ssmguy...You are the only one in your discussion who believes your situation to be hopeless, and you are the only one in your discussion who believes others are telling you to divorce.
you said: "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."
And once again, you are trying to point out where your situation is unique, even though it is not. Were you saying yours is unique here because your wife is kind to animals? I'm so confused about what point you were even making about your situation being different. It seems you will throw out there the "our situation is different" on nearly any whim.
So here we are, you believe you've "tried everything" and that nothing else could possibly be done to change your situation, and you believe that all of us who are trying to help you actually have a hidden agenda to try to get you divorced as soon as possible (as if maybe we get a toaster for each new divorce recruit we can find).
Are either one of these assumptions even logical? That your situation is unique, or that we just want to see you divorced?
Lets see....I've personally read about 200 or so cases of ssm, and ALL of them had the same components that yours does, and I've personally counseled at least that many people to help them with relationship issues and to avoid divorce.
Is this the best you've got? "My situation is unique and you divorce-pushing meanies don't understand it!" Wow, that's quite an argument. I guess, I'll have to just accept you at your word, that you've made up your mind to do things your way, that there is no way to change your sitch because its just so dang unique and you've tried everything anyway.
Let us know how your plan goes and how happy its making you. Maybe you could advise us on our situations instead? Oh wait, your situation is so unique I guess you wouldn't know what a usual situation should do.
Lets see....I've personally read about 200 or so cases of ssm, and ALL of them had the same components that yours does, and I've personally counseled at least that many people to help them with relationship issues and to avoid divorce.
Well, that is encouraging to hear! Especially when so many of the other indicators would seem to be against any kind of luck. And to top it off, I heard yet another discussion last week about how women going through menopause typically see a drop in libido. Like how much farther can a libido drop from zero?
And with my libido being about the same as it was in high school, I can't believe this is nature's design. Well, maybe the design worked -- my wife stayed interested in sex just long enough to have a pile of kids. After that, being libido matched has no survival value, leaving me out in the cold. Oh, well, good for a laugh anyway.
Clearly frustration is mounting on both sides, but these people are trying to help you. In my marriage, I did not get divorced. I'm still married to the woman I love (yes, the woman I "threatened" with divorce) and I'm happier now than I've been for years. Why would I take that experience and conclude that divorce is a better solution than what worked for me? I tell you again: your best chance to avoid divorce is to acknowledge the possibility and the reality of divorce and then figure out what you're going to do about it. You are always free to take or leave advice, but the advice isn't going to change unless the facts in evidence change.
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And you don't have to be my macho advisor either.
Whatever that is, fair enough. Just keep in mind that you can end this conversation any time by not posting here. But you won't do that, because under the part of you that's resisting every piece of advice you get about making any real change in your marriage, there's the real you--the part that brought you here in the first place--the part that's fed up and is eventually going to beat up that other part, stuff it in a bin, and do something to change your intolerable situation. You might be scared, you might feel hopeless, but something in you refuses to accept hopelessness. Coming to this forum and arguing for 14 pages means you don't truly accept that your situation is hopeless. That's not resignation.
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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'll tell you what: you find and quote me writing words to that effect and I'll apologize for them. You can't find them, you take a day to think about why you assumed I was saying such a thing and come back here and write one post about that subject. Deal? You think I said that because that's what you expect people to say. You expect people to despise you for human weakness, for fear, for uncertainty and inaction. But I am not disgusted by your weakness because I share it. It's a simple human weakness. The key difference is that you aren't quite at the point where you feel ready to turn the tables on that weakness yet, but I see you edging up to it. It'll happen.
But you may need to piss off a few more people before you're ready. I remember Dancequeen (but maybe it was one of the other ladies here, now that I think of it) declaring that she was done being my enemy and more or less washing her hands of me back in the day. Even this process of denial and arguing that you're going through right now is not unique.
Arrogant adolescent with a boneheaded view of their own uniqueness, own importance, own superiority? You know, kind of like the teenager smoking a cigarette, convinced of just how brilliantly cool he is...
Or...
Adult who can plow through the self-denial and resist the urge toward selfish self-preservation to face himself and others honestly in a way that makes a good life with real intimacy possible?
I can't imagine you would be here if you were shooting for the first. If you want us to tell you that the first is the way to go, it isn't going to happen. And, if you want to pretend that it isn't your choice to make, play pretend all you want. It still remains that it is, in fact, your choice.
Found it . . . this is what Dancequeen said to me in July of 2008:
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Silly,
Have you heard this old joke?
A man finds a genie in a bottle. The genie only grants one wish. The man thought long and hard and decided that his wish would be for a bridge to be built between California and Hawaii, as he had always wanted to visit but was afraid to fly.
The genie told him, "well this can be accomplished, but there would be serious ecological effects by putting a bridge that long throughout the ocean. Do you think you could pick another wish that would not have such negative side effects?"
The man thought for a moment, and then said "ok well then my back up wish would be that I could really, truly understand women and how they think".
The genie said "how many lanes wide would you like that bridge?"
- - - -
I am sure this doesn't help you and possibly makes you grumpy (or as my little nephew says "gwumpy").
But hopefully it at least made you smile.
Silly, I have given up trying to give you advice because I fear you just see me like the enemy in some ways (plus I know I come across and too aggressive and know-it-all and that turns a lot of people off). But I am still reading and silently rooting for you to get this thing turned around. Bagheera is your best bet for advice.
Hang in there, and how wide do you want that bridge?
DQ
This is after I'd been trying to follow their advice for three weeks. Seriously. It's not easy.
One thing that seems like an uphill battle is that, contrary to the glowing optimism I've read that women reach their sexual peak in their 40's, the reality is that that is a sort of ideal separated from some factors which affect many women in real life. In real life, things which knock down a woman's libido in a great percentage of cases include multiple childbirths and menopause. And if you take those two things together, the MAJORITY of women experience a reduced libido due to one of these effects or both.
I think any plan to turn my wife around at this point has to squarely address the best that we know about how to counter these two major factors for women. I hope you guys aren't going to argue with the statement here, as this is backed up by widespread statistics. Libido drop associated with menopause happens in about 45% of cases, while only about 15% see an increase with menopause, while the rest remain unchanged. And libido drop after childbirths is pretty common too -- it comes back for many women, but stays low and never resumes its youthful level for a good fraction of women. So, combining both of menopause and childbirth, you're a lucky women if your libido has not been affected.
My question is simply how to counter these effects. You can discuss my attitude about this, of course, but the fact remains that what I've stated above is a problem independent of my attitude as well. I know I don't have the answers, and I'm not sure even the specialists do either, as I've heard conflicting advice. Hormone therapy, etc. pros and cons, works for some, not for others, etc.
It seems to me that you're borrowing trouble here--the real issue is in fact that your wife has not dealt with abuse-induced fear of and rejection of sex. How age or pregnancy MIGHT have affected her libido or whether they'd remain an issue if she began to confront her issues is theoretical at best, and pretty much irrelevant at this point. It's just another roadblock....
It seems to me that you're borrowing trouble here--the real issue is in fact that your wife has not dealt with abuse-induced fear of and rejection of sex. How age or pregnancy MIGHT have affected her libido or whether they'd remain an issue if she began to confront her issues is theoretical at best, and pretty much irrelevant at this point. It's just another roadblock....
Though you may be right about the sexual abuse, we don't know that for sure. What you're proposing is also a MIGHT. I can't afford to approach this as a linear problem, banking it all one assumption and waiting for that to be resolved first. My wife has been in her own therapy for years to work through these and other issues, and then we were in couples therapy for a while too, and that's not all. I have several (make that many) times confronted her with the vital importance of dealing with her sexual abuse, even after her therapy, on the assumption that it was THE problem. She has to decide to do more on that, if that's what's needed. I can't do that for her.
It could be a combination of all these problems. I don't think it's too much of a burden to weigh more than one possibility at the same time.
And so my question remains, how do I best deal with the possibility that menopause and hormonal effects of childbirth are factors? And how do I deal with the fact that she's never had an orgasm? Which means it's not a case of "getting back" to the sex she had before. She has an even bigger up hill than most women in that she'd have to reach even higher function than she knows from experience.
Even if hormone therapy would make a significant difference in your sex life (and it might very well) you still end up right back where you started. You've told us your wife isn't interested in solving this problem. She thinks it's not a problem, or she thinks it's your problem, or whatever, but how do you plan to get her to go on a drug regimen in order to help her do the hard work of rebuilding your sex life when she isn't willing to do anything else about it?
You are the one who perceives the problem. You are the one who understands something of how serious this is. If she does, she's not admitting it. But you're still looking for ways to fix your broken wife instead of focusing on what you can do.
If *you* could make a difference by taking hormone replacements, I'd be all for it. If you think *she'll* be open to the idea, at least of talking to her doctor about medical solutions to low libido, then by all means, I'm for it. Is that the case?
Let me put it to you bluntly: why should your wife be willing to go to her doctor and talk to him about medical solutions to the sex life she says is what she wants . . . and if the doctor recommends HRT, be willing to go through it, when you're not even willing to stop having affairs? From what you've told us, she's already told you flatly that she would rather send you out to other women and put up with everything that goes along with that than do anything to make you happy in your sex life with her. I don't see the point of recommending that you tell her to go get medical work done.
Now, again, you're the one in the house, and if you think she'll do that, it's a great idea. But I really think you're going to find that no matter how unfair it may seem, the guy who perceives the problem is the guy who will have to take the first steps to solve it.
I can tell you that, as a woman who'd been abused as a child, I didn't have an orgasm during vaginal intercourse until I forgave my abuser--after that suddenly I seemed to "own" my body, and it became possible. (And we're talking post childbirth as well.) However, as you rightly say, you can't change your W. So is there any point in worrying about statistics and probabilities when she might never decide to move out of gridlock?
What moved me from that position? My H, during the course of a MLC depression, finally moved on to an emotional affair with a co-worker, which made him question whether he should leave the marriage. THAT betrayal forced me to examine whether I was happy with the marriage I had, my sex life, with letting my abuser change my view of myself--as in, I had to take responsibility for turning myself into a victim.
After my H confessed his EA I spent a day in bed crying, reflecting on how dissatisfied I was with the person I'd become. The next day I got up determined to become the woman I wanted to be, whether or not our marriage survived. It was the hardest and most agonizingly painful time in my life, yet I'm grateful that I was given a chance to turn my life (and our M) around.
