I’ve been with my husband for 25 years and have never had an orgasm… he has no idea

Lying on the pillows after sex, I hug my husband tightly.

I love him very much and I don’t want him to find out that I’m faking my orgasm.

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It’s not a When Harry Met Sally style performance where you’re screaming and banging on the headboard. It’s just a matter of catching your breath and groaning in all the right places.

I’ve been doing that ever since I’ve been with him.

Like the millions of women who pretend, I don’t want to hurt his feelings by admitting it’s not right.

And after 25 years of sex that was never really better than “fun” or “pleasant,” it would be too hard to bring it up now.

It would be devastating for him to hear that and it would shake the foundations of our marriage.

He would feel inadequate and wonder if I lied about something else. I didn’t.

And I don’t think there’s anything Simon can do to make it work.

It’s not that I’m crying out for something kinky like bondage to push me over the edge. I just think our bodies aren’t meant to be together.

I know it’s not because I can’t have orgasms.

I’ve had plenty of clothes-ripping sex in my life and I know how far I can go.

After 25 years of sex that was never really better than ‘fun’ or ‘pleasant’, it would be too hard to talk about it now.

When I met Simon I was in my second year at university in Leeds and we were sitting in the pub.

He knew people who studied sociology with me and we started talking.

I had a few beers and we started kissing. I invited him to my room.

Interestingly enough, we didn’t have sex that night.

Instead, we lay in bed chatting.

I left with a really good feeling about him, he’s a great person.

We agreed to meet the following week and it went further. We had sex on our third meeting and it was… fine.

Drunken one-night stands

I didn’t have a lot of experience, he was only my second lover and I had never had an orgasm with my first boyfriend.

Simon turned me on and I enjoyed it. I assumed that I would come in time. Sometimes I tried to convince myself that I did.

Besides the sex, we have built a great relationship: he is a nice man, kind and attentive and endlessly supportive.

I felt early on that this was the man I wanted to share my life with, and even now I know we have one of the happiest marriages imaginable.

That being said, we broke up shortly after we finished our studies.

Sometimes I look back and wish I had said something, but it wasn’t that his technique wasn’t right. We just didn’t have that all-important phwoar factor.

I was doing a teacher training course in London and he was doing an internship somewhere else and wanted to be free.

Even though I was angry, we decided to remain friends.

Over the next three years, I slept with seven people.

Two of them left me cold: they were drunken one-night stands that I regret.

One of these was an affair with an older man, where the sex was good.

Four of them were friends of friends, with whom I eventually started a relationship.

It wasn’t until the second one that I finally had an orgasm and understood what it meant.

I realized that the pain I felt when I met Simon didn’t come close to the breathtaking orgasm I could experience.

The relationship didn’t work out, but the sex was phenomenal. And so it was with my next two relationships too.

When Simon came home after two years, we started seeing each other sporadically as friends.

Sometimes we would get drunk and end up in bed together.

I was 25 when I really got back together with Simon.

He was then, and still is, the man I imagine growing old with. It sounds strange, but I don’t think I really thought about the sex part — it wasn’t high on my list of priorities.

We laughed and I liked him.

I didn’t care that I didn’t have an orgasm. I thought it was just a matter of time.

Sometimes I look back and wish I had said something, but it wasn’t that his technique was wrong.

We just didn’t have that all-important pH factor.

So in a way it would be pointlessAnd I never felt like I was settling for anything, I was absolutely sure that I wanted to marry him.

We got married in 2008 when I was 27 and went on our honeymoon to Italy and like all newlyweds, we jumped at it like rabbits.

But I still couldn’t have an orgasm.

A month later I got pregnant and now we have two sons aged 15 and 13. The first few years passed in a blur.

We still had sex, but not as often.

And I always pretended I liked it more than I did.

He asks me every now and then if I’m happy and if he can finish it, and I’ll always reassure him and tell him I’m here.

To be honest, sometimes I’m glad it’s over.

I tried to make it a little more exciting.

I’m not really into toys, but I did buy some lace underwear in the hopes that it would increase our passion and lead to more satisfaction.

The last time I did that was about five years ago. It didn’t help.

Lace underwear

And now we rarely make love.

The last time was almost two years ago. I don’t miss it.

We talk about it every now and then and say we should do it more often, but then we just roll over and go to sleep.

I sometimes wonder if it’s the same for him. He does have orgasms, but I’m not sure if it’s great for him. It’s more a reaction to the mechanics of it.

It’s different for men.

Recently a friend of mine was laughing about how she had had a fantastic quickie with her husband at home during her lunch break… it was a shock and got me thinking.

I remember lying there with my previous lovers, breathless, sweaty, and sated, unable to speak.

It has never been like this for either of us.

Ironically, I will never tell him I’m pretending because I know how hurt I would be if I heard the same thing from him.

Sometimes I think back with nostalgia to the passionate encounters I have had.

Recently a friend of mine laughed that she had had a fantastic quickie with her husband at home during her lunch break.

I normally don’t talk about sex with my girlfriends, but I assumed they were just like me and had a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude.

It was a shock and made me think.

And I’m afraid I’ll think differently about it once the kids leave home and we’re not so busy anymore.

Maybe I’m craving passion in my life and it’s ruining everything. I hope not, because I adore my husband.

Of all our friends, I think we have one of the most successful marriages.

We rarely argue, we are on the same page about how we raise our children, he is loving and generous.

We think alike about most things.

I also hope he doesn’t go looking for more exciting and satisfying sex.

He’s the most amazing man alive, and missing out on orgasms is a small price to pay for being with him.

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