During much of our SSM I actually saw myself as being more HD--after all, my H was the one who'd given up on having sex! It appeared to me that whatever went wrong was his issue (he couldn't bring me to orgasm, he got me all upset when I had been prepared to make love that evening, he had rejected sex a few times so why would I bother to initiate any more, his foreplay was too rapid or repetitious, which made me feel he was only thinking of himself)--I really did not see myself as LD, but as Thwarted Drive. And I didn't really connect it with the abuse at that point. The lack of sex sometimes bothered me a lot, but I didn't know how to talk about it or improve matters.
Your whole scenario about your wife's "airtight logic" when you bring up sex is exactly how my H operated during his depression to make it impossible to have conversations with him. It's a soul-killing bubble to live in, though, and believe me she's not HAPPY to have trapped herself there, even though she's terrified of anyone popping the bubble right now.
You ask about motivations for preserving an unsatisfactory marriage--these include all the reasons you gave, but the worst loss would have been the sense of exclusivity we had when we fell in love--divorce would have put an end to any possibility of rekindling our relationship when it WORKED. The thought of any one else meaning as much to H, or him sharing his intimate feelings with another, was excruciating.
Face it, a divorce rips apart your known world, facing you to confront all the mistakes and weaknesses and failures and defenses and denials which led to this imperfect result. Even in the most amicable situation, it strips you bare. That's why people who are hiding from what they're refusing to deal with shrink from the thought.
If you are the LD or ND person married to an HD spouse, what is your motivation for preserving the marriage when it's been SSM for a long time and the lack of sex has not bothered you?
....Is it the possibility of a future sexual relationship? Is it just the companionship of living together? Is it the public embarrassment of being "dumped" and having everyone wonder why you "couldn't keep your spouse interested"? Is it the jealousy of giving your partner up to someone else? Or is it just a general fear and uncertainty about the influence a new partner of your ex will have over your ex and your kids?
If you're bothered by the image of your ex having passionate sex with a new person, why would you feel that way if you didn't want to have sex with your partner in the first place? As one poster here mentioned, if sex didn't matter to you, why would it matter to you that your ex was having it with someone else?
Or is the premise wrong? Does the lack of sex bother you in the sense that you know you SHOULD want sex, but you know you don't?
...If you truly only loved your partner in an altruistic way, it seems you might even be happy to have them find someone who appreciates them sexually, no?
First, I am new and definately not an expert on relationships. I will share what I have learned from my LD spouse of 38 years.
She is LD, and early in the marriage had a libido equal to mine, but having children and conficts within marriage, plus menopause and aging have left her with a very low libido and self image. I now understand that things (working long hours to establish my career) that I thought I was doing for her and me both were making her feel unloved.
To try to answer one of your questions, since it has been several months since we have been intimate and before that she didn't seem to want sex that often, I don't believe that she is hoping for better sex in the future. In fact during a long talk we had several years ago she told me that she truly loved me and that just because she didn't want to have sex with me, didn't mean she didn't love me. She told me that she showed me her love by washing my clothes, by keeping the house nice, by shopping for food and by her cooking me dinner. It is only since I read the Five Languages of Love, do I understand that she does actively show me her love each day, but in a way that is totally different from how I need to have her express her love to me.
As to compansionship, public embarrassment or jealousy as motives for her staying in a SSM, I think that there may be some elements of that. My wife really feels that I am HER husband and that even without sex, we are still friends, partners in a household, parents of adult children, co-investors in various retirement funds, and housemates who take care of each other.
She feels very strongly that I am the father of her children and that I am the man who will take care of her if she looses her job or if she becomes ill. Those are big things on her mind right now. Several friends of hers have been coming down with life-threatending medical conditions and/or are being forced to retire for medical reasons. One close woman friend had kidney cancer and removal of a kidney, but now seems OK. Another woman friend was diagnosed with advanced Type 2 diabetes and is struggling with weight-loss and eye disease issues. Still another couple we know, the husband sneezed one day and that cause a blood clot to break free that cause a stroke that left him temporarily unable to walk or speak. He is also doing much better, but my wife is keenly aware that she needs someone who will be there for her when and if she has a medical problem. About a year ago, she had a medical scare, where she had some hearling loss and they thought it might be a brain tumor, but it wasn't. In talking about some of her friend health conditions, my wife has made it clear that she counts on me to be there for her in case something happens. She has also this past 6-months been quite nervious about her job in this bad economy. She has said at dinner with firends that if she looses her job, at least she will have me to support her. At other times many years ago during a heated exchange she has told me that if I ever divorced her, she would take all my money and posessions to the point that I wished I had not divorced her. I believe she would, but I also think she would fight to avoid divorce.
The thing that I am coming to terms with is that I need sex and touching to feel loved and that my wife needs quality time from me talking to her and listening to her to feel she is loved and she needs me to perform obvious acts of service/devotion for her to feel loved. When I ask her about what is going to happen to her during the day at breakfast and when at dinner I ask about how each of those things went during the day she feels that I love her. When I do the dishes after dinner, when I vaccum the house on the weekend or run a load of my underwear throught the wash, she feels that I am showing her the love that she needs. When she is feeling loved or when she is feeling like I don't show her an love, sex and touching are not a motivating factor to her. Sex is just something she doesn't seem to be interested in.
I read something interesting which said that for some women, the normal patern of desire, then foreplay to cause arousal, then intercourse is not how they operate. This other small group of women have no desire for sex, until after they have had foreplay and are physically aroused. Then and only then do they want to complete the sex act. For these women, they have to start to have sex, before they can experience a desire to have sex. For them once the act is completed they again have no desire to have sex until they are in the middle of it. For them it is difficult to express sexuality unless it is as an act of devotion, submission or gift to their husbands. It is my hope to gradually find out, if this is how my wife feels about sex.
Part of my wife's low libido, I attribute to her being raised by two parents who I never saw show much physical affection for each other and who were both alcoholics, but not to the point of not being functional. They were also very cruel to their children and verbally controlling and verbally abusive. I also attribute part of her inhibitions to being educated in an all girls catholic middle and high school, where there was a huge pressure to inform young women that "nice girls don't, until after they are married." When, we have discussed this later point, my wife has informed me that the nuns had no idea the kind of disgusting things that husbands wanted their wives to do and so she rejects the "until after marriage" part of the educational lecture.
Another part of her low libido, I attribute to aging, menopause, and possibly some health condition that I am hoping to try to talk her into having a medical check up about.
Still another part of her low libido I attribute to stress over her job and fear of loosing it. I also feel that over the course of our marriage, I may not have been there for her showing her my love for her, in the way she needs it expressed to feel loved.
That is kind of a long-winded explaination for why I feel that my wife is content in a SSM at least for now. It has been good therapy for me to get it off my chest, so thank you.
I on the other hand, am not content and am desparately working to GAL, loose weight, get in shape physically, learn more about relationships and myself. Until I found this forum and read certain books, including SSM, I felt that I was alone and that divorce or celbacy were the only options. Now I have hope that at some time in the not to distant future, I may also get the physical love that I need from my wife. I am also coming to the conclusion that I will try to make my marriage better, with create situation where my wife can help in making it better (or not) and if I can't make our marriage better, I will make myself better. Then I will let the future decide if I stay married or I divorce, but that will be a decision point off in the future after I have lost the desire to try to improve things.
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
Suppose that W's molester used to wear a funny mask and made her wear a clown nose during the molestation. Further suppose that you had the same funny mask and clown nose, and you wanted to use them in the same way during sex. In such a scenario, could you understand W's repulsion, her inability to get over it, her resistance to trying to find a way to make the mask and clown nose work for her sexually? Could you understand why it would make her feel injured for you to keep bringing it up, pushing her, insisting? Could you see why it would make her feel that you were perverted, even if in other contexts it would be a pretty innocent fetish of some sort? Would you be able to understand and empathize with her determination to avoid the mask and clown nose? Would you see why the mask and clown nose would be linked so closely to the molestation such that it was retraumatizing to see them or talk about using them and so on?
I'm guessing your answer would be "yes."
Now, suppose you replace the mask and clown nose with clitoral stimulation and sexual pleasure. Would you still be able to answer "yes"? Right now, I don't think you could. But, perhaps if you reflect enough you could get to a place where you could honestly answer "yes". If so, that could help things a good deal.
Most victims of molestation experience sexual pleasure while being molested. This becomes increasingly difficult to live with as one grows up and gets a better grip of what was going on. If this is the case with your W, then being sexually stimulated and experiencing sexual pleasure could be repulsive because they are retraumatizing.
I read something interesting which said that for some women, the normal patern of desire, then foreplay to cause arousal, then intercourse is not how they operate. This other small group of women have no desire for sex, until after they have had foreplay and are physically aroused. Then and only then do they want to complete the sex act. For these women, they have to start to have sex, before they can experience a desire to have sex. For them once the act is completed they again have no desire to have sex until they are in the middle of it. For them it is difficult to express sexuality unless it is as an act of devotion, submission or gift to their husbands. It is my hope to gradually find out, if this is how my wife feels about sex.
Young, that is absolutely true. Actually, a lot of the experts are now debating whether the "normal" pattern is the normal pattern after all. It's deeply frustrating as the HD spouse, because when you get your wife to "give you a chance," she turns on and has a fantastic time--but it doesn't matter how good it is, the next day she's right back to starving you out. You can't understand how she could be such a wildcat on these rare occasions and such an ice queen the rest of the time. But, if you happen to find out about this theory and you can convince her to follow Dr. Davis' advice and "just do it," she can be shocked at the difference it makes. My wife does this quite a bit now . . . I know she hasn't found the libido for the amount of lovemaking we do now, but she trusts that if she takes a hot shower, comes to bed, and accepts stimulation with an open mind, she won't have to "just do it" or "fake it" for more than a minute or two.
That doesn't go for everyone, of course. If Oldtimer is right, and SSMguy's wife's trauma is such that the pleasure itself repulses her, she's not going to make things better by playing along. But a lot of women are in that cycle--they don't want to have sex because they aren't aroused. The only way they get aroused is by having sex, but they don't want to have sex, because they aren't aroused, but the only way they get aroused . . . .
The hard part of that solution is convincing your spouse that it's real and not just a ploy on your part to have sex that only you enjoy. I actually figured this out in a dim way years ago, and suggested many times that if she would just relax and keep an open mind, I'd make sure she enjoyed the night. She even did it a few times, with great results, but for the most part she didn't trust it. I think she figured I was willing to have any sex I could get, including tricking an unwilling woman into having pleasureless sex with me. It took reading the SSM book to make her give it another chance; I guess she figured that if I'd talked some stranger into writing a self-help book just to trick her into having sex with me, I deserved a night of passion.
SSMGuy, I'm not trying to hijack your conversation with Cyrena . . . . she really seems to have a lot of help to offer you. I hope things are starting to make more sense. If they're not, just keep going.
...It's deeply frustrating as the HD spouse, because when you get your wife to "give you a chance," she turns on and has a fantastic time--but it doesn't matter how good it is, the next day she's right back to starving you out. You can't understand how she could be such a wildcat on these rare occasions and such an ice queen the rest of the time.
...convince her to follow Dr. Davis' advice and "just do it," she can be shocked at the difference it makes. My wife does this quite a bit now . . . I know she hasn't found the libido for the amount of lovemaking we do now, but she trusts that if she takes a hot shower, comes to bed, and accepts stimulation with an open mind, she won't have to "just do it" or "fake it" for more than a minute or two.
...The hard part of that solution is convincing your spouse that it's real and not just a ploy on your part to have sex that only you enjoy.
...SSMGuy, I'm not trying to hijack your conversation with Cyrena . . . . she really seems to have a lot of help to offer you. I hope things are starting to make more sense. If they're not, just keep going.
Also not trying to hijack SSMGuys conversation with Cyrena, but wanting to respond to SOB.
Its now been close to 4 months since I last had sex with my LD wife and probably close to 8 since I had what I would call a satisfying sexual experience with my wife. That is not very long compared to the suffering of others, I know that now.
If anyone knows a book or medical article written about this no-desire/arousal/sex/no-desire cycle I would love to get a reference that I could share with my wife. I have ordered some books on female inhibitions in the hopes that I might stumble onto something that discusses this more.
I agree that the "wildcat versus ice queen" change use to drive me crazy and one of the things I liked about SSM was the "Just do it" advice that was given in the book. Also when my wife forced herself to have sex every so many weeks, I enjoyed the temporary feeling of closeness to her, but the weeks of no closeness killed me emotionally. Even if my wife never found her libido, I could live with things if she would "just do it" frequently and enjoy the experience and allow me to share in her enjoyment while she was there.
P.S. I also started reading the No More Mr. Nice Guy book. I came in yesterday's mail. My wife opened the box, looked at the title and then proceeded to give me hell. I think she feels threatened by my reading so many relationship books. I told her that the title isn't what the book is about. I will soon read to her a quote that says it is not about becoming a jerk but about becoming an integrated and complete man. Thanks for the advice on this book.
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
Suppose that W's molester used to wear a funny mask and made her wear a clown nose during the molestation. ...
Now, suppose you replace the mask and clown nose with clitoral stimulation and sexual pleasure.
...Most victims of molestation experience sexual pleasure while being molested. This becomes increasingly difficult to live with as one grows up and gets a better grip of what was going on. If this is the case with your W, then being sexually stimulated and experiencing sexual pleasure could be repulsive because they are retraumatizing.
Thank you. That is a profound insight into some women and where they are emotionally.
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
It's been said here many times before; No More Mr. Nice Guy is a good book with some good things to teach a lot of men, but the title really seems to put people off. I don't know whether that title was the author's idea, or whether it came from the publisher, but it wouldn't have been my choice.
On the other hand, from the publisher's point of view, it's an alliterative turn of phrase that's already part of popular culture, so every time someone reads the title aloud it already sounds familiar, and maybe they figure people find the odd title intriguing or "challenging." That's the kind of thing that may get easier as you show her that you're not looking for ways to hurt her or embarass her . . . or excuses to leave. She may be wondering about all three of those things.
Your whole scenario about your wife's "airtight logic" when you bring up sex is exactly how my H operated during his depression to make it impossible to have conversations with him. It's a soul-killing bubble to live in, though, and believe me she's not HAPPY to have trapped herself there, even though she's terrified of anyone popping the bubble right now.
Thanks for the insight. That's useful to know. I have to paint a positive picture of what it could be like. What certainly did NOT work in the past was to criticize my wife for her lack of interest. As you say about your husband, I think depression has been a part of the problem too.
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You ask about motivations for preserving an unsatisfactory marriage--these include all the reasons you gave, but the worst loss would have been the sense of exclusivity we had when we fell in love--divorce would have put an end to any possibility of rekindling our relationship when it WORKED. The thought of any one else meaning as much to H, or him sharing his intimate feelings with another, was excruciating.
I'm curious if your emphasis is more on the physical or the emotional aspect when you say these things. The stereotype is that women are more upset about the emotional "infidelity" than the physical one. That is, they would be less upset if their husband had a one-night stand or a "a little too much touching" with a stripper in the Champagne Room at the local strip club than they would be if their husbands had developed mutual feelings for another woman that made them giddy, unable to stop thinking about each other, sending dozens of text messages every day, etc.
Quote:
Face it, a divorce rips apart your known world, facing you to confront all the mistakes and weaknesses and failures and defenses and denials which led to this imperfect result. Even in the most amicable situation, it strips you bare. That's why people who are hiding from what they're refusing to deal with shrink from the thought.
In fact during a long talk we had several years ago she told me that she truly loved me and that just because she didn't want to have sex with me, didn't mean she didn't love me. She told me that she showed me her love by washing my clothes, by keeping the house nice, by shopping for food and by her cooking me dinner.
Right on the money! I've heard that for years too.
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The thing that I am coming to terms with is that I need sex and touching to feel loved and that my wife needs quality time from me talking to her and listening to her to feel she is loved and she needs me to perform obvious acts of service/devotion for her to feel loved. When I ask her about what is going to happen to her during the day at breakfast and when at dinner I ask about how each of those things went during the day she feels that I love her. When I do the dishes after dinner, when I vaccum the house on the weekend or run a load of my underwear throught the wash, she feels that I am showing her the love that she needs. When she is feeling loved or when she is feeling like I don't show her an love, sex and touching are not a motivating factor to her. Sex is just something she doesn't seem to be interested in.
Yet she doesn't want you to have sex with anybody else, right? Have you given up or stopped showing interest in her physically for any significant amount time? It's interesting how an LD spouse will sometimes fish for compliments or expressions of her physical attractiveness, but carefully so as not to signal that she wants to consumate that attraction in sex.
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For these women, they have to start to have sex, before they can experience a desire to have sex. For them once the act is completed they again have no desire to have sex until they are in the middle of it. For them it is difficult to express sexuality unless it is as an act of devotion, submission or gift to their husbands. It is my hope to gradually find out, if this is how my wife feels about sex.
It's my impression that a lot of women are like this. Michele Weiner-Davis advises such people to adopt the "Nike" philosophy "just do it".
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Part of my wife's low libido, I attribute to her being raised by two parents who I never saw show much physical affection for each other and who were both alcoholics, but not to the point of not being functional. They were also very cruel to their children and verbally controlling and verbally abusive. I also attribute part of her inhibitions to being educated in an all girls catholic middle and high school, where there was a huge pressure to inform young women that "nice girls don't, until after they are married." When, we have discussed this later point, my wife has informed me that the nuns had no idea the kind of disgusting things that husbands wanted their wives to do and so she rejects the "until after marriage" part of the educational lecture.
Another part of her low libido, I attribute to aging, menopause, and possibly some health condition that I am hoping to try to talk her into having a medical check up about.
Still another part of her low libido I attribute to stress over her job and fear of loosing it. I also feel that over the course of our marriage, I may not have been there for her showing her my love for her, in the way she needs it expressed to feel loved.
This is familiar because I've said pretty much the same things about my wife. But, interestingly, when I see someone else saying it, my first reaction is, wow, you're making a lot of excuses for your wife. Yeah, sure, you're allowed one good reason for why you're not interested in sex, but it starts to look like excuses when you have MANY DIFFERENT REASONS, all reducing one's sex drive. Because if you start picking all kinds of things as reasons for not wanting sex, I can just as validly list a whole lot of reasons your wife SHOULD still be interested in sex, such as (1) you're available, (2) she knows you want her sexually, (3) she can count on you to help support her, and (4) lots of other reasons like that. A few of those things is enough for many women to want sex, even with the negative list you presented.
SSMGuy, you asked whether it would be harder to get over a physical or an emotional affair. I always ASSUMED that a physical affair would be harder to get over ... but that was before I realized how intense an EA actually is. Looking back, I can see that my H didn't really KNOW the OW--he projected ideal qualities onto her, he felt wonderful for having "rescued" her, he mooned around obsessing about her--but once he'd experienced withdrawal from her, he felt like he'd been an idiot.
My being able to see that it was only ever a fantasy perhaps makes the EA easier to get over than the PA, where the act of having sex might bring on thoughts of H and OW together? I imagine it would be similar to the way sex with H sometimes used to trigger thoughts of the abuse? However, this is only speculation, as my H didn't have a PA.
More importantly, just as my having forgiven my abuser has removed him from our marriage bed, and my having forgiven my H has pretty much shoved thoughts about the OW to the back of my mind, I think it's possible to get past a PA, as long as both parties are committed to working together to create a mutuallly satisfying marriage. I've seen several examples of that on this site. This necessarily includes both strong physical and emotional bonds with H.
I guess I'd still like to hear the answer to SOBear's question--what drew you to this site? What are you hoping to hear here?
