Dear Amy: I am a year-old woman married for two years to a year-old man. During our courtship of six months, we shared an adequate sex life, but after he moved into my home and our subsequent marriage , we have only been intimate about six times in the past two years.
We have gone to counseling and he says that he loves me but that he operates on two levels. He feels that sex has nothing to do with love. It is just recreation and pounding flesh. I am struggling with either being celibate for the rest of my life or divorcing this man and remaining platonic friends.
I have no control over his sexual behavior and feel helpless. My husband has not been abused, nor is he a latent homosexual. He does not understand his problem and says it would take years of therapy to get to the bottom of it. He says that if I am willing to accept the status quo, we should stay together.
Would I be compromising myself and setting myself up for future resentments? He needs therapy. When men write to me saying that their wives withhold sex, I always point out that there is much more to marriage than sex and urge them to focus on those good things while they work on their sexual issues.
Dear Amy: I have a friend who has gotten into the habit of phoning me from the gym while she is working out on the stair climber or treadmill. These are not urgent communications, and there would be nothing lost in waiting a couple of hours to get in touch with me.
