Some of you know from my other thread (in the signature) that my wife told me she would read SSM. Over the weekend she made a start, but she's dyslexic and has trouble reading when she's tired. She got partway through Chapter 1--basically just the introduction and the first page. She stopped short of the introduction of the idea of the "Marriage Catch-22" ("I know you're sexually unhappy, I'm not going to do anything about it, and I expect you to be faithful.") which I'd really like her to read because it's almost verbatim something I've said to her more than once without making a dent. Anyway, she was tired early Monday, and I got that, so I told her I really wanted to finish the conversation and she should come to me when she's ready to talk about reading the first chapter either together or separately. That's early Monday morning. Now it's late Tuesday night, and I have to admit, I'm getting impatient, especially since she's had time to take a nap each afternoon, watch a movie with the kids and I each evening, and we just spent a couple of hours laying in bed together. Maybe this is unfair, but it just seems like once again she's letting me know that our sex life is not important and we'll get around to it later if at all.
So, am I:
A. An impatient jerk, for not giving her more time than a couple of days to feel ready to talk, or B. A doormat, for leaving it open-ended like that and AGAIN letting the person who couldn't care less about sex set the pace in discussing sex, or C. Some other possibility of which I have yet to think?
D. A normal high desire man, married to a normal low desire wife.
Look - you and your wife are always going to have a mismatched libido problem, most likely. Right now, you are sex starved and irritable and (rightfully so) very hurt by your wife's rejection...but these reactions are spilling into your ability to have a higher vision of the "problem" just yet. You are still so stung by your wife's past rejections and lack of sex, that you can't really think clearly just yet...even while you are trying to improve the situation.
I know how horrible it feels to be sex and intimacy starved (my marriage). I know now that it can literally cause you to not see reality for what it is. I also have been a wife who starved her husband from intimacy. I have been on both sides.
You think that she has power over you, and its true, for right now she does. But it is only because you cast that power upon her shoulders and you can take it back...and I'm not talking about violating the catch-22 either.
You take back the power by pulling way back from the situation, so far that you can see how it looks to a disinterested third party.
So from my view, and I have a pretty good view from here, you and your wife are just normal people with normal needs. Your needs are not focused on the same thing. Unfortunately, that leaves one of you sex-starved. The problem is totally fixable, but yes that will eventually require your wife to want to work on the problem.
So you see in the above view of your sitch from the outside, there is compassion for both of you and blame to neither of you. There is simply a mis-match problem, but unfortuantely this type of mis-match will cause 100's of other problems.
If you want to be happy, you will have to forgive her of this crime you are imagining she is doing to you, this power you imagine she has over you...and instead, learn to know her again, learn to seduce her, pray for the best, encourage and ask and basically demand her to come along with you into a new adventure together...
And still, you can do it all right and end up not correcting everything anyway. If that happens, then you have to ask yourself if it is all what you want or not, make your decisions, work toward it or ... ??
This has to be more about making your mis-match difference into LESS of a problem than it already is. There are many paths to that outcome.
Please don't think that I am minimizing what you are going through at all...I know you are in a lot of pain over this.
I appreciate all that, but what I'm asking is, should I wait longer or should I tell her that I'd like to talk about this today? I only meant to ask for specific advice.
But since you bring it up . . . you're right. I'm pissed off. It's hard for me to accept that she's not to blame. If she didn't know about the problem, that would be one thing. But she says she knows how hard this is for me. Lord knows, I've told her so many times in so many ways . . . . but she won't do anything about it. I know anger clouds judgment, but it's hard to see your own.
I really am trying to see this from her side, but her side seems to change on a regular basis. I know she doesn't mean to do this, but there have been so many empty promises that only lasted until I fulfilled them--"Maybe if you lost weight," "I just need more help around the house," "I need to get away sometimes and have time for myself." It kills me whether she means to or not.
I dont think you are either... I think you are a Husband who is very frustrated with his Wife.
A ?
Does she really and truly know how hurt you are by this or does she think you just need to get off?
I ask this b/c it also took me forever to really and truly hear my husband. I never really got that he needed me and to be close to me thru sex.. I thought he just needed to come~ Sad but true... I felt unimportant in his release.... I felt ugly and used. And he felt even uglier. It is a terrible viscious cycle.
It took him almost divorcing me and then another @ 8 months of hard work and a poster here named COG to help me see the light actually.
I asked COG how it felt when his Wife held back on ML~ his post made me weep. My H had never said it in so many words like that... he had tried time and time again to get me to see what he was going thru and I did not. For some reason when I read COGs post I weeped.
I FINALLY UNDERSTOOD IT MADE SENSE. I decided to work even harder to change. We also ( H and I ) had this long talk and he explained how "ugly" and "worthless" I made him feel. About a year after Cogs post and you know what?
I cried off and on the whole day and I am still amazed that sex would have such a detremental affect on my H. I was dying for him to be emotionally close and he just needed for me to ML to him. Simple words and yet the journey there is at times extremely difficult.
I dunno if your Wife truly knows she has that much power.
Does she? Does she really intentionally hurt you? I hope not.... she is probably just blind to her power. I dunno .....
I will keep in touch with you and you will be in my prayers..... And you are a silly old bear... you are only 30 years old.. and in a post yesterday you made it sound like you were 75!!!!! You are very young....
You do need to try and step back some like DQ mentioned. You are to hurt and upset right now to think straight. BTDT~! And yes you have every reason to be pissed off but it will not help you get to your goal. I will say this and it may not work for your Wife.. every Woman is different. When my H backed off some and let the ball be in my court my drive started to blossom.... I did not feel so much pressure from him anymore. God bless, ~Ali
* and maybe you could say... " hey honey have you had time to look at that book we talked about? It would realy mean alot to me if you did." Something like that.
Does she really acknowledge there is a problem or is she just agreeing with you? Sorry I am sure my post is all over the place but I hope it helps some......
I don't know what she really understands about it. I used to think it was so simple--I worked up my courage, told her how I feel (Are you listening out there, Oprah? I shared my feelings!) and she didn't do anything about it, so she must not care.
It's funny you mention your husband feeling "ugly" and "worthless." I said exactly that to her, more than once. Lately I've just settled on "inadequate." I was trying to get past her "I don't know why, OK?" responses. I wanted to make her understand that how I felt was not about WHY she didn't want me. If she didn't want me, I was inadequate. If I were "adequate" in her eyes, then by definition I'd be able to find a way to overcome any excuse or obstacle.
I used to think that, but as I read this forum I'm struck by how every LD woman here says the same thing--"He tried to tell me, but I never believed him, I thought it was just an itch he wanted to scratch." They were all told in no uncertain terms that their husbands were miserable, and none of them believed him. I wouldn't have believed this possible if I hadn't read the firsthand accounts from so many women. So, does she understand? I don't know. I'm dying to talk to her about it, but tomorrow will be two weeks of not discussing our sex life. I'm trying to do that "back off" thing that worked for you, and if I stop, I'm honestly dreading trying to do it again.
Things I've said: "You don't know how ugly I feel."
"It doesn't help that you tell me I'm so good at making love. You tell me how great I am, but then you reject me for months straight. How much must I disgust you if the sex is so wonderful and you STILL don't want it?"
"I can't understand why I pledged my whole life to you and I'm still not worth making love. I gave you everything I have. What more can I give you?"
"You keep telling me there's nothing wrong me, you're attracted to me, and I should keep my hands to myself and go to sleep. Those things can't all be true. What can I possibly think except that you don't want me because I'm not good enough?"
"I feel like you think I'm some kind of crazy pervert, but I'm not. This is not abnormal! I promised my whole life to you because I love you. It's OK for me to want to have sex with my own wife, isn't it?"
"I didn't marry you because I want to be your brother."
"I'm not interested in being your personal handyman/gardener/nanny. I want to be your husband. Your husband is the guy you have sex with. I want to be that guy."
"We have the same relationship you had with your guy friend in high school. You love me, you'd do anything for me, we make good partners, and we have nice hugs. But we don't have sex with each other. What's the difference between our marriage and a nice friendship?
S.O.B....hey! That's an acronym for another nick name, you know! He he...
I want to point something out to you, which will likely fall on deaf ears, but here I go anyway...maybe someday you'll "hear" it.
You said: "You keep telling me there's nothing wrong me, you're attracted to me, and I should keep my hands to myself and go to sleep." You said this is something you've told her, in an attempt to get her to understand that YOU don't understand her when she seems to give conflicting information.
Do YOU really UNDERSTAND that to a low desire person, loving you and being attracted to you DOES NOT make them want to have sex with you? Have you truly understood HER inner make up yet?
You are still trying to project upon her YOUR inner feelings and make up. To YOU, if you didn't want to have sex with her, it would be because you were not attracted to her, didn't love her any more, or you were injured or sick.
But don't you see that to HER - not wanting to have sex with you means none of those things BECAUSE YOU TWO HAVE MIS-MATCHED LIBIDOS.
You can't understand what a low desire person feels like inside, and yet you are trying very hard to insist that it must be the same way YOU feel.
Don't you see why none of it makes sense to each other?
A person with low desire has LOW DESIRE. Their desire does not just flow around naturally and latch on to their happy, loving feelings and then cause the urge for sex. Instead, their desire is in them somewhere, but very few things trigger it if any, when it does come out the person is happy and satisfied and feels love through sex, and then it goes away again...but just because it does not come out very often does NOT mean she is defective, isn't attracted to you, or any other reason. She is a NORMAL LOW DESIRE person. That is how they truly do feel! It is not meant to hold you off, insult you or hurt you!
But because she is abnormal in your eyes, and because you are sex and intimacy deprived, you are blaming her and angry at her.
But SOB - you are angry at her for something that is PART OF HERSELF, the same way that YOUR HIGH DRIVE IS PART OF YOURSELF!
In effect, you are insisting to her that she must not love you or be attracted to you because of her low drive, and you are not giving any consideration to the total difference in your drives, still!
Hon, I hope you never have to go through this, but one day if you get injured or sick (or even if you are miserable too long in your marriage) you may lose your sex drive. The day that happens, you will finally understand your wife. If you do not have a natural urge that is right under the surface anymore (like you have right now), then you will understand how you can love and be attracted to someone and yet it will not stir in you the urge to have sex. It can be a completely orgnanic thing, or it could be an emotional or mental thing - either way, it won't matter - if you lose your sex drive one day, even for a short time, you will IMMEDIATELY take a different stance than the one you are taking now. You will "get" her.
I will come back later because I have something else to say...but hopefully until then you can read this and TRY to see that the LD and HD persons are never going to FEEL the same way and therefore, you trying to project YOUR feelings upon her is never going to work. She doesn't feel the same way you do, and therefore to her, it is not an insult to you for her not to want to have sex with you.
I think you are getting good advice and I won't rehash it. The one thing I would add is that I was in the same spot as you a year or so ago (read the book and knew it would help my wife). She too read the first chapter and she even said how much it was like us and how great it was. Then...nothing...and more nothing...dust on the book...still on her nightstand...more dust...
Anyway, she still hasn't read it, despite MANY suggestions, R talks, promises, etc. I'm convinced if the book was arranged in the format of a magazine with a bunch of ads thrown in (my imagination is full of ideas for advertisers) she would read it. But truthfully, I suspect the reason she hasn't, and why many LD wives won't, is because the truth hurts and it is easier to stay in denial than it is to confront it.
Ultimately, she has to decide on her own to read it.
CD
Me; 42, W; 43 M; 16 yrs S12, D9
3/13 - "I want to move to XYZ City (four hours away) and it might be without you, not sure" 5/13 - "Not sure I meant that"
SB, * ( I was going to put SOB yesterday too but it just seemed like I shouldnt... too funny... )
DQ~ Does make an excellent point also. You are punishing her for making you feel the way you do and it is not her intention. I agree. I never outright meant to hurt my H like I tld you. And he tried many times to talk to me and I just couldnt get it.
I love him and love him dearly but just b/c I loved him did not mean I wanted to put his penis in my mouth either.
Funny how now that my H is stressed and tired and etc etc etc and I want sex..... I will say now are you doing this to hurt me? .....be it x y or z ? ....and he will Firmly reply "~NO." And I will now state " see when I did x, y or z I wasnt out to hurt you either.
He used to be where you are and he flat out told me " when you change and give me what I want then I will change"
That is how far his frustration led him. I totally get it now and yet I do think once again maybe if you step back as hard as it is and let go of the anger let go of the hurt then maybe things will start to slowly change.
I also know for me personally when he put the ball in my court I felt this weight had been lifted off of me and at the same time panic....
... how am I going to initiate all the time and be creative and knock his socks off... OMG what has he done?
Funny thing he isnt as interested as me anymore.. for years he was all over me and couldnt keep his hands off me and now this.
I do feel sad at times at how much he must have missed me just touching him.
I must also warn you I read lots of books. Including Passionate Marriage and highlighted it to death and I knew all the concepts why he did this and why I did that.
And it wasnt until I just decided to do it,, ACTION! That things changed......
I picked up a copy of Sex Starved Marriage just yesterday,, I must admit I had not read it...
But I had been using the concepts in DB~ to change my sexlife. So I will keep in touch but I am going to read for a bit. I just about finished it yesterday.
You can do this I am sure of it but I do think you need to clear your head and let go of all the anger too. Cause if you dont when she tries you may have too much resentment to enjoy it. BTDT~ God bless, ~Ali
Do YOU really UNDERSTAND that to a low desire person, loving you and being attracted to you DOES NOT make them want to have sex with you? Have you truly understood HER inner make up yet?
Honestly? No. That makes no sense to me, and I freely admit I don't understand what she's thinking or feeling. I'm trying, but I don't. Especially the part about being attracted to me, but not wanting me. It's like the word "attracted" has no meaning. Understand, I'm not trying to be recalcitrant for the sake of making this harder. I truly don't understand. Maybe I'm too focused on parsing words.
Quote:
She is a NORMAL LOW DESIRE person. That is how they truly do feel! It is not meant to hold you off, insult you or hurt you!
I get that you believe that. Now I want to believe it.
And as angry and frustrated as I am, I don't really believe deep down that she wants to hurt me. What I believed for a long time is that she has a basic conflict between two incompatible forces: she doesn't want to have sex with me, but she doesn't want to hurt me.
1. She doesn't want me. Leave aside why, but she doesn't. She thinks I would make a pleasant companion if we could just skip sex from now on. However,
2. She knows I take her rejection personally, and she knows it hurts my feelings. She would like to have her cake and eat it too by rejecting my advances, but not hurting my feelings. Her solution to this is to insist that her rejection is an impersonal thing, having nothing to do with my merits as a husband or a lover. She can't bring herself to face sex with me, but she can tell a few little white lies to spare my feelings so she doesn't have to hurt me.
I don't know what I believe today. How is it possible to know? I have to talk to her tonight. Please do come back and tell me the rest. I know I probably sound like I'm debating with you, but it's more a debate with myself. I AM reading what you write carefully. I'm trying.
I suspect the reason she hasn't, and why many LD wives won't, is because the truth hurts and it is easier to stay in denial than it is to confront it.
Very true..... I do remember getting hurt... I sometimes misunderstood my Husband... I thought he was saying I was no good in bed.
The Passion was missing....
It is far easier to keep things like they are than to work your a** off and have a better and Happier sex life.
WHY should I have to rock your boat? The Jones down the road have sex once a year and they are just fine? TYPE of mentality is what is making all this even more difficuly I suppose too. We have 2.5 kids a nice house and a great car, a Cat a Dog and the lawn looks great too..... everything you are supposed to strive for. Oh and I forgot the floors are so clean you could eat off them. Mom ( or Dad or that matter) never tells you make sure you f*kc your Husband silly and he will be happy as a clam. NOONE~ I repeat NOONE tells you that. ME? It is my new advice to my girlfriends whose H's are behaving badly. I tell them confront the behavior and then F*kc the **** out of him and see if he doesnt change.! Dont be a doormat but dont withold sex either!
When really the vital thing is what happens in the bedroom and all the hours outside of it nothing else!
Everything can wait.... but your H he cant. We are never really taught that ever and to reprogram? It takes alot more effort than it seems. Especially if the drive is low. I love my H wether he goes down on me or not.. when he does it , sure it puts a smile on my face but even if he didnt I would still love him. that is the difference DQ~ is talking about.
Does your Wife feel loved by you? Do you get along well? Have you read the whole book *(SSM) yet? God bless, ~Ali
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