Long-term relationships are a wonderful and comfortable feeling when done properly. While the initial honeymoon dazzle has usually settled down into calmer waters, there is the deep connection of years spent together in a solid foundation. Long-term doesn’t have to mean boring, far from it…but what if a partner starts insisting on having something in the bedroom we don’t want?
Today’s column comes courtesy of a reader who, after many years in a long-term marriage, is struggling with an unwelcome addition to their bedroom routine. What do you do when your spouse begins to insist on watching films 100% of the time, even though you are clear about how undesirable it makes you feel? How do you get someone to listen to your concerns if they keep dismissing them? Shut off the tv, the Dirty Talk Advice column has the answers!
“My husband and I have been married for over 20 years and while we still have a very active bedroom situation, we are talking multiple times a week, I’m starting to feel some serious resentment towards him. I feel like my partner is picking porn over me these days. Every single time, he has to be watching porn and he can only climax if it is on. It didn’t used to be like this. No porn? No climax. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell him how much I dislike this, he keeps doing it anyway. I feel like a fleshlight and I don’t like it. Things didn’t used to be like this! How do I get him to hear how hurt I feel?”—Not A Fleshlight
Why Do We Have To Do This In The Bedroom?
This is a painful and tricky situation, Not A Fleshlight, made more challenging by the fact you are repeatedly communicating how you feel and your partner keeps disregarding you.
While all relationships require some degree of compromise in order to survive long term, a partner ignoring your concerns in favor of their own desires can eventually destroy a marriage.
The answer is that you shouldn’t have to do anything in the bedroom that you actively dislike. You have been very clear that you don’t like your spouse insisting on porn being on 100% of the time. From the sound of it, the addition of porn being part of your sex life is a newer addition that is clearly not working for you.
It Hurts To Be Ignored
When we state our feelings about something and have the person that is supposed to be our teammate ignore us, it can feel extremely painful. If someone gets turned on by being used as a human fleshlight while our partners watch porn (and such people very much exist) that is a valid dynamic, but that is not the situation you find yourself in. Your husband is tuning you out and focusing on strangers on a screen instead, to the point he can’t even climax if there isn’t porn playing. It’s understandable you are feeling ignored.
The two of you have been married for over 20 years and are still having sex multiple times a week, which reflects a healthy mutual sex drive! Kudos for keeping the fires burning. That your spouse is insisting on the fuel of porn to keep his fire burning, which makes you feel undesirable, is a situation that can easily flare out of control. The building resentment you are currently feeling can start to spill into other aspects of your marriage, rotting out the foundation. The resentment that you are feeling begins to color all aspects of your relationship.
Ultimatums Can Go Sideways
Because you have been very clear with your communication and he keeps ignoring it, it can be tempting to deliver an ultimatum. You need to be aware that we don’t always get what we want with ultimatums. Once a couple is in an ongoing situation such as the one you currently find yourself in, and communication is getting disregarded, the next step is to look into counseling. However, there is a chance he can be as dismissive of counseling as he has been with your current communication.
Be aware that there is a possibility that he can refuse to give up his porn-watching preferences. You need to be prepared for this and have a response to this refusal when and if it happens. When you ask him “Why do we have to this in the bedroom?” you might not like the answer you get. While I would like to hope that your spouse of over two decades is willing to enter marriage counseling and be open to hearing how his actions feel hurtful to you, I can’t guarantee that outcome.
Are you okay with settling for a role as a fleshlight while your husband watches porn if that is what he is insisting on? Or are you not? Only you can answer that question and I wish you nothing but the best. If it helps any, you are clearly communicating your needs to me and I very much hear you. I hope your husband hears you as clearly as I do.
Keep it Kinky My Friends,
RDG
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