You could just try some honesty, you know.....In the same way she expects you to understand her right to say no, she also needs to understand your right to your feelings. Sometimes just being able to say it out loud... and maybe a few hugs... might help.
Aye. We have openly discussed this specific situation, how it makes us both feel (residual emotions and resentments included), and we both have a strong desire to change our old, well-worn pattern of behavior. If her knee-jerk response to my approach is to refuse unconditionally, and my knee-jerk response to her refusal is to snarl and retreat, then we BOTH have a 180 to do, and we BOTH need to be understanding (and forgiving) of each other while we attempt to implement these 180's.
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Also, tell her (at a time when sex isn't even on the table)... "honey, it would help me if when you said no, you might say... "no, not tonight, I'm feeling... x, y, z... but I'm willing to give it a go tomorrow night (or whenever night/day/time she is willing)... so that you aren't just left with an unknown. BUT. If she is going to give you a date/place/time, she needs to honor it. If not, then don't say it.
In our particular situation, this suggestion would probably not work very well. We've tried the sex-by-appointment bit before and what generally happens is that as that date/time approaches, she becomes more and more worried about whether or not she'll be able to respond to me, while I becomes more and more worried about whether or not she'll be able to respond to me, such that you'd think we both had dentist appointments that night. When the time actually arrives, we're both so anxious about it that we might as well just call it a wash and break out the Risk or Monopoly board. Perhaps with time, and a lot more confidence in how we'll respond to each other, we can make such appointments and really look forward to them -- but that's a ways off yet.
Best regards, and thanks for the thoughts. I'm appreciating this little brain-storming session.
-- Bagheera
Me 50, W 45, M for 26 yrs S25, D23, S13, S10 20+ year SSM; recovery began Oct 2007
she becomes more and more worried about whether or not she'll be able to respond to me, while I becomes more and more worried about whether or not she'll be able to respond to me
Sounds to me like this is the problem, then. How she responds to you? For her, that is a stinkin' thinkin' mind set, and if you share it... same goes for you.
It isn't up to you to turn her on... it is up to HER to turn herself on... that is why the two of you are so worried about how she's going to respond to you... jeese, talk about pressure... no wonder the two of you crumble. Who wouldn't.
I mean... let's say you set me up on a date with a friend of yours... and then you say to me... "Corri, no matter what, you have to like him and have an R with him."
Uhm... hello... any chance I had of enjoying the date or potentially liking the guy is now gone, because an expectation has been placed upon me to act and BE a certain way.
And you'd never do that to me anyway, but do you see the similarity?
When both of you make YOU responsible for her enjoyment of sex, you are pretty much shooting yourselves in the foot, and guaranteeing it's going to be a not-so-enjoyable experience for either one of you most of the time.
She really needs to explore her own sexuality and desire... find out what she likes, what she doesn't... cuz if she doesn't, your sex lives are going to be pretty ho-hum.... kwis... cuz only one of you is actually showing up to have sex...
Once she understands that she is in the driver seat of HER and her sexuality (she's not there to keep you happy and please YOU... she's there for herself)... she regains power over her body, her emotions, her feelings about/during sex. She's FREE to be her...
And you now have a woman with whom you are having sex, not a wife who is fulfilling an obligation.
That doesn't mean sex is going to go like clockwork, either. It means you guys have a lot of trial/error in front of you... things to try, things to toss out... and if you give yourselves a break, and say outloud to one another... "it's okay if this thing we are trying together utterly bombs..." you take the pressure off yourselves, and you become that much more willing to try and fail... and keep at it until you find things you DO like...
Hey I thought I'd chime in with some advice. I'm not really thinking that clearly about the issues right now not feeling "in the trenches" so to speak. But thought I try.
How not to react to the rejection?
Figure out your stories. The ones that you tell your self that entrench your position many times are these things that we run on our selves causing us frustration and pain. It's not the rejection in the moment it's the story that pisses us off and if we "cling" to that story and identify with it it becomes a feedback loop.
"You don't care about what I want" that's an example of a story that I would tell myself. Try to examine your stories and distance the story from the moment of "trauma" when rejected. Thats one thing that has really worked for myself.
For your wife maybe you need to ask like I have that when you're being rejected that she do it lovingly. She doesn't have to respond with maybe later or we could try on sunday at noon. Just ask that she try to recognizes how you are feeling and the legitimacy of your feelings, not a postponement or a promise she can't keep.
she becomes more and more worried about whether or not she'll be able to respond to me, while I becomes more and more worried about whether or not she'll be able to respond to me
It isn't up to you to turn her on... it is up to HER to turn herself on... that is why the two of you are so worried about how she's going to respond to you... jeese, talk about pressure... no wonder the two of you crumble. Who wouldn't?
Nice catch on my wording there, Corri -- I didn't realize how revealing I was with it. This is a problem that we (finally) recognized this fall, and we are making progress at moving towards the more experimental (and fun) sex-model that you described in your second post:
Originally Posted By: Corri
That doesn't mean sex is going to go like clockwork, either. It means you guys have a lot of trial/error in front of you... things to try, things to toss out... and if you give yourselves a break, and say outloud to one another... "it's okay if this thing we are trying together utterly bombs..." you take the pressure off yourselves, and you become that much more willing to try and fail... and keep at it until you find things you DO like...It can be kinda fun, too...
It is amazing to me how difficult it can be to get out of an old sex-model or sex-script, even one that doesn't work very well. And we BOTH share responsibility for that rut.
For my part, I admit to being one of those guys whose primary pleasure during sex comes from pleasing his partner (I'm not alone: see John Gray's Mars and Venus in the Bedroom). I can remember reading The Hite Report on Female Sexuality as a young man and vowing that I would never be one of those 'pawing, intercourse-obsessed apes' that woman after woman complained about in that book. Can you say "performance pressure"?
For my wife's part, she was willing to let me take the lead, while she followed what I think of as a romance-novel sex-model; that is, the man is supposed to know what to do, when to do it, how to do it expertly, with little to no direct feedback from his partner -- he should be so in-tune as to be able to read his partner automatically. Can you say, "even more performance pressure"?
This set-up is doomed to failure, especially once a couple gets past the infatuation stage of the R, and it did, indeed, fail much of the time for us. While our former sex-model is certainly NOT the only cause for our ultimately sex-starved M, it was a contributing factor, and one that we're working to fix.
The irony here is that even while we were at our most estranged and living separate lives (and sleeping in different rooms), my wife was discovering her own sexuality -- on her own. It is only now, with the REST of our R on the mend, that she is feeling secure enough to share those findings with me.
May the baby-steps continue....
-- B.
Me 50, W 45, M for 26 yrs S25, D23, S13, S10 20+ year SSM; recovery began Oct 2007
I struggle with this as well. I know all the theory, I just have a problem getting out of my own way to follow through. I have found that the more you can adopt the attitude of lovingly exuding "Ok, hon. Your loss.", the less often you will need to accept a rejection.
Gone the carvings and those who left their mark. Gone the kings and queens, now only the rats hold sway.
