Sober sex in marriage

I'm a married sexaholic. While I was in the midst of my dis-ease, my wife and I had a fairly active sex life. As I look back at it, I think there were times when there was true connection, but also a lot of times where it wasn't. My lust addiction definitely had an impact.

When I joined SA, I came to the point where I didn't trust my own motives. It was never clear to me if I was looking for physical intimacy as a connection or was I acting out.

Back then, "I" had decided that the safe way was to let my wife initiate any physical contact. After a while, I spoke to my sponsor about this and he asked me if I ever spoke to my wife about that approach. My response, "NO, that's crazy talk!" He suggested that I take the opportunity to talk to her about it, be transparent and let our Higher Power help us through these difficulties.

Strange, I've been married to my wife for over 22 years and we were together about 4-5 years prior to that. Yet talking about sex with my wife is extremely difficult.

Well, eventually we did talk about it and she said that she didn't want complete responsibility for initiating sex. This discussion occurred a few years ago. There have been times where I've initiated sex, but honestly I feel like I've become sexually anorexic. It's not that I don't want to have physical intimacy with her, but I have a hard time approaching her about it.

I pray to my Higher Power to help guide me through these kinds of struggles. I pray for the strength to talk my wife openly about this difficult topic and to let go of my fear of rejection and abandonment. Maybe I can pray for trust - to trust God and my wife.

My sponsor is on vacation this week, but I intend to talk with him about this when he gets back. In the meantime, I'll talk to some good recovery partners about it. Thankfully I am not alone. I have God, the SA fellowship and my wife.