Knowing what I know now, before marriage, I would confirm that a woman was willing to do whatever was necessary in terms of HRT to maintain their sexual function through middle age and beyond. Otherwise, you have a good chance of spending the last half of your life in a dead bedroom situation, no matter how well you maintain your own sexual appeal and function, and no matter how good of a partner you are.
That's a ticket to divorced for me. The woman I'm courting now, 27 year age gap, hehe, I told her when I feel like the deal is one-sided, I'm gone!
Just wanted to chime in here as well, My wife hit pre-menopausal status 1 years ago, we tried HRT at 2 different clinics. One was a cream with Estradiol, Progesterone, and T , the other was a pellet combo. She didn't do well on either of these. Created great mood issues and no libido at all. But we did find a fix....25MG pregnenolone and 25MG DHEA (non micronized is the key), 2 x 2mg Test E weekly.....this keeps her levels all mid range. It brought her libido back to 2-3x a week. Just recently (about 6 weeks ago) we added 100MG Bupropion SR once daily....no increase in libido but it shortened her time to orgasm and helped intensity. Just an idea for you all to try.
I say more customization is better, so if your developer can make it happen that’d be awesome. In the meantime, is it possible to copy the thread or move all posts over? If that’s the case you could just move them all then delete the first posts that don’t pertain to the new topic of maintaining a good sex life deep into marriage. Just a thought.
From our own experience and what I've read from other women, it's usually progesterone that ruins everything and overshadows the energy, mood, and sexual benefits of estradiol and testosterone. Progesterone often makes them fatigued, apathetic, and kills their libido (similar to the effects in men). Estradiol and testosterone bring the party, progesterone shuts it all down.
Divorce court and a fat, monthly alimony check or half of everything in the marriage.
If a woman is otherwise healthy and forgoes intimacy and will not consider speaking with her primary, that upends an important aspect of marriage or any relationship. It would be the same if it was the husband. People get divorced over that issue.
TRT/HRT, sexual function and a spouse or partner not responding to intimacy or telling you they're calling it quits on sex are all connected. You know my story that my wife was emotionally/verbally abusive, manipulative, gaslighting me. Not just turned off by her, but contributory to ED. And she rejected talking with her primary and OB/Gyn. Understand you're reason to want to make the topic a separate thread but TRT is going to come into the conversation.
When you say the talks got nowhere, how often was it brought up and what types of concerns did you raise/solutions did you propose? I completely understand and agree either way your point that sex isn’t worth significantly altering your relationships with kids and grandkids in a negative way. At the same time, humans have needs and desires that ideally will be fulfilled for an optimal life. If your wife won’t fulfill them (and worse won’t even discuss it or attempt to fulfill them) then you should at least be able to talk through it to hopefully come up with a solution to help everyone be happier.
Not looking for anything, really. Just relaying my story so others might find something they can relate to so they'll know they're not alone. You may well be right about the aphrodisicatic ability of a little competition. I don't think she would really like to be alone at this point in her life, as that seems to be the loneliest set of people in the world: divorced women who doubt their ability to successfully be with a man and thus remain alone to the end.
I really don’t know how long I can take this. I think about puss quite a lot and mentally undress quite a few of the women I meet. I try to occupy my mind with other things, like grandkids, but the desire creeps back in when my guard is down, especially when I’m semi-awake in the morning or whenever I see a really hot woman. Heck, even a moderately hot woman! But, I married my wife for better or for worse, in sickness and in health and I regard this as Not her “better” point in time and almost as if she has some sort of mental illness that has caused her to reject me. It’s so weird because to the entire outside world and to our kids and grandkids she is a sweet and loving person. However, when it’s just me she lets the fangs come out, almost as if she hates my guts for some reason. This all started when she felt like I was making all,of the major decisions in our family the way I wanted them to go and that I was so domineering that I minimized her. I am a dominant personality, but I did not act in such a way as to minimize her. I would ask her opinions on things but she would just defer to me most of the time as if she really didn’t want to make any big decisions. Then she decided that she wanted to see a counselor (unbeknown to me) and I don’t know what kind of crap that counselor packed her brain with but she became a person who opposed me on everything. And I mean everything. She would try to say that I was wrong on anything and everything as if that somehow elevated her standing. There were things that I was very accomplished at doing yet she would say I needed to hire someone to do them because I didn’t know anything about whatever it was. Drove me nuts with that. She would take issue with me on everything. I had to a stay extremely calm in any discussions we had, lest she tell me to “don’t get mad.” She would use the “don’t get mad” on me even when I was being very calm and rational and THAT would make me mad. Once I got mad she would have me where she wanted me and would use that against me.
I don’t think I could ever trust another woman enough to marry one again. My wife was the sweetest doting woman I’d ever known before we got married. It was fine until we had kids. At that point I could never do anything right.
“ If that’s the case then she has apparently lost interest in whether or not you are living a happy, fulfilling life.”
You have my sympathy. Having experienced something similar, I think people fail to appreciate the dramatic effects menopause can have on some women. It goes well beyond libido, perhaps affecting feelings of empathy and connectedness to significant others. Nominally my wife divorced me because I did not share her evolving religious views. But I suspect that these differences would have seemed less important to her in the absence of shifting hormones, and she has acknowledged her lack of desire for intimacy was a factor. The irony is that as this happened I was improving my own hormonal situation, which strengthened the bond I felt with her. I was fortunate that the changes in her did not affect her basic kindness. Financially speaking she had me by the balls, but instead of crushing she just squeezed enough to cause some minor discomfort. Thus we were able to remain friends, to the extent that I now let her use my guest house, even as I try to move on, emotionally speaking.
