What is a good way to stay happy in a sexless marriage? The sex has always been awful, but I love him way too much to leave. What advice can help me stay happy and calm?

{* Groan.* }

Brutal truth time. Your situation sounds like a fucking nightmare.

I don’t use these words to be frivolously offensive. I’m using them to express the righteous, seething anger just beneath your disappointment.

What is a good way to stay happy … ?

The sex has always been awful … .

What advice can help me stay happy and calm?

I have been in a sexless marriage for over 12 years. There has been a lack of chemistry from the time I married my husband. In the past 12 years, I have had sex [a] handful of times. I know exactly the count, too. I married at 20, and remained sexless ever since.

I have never known an orgasm or even how it feels to be desired. I cry and cringe every night.

I come from a conservative family and divorce is not accepted. I have lived and suffered a lot. I am yet to find a happy way to stay in a sexless marriage except circumstances. I am NOT happy and will never be. I have never cheated till date.

Marriage is about fulfilling sexual desires and a contract where physical intimacy is woven into and here I am, over 12 years and barely a sexual experience to remember. Last 6 years it has been zero. Really zero. No one has even kissed my lips.

We are physically not attracted and the chemistry isn’t there. We barely arouse each other and even with help of porn and what nots, we don’t sustain attraction for long. Every time, we have done this – it was forced and felt like effort. Nothing natural.

Twelve years is fucking long enough. What’s it going to be? Unending misery until you’re dead or some long overdue passionate anger to kick start a resolution to this drawn out torture?

Unless you’re a slave or a prisoner in your marriage, divorce is always an option. You might not like the fallout, but it could hardly be worse than condemning yourself to a life of never feeling whole.

You’ve never been attracted to your husband and he may never have been attracted to you. You’ve never had an orgasm. You’ve never been kissed. If you intend to stay stuck in this quagmire, then I hope you never have these experiences. Because if you create a situation where you get any of these desires met by someone else (and you are right on the verge of doing that), you WILL cheat, you will cheat hard, “Bridges of Madison County”-style, and I wouldn’t blame you for one damn second.

It is impossible to be happy and calm in this situation. You want to love passionately and you want to be loved passionately. Settle for this situation at your own peril. Maybe if you express how desperately miserable you are to your husband, he’ll become everything you want. But I wouldn’t bet my life, future, and fulfillment on this highly unlikely outcome. Twelve years is long enough to figure out some basic truths. If you want to keep deluding yourself, count on even more desperation.

You can’t break something that was broken to begin with. Have courage and claim your life passionately and honestly … or die slowly day by day. Don’t try to improve something that can’t be fixed. Start fresh, apologize for wasting each other’s time, and go find true satisfaction, in bed and in your life.