complete and total fraud.

Because on the outside, we still looked like the perfect couple with two beautiful children. Inside, I was filled with turmoil. I felt guilty that I was a "bad" person. I tried to move out and get an apartment and needed my ex to co-sign the lease, but he refused. I felt trapped.

It wasn't until my ex started to see another woman that things changed. I admit it hurt like hell to find out he was having sex with another woman -- that he was capable of it, but just not capable of it with me. It also hurt because I had lost my best friend.

But as awful as things have been as we bumble through this divorce, I no longer feel like I'm a useless blob of a human being. I am a woman with curves who feels sexy for the first time in a long time. I no longer care what people think of me. Nor do I care about fulfilling someone else's idea about what role I'm supposed to play in society.

Am I scared? Of course.

But not because I worry I'll be alone. I'm scared how it all will affect my children. I worry that financially I'm going to be hitting the food pantry and going without electricity.

Despite my fear, this is still better than the alternative. Remaining in a sexless marriage? For me, it was by far the loneliest place I have ever lived.

With every experience you learn and grow. Going forward I know its okay to have wants and needs. It's okay to ask to have those wants and needs met. And it's okay to walk away from a marriage when you aren't having sex.

It doesn't make you a villain to want to share intimacy with your spouse -- it simply makes you human.

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