Midlife crisis? Life feels like a soap opera!

I am a 49 year old female who has been married for nearly 23 years. My husband is my best friend, and I love him but we have had issues with sex now for several years. He has a very low sex drive and always has and I'm the total opposite. I could have sex multiple times a day and could still go for more. We have managed to get along pretty well despite this until about the past 6 months or so. About that time I changed some medication I had been taking long term and my slightly suppressed sex drive kicked into high gear. We had a great few months with hot sex multiple times a week and it was great. Now he is back to just not being interested any more. I'm not sure how much longer I can deal with this. I am always the one who initiates sex, and I'm tired of that and the constant rejection. It is wearing down my self-esteem and just making me feel bad. I just turned 49 and I think I look ok for my age. But I am heavier than I should be (trying hard to exercise and lose weight) and probably overly sensitive about my appearance since I just had the birthday. In addition, I just don't feel loved and cherished as I would like to be. This also affects my self-esteem at home. Now here is the other problem. I am doing very well in my career right now, which is helping my overall self esteem issues and I find myself working longer hours and spending more time at the gym because my home life is frustrating. My husband wants me at home but then he spends the evenings playing video games or reading and basically ignoring me or complaining that I don't cook anymore or whatever and that is getting old fast. I have a couple of friends at work who work as hard as I do and I enjoy their company and would rather be there. On top of all this, my supervisor is a slightly younger, very attractive and charismatic man who has been very encouraging to me and very supportive of me in my job. So guess what? I am struggling with a strong physical attraction to him as you might expect-not that he would ever think of me in that way and he is also married. I am having a very hard time understanding my feelings and dealing with this because in 23 years I have never once met anyone else I have been even remotely interested in or thought that way about. All this has hit me very hard and I'm worried that because of the constant sexual frustration at home and my attraction to my boss I may do something I will regret. So I was thinking it was just me having a female midlife crisis. I talked a little to my husband the other day about our sex issues and felt a little bit better, but a couple of days ago I found that someone has been watching gay porn on Netflix at my house. It's not me and I can't imagine my 14 year old daughter would be into this, so by default it has to be my husband. He has always had issues with porn, but never gay porn, to my knowledge. Now what? I have nobody I can talk with about this. Would a counselor help?

Sorry to hear that you have to go through this. His low sex drive could be due to that! Have you confronted him and clarified? There are many men who come out late and possible your husband is just starting to realize it? Yes, you need to meet a counselor for help.

If your husband is your best friend, then he should be able to tell you openly whether he has an interest in other sexual behavior. Likewise, you should be able to tell him everything you have posted here. After 23 years of marriage, there should be trust and communication among other things, and both of you should be able to communicate your feelings without hesitation. Yes, by all means go to counseling; it may help you or it may not. Your post explains everything to us, but does your husband know everything? Does he really know how you feel? Do you really know where he 'is' now? You mention a midlife crisis but is your husband experiencing the same?

Thanks to you all for your support. He has always had issues with low sex drive ever since we have been married (and I was very slim and attractive at that time). Regular porn has also been an issue for him for some time. If it helps him become aroused I am more than happy to watch it with him, but in the past he has watched it without me and that make me feel like he is cheating on me. Does that make sense? I have never denied him ANYTHING sexually and I can't even think of a single time when I said no when he was in the mood and I wasn't. I have told him before that I need to hear from him things that make me feel better about myself and he tries, but it never lasts very long. That, along with the lack of desire for sex with me and the porn makes me feel worthless and unattractive as a woman and partner. Mentally, I know better, but it still makes me feel bad about myself. The last time this came up I made him go to the doctor who tested him for low "T". He was on the low end of normal and him dr didn't want to supplement him because of potential side effects. I think I may go see a counselor myself to have someone to talk with about this. Thanks again for your listening ears and your support.

Only speaking to him will help you get more clarity. I disagree that 23 years of being best friends would be sufficient to open up. On the contrary the 23 years of being best friends itself will place him under the emotional fear of losing you if he tells you his thoughts which he probably thinks you may not accept. Other than sex drive have their been other issues like him getting attracted to someone else etc.? All those issues can play into the low sex drive thing. So yes, counseling can get you a proper introspection. When you know its not your problem, when you know that you are/were attractive why are you letting your self esteem get eaten up? It is in our hands to decide if we should place our self esteem in others hands or in our own. Why should we look for validation from someone who cannot give it to us properly? Stop doing that and you'll be fine soon. What makes us unhappy? When expectations don't match what we get. So what can be done about it? Either get someone else who would match our expectations or get our expectations lower to match what we get.