I've now been hanging about this SSM forum for about 9 months. While I am neither a -really- old timer nor an overly prolific poster, I am starting to see a pattern emerge in all of the various situations presented here, which I thought I would share with you. Feel free to join in this discussion, correct my misconceptions, or add your own observations.
This is written from the standpoint of the High Desire (HD) partner, caught in a sex-starved marriage to a Low Desire (LD) partner, and who comes here looking for a way to repair the relationship and restore the lost intimacy. From what I have observed (both here and in my own situation), this journey encompasses four phases:
Phase 1: Heal Yourself
Many folks come here angry, hurt, frustrated, and bitter, and are desperately seeking a way to improve their spouse. "If only my spouse would turn on to me sexually, I would be happy again," is the common refrain. So the first truth that must be digested is: the only person you can change in your marriage is YOURSELF. You cannot fix your spouse, and cannot wait for them to make you happy. Initially, you need to focus your energies on improving yourself, for yourself.
This means taking care of yourself physically: eating right, dieting if need be, exercising regularly. This means taking care of yourself mentally: putting new energy into your chosen career, picking up old, neglected hobbies again or finding new ones, getting out of the house more, staying active, revitalizing old friendships or making new ones. This also means caring about your appearance and hygiene: adopting more effective or thorough grooming habits, adopting a new hair style, improving your wardrobe, taking time to pamper yourself with trips to the spa or salon. All the while, your background focus should be on appreciating YOURSELF, boosting your own self-confidence and self-image, and placing your own happiness in your own hands.
A side benefit is that all the while, you are also making yourself more attractive to your spouse. They will stop seeing you as that "angry jerk" or "nagging bitch," and start seeing you again as a happy, self-assured person -- an improved version of the person they were originally attracted to. Your spouse will also feel as if a great weight has been lifted from their own shoulders, as you are no longer depending upon them for your happiness. This sets the stage for Phase 2.
Phase 2: Learn to Meet Your Spouses Needs
This phase might be divided into two parts: (a) education and (b) real giving (to use SG's terminology). Sex-starved marriages ALWAYS involve a failure of TWO (2) people to understand and meet the needs of their spouse. It's rarely one-sided, and while the HD spouse who comes here can point to the failure of the LD spouse to meet their need for physical intimacy, it should be taken as a given that this same HD spouse has, in turn, been failing to meet the needs of their LD spouse.
Very often this failure, on both sides, is wrapped up in the frequently profound differences between men and women. People are often so caught up in their own point-of-view that they completely miss the fact that men and women think, talk, act, and response emotionally very differently from each other, and have very different needs with regard to feeling loved and feeling sexual. Therefore, educating oneself about the opposite sex in general, and about your own spouse in particular, is vital toward solving your sex-starved marriage.
Once you start learning what your spouse's true needs are with regard to friendship, love, and intimacy, the next step is to begin meeting those needs: WITHOUT expecting anything in return. You are showing them that you have a (most likely new-found) knowledge of them and what they need to feel loved and supported, and that YOU are willing to meet those needs --> perhaps for the first time in years.
You are proving to your spouse that you have turned over a new leaf and are willing to work hard to improve the relationship. And it has to be seen as an earnest, long-term effort -- not some short term 'fad' in order to get sex -- but a real effort from the heart.
Phase 3: Get Your Spouse on Board
This is, perhaps, the most critical phase of the four listed, and how you go about it is situation dependent. The most crucial aspect of this phase, in my view, is to have completed Phases 1 and 2 FIRST. If you jump the gun, if you still appear to be angry and demanding, if you still appear to be dependent and needy, if you still appear to not understand your partner's needs, or if you still appear to be selfish and only interested in your own needs: you will most likely fail here. Lay the groundwork carefully and properly.
One effective vehicle for approaching this step is to have your spouse read Chapter 1 of The Sex-Starved Marriage. If the stage has been properly set, then your spouse may be receptive and really GET the message and understand what you have been going through. Other spouses may respond well to a request to start counseling or sex therapy together. Still other spouses may requires some form of "kick in the pants," ultimatum, or what have you, to get them moving, but this ought to be a last resort technique, after the above two have not worked.
Every marriage, and every situation is different, so you'll have to decide how best to proceed. Just make sure that you have done your part to 'get on board,' before asking your spouse to do so.
Phase 4: Working Together
At this point, your spouse will need to go through Phases 1 and 2 on their own, following your lead. They have, no doubt, come to the table just as 'damaged' as you once were, and need to spend some time focusing on themselves and their own self-confidence and self-image. After that, they will have their own education to go through in understanding the opposite sex in general, and you and your needs in particular. All of this takes time, love, and patience on your part.
Along the way, you can follow the guidelines laid out in The Sex-Starved Marriage, pick up some other useful self-help relationship books, attend marriage counseling or sex therapy -- whatever it takes to keep the ball rolling forward. Educating yourself and your spouse in sexual techniques and variety is often a part of this stage too -- everyone can always get better in the bedroom. Be prepared for setbacks and stumbles, sudden surges forward followed by weeks of stagnation -- it's all a slow, often unsteady process. In general, expect repairing your relationship to take about 1-2 months for every 1 year of marriage.
Finally, never forget that a successful relationship and sex life requires CONSTANT, daily maintenance. Communicate clearly with your spouse every day. Court your spouse every day. Show your spouse appreciation and thanks every day. Affirm the attractiveness of your spouse, in your eyes, every day. Maintain a high level of emotional intimacy and sexual 'tension' every day. You get the idea.
Marriage is work -- hard work -- but well worth the rewards.
Best of luck,
Bagheera
Last edited by Bagheera; 08/19/0806:53 PM.
Me 50, W 45, M for 26 yrs S25, D23, S13, S10 20+ year SSM; recovery began Oct 2007
I think it makes perfect sense ~B. I would just say that the timline for each phase may vary. And if spouse doesnt come aboard you can very well get stuck on serve your spouse indefinitely.
And if spouse doesn't come aboard you can very well get stuck on serve your spouse indefinitely.
I know that's where you're stuck, hon: (((Ali)))
The HOW do you get your spouse on board part is the trickiest phase, and the most situation dependent. It's one of the most commonly asked questions here, and I've puzzled over the best advice to give going back to my Carrot vs. Stick post to NTE. For many spouses, it seems that the only thing that will get them moving is a rather severe 'kick in the pants,' an ultimatum to the effect that "I am willing to do my part (and have been, these last few months), but YOU have to do your part too, or this marriage is through."
Timing is critical, in that you must have gotten through Phases 1 and 2 before delivering such an ultimatum. Making such a statement too soon -- while you're still bitter and angry, and have NOT been meeting your spouses needs -- will likely result in your likewise angry spouse saying "Fine. We're done, then!" You have to be prepared for this as an outcome, of course, but if you've set the stage correctly, you can make it more likely that you spouse will agree to work with you to repair the relationship.
In thinking back to last year, perhaps the best indication that you have completed Phases 1 and 2 successfully, and your spouse is 'primed' to come on board, is a noticeable improvement in your sex life, quantity and quality. It won't be up to level of what you (as the HD spouse) are really after, but it will be noticeable. Why? Working through Phase 1 will make you more attractive in general to your partner. Working through Phase 2 will begin to 'soften' your spouse and make them feel more loved and closer to you than they have in years. The likely result (although not guaranteed) will be *some* improvements in your intimate relationship --> UNLESS your spouse has so much built up anger and resentment themselves that they aren't ready for the "new you" yet. In that case, keep at Phase 2 for a longer period of time, until you do see a softening in how your spouse treats you. Thus, when the ice finally starts to melt, and you definitely notice it and appreciate it, that's when it's probably time for the more serious talk.
Going by my highly scientific sample of one (1) relationship on the mend....
-- B.
Last edited by Bagheera; 08/21/0803:46 PM.
Me 50, W 45, M for 26 yrs S25, D23, S13, S10 20+ year SSM; recovery began Oct 2007
Your timeline sounds totally normal and reasonable. I think that Strong & Alive said on one of my threads that his timeline was somewhat similar.
My friend Vorlon has a similar story and timeline, and I am hoping he will read your thread and chime in, too. Although he was, I think, making his changes in a general way to upgrade his marriage - - versus just upgrading the sexual content - - but in the end, I think that is what you found out, too...that it wasn't *just* that you were sex-starved, but also that you and your wife *both* needed to drop the rope and fall in love again.
I think that is what you found out, too...that it wasn't *just* that you were sex-starved, but also that you and your wife *both* needed to drop the rope and fall in love again.
Amen.
-- B.
Me 50, W 45, M for 26 yrs S25, D23, S13, S10 20+ year SSM; recovery began Oct 2007
B - Yes a very reasonable timeline, boy I wish I had done it that way. Here's the totally bass-ackwards way I have gone about it thus far (I won't count my feeble attempts before the light turned on reading SSM):
Phase 3.1 (get spouse on board): 5/31/08 (1st attempt) Phase 1 (heal yourself): 5/31/08-6/28/08 (1 month) Phase 2 (learn to serve your spouse): 6/15/08-date (still learning) Phase 3.2 (get spouse on board): 6/26/08 (2nd attempt) Phase 3.3 (get spouse on board): 8/10/08 (3rd attempt, MC?) Phase 3.4 (get spouse on board): 8/20/08 (4th attempt) Phase 4 (working together): have not yet reached this phase
As you can see by jumping the gun to get your spouse on board it really seems like nagging to them. DO NOT USE MY TIMELINE AS A MODEL FOR SUCCESS! If anything at least I am an example of how not to go about it.
I was more interested in feedback on the four phases themselves, and not so much the time-line that I took to go through them --> which will vary significantly from situation to situation.
What prompted this thread is that nearly every frustrated, HD spouse who comes here is initially looking for a way to jump to Phase 3 immediately (ala NTE, Cinco, etc.). I honestly would have been doing the same thing, but for two reasons: (1) a job-related 6-month separation which forced me to look at my own life and work on MYSELF exclusively, while my wife was thousands of miles away, and (2) I hadn't found the SSM book yet to shove it under her nose prematurely.
Looking back to two years ago, my wife and I were each leading our own separate and parallel lives, staying together "for the sake of the kids," and both of us had 20 years worth of anger, resentment, and a complete lack of trust in the other to meet our marital needs. If I had found and given a copy of The SSM to my wife at that time (a) she would have seen it as an attempt to fix HER only, and (b) she would have told in no uncertain terms that there was a LOT more wrong with our marriage than a lack of sex. And she would have been right.
However, as it turned out, I got lucky. I had the time and opportunity to wake up, work past my own frustration and resentment, reclaim my masculinity, and take the lead in fixing our relationship. I then found the right books to educate myself in men, women, and relationships enough to see what I had been doing wrong for all those years and begin to fix it -- and really begin to understand and meet my wife's (very different) needs. It was only after a few months of applying what I had learned from the M/V books (and others), that I found the SSM book, could introduce it to my wife, and then get her fully on board toward fixing our foundering sexual relationship.
It's this 'progression' that I wanted to share, especially with those still caught up in their own bitterness (but who still love their spouse and desperately want to find a way out of that pit).
-- B.
Last edited by Bagheera; 08/21/0806:45 PM.
Me 50, W 45, M for 26 yrs S25, D23, S13, S10 20+ year SSM; recovery began Oct 2007
Baggy - yes, the phases - YES....we wish and hope for people to realize it is a process, not a bandaid.
There is no quick fix, but there is certainly *treatment* and *recovery*.
The only quick fix about it is the moment people decide and resolve for themselves to begin phase one. There is a quick fix in that decision. It fixes a lot, actually. It is the moment we go from being victims to being empowered.
