So I don't really know where to start and I could ramble on forever so I'm going to try and write an abbreviated version of my issue....
I have been with my current husband for the last 20 months. We met in April of 2009 and almost immediately moved in together...I know I know...not a good idea, but I felt so connected to him...we had so much in common and he acted like he was so into me. He would constantly tell me how he loved me, loved me body, that I drove him crazy and although his technique for love making wasn't the best...I didn't care. I craved this man like no other I'd been with before. We had sex relatively frequently for the first 3 months and all of the sudden...boom...it stopped. No sex for 2 months straight. At first I was reluctant to say anything for fear he would tell me I was a turn off to him, but it finally got to be too much so I confronted him and asked him what was going on. He got very defensive and gave little in the way of answers, but said he would be "better" and more attentive. Things, however, did not change but I started monitoring his internet activities and noticed that he was looking at pornography A LOT. Again, I confronted him asking why he would pass up a real live woman to please himself in front of the computer. For about 7 months this was a constant fight and finally he had to stop watching porn because the computer broke. Actual intercourse increased a bit, but his lack of attention to my pleasure got worse and worse. He seems completely disinterested in any of my female parts, avoids touching me and love making just turns out to be me pleasing him until he climbs on top of me and "gets it over with". I'm left feeling like nothing but a prostitute as it seems like it could be anyone "servicing" him. Not to mention the fact that my self esteem has suffered in a HUGE way...I feel like I disgust him in some way. We continually fight about the issue and he always makes excuses like..he was with a woman once whose hygiene was bad so he can't get over it and he doesn't know what his problem is. He admittedly masturbates daily but says he doesn't have a high sex drive. Wouldn't someone without a sex drive not want any type of sex? Bottom line...I wonder if he's gay and can't stop wondering what's wrong with me that he doesn't want to be with me. I'm to the end of my rope...any advice? Does this sound similar to anyone????
You'd fit in better if you rambled on forever . . . .
1. You're WAY ahead of things . . . this board is full of people who tried to keep quiet and "wait until this passes" for years, some for decades.
2. He doesn't have to be gay. He could be, but it's not the only explanation.
3. He may prefer masturbation because masturbation comes with no risk of failure or feeling inadequate (if you noticed that his technique wasn't the best, he probably knows--but can't bring it up.)
4. He may prefer masturbation because he feels shame when he has sex with you. Could be he doesn't feel like he measures up, or he feels sex is dirty, or whatever.
5. He may have had these problems before he met you, and hoped that the rush of sexual feeling he had with you in the early days meant that it would be different with you.
6. He may be having enough trouble that he has some desire for sex but there's a threshold of effort he won't cross, and masturbating in front of the computer is an instant-gratification kind of fix that takes almost no effort.
These are just thoughts off the top of my head.
Advice? Sure, but it's free and it's worth what you pay for it.
1. This forum is handy, but have you read the book it's based on? It actually does help a lot of people; it really made a big difference for me. I tried for years to tell my wife how much our sex-starved marriage was hurting me. Reading The Sex-Starved Marriage helped her see how much pain I was really in after everything else had failed; she literally cried after reading the first chapter, though it took a long time after she agreed to read it before she actually did it. Reading it also helped me realize that I had to decide whether I was willing to accept our sex-starved condition, and what I was willing to do about it. I would never have had the courage to tell my wife that we were headed for a divorce without reading the book, and that was the only thing that shocked her out of her complacency.
2. If you can, it might be time to get someone else involved. It would be great if you could find a good sex therapist, especially if your husband would go with you. Many of us live far from the nearest sex therapist (ST), though.
3. There are also other authors, like David Schnarch (Passionate Marriage) I would recommend.
4. Do things you can do on your own as much as possible. Do things that make you feel better. Do things you enjoy. Do things that make you feel stronger. Don't wait until your husband is willing to join you!
Unfortunately, I didn't find the book until we separated. I have no doubt it would have made a difference for me as the LD partner (then again, we seemed to swap this title at times). He doesn't subscribe to the theory that you should 'just do it, and the feeling will come'. Hearing this as a LDS makes you feel like you are totally to blame, something is wrong with you and trust me, is a HUGE turn-off. Getting to the root of the problem and facing yourself is his approach.
Listening to your above situation and living through the last 4 months of my life, makes me want to tell you to run, not walk, to pick up this book (and probably a sex therapist appt!)
Good luck CW. You being here on this site is far more than my H ever did... be proud of yourself.
(Formerly blgp) Me-35 H-33 Married 4 yrs Together 9 yrs "Bomb" 8/1/10 Separated 8/6/10 D filed 10/21/10, on hold til 1/11
"If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him about your life plans."
We actually have been improving, but it's taken time . . .years, really, at this point. I still don't have sex as much as I'd like, and she still hears more about sex than she'd like, but we're both a lot happier. It hasn't been all about having more sex (though we have a LOT more sex now--this week she put me off all week until last night, and that was hard, but it used to be sex once a month, the day after her period ended, like clockwork--and if something made us miss that day, it'd be another month, guaranteed. We literally went over a year without sex at one point. We average 1-2 times a week right now, and the amount of pressure she feels in general determines a lot.) It's also been important that we can talk openly and treat honestly with each other now . . . we spent years locked into being unhappy, thinking there was nothing to be done about it, and thinking we knew what the other was thinking so there was no point in talking about it yet again. Getting past that was the real breakthrough.
I don't think I'd agree that Schnarch doesn't believe in "just doing it" as Weiner-Davis does. He certainly doesn't emphasize it the way she does, and he's very clear with low-desire spouses that they must have reasons for their low desire and they're not "wrong" to feel that way. Weiner-Davis teaches that, too, but it's not emphasized the way Schnarch does (or maybe I just found his way of saying it clearer.)
But both books have been important to me. My wife did eventually read Sex-Starved Marriage, and it did help a lot. I read Scharch on my own earlier this year when I felt like we were on a plateau and not making progress, and it made a HUGE difference to me. The biggest thing I took from MWD was the importance of taking my wife at face value and not assuming that I could read her mind (because when I did try to read her mind, she always turned out to be thinking cruel, hateful stuff about me and how much she hated being married to me--which would have made sense if she were more or less like me, but she isn't.) If I'd treated a woman the way my wife treated me, it would have meant that I didn't want to be with her anymore, but that's not what it meant when my wife did it. The biggest thing I took from Schnarch was the importance of "self-soothing" and differentiating myself. When I read it, I recognized that I had been trying to self-soothe when I was frustrated or frightened by her sexual rejections, but had only sporadic success. But remembering those scattered successes and reading how important Schnarch thought it was to soothe yourself and not look to your spouse to make things all better, I was able to set a clear purpose in getting better at it, learning it by systematic practice the way you'd learn any other skill. The amount of anger and resentment I was carrying around at all times was poisonous.
Evolve, am I remembering Schnarch wrong? I haven't read it lately, but I didn't remember him saying much about the "just do it" theories. I can tell you that doing that helped my wife simply because she really wanted sexual feelings back and she had worried that they were gone. And in MWD's book, she described the HD partner's frustration with the way the LD partner would be completely uninterested in sex for weeks, but when they had sex it would be great and she would gush about how great it was, but then put it off for weeks again. I don't know if you had that experience, but we sure did, and it made me crazy. She would put me off forever, then we'd have sex that would make her shout and writhe and sweat and leave her exhausted after multiple orgasms. For years I would go back to her the next day (and be told no if I was lucky, actually mocked for thinking she would have sex with me again if I wasn't) and I kept doing it because I just couldn't make it make sense in my mind that someone could be driven that wild, gush about how "talented" her lover was, and then just switch it off for weeks or months. I became convinced that all her enjoyment of sex was play-acting, though I never made sense of a motive for her to do such a thing.
She still sometimes says something like "I'm not really in the mood, but we can give it a try and see what happens." Once she says that, she never stops me, though she could with a word. Having admitted that it's possible she might be up for sex, she always finds that she is.
Schnarch actually addresses the 'just do it' theory specifically and why it doesn't work... I will look for the chapter and post the page numbers.
But, to make that a little clearer. I sound a bit like your wife in some regards, but my H was never much of an initiator, very boy-like if at all, which was a turn-off. Nothing like the man I had fallen in love with. Then again, we could talk about why he became that way and my contribution to that... maybe I should start my own thread, huh? Back to the subject. I would agree that 'just doing it' does have its place without a doubt. I never wanted to stop after I was into it either. Yet, hearing the 'just do it' approach from your S or a M counselor doesn't address the underlying reason the two of you ended up in that position. (And don't forget, it takes two, this doesn't all fall on the LDS). It just sends the message that the LDS needs to be fixed. I don't think this will ever work long term. How can you become intimate and vulnerable to someone that thinks it is all your fault/you are broken? Maybe you don't even think that about your S, but now that is the message that he/she has received.
For instance, I could turn it off like your W too. The sex H and I actually had was quite good, but it had gotten so infrequent it only happened every 3 months and only if I initiated. I think the poison had run so deep in him he had no desire for me anymore... of course, he lived very quietly with this. It can be turned off, because it comes down to intimacy, IMO. For me, it goes back to the 5LLs. I desperately wanted and needed quality time in order to want my H. I don't think he could give that to me because were weren't having sex. We were in incredible gridlock.
Open and honest, the best advice. Had I only known what was going on in my H's mind, I would have put my career on hold to fix it. Whatever it took for him to realize he and his needs were important to me. Ahh, but the mind-reading, years of resentment, I guarantee he thought he knew what was going on in my head but truly had no idea.
(Formerly blgp) Me-35 H-33 Married 4 yrs Together 9 yrs "Bomb" 8/1/10 Separated 8/6/10 D filed 10/21/10, on hold til 1/11
"If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him about your life plans."
It's way too late and I should be in bed, but you make good points. You remind me of my wife in some ways, too, and I don't know whether that will make you feel better, worse or indifferent. I think we made it (I'll let you know in 20 years) but it was a near enough thing.
If you get the chance, do post the page numbers from Schnarch that you want people to look at. I'd be interested and there may be lurkers around who would like to see them, too.
Ahhh...thanks to you both. I'm so confused. The funny thing is the first time I came to this website it was to save my first marriage where I was the low desire spouse. It was too late for me to save that marriage, but a lot of counseling helped me realize what my issues were and I got passed them...and in a major way. I feel like I cheated myself out of years of wonderful sex from my first husband that did EVERYTHING he could to please me only to get into a new relationship where I really wanted to make sure I had a healthy and fulfilling sex life (you know the been there...made that mistake and won't do it again mindset) only to find out I have a husband that would truly rather masturbate than be with me. I feel like I'm being punished for what I did to my ex and now know how awful my rejection and disinterest made him feel. I'm also starting to revert back to the way I was before all my counseling. I have awful feelings of self doubt, feel unattractive and my body issues are back with a vengeance.
The situation you both describe sounds very similar to how I was with my first husband. My current situation is much more "strange" in my opinion. Although our sex is not as frequent as I like, he does make an effort to have sex, but when I tell you he does nothing to please me...I mean nothing! He doesn't kiss me or touch me at all. Manual stimulation is about as frequent as every 10 times we have sex and oral sex is completely out of the question, although he enjoys me doing all this for him. I rarely reach climax (maybe 5 times in the last year) and he could care less. This is where I wonder if he's gay or not. Have you ever heard of a man not wanting to touch a woman's breats and privates?????? I haven't and I feel so dirty and disgusting because of this. I feel as if I'm a prostitute providing a service to him and that I could be anyone on the earth...it doesn't mean anything to him that I'm his wife and want nothing more than for him to love me and want to please me.
I am so ANGRY I cannot take it anymore and I spend most of my time trying to figure a way out of this relationship!!!!
(1) Were you more sexually aggressive when you started out? Did you initiate more, get on top tell him what to do more?
(2) My theory: H has a longstanding problem with porn and compulsive masturbation. When you started out, the excitement/rush of a new R let him put it on hold. He felt good, he enjoyed sex. But, addictions will tell. It came back. He feels gross, ashamed, and dirty about himself and sex in general. He can handle the compulsive private activity, but finds sex while being seen by another almost unbearable. Just my theory based on an old marriage of mind. And, FWIW, there is NO WAY his use of porn is gone just because the computer broke.
(3) Stop having sex that isn't good for you and makes you feel bad. Don't do it.
(4) Lots of women lose their libido from a lack of decent reliable sex that is satisfying for them (rather than just a faked O for W and a real O for H). I was among them. Losing one's libido seems to be a defensive reaction to living in otherwise intolerable circumstances. It is important for your own sake that you remain healthy sexually. Get some erotica, a new sex toy, whatever. You owe it to yourself to stay a sexual being. Don't lose that again.
Finally, if I were you, I'd bail. This guy has HUGE problems. It is not an R that seems to be good for you in any way. 20 months and an even shorter marriage... there is no way I'd live in a sexually-deadening M again. Ever. Why are you? At least put down a clear boundary: "I have zero interest in continuing to live in a sexually-deadening M. Our sex life is unfulfilling and humiliating for me. I will not participate in it unless it changes. blah blah blah...." But, even this would be farther than I would go for such a short messed-up R. I'd be outta there. Zoom. And I don't believe I've ever said that to anyone who is actually married before.
....He would constantly tell me how he loved me, loved me body, that I drove him crazy and although his technique for love making wasn't the best...I didn't care.
...I craved this man like no other I'd been with before. We had sex relatively frequently for the first 3 months and all of the sudden...boom...it stopped.
...but it finally got to be too much so I confronted him
....He got very defensive
...Things, however, did not change but I started monitoring his internet activities and noticed that he was looking at pornography A LOT.
...Again, I confronted him asking why he would pass up a real live woman to please himself in front of the computer. For about 7 months this was a constant fight and finally he had to stop watching porn because the computer broke.
...his lack of attention to my pleasure got worse and worse. He seems completely disinterested in any of my female parts, avoids touching me and love making just turns out to be me pleasing him until he climbs on top of me and "gets it over with".
...I'm left feeling like nothing but a prostitute
....my self esteem has suffered in a HUGE way...I feel like I disgust him in some way.
...We continually fight about the issue and he always makes excuses
...I wonder if he's gay and can't stop wondering what's wrong with me...
First, I want to congratulate you on your bravery posting this and on your taking some steps to try to work things out.
You might want to re-read your words....technique wasn't the best, confrontation, defensive, fight, lack of attension, self esteem....
First he isn't gay. Second he probably does have some relationship baggage prior to meeting you. Third you have proabably unknowingly added to his baggage.
Having a lover feel that one's sexual technique leaves a lot to be desired, is about as personal and damning a thing as I can imagine. We owe it to our lover to guide them and offer positive feedback so that we get what we need from them and then praise them even if we are still wanting more, but it is all they can give at this time. Is it possible that you either explicitly or through body language let him know he wasn't a good lover and that message might have impacted his desire to have sex with you?
Have you talked to him to find out why the two of you stopped having sex in a way that was supportive as opposed to "confrontational?"
Porn can be very addictive and destructive to a marriage. However, few turn to porn out of the blue, usually there are reasons for it. Do you know the reason he turned to porn?
My suggestion would be to get some professional counseling with a sex therapist. See if you can rebuild your relationship as you did sound happy for a while at the beginning. One of the hardest pieces of advice to accept is that sexual rejection, while it feels incredibly personal is often not your partner trying to hurt you, but your partner not knowing what to do and thereby trying to avoid hurting both you and themself.
Good luck to you, I hope you find happiness
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
