Karezza vs. Celibate Marriage

First, Marnia, thanks for your kind reply!

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that intercourse is "just another delicious bonding behavior", at least as we have been practicing celibacy. My greatest hope is that we will come together and be much closer mentally through the Exchanges and continuing on with a more giving relationship from this point forward. This may be a poor metaphor, but in our celibate marriage, we are like two people walking down the road together with a common goal, but not connected, not holding hands. In our Karezza marriage, we hope to be holding hands as one -- no barriers, no agendas to our intimacy.

As to how did we arrive at celibacy and how did it heal our relationship? I will try my best to answer that. Neither of us felt any resentment. I will expound on that more below. Hopefully it will become more clear.

I guess a short description of our personalities is in order.

I am curious about all things, never satisfied with status quo. Affectionate, sexually adventurous, manipulative and self centered. Somewhat introverted. I like to do things, not sit around and talk or watch TV. Came from a very emotional family, lots of passion and anger and making up! Went to church occasionally, but not a religious or spiritual family.

My wife is a very content person. Not as affectionate, can take or leave sex, but does have quite a sexual response once aroused! Also somewhat introverted. We both tend to have a few close friends as opposed to numerous social acquaintances. Came from a very quiet, passion free family. There is disagreement, but they tend to repress their feelings. Went to church more than us, but not overly spiritual either.

We both like elements of each others backgrounds, I wanted stability, she liked my more spontaneous nature. Also, I should note that both sets of parents are still together, or at least were until my own mom died a year ago. Both of us were brought up with a strong emphasis on marriage for life and both feel strongly about that.

I came into the marriage with the most sexual baggage. I had been exposed to porn from an early age, probably discovering my dad's Playboys at about age 4. Needless to say, I always liked girls and liked looking at them! The nude female body is to me, a work of art. As I got older I got exposed to various kinks and such, and of course, wanted to try them out!

Then came along the Internet. At this point we had been married about 10 years. I got addicted, enough said. Started seriously thinking about fooling around. Never did any thing about it physically, but as I have since learned, it is what is in the mind that matters. Also, the more things we tried, the more I found myself not satisfied. There was no end in sight. Things came to a head, as they always do, about 5 years ago.

I sought counseling. I called a number and asked for a counselor that worked with sexual addicts. Went and saw him. It turned out to be a Christian counselor. I do not think I would have gone had I known that before hand. However, in for a penny, in for a pound. The counseling was very helpful, and my wife joined us towards the end. At this time we had been celibate for about 6 months. he encouraged us to restart a sexual relationship as soon as possible. This did not feel right for us yet.

We talked about it and decided to continue our celibate relationship indefinitely. It was my suggestion, but she agreed. We both needed time to heal, she needed to be able to trust me again after years of being asked to try all manner of things in bed that she was not comfortable with as well as the hurt caused by my porn addiction, and I needed to do a lot of thinking!

The celibate period was nice. I did a lot of reading on celibacy and chastity and religion. Read about Tantra. That sort of clicked, but would not work in our relationship. We had already tried riding the sexual roller coaster of technique. We needed something "simple" if we were ever to return to sex. The interesting thing I discovered during this period was that my wife was quite content. I started looking into that and there is not much information out there about what it is like to live as a celibate. I came to the conclusion that people who are celibate by choice generally have a low sex drive. They do not write about their day to day experiences from a sexual perspective, as there is NOTHING to write about! They would write about planting roses or something.

I worked very hard to eliminate sexual fantasy first off. That was extremely difficult, as I found that since eliminating all the porn surfing, I had tons of free time on my hands! I got involved in things outside the home, got more involved in our kid's activities, started going out on dates with my wife, all kinds of things to keep my mind occupied. I am still working on keeping the blinders on when seeing a beautiful woman in the flesh, but can ignore images on TV and print for the most part now. I desperately wanted 100% of my focus to be on my wife! That is where contentment lay! I found that once the fantasy was gone, the need to masturbate went away as well. I still did it every few weeks, but there was not satisfaction in it. It was mechanical. Just did it when weak or to relieve pressure, or so I thought!

Meanwhile, my wife, who was already pretty involved outside the house became more and more affectionate and giving and started talking to me about things more. I then quickly realized I needed to learn how to listen, so I worked on that! No matter what I am doing, when she wants to talk (she is not highly talkative by nature.) I put down whatever I am doing and give her my full attention.

Are things perfect? No, of course not. I still fall back into my old habits every so often, but I can now recognize when this is happening better and catch it before it gets out of control. I sometimes still do not listen as well as I should, but I vow to do better next time and sincerely try to do so. However, I did discover contentment as well. Not full contentment, as we were still not as close as we would like.

Around the first of the year, we could tell we were ready for some degree of physical relations again. We had sex in the gold old fashioned way. She immediately got a yeast infection, I started thinking about the next time, etc, etc....... Almost immediately afterwards, I discovered this site, quite by accident. I read and read. It is amazing how much content is on here. Something about this method clicked. I felt the simplicity of the sex act was a fit. The emphasis on healing through sex was intriguing. The claim that this will bring two people closer together meant I had to bring it up. Of course, being the schemer that I am, I told her one night I wanted to have some extremely relaxed sex that night if that was OK. It was. I wanted to make sure I would like it before I brought it up, as I was pretty darn sure she would like the idea! Needless to say, I liked it! It was relaxing, loving, and there was no wet spot! So, the physical part was great, what do we have to lose?

I ordered the book, and began reading it. When I felt I could talk about it adequately, I brought it up to my wife. She readily agreed, as I expected, but of course asked the question that prompted my initial post. Things are going a bit more slowly than I hoped, but that is OK. We are both reading the book. That slows things down. Should have ordered two copies! We are on track to start the Exchanges this weekend.

We of course tried sex once everything was out in the open about Karezza. She said she felt unsure about what was going on and I was a bit off as well. We decided to hold off again until the Exchanges told us to proceed. We both realize this is new ground for us and if we want to succeed, we should follow the plan. We have no idea what to expect, so we just need to take it as it goes. We are striving to throw out everything we knew about sex and start from scratch! We are not even using our old terminology! We will no longer have sex or make love, we will bond, or connect -- because we love each other.

Please forgive the length of this post. There was no other way for me to get this all out.

Mari,

Thank you for your kind words. I often wonder why my wife has hung in there. I think I have finally grown up enough to realize that she deserves better. Since she declared from day one that this marriage is for life, perhaps it is time I started holding up my end of the deal. If I only knew then what I know now...... It is a struggle to hold up my end of the bargain. I think I am getting there. Sorry our story made you cry, but I understand. I get like that sometimes myself.

Curious Fellow,

Curious Fellow wrote:

Did you decide to stop having sex before you saw the counselor?

Yes

Curious Fellow wrote:

And I don't understand the thought process that led to the solution. You were not satisfied... not enough or not the right kind of sex. How did it occur to you that stopping sex would help?

Thoughts of not enough or not the right kind were the PROBLEM. It was always more and different, more and different. I could never understand why my wife was not enthusiastic about this. I figured if I could just get her to try something, she would like it. Sometimes that is true, I guess, but when you push and push and push, sooner or later, people push back. Combine that with blind lust and it is a dangerous combination. You are totally blind to the truth. Also, I am learning to respect that when she says no, she means NO. Maybe and we'll see mean NO also, of course

I noticed that she seemed quite content in her world of affectionate, occasional sex. I of course knew we had completely different sex drives, but there was not a whole hell of a lot I could do about that (that was appealing anyway ), so I looked at what other addicts do. They stop. So, I did.

I think our situations are very similar, I just came to a different initial conclusion and refused to sleep apart. We talked a lot during this period. I think that openness helped keep us on track.

I apologize, but I have read some of your posts, but not all obviously, so you may have addressed this before, but what about talking with your wife about where you are now? Legitimize your situation. OK, you are celibate, she is celibate. Let's start over with a celibate relationship and start working through our problems. It is much easier to talk through sexual issues without the heat of passion involved. You know and she knows that no matter what you say, you are not working an angle to get into bed tonight. This now becomes a long term problem resolution. When you are BOTH ready, you can always increase your affectionate behaviors to include intercourse as described here and elsewhere. That may be years away, but only you and your wife can answer whether it is worth it. Just be friends again and see where it takes you. Better than living alone! I cannot comment on the long term effects of non orgasmic sex, as I have not yet started myself, but it is my hope that this will prevent a repetition of past behaviors.