“Dear Dr. Kim:
“Not only has my wife now gone off sex altogether, she won’t even kiss me. She says it makes her feel “dirty and disgusting” and that it’s just not something she wants to do any more. I don’t understand where this has come from, but it’s beginning to break my heart.
“I’m 55 and she is 49. We have been married for 20 years and now have two grown-up children. While we’ve never had the most exciting sex life, we always used to make time for a bit of intimacy. Now she no longer touches me, and even when I try to kiss her or cuddle her, she makes it clear how uncomfortable she is about it. I’ve tried everything but she is making me feel unattractive and unwanted.
“How can I solve this problem? I miss feeling close to her.
Dear Rejected:
Of all the ways a woman can reject a man, telling him that intimacy makes her feel “dirty and disgusting” has to be the most brutal. So why is she doing this to you?
She’s having an affair.
No point whining about it; it’s a done deal. If you don’t want to get a divorce, move all your stuff into another bedroom (you should have one, as your kids are grown), and then start living a separate life from her: women, friends, late nights and so on. When you go out, don’t tell her where you’re going or when she can expect you back. If she asks if you’re seeing another woman, tell her it’s none of her business. Tell her that “closeness” is a two-way street, and as she’s walked away from you, you’re not going to beg for it.
Don’t even bother negotiating with her, and don’t listen to her if she wants “things to go back to the way they used to be”.
By the way: if she’s not having an affair, then she has psychological problems that are so profound that there’s no point in you trying to understand or fix them.
In either case, my advice is the same: dump her and get on with your own life.
