u/VegetableLeft7274

One of our alters main focus is sex . She is the only one who does this with our body and with other partners/ our spouse.

We have been married to our spouse for a few years but been together for over 10 years now. Throughout the year of the relationship, sex has become complicated. In the past our spouse has cheated several times, which our spouse has worked towards gaining our trust and going to therapy.

However one specific alter , whose main focus is sex, was minimally bothered by the cheating… unlike the rest of us. She sees herself as a sex sl@ve, so sexual preference and life styles don’t bother her. Like when the cheating happened she was minimally bothered by it. It only bothered her because our spouse never wanted to engage in sex with her, constantly refused her advances, and could never figure out how to make herself sexually appealing or to sexually please their spouse. She has gone so far as attempting to look at what porn he watches so that way she can imitate/ incorporate this in the bedroom , as our spouse for years had continued to dodge questions on what he like sexually. We started couple therapy again a few months ago because within the last several months we saw her slowly decline and noticed her being severely depressed. She’s always been the type to “push forward”. This made us extremely worried due to the drastic change, as she’s never had a “it’s whatever” attitude / eeyore vibe.

A few days ago she reported to us that although our spouse has now started to try engaging in sex/ intimacy related things within the last month, she feels this is just “pitty sex” and that all sexual gestures feel internally forced. She told us that there’s no need for her to apart of the system anymore because she failed at her job, exclaiming that she doesn’t see a point of her being around anymore because she can do the one thing she was made to do (to make our spouse happy sexually) She told us she not mad at us but wouldn’t be coming back because they have no purpose anymore. She has then just calmly walked away.

Since this has happened, it feels empty without her presence being here. It’s like when your dog dies, the house doesn’t feel the same without them there. We’re afraid that she’ll never come back. And on top of that if she doesn’t come back….. how will this impact the system’s relationship with our spouse, especially since nobody has an interest in sex nor has any desire to.

Is this whole situation/ her leaving is this considered dormancy or is this something else? Is anyone familiar with this? Can we encourage her to come back?

Without her here, if feel like a huge chunk is missing. Also one of our other alters is upset at our spouse that she’s now gone and is accepting that she’ll never come back! I ( host) understand what our spouse is saying , that he can’t forced that alter to talk but I also understand why our other alter is frustrated at our spouse (Implying that our spouse doesn’t care to fix issue or the relationship with the alter who walked away ).

I don’t know what to do or how to help!

My spouse and I have been going to couples counseling for over 6 months. Our couples therapist does have a focus on trauma but not DID, and has training in IFS work.

Around Two months ago, we briefly introduced ourself to her and our spouse. Although our couples therapist is accepting, It feels like she doesn’t understand we are not a singlet and other different types nuances within DID. For example, we tried to explain to her that when she asks us a simple question like “How do you feel?” It can lead to a cash out because we don’t know 1) who she is talking to or 2)How to answer in a way we all agree upon. We tried to explain this to the therapist, stating that it is often helpful to address who the question is for. Her response was warm but also said something along the likes of “well everyone has complicated feelings”

Maybe it’s just an us thing but I feel like things are so hard to explain to people.

The couples therapist said that “all alters are welcome” and that she’s dealt with veterans so nothing we would say could be considered “shocking” or considered “offensive”. I feel she SEVERELY underestimated how fucked up we really are, specially two of us.

I (the host) is the main one in therapy who is the “middle man” , who communicates with what everyone says to the therapist and vice versa. I know if I were to just “let them loose” , we would probably get fired from therapy.

How do I explain DID things to our couples counselor? For those of you who have done couples counseling, what has been helpful?