You're cherry-picking messages to fit your agenda. It may make you feel good to feel like you're winning an argument today, but it's going to bring you to grief.
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As I think I've said several times already, I have already told her that. At this point, she doesn't want to know the details. Neither of us is "happy" about the situation.
Humor us and tell her again, and this time explain that you aren't happy with this arrangement you've had and you want to have a happy sex life with her instead.
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Oh, I think I see the logic. If I divorce, fool around, and then remarry, it would all be clean and kosher, and I'd have my integrity, and if that hurt the kids and my wife just as much, it wouldn't matter because I kept my integrity and honor. Don't you see we're working through a problem? Sure, we are essentially divorced in the sense of intimacy. And so, as some of you have suggested, my marriage is a sham. Well, if we got divorced, is that the way to fix it, just because it then semantically eliminates the applicability of the phrase (your marriage is a sham)? No marriage, no sham. Got it.
No, you haven't got it and you know better than to say so. You've just wasted your time building a pro-divorce straw man and then knocking it apart because you don't have an easy answer to the actual question, which is why are you so afraid to confront your wife and do what it takes to take control and responsibility for your own life? There is no easy answer to that. It comes down to fear. You were right at the edge of breaking through it awhile ago. Now you're retreating. The thing is, I think you'll probably get there in the end. But you're prolonging your own pain with this.
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I don't understand the lack of focus on the actual problem, rather than on our IRS and property legal status as indicated by paperwork filed with the government. If you are having a loving sexual relationship with someone, and you cheat on that partner with someone else, you don't keep your honor and integrity intact simply because you are not married to that person. But as I understand it from some people on this forum, the marital status is what makes the difference. I don't agree with that.
The only person on this forum who has made that argument is you. It's your strawman, you built it, and you can deal with it however you see fit, but it has nothing to do with the advice you've been given here. We're advising you to insist on a real marriage, an honest marriage. You have let your fear of confronting your wife over the years convince you that you have to help her hide what your marriage really is. You hide the details of your infidelity from her because she doesn't like to deal with the truth of what the two of you have made your marriage into. She camouflages your marriage as a happy link between lovers for outsiders because she doesn't want to confront her own feelings of shame over what you two have made your marriage into. In exchange, if your story is to be believed, she looks the other way while you have unsatisfying sexual affairs on the side. How generous the hand of the queen.
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Well, now, which way are you trying to make the argument? That sex is not recommended for 15-year-olds? Or that casual sex among 15-year-olds is OK because theyre NOT married? And they therefore keep their honor and integrity intact?
And to put on my international smugness cap, I find it a curious mixed message about "sex out of wedlock" in America. I hear that everyone should wait to have sex until marriage. And then I also hear that it's OK to have casual sex with multiple partners because you're not married.
This is why I deliberately didn't address the whining about teenagers having sex. It has nothing to do with you or your marriage. It's a red herring.
If you were 15 and had the judgment and faculties of a 15-year-old, it would matter what people say to 15 year olds and I *might* engage in the argument you're trying to start about that. But you're not, and it doesn't, and I won't.
I kept my mouth shut when DanceQueen suggested the passive-aggressive strategy of shaming her with little asides in front of company. I probably shouldn't have, so now I'll say my piece. I don't really recommend this. I did it for years, too. All it does is pull other people into an uncomfortable situation for them without giving them the information they need to make a judgment--you're essentially using your friends and family. Now, talking in depth to your friends, family, therapist, pastor or whoever about your problems would be different, but the thing about these little "joking" moments is that a man who is already struggling to assert himself and get out from under a woman's thumb should probably avoid passive-aggressive strategies like this altogether if only to help him break the habit of whining and passive aggression. And before you take offense, remember that I've been here and when I talk about whining and passive aggression, I'm describing my own behavior. Whining and passive aggression are not attractive in anyone.
Silly - I agree with what you are saying about the shaming comments. I had a hard time writing it in the way I meant it.
If comments like this have already been made over the years to try to bully/shame a response, then yes that is passive-agressive.
But if the husband had never "dared" to open his mouth in public about their issues before, if he had "gone along" when the wife made it seem outwardly like things were "just fine" in the sex department...then one strategically placed comment that would shake her feathers up would be a potential ice breaker to those longer conversations about the ssm. If he shocked her a little bit with ONE comment that was meant to shove the cart ahead again, then it could be useful.
But as you said...snide comments along the way with no real meaning behind them is just passive agressive.
If comments like this have already been made over the years to try to bully/shame a response, then yes that is passive-agressive.
The comments I've made have in this regard have been more careful. For example, while with a group of friends or relatives, my wife might talk about all the things she wants to do on vacation, and I make a joke about how we need to reserve time for just having unscheduled time back at the motel room. In front of everyone else, she has no choice but to agree. It's kind of lighthearted in that sense, and everybody thinks it's funny, because they know I've always been HD. And everyone else's reactions help reinforce to her that this is a normal and expected activity. When you've had ND for a long time it seems you can lose perspective that sex has any purpose. Hence my wife's comment years ago when we were barely sexual on a romantic vacation, "What? You want to have sex again? We had it just two days ago!" She genuinely did not understand why anybody would want to have it again after 48 hours. She also informed me around that time that it's normal for people our age to have sex about once a week, as if that should make that frequency OK for me.
We also have an HD couple we're friends with who are comfortable telling us all kinds of cool stuff. For example, his wife, who's the higher HD, said that when they were on vacation, she jumped him as soon as they got into the motel room and went at it so long they barely made dinner before it closed. They had to run down without even freshening up. Well, it was funny the way they told it. But it was good for my wife to hear it. I could see it got her thinking. If I had told her a story like that second hand, she would have assumed I was greatly exaggerating because I had an agenda.
I think this approach has helped her accept that it's normal to want to have a lot of sex. It just hasn't totally succeeded yet!
Humor us and tell her again, and this time explain that you aren't happy with this arrangement you've had and you want to have a happy sex life with her instead.
And you really think I haven't already done that, including saying that I'm not happy with this arrangement? I thought I've explained this more than once. One of the issues in therapy was that I endlessly confronted my wife with the "we need to talk" thing, and that I wasn't happy, etc. The advice was that I needed to back off because repetition was pointless after a while, and that she needed some time.
It's difficult in a forum like this to present a comprehensive picture and for people to give advice that fits a complicated situation.
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No, you haven't got it and you know better than to say so. You've just wasted your time building a pro-divorce straw man
No, others on this forum have presented the marriage-divorce strawman. I would never have brought that up. Comments like, well, just get a divorce and you can sleep around all you want. Just filing for divorce doesn't do it, man.
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which is why are you so afraid to confront your wife
Completely the opposite, at least in the past. I've had to rein myself in, as even the therapist told me I needed to back off to give her space. What you're suggesting is a very natural, and normally it should work, and it's what I instinctively did early in our SSM. But it backfired as it pushed my wife into a kind of nervous breakdown meltdown, perhaps having to do with a combination of depression and sex abuse powerlessness issues. I never fully understood the whole complex of issues and excuses. But it actually led to her being more susceptible to getting sick, which added to the problem.
DanceQueen, your suggestions about confronting her apparently assume that she's a perfectly psycholgoical healthy person who will scream and stuff and get over it like any normal woman. That is what I assumed at first too, and I was mistaken.
I'm sorry to be so "obstinate" about all this, but if the issues had been as simple as you seem to think, this problem would NOT have gone on as long as it has. The very best of our couples therapists told me privately that he had counseled thousands of couples, and that I just needed to know that the chances that I could ever make this marriage work the way I wanted to was "unlikely" in his experience. Not impossible, but it was fair for me to know it was "unlikely", even with the best effort.
And that's a tough reality to accept. But he seems to have been right. I've got things back pretty good as a relationship between us, but this might be as good as it's ever going to get.
You know, SSMGuy, your wife is not lying to her doctors and friends and family because she approves of your sexless marriage. You get that right? She knows something is wrong here. She realizes you aren't a happily married couple.
Indeed, that much is clear.
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... I can see you right now ticking off the things in this post that your wife would *never* do, from talking honestly about her sexual hang-ups to allowing herself to be pulled back into the room to having passionate sex with her husband. But 18 months ago I was where you are now, right down to arguing with DanceQueen and the regulars here about how they didn't really understand my situation and they all wanted me to get divorced.
That's a nice story. And you're right, I find it impossible to see how my marriage will ever get to the stage you're describing in your marriage now.
Even trying to imagine it is humorously impossible. If I picture my wife suddenly wanting to make love to me, I would wonder if she was drunk, or had taken a wrong pill, or had a brain stroke. Or I would seriously wonder what other shoe was going to drop, as if she were trying to soften me up for some really bad news she hadn't told me yet, like she just totalled the new car or something.
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One more note on what you call the "divorce-threat." If you are threatening divorce, that is, purely using it as a threat to get your wife to knuckle under, you're right, it probably won't work. The idea is not so much to say to her "you have to do X or the marriage gets it!" The point is to take that big leap for yourself and be able to say, and really mean it, that you are not going to accept your lot anymore and you are going to do whatever is necessary. You are right that this puts divorce on the table, but it's there with some other options. The point is to control what you control and let go of what you don't. You don't control your wife's actions, but you control yours.
For quite a while, it's been dawning on me that the only palatable potential solution is where I withdraw from my relationship with my wife to the point where it's acceptable for me to date other women. Now, for those on this forum who are hung up on the divorce thing, assume that means divorce. But my point is that I'd still be very much involved with my kids, and might even spend a lot of time in the same house with my wife doing things with my kids and my wife (or ex-wife, for you divorce sticklers out there). I'd be gone only when I'm dating other women, and I might have a separate place to bring them. But it's possible I'd still date my wife, so to speak. As I don't see how we'd be on bad terms, as we're really almost already in that type of situation.
But of course, for you divorce sticklers out there, we can file separate tax returns as singles, as if that made any real difference to the situation. And if I file the paperwork with the government, there won't be a marriage to call a sham, and nobody can call me an adulterer. The kids might not agree, of course, but who cares what they think? It's the legal definition that counts.
If I picture my wife suddenly wanting to make love to me, I would wonder if she was drunk, or had taken a wrong pill, or had a brain stroke. Or I would seriously wonder what other shoe was going to drop, as if she were trying to soften me up for some really bad news she hadn't told me yet, like she just totalled the new car or something.
Do you still find your wife attractive? I wonder if part of your resistance here is that you fear it may be possible to turn this SSM around, but you're not actually sure that you want to.
Years of rejection can't be gold for your feelings of attraction and intimacy for each other?
V
Never make someone a priority, who makes you an option.
Let's make this very clear--I am not your therapist. I'm just a guy who used to be deeply unhappy in a sex-starved marriage, came here for help, and now I offer my experience for what it's worth. I'm neither trained as a therapist nor pretending to be trained as a therapist. I don't offer therapy.
I'm going by this:
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But I'm not sure how to extricate myself from that flypaper without actually just declaring OK, enough of this, I'm going ahead and filing for divorce, and will stop the process ONLY if you come up with an believable response or a more concrete promise. Is that what it takes? I hate doing that, and she knows it. Because it means I would actually have to go through with it, and that it would be a likely possibility.
I guess that's what you're saying. And I hate dropping that nuke. If you call that being a coward, I'll admit it. That's a tough one.
Walking makes an important point. Even the idea of "fixing" the marriage to your satisfaction was scary to me. I mean, say she makes all the changes and now she really wants to show her love and make love and all the rest . . . what if I don't measure up? What if it was my inadequacy that *really* drove her to frigidity in the first place? What if *I* can't live up to *her* newfound dedication to the marriage? But screw all that and do it anyway.
Do you still find your wife attractive? I wonder if part of your resistance here is that you fear it may be possible to turn this SSM around, but you're not actually sure that you want to.
Yes, she's in great shape. She's into all kinds of aerobic sports, and not just a little. I think some of it is to make up for what she's missing. It's yet another thing that keeps her so busy she "doesn't have time for things like sex." But I'm not complaining about the results.
But it's an interesting question because after so many years of 100% rejection, I don't have this immediate reaction of sexual attraction to her anymore, which has made it easier to avoid pressuring her for sex.. But with my HD mindset, it wouldn't take much on her part to change that.
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Years of rejection can't be gold for your feelings of attraction and intimacy for each other?
Exactly right. We have this sort of physical wall between us. We don't really cuddle or do anything that makes us face that borderline we can't cross. It's more comfortable to keep a distance as if we're only friends. Every time we've (or at least I) have tried to get a little closer physically, she turns away, which brings up bad feelings in both of us. The usual. It's perfectly described in Michelle's SSM book.
Let's make this very clear--I am not your therapist.
And you don't have to be my macho advisor either. After the reaction of several people here to my "whining", I'm not inclined to discuss my feelings of insecurity further on this forum. Those are weaknesses, and I know that. So to have someone just step on that and say the obvious, "You are weak man, and it disgusts me." doesn't really do much for me. But if it makes you feel better by comparison, fine, at least I've made someone else feel better.
I'm going by this:
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Walking makes an important point. Even the idea of "fixing" the marriage to your satisfaction was scary to me. I mean, say she makes all the changes and now she really wants to show her love and make love and all the rest . . . what if I don't measure up? What if it was my inadequacy that *really* drove her to frigidity in the first place? What if *I* can't live up to *her* newfound dedication to the marriage?
In my case, and perhaps because my SSM has gone on longer than the usual SSM, I've further divorced myself from any worries about living up to my wife's expectations. If she wants me, that would geniuinely be great. If she doesn't, I would have a huge thrill dating all kinds of women. If things improved with my wife, I'm not sure I'd be "concerned" about her expectations of me, and maybe that's not all good. I've built up such a defense in that area because she used her "failed expectations" of me as an excuse to avoid sex so many times (I'd say easily over one thousand times). I didn't do this, or I said this or that, or did this or that, or didn't do this or that, etc. If not some character problem with me, something I said three days ago, or failed to say three days ago. It was ridiculous. So in a sense, I no longer have any respect for her "female judgement" of me as a man, because she's used that so often to avoid sex. I forgive her for that because I can now see a lot of it was in desparation to avoid her own issues. She's a very kind person in so many other ways, as in spending lots of time getting thoughtful birthday presents for everyone, including me. Kind to animals, serious amounts of charity work, etc.
So, interesting to think about, because it's probably so different from other marriages, perhaps even other SSM marriages where the HD partner is feeling rejected. If I were to approach my wife right now and try to get amorous, the whole thing is sadly nothing but a comedy routine to me, as in, "OK, I wonder what excuse she's going to come up with now!" In the past, I'd sometimes just chime in and state her excuse in unison with her, with the exact correct wording! Now if that doesn't tell you something! Stuff like, "I'm tired", "I just got home and want to relax", "I just got up and I have a lot to do". I could go on for dozens of pages.
