I’m Disabled and Fear All Sexual Activity. Should I Go Forward with My Wedding and Let My Husband Find Sex Elsewhere?

I’m getting married this Halloween. I love my husband-to-be very much, we don’t live together yet and we will not be living together for a while as I’m finishing Grad School abroad. We have never had sex. He had lot of experiences before me. I’ve had just one experience, a really bad one where I was forced to have sex and it was more than ten years ago. I also have muscular dystrophy and I am already unable to walk. I’m confined to a wheelchair. Everything physical scares me more than I would like to admit. I have told him that I am prepared to have him look for sex outside our marriage as long as he loves me cause that’s everything I care about. He says that I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t know how to say to him that I’m not joking and I don’t wanna have sex. Ever. I dread oral sex too everything sexual basically. I love kissing him. That’s all.

Now if I still were fifteen I’d say it’s normal. But I’m a 26 year old girl. I was ok before him. I was settling for a miserable loveless disabled existence, studying and getting as many college degrees I could get. Then I fell in love. I hate that I cannot give him what he deserves, I would love him in my life though. I am going to marry him and I will hope to find plausible excuses every time to avoid getting in bed with him. I presume and hope he will eventually get tired of trying and just cheat on me – only to have sex though. As long as I am his wife and he’s my husband for the rest of our lives.

I guess I just needed to write down what I’ve been thinking. I don’t suppose you can actually have something to say to me. I have faith everything that is happening to me it is exactly what’s supposed to be happening to me. I don’t want to-not-marry him. And he’s marrying me out of love indeed but should I just disappear break both his heart and mine only because I don’t wanna have sex?

Waiting in fear, silently crying for I feel a deep love for him.

Elizabeth

Every once in awhile, I’ll get a letter like this, which is so sad and so off-the-charts that it renders any sort of advice useless.

The original poster, Elizabeth, is, by now, already married to a man with whom she will never have sex and is already encouraging her new husband to commit infidelity (without falling in love, of course).

She didn’t write in for advice. She wrote to get her thoughts together and ended on the hopeful note that everything that is happening is happening for a reason. Sorry, but this atheist ain’t buying it.

This isn’t a matter of divine intervention. This is a series of highly questionable choices by two objectively confused people, which will most likely lead to a disastrous outcome.

This isn’t a matter of divine intervention. This is a series of highly questionable choices by two objectively confused people, which will most likely lead to a disastrous outcome.

The only way this DOESN’T lead to a disastrous outcome is if everything goes according to your script: Your husband is content never having sex with his own wife. He gets his sexual needs met elsewhere but has no emotional feelings towards the women he sleeps with for the rest of his life. He has no moral qualms about being a serial philanderer because his wife condones it. And the wife is completely secure and satisfied knowing that her husband is out fucking other women (but keeping things purely physical and not emotional.) That’s a LOT of variables and if I were a betting man, I would not bet on this being a happy and mutually satisfying marriage.

Which is exactly what you DON’T want to hear right after you got married.

Sorry about that.

I don’t know anything about your husband, but it sounds like you’re both operating from a place of fear and scarcity.

You’re marrying a man who loves you to avoid a “miserable loveless disabled existence.”

He’s willingly marrying a woman who is afraid of all things sexual and is unwilling to face her fears for the sake of her marriage.

Objectively, this is not the healthiest foundation for a relationship. So I don’t know what to tell you, Elizabeth. If he were asking me for advice, I’d tell him to find a wife who wants to have sex with him instead of one who doesn’t. There are plenty of them out there. But since it’s you asking for advice (sort of), I will tell you the one thing that’s within your control that can fix everything:

There’s only one person who has the sole power to make this relationship work and that’s you.

Get into therapy, face your fears of physical intimacy, and save your marriage.

All the other plans you have to avoid being in bed with your husband and pretending not to care when he has sex with other women while you’re at home?

That’s some alternate reality wishful thinking right there.

There’s only one person who has the sole power to make this relationship work and that’s you.

Please come back and let us know what you plan to do.

Oh, and congratulations on your nuptials. Marriage really is a wonderful institution.