I tried to start a thread recently but it turns out "there was a problem with this post" so I am trying again...trying again to post and trying again to put the ssm in the past.
I have been with my husband for nearly 20 years and married for 15. We have 2 children (son 16, daughter 12).
I am the LD spouse but I have never WANTED a sexless or sex starved marriage. Basically, I feel like my hd husband's need for sex combined with a very self-centered view of life has driven me away from him. There has been some discussion on this site about ld partners having difficulty engaging because of anger and resentment, and I believe that is true in my case. I am posting here hoping to get some suggestions about how to work through those issues so that I can re-engage with my husband, and I would also appreciate some help in learning how I can talk to my hd spouse in a way that will help him understand that this is a psychological and emotional problem, not that I just don't want sex.
Congratulations on your candor, approach and persistence. Your husband is a lucky guy (even if he doesn't think so at times.)
I will share my thoughts. I am a real fan of the book the 5 languages of love. My primary languages of love are touch and then words of affirmation. You need to learn what your and your husbands languages of love are.
Let me explain. When I want to tell my wife that I care for her and love her, I will tell her how wonderful she is and try to touch her. For a long time she interpreted this as buttering her up and then pawing her. When she rejected these attempt to reach out to her, it felt as bad as when she sexually rejected me and caused me to pull back further from her.
I now know that when I want my wife to feel loved, I need to perform acts of devoltion for her (usually special chores or things that make her feel special - filling her car with gas each week, washing her car, getting her coffee in the morning so she can stay in bed a few extra minutes prior to getting up, doing most of the laundry, etc. -) or making sure she gets lots of quality time with me and my paying full attension to her.
Now as to you. Let's pretend that your husband is a touch person as his primary language of love. Sometimes if he wants to feel loved he really needs to be touched and the only time he gets the touching he needs maybe after or during sex with you. That might make you think that he is higher HD than he really is. I know that was the way things were for me.
You might try running your hands through the hair on his head, his chest hair or massaging his shoulders. If he takes it as a sign a foreplay tell him that you will take care of his sexual needs either later that night or the next day, but now you want to enjoy feeling him and touching him. If his primary language of love is touch, he will probably understand.
I have found that after no longer being desparate for sex and touch, that I am much more likely to be able to cope with some rejection.
On another note, as someone who also needs words of affirmation or praise to feel loved, I found that when I didn't get that from my wife, I went looking for praise at the office. I became a real type A worker and that is where I felt "loved" by my customers and co-workers. That caused me to withdraw even more from my wife and her to push me away.
My wife finding ways to provide honest praise for good things that I do, has really helped draw me closer to her.
I try to do mulitiple things each day to make my wife feel loved in her languages of love. She tries to do something to make me feel loved at least every other day with sex two to three times a week. The change has been incredible the way I feel toward her and our love has really come back.
John Gottman's book the Seven Principals for Making a Marriage Work is pretty good with ideas on doing things that bring couples closer together. They have the 5.5 magic hours a week suggestion of things/cerimonies that couples can do to bring them closer each day and each week. You might look into that as well.
Good luck to you and your husband.
Thank you Young at Heart. I have read your thread and some of your posts and I appreciate your willingness to share your story and perspective. You and others here have helped me feel more compassion for my husband.
I have not read The 5 Languages of Love yet but can predict that my husband's primary language is also touch. I recognize this about him and make efforts to be affectionate with him. He probably has never thought about what actions might help me to feel more loved, and it would probably be helpful for me to read the book so I can determine mine and use that to help him understand what I need. He is not likely to be willing to read the book.
He probably has never thought about what actions might help me to feel more loved, and it would probably be helpful for me to read the book so I can determine mine and use that to help him understand what I need. He is not likely to be willing to read the book.
You might be surprised once he feels like is really loved. I know that it took months of giving my wife the things she needed to feel loved, before she could do things to make me feel loved. But it happened.
Also you might want to after you have worked on making him feel really well loved work on getting a life. MWD and others describe this. I have a slightly different take on GAL. I think it is both to reach my full potential, but also to make me more desirable in the eyes of my spouse. I feel that a good GAL program can achieve both of these.
Good luck to you and try to see if he might go to either some form of counceling in the future and/or to a marriage encounter weekend. If not, the Gottman 5.5 hrs per week is pretty good stuff.
I have always wanted my husband to feel loved and tried to accommodate him in a manner that he needed, but I have struggled with the sexual aspect of my relationsip since early on. Even early on it felt like sex was just about him - he would keep me up in the middle of the night without regard to the fact that I had to get up early for work; and in the early days, when he was relatively young, having 2 O's was so good for him, but he did not pay attention to the discomfort that it caused me when he had to work so hard to acheive that wonderful feeling; after childbirth when there was pain, his response was that I would just have to live with it, which seemed like such a callus response; in subsequent years when I tried to explain that his approach to sex, demanding and pressuring me, was having the opposite effect of making me feel excited or sexual, his response was that I would just have to get past it and take care of him regardless. We obviously have two very different views of what a sex life should be, but I really feel like I have tried to be giving and understanding of his needs, but don't feel like it has been reciprocated. I don't know how to deal with my feelings of hurt and resentment, but I know I can't continue the obligatory sex acts because I am growing to hate him for it.
We have tried counseling. When it came time for any focus on him, I believe he felt uncomfortable and no longer was willing to attend. I went to individual counseling, which helped dissipate some of the anger I felt and helped me with setting boundaries, but did not help with any sexual issues because the counselor insisted that I not engage in sex unless I truly wanted to, but that was not an acceptable option at home. He doesn't believe in self-help books and calls bs if I start discussing things that I have read. It really makes it hard to figure out how to change our relationship; his recommendation of "just let it go" is not a bad one, I just don't know how to do it when so many negative feelings well up at the mere mention of sex.
I have always wanted my husband to feel loved and tried to accommodate him in a manner that he needed, but I have struggled with the sexual aspect of my relationsip since early on.
... I don't know how to deal with my feelings of hurt and resentment, but I know I can't continue the obligatory sex acts because I am growing to hate him for it.
We have tried counseling. When it came time for any focus on him, I believe he felt uncomfortable and no longer was willing to attend. I went to individual counseling, which helped dissipate some of the anger I felt and helped me with setting boundaries, but did not help with any sexual issues because the counselor insisted that I not engage in sex unless I truly wanted to, but that was not an acceptable option at home.
....It really makes it hard to figure out how to change our relationship; his recommendation of "just let it go" is not a bad one, I just don't know how to do it when so many negative feelings well up at the mere mention of sex.
First of all my heart goes out to you. You sound like you have tried to do what you thought you could for your husband. You have every right to control your body and make choices about your life. You have been hurt badly by your husband. He may not even know how much he has hurt you. You have every right to be angry from what you say. I can see why you are reluctant to open up and become emotinally vulnerable to your husband through sex.
However, are you happy as you are? If not why not try to change things. You just might find that your husband isn't really happy either and would like things to improve.
I wonder if you have ever said what you just wrote to your husband in a way that he could hear you.
My wife's individual sex therapist told her that the main reason older women with no medical problem didn't have sex with their husbands was because of anger. She said it makes a lot of sense for you to not want to have sex with someone you are angry at. Ultimately, for my wife it took months of my working at making her feel loved and the revalation that he withdrawl from me hurt me as much as my earlier withdrawl from her had hurt her. She realized that she was as much of the problem as I was and that I was trying very hard to change things. Someone has to start first. It would be nice if both people could immediately change, but it doesn't usually happen that way.
In Chapman's the Five Languages of Love, there is a section (unfortunately the most religious one in the book) about a woman who feels that her husband is her mortal enemy, whom she hates. Chapman knows that the woman is a devote Christian and reads the scripture, so they discuss the passage about loving ones enemy. In this case the woman's husband is her enemy in a very real sense. You might want to read that section of the Chapman book to see what happens, as it does have a happy ending.
As to counseling. He has gone in the past, so might he be willing to try again? What could it hurt to ask? Ask if he he would like happiness at some point and doesn't he deserve a chance at it with you? How about a sex therapist this time instead of a marriage counselor. Sex therapists are marriage counselors with some extra training to help all the standard relationship issues, but also have training in helping couples deal with sexual problems between them. I know that really helped my wife and I connect, but your experience may be different.
A book that was interesting and suggested by my wife's sex theapist was "still sexy after all these years" about women in their 50's and their sex lives and libidos and what they did to keep their sensuality alive through divorce, being widows, or husbands with medical problems. You might want to get the book and read it.
MWD in her books has some great information on 180's. I view 180's like a sociological experiment, but with me. That is if something isn't working, try something dramatically different. For me as a high sexual demand person, my 180 was refusing to have sex with my wife. Not asking for sex and not settling for sex that caused me emotional pain. Maybe there is some 180 you can do that will shock your husband into viewing you in a new way and treating you differently from how he has treated you in the past.
For me what really motivated me to bring about change in my marriage was deep pain of rejection and the decision that I was not going to take that kind of emotional pain ever again. I decided that sex was not worth exposing myself to that kind of emotional pain. It helped me decided that I was going to dramatically change my life for the better.
That meant that I was going to get a life and become happy, where ever that took me. I worked on loosing weight, getting in shape, developing relationship skills and learning about myself. In reading Sue Johnson's Hold Me Tight, and then later in the Five Lanaguages of Love, I learned that my need to be touched was a valid human need on my part and that getting the touch I needed was not something I had to hide, restrain or avoid. I also learned that I could not change my wife, I could only change myself. I learned that I had hurt my wife deeply and I apologized to her and tried to make it up to her by making her feel loved in her languages of love. Ultimately, I got very lucky and my wife forgave me and worked to change with me and build our relationship, but that took a while and wasn't easy. If she hadn't I am sure I would have filed divorce papers and started a trial separation by now.
If you want change you can start by getting a life and figuring out what you want for yourself. Then take steps to make it happen. You can also try to create a space for your spouse to change with you, if they want to. Focus on verbal affirmations, vissualization and getting yourself to be happy. If your husband won't do counseling, maybe start with individual sessions for yourself.
Maybe find yourself a support group of some friends to go out and do fun things so taht you add fun to your life.
Good luck to you and your husband.
I've wondered the same thing as Young at Heart, and this too: it sounds like you're having sex against your will. Is that the case? If so, stop.
You mentioned that your therapist told you that you don't have to have sex when you don't want to do it (she's right) but that's not "valid" at home. Here's the thing: your counselor isn't saying that you have a right to refuse sex, and so when you refuse sex it will be accepted with reason and kindness as a valid decision. Your husband isn't going to like it, and you shouldn't expect him to like it. But it's a matter of holding on to your own integrity even if you have to piss him off to do it.
Now that said, I don't want to insult anyone or cast aspersions where they're not warranted, but something about the way you wrote your posts above made me wonder whether your husband takes no for an answer. Does he physically force you to have sex? That's a different level than what we're talking about here and outside the realm of relationship advice in my opinion--that's a matter for the police and the divorce lawyers. If that's not your situation, please understand that I'm just making sure.
My husband does not physically force me to have sex; he pressures and badgers or guilts me until I give in either to avoid the fighting, or because I feel bad saying no to him knowing that it very important to him.
I have tried and tried to explain my feelings to him, but he "doesn't get it" or he is not in a place where he is ready/willing to be understanding, or maybe he is just insistent that he have things his way, I don't know. It is a huge frustration for me that I can not explain myself in a way that makes sense to him.
Pressure is bad enough.
I guess the real issue is how to "get your husband so he is ready/willing to listen/understand your side of things" and change some of his behaviors.
Did your former counselor have any ideas?
I think that MWD's advice on 180's and Getting a Life are important vehicles to get your spouse to look at you differently. Looking at you differently is a step in changing how they behave.
You seem to know him pretty well. Any ideas on things he would really really like that you would normally never do that would change his image of you and make him wonder.
You might want to explore creating your own image of a midlife crisis. You remember the Stacy & Clinton "What not to Where" TV show; where with a new wardobe and makeover people's friends and family viewed them differently? Transform yourself into the you that you want to become.
Some other options might include: go get a tattoo, piercing, take up belly dancing, a pole dancing exercise class, start a girls night out with some women friends, take up running/jogging with the goal of entering a race, take fly fishing lessons, take canoeing/kayaking lessons, take some lessons on learning to fly a plane or race car, take some karate lessons, take an NRA course on firearms and join a pistol team/league.
Try something out of your normal comfort zone that might make your husband wonder who you are and question how he treats you. Maybe something that you husband wished he could do.
Good luck. I certainly hope you find the happiness you are looking for.
Getting a Life can also be fun!
I'm not making excuses for him or blaming you, but by giving in when he nags, badgers and guilts you into sex, you teach him the lesson that those things are what work. He may hate it almost as much as you do, but if he thinks it's the only way to get sex from you--and if he's desperate to get sex from you--he might never stop. He's got no reason to stop.
The reason it's so important that people are advising you to do the "Get a Life" part is that you don't need your husband's cooperation for that. If he wakes up and decides to get a life himself, so much the better, but even if he continues to sneer at making things better and try to keep the status quo, your life still gets a lot better. As that happens, it's likely he'll notice and and start thinking about how attractive that is . . . and if he doesn't, you still feel better and enjoy life more.
I truly appreciate the feedback here, it really helps to give me different perspectives.
I definitely have some things of my own to work on. While my husband is outgoing, I am shy; he is agressive, I am timid; he is uninhibited, I am inhibited; he is demanding, I am a pleaser - it is not surprising that we have fallen into many of the patterns that we have. Additionally, I am sensitive and easily offended, but slow to forgive. These days I have little patience, am quick to anger and defensiveness always lies just below the surface.
In the past several years, I have slowly been working on GAL because I have recognized that I have to be responsible for making myself happy. While I have not been good about setting concrete goals, I have been working on making new friends and spending more time doing things that I enjoy. There have been times when I felt guilty (there's that word again) not spending the time or attention on my husband, after all, how do we improve our relationship if we are out doing our own thing? but I know that the key is in balance; I have to be happy and feel good about myself in order to be a healthy partner in the relationship. It is often confusing for me because he is very needy for my time and attention, but he is not good at reciprocating, maybe this is one of the Love Languages things?
Another thing that I have a hard time with is the 180 concept. I am such a reaction person that I have a hard time stopping myself from the typical behavior. It is something that I definitely will give more thought to.
...I definitely have some things of my own to work on.
...I am shy;
...I am timid;
...I am inhibited;
...I am a pleaser
...Additionally, I am sensitive and easily offended, but slow to forgive. These days I have little patience, am quick to anger and defensiveness always lies just below the surface.
...I have been working on making new friends and spending more time doing things that I enjoy.
....There have been times when I felt guilty (there's that word again) not spending the time or attention on my husband,
...It is often confusing for me because he is very needy for my time and attention, but he is not good at reciprocating, maybe this is one of the Love Languages things?
...Another thing that I have a hard time with is the 180 concept. I am such a reaction person that I have a hard time stopping myself from the typical behavior. It is something that I definitely will give more thought to.
I think that you know both yourself and your husband very well. I think that you have just about everything you need to start making a huge change in your life. You are fully capable of changing your life for the better.
By your own words, your GAL or 180 should address "shy, timid, inhibited, pleaser, sensitive, easily offended, slow to forgive, spending time with your husband, and changing your responses."
Belly Dancing or pole dancing exercise, if practiced at home with your husband would address shy, timid, inhibited and time with you husband.
Of course karate could address shy, timid, and getting control of your emotions. Martial arts are great for giving a person a feeling of self confidence and ability to control ones emotions.
Affirmations, (audio tapes you listen to where you repeat out loud statements about how good you are and happy you are with yourself) are very powerful as is visualization for changing your life.
Figure out what you want (and it sounds like you already have) to improve in your life and then make plans to make it happen.
You can do it. Good luck to you and your husband. I hope that you find the happiness that you deserve. Try something outside your comfort zone.
Right now H and I find ourselves in a place where we often get stuck. We both agree that we need to change our situation. He is trying to be patient and not pressure me, I recognize this and I appreciate it but I am not yet feeling sexual or comfortable opening up to him. Usually this is where he gets frustrated at going without and loses patience with me and then I feel anxious and give up because I don't know what to do. I am good with snuggling and cuddling, but not ready to "go all the way." So I am wondering if any one has suggestions for some in-between activities that will help my husband feel that he is not being deprived and also are allowing me to make small steps in feeling comfortable in the sexual arena again?
Frustrated2,
This is a very good attitude to have. You are looking at what you can do to help the situation. Not many are willing to look at what they can do to help it.
I'm going to let someone else make suggestions.
Right now H and I find ourselves in a place where we often get stuck. We both agree that we need to change our situation. He is trying to be patient and not pressure me, I recognize this and I appreciate it but I am not yet feeling sexual or comfortable opening up to him. Usually this is where he gets frustrated at going without and loses patience with me and then I feel anxious and give up because I don't know what to do. I am good with snuggling and cuddling, but not ready to "go all the way." So I am wondering if any one has suggestions for some in-between activities that will help my husband feel that he is not being deprived and also are allowing me to make small steps in feeling comfortable in the sexual arena again?
Racing in from left field, it SpinFree!
Is there a way that you can show him what you find sexy?
Show him by nibbling/caressing the parts that you think are hot? Run your fingers through his hair? Have him put "his big strong hands" on your calf/hands/hair. If he gets anxious for more, you can tell him "this isn't a big mac, it's a four course meal, wait for it..."
For me, the hardest part of my SSM was the feeling of rejection/undesirability. Showing me that she desired me even if/when we're not having sex is super huge for me.
If he's frustrated/grumpy let him take care of himself during the playtime or after. Let him be responsible for his own release. You be responsible for showing your partner that you desire him. (and vice versa)
SpinFree, on the edge of being free from a SSM (and into a great new marriage with the same lady) and into the wide open victory of being much less angry
...For me, the hardest part of my SSM was the feeling of rejection/undesirability. Showing me that she desired me even if/when we're not having sex is super huge for me.
+1!!!!!
One thing that my wife has done a couple of times when we are "making out" and I get really aroused but she doesn't have time to ML because she has to get up and go to work, get to sleep so she will be able to get up in the next morning, or hop in the shower to get dressed in time to make an appointment, is to tell me that I am a good man and some specific things that she admires in me (5 Languages of Love "words of affirmation") run her fingers through my chest hair or the hair on my head then kiss my body (5 Languages of Love "touch"), then tell me that she intends to take care of me either in the morning or the following day and that I had better get rested and be ready for her.
By doing that, she has made me feel loved in my primary and secondary languages of love and she has not sexually rejected me but instead told me "soon." Instead of feeling sexually rejected, I feel desired and loved.
At the worst of my SSM, it was the nearly constant sexual rejection that made me feel really bad and rationalize that she must not love me or desire me. There are alternatives that allow a partner to feel loved, if you know their primary and secondary languages of love.
I strongly recommend the Chapman book, but you can get an idea of what they are from the following website
summary of 5 languages of love
That sounds like a great idea. We don't do anything that formal, but there's a big difference when she finds a way to say "Not now, but soon" instead of the old way, which too often was "Do you have to touch me like that?" or "Would you *please* stop it!"
...For me, the hardest part of my SSM was the feeling of rejection/undesirability. Showing me that she desired me even if/when we're not having sex is super huge for me.
+1!!!!!
One thing that my wife has done a couple of times when we are "making out" and I get really aroused but she doesn't have time to ML because she has to get up and go to work, get to sleep so she will be able to get up in the next morning, or hop in the shower to get dressed in time to make an appointment, is to tell me that I am a good man and some specific things that she admires in me (5 Languages of Love "words of affirmation") run her fingers through my chest hair or the hair on my head then kiss my body (5 Languages of Love "touch"), then tell me that she intends to take care of me either in the morning or the following day and that I had better get rested and be ready for her.
By doing that, she has made me feel loved in my primary and secondary languages of love and she has not sexually rejected me but instead told me "soon." Instead of feeling sexually rejected, I feel desired and loved.
At the worst of my SSM, it was the nearly constant sexual rejection that made me feel really bad and rationalize that she must not love me or desire me. There are alternatives that allow a partner to feel loved, if you know their primary and secondary languages of love.
I strongly recommend the Chapman book, but you can get an idea of what they are from the following website
summary of 5 languages of love It doesn't take much to avert a SSM or leave the HD partner feel like she or he is hanging in the wind.
An old friend and I where talking about this, she is the HD in such a relationship. Of course the spouse is said to have said "I don't have enough time", "too busy", "worried about work", etc...
We both agreed that there is ALWAYS enough time, no matter how busy, how high pressured your environment have, how little time you have... It literally takes 5 minutes and its not always sex...
I haven't figured out how to use the quote function on this forum yet, but would like to respond to SpinFree's question
"Is there a way that you can show him what you find sexy?"
Right now I feel so broken that I don't find anything sexy. I feel defensive and anxious. When I work up the courage and self confidence to try to do something sexy, I am accutely aware that it is not enough to satisfy my H and so it does not end up being a confidence building experience. I really need to be able to learn how to touch and be touched again, and to feel relaxed and pleasant, I need to be able to build my self esteem and confidence, but ultimately I move too slow for him. He is not interested in taking small steps for me and then relieving himself, I think he is afraid that if he allows that then we will never go back to actually having sex. Because he is so concerned about having his wants/needs taken care of, it pretty much defeats my efforts to take care of what I need. I don't want him to feel rejected, but I also don't want to feel like I am just a piece of flesh that he uses to make himself feel good.
....I really need to be able to learn how to touch and be touched again, and to feel relaxed and pleasant,
...I need to be able to build my self esteem and confidence, but ultimately I move too slow for him.
...I don't want him to feel rejected, but I also don't want to feel like I am just a piece of flesh that he uses to make himself feel good.
Wow you really do understand the issues and know what you need to do. That is impressive.
For learning how to touch and be touched the classic approach that a sex therapist would probably use would be either sensate focus exercises or taking turns at couples massage. Both would be done for a limited period of time under orders not to allow it to lead to sexual intercourse or genital touching.
As to self esteem and confidence that is what GAL is all about. Figure out a GAL plan and implement it. Or maybe give yourself a deadline by when you will have written out a GAL plan and make that happen. Ultimately GAL is primarily for you and just secondarily for him; so the timing and getting on with it is really in your best interest in regaining your self esteem and confidence.
You have a good attitude about making your husband not feel rejected, but maintaining your integrity. Bravo. Counseling with a sex therapist might be a really good way to move forward and yet have someone to help with the balancing of these two priorities.
Good luck
Is there a way that you can show him what you find sexy?
Right now I feel so broken that I don't find anything sexy. I feel defensive and anxious. When I work up the courage and self confidence to try to do something sexy, I am accutely aware that it is not enough to satisfy my H and so it does not end up being a confidence building experience.
Can you do it in a situation where it *IS* enough?
On the way out the door, can you turn a quick peck into a lingering kiss? (Now get to work, handsome.)
When putting out dinner, can you stroke his ear/jaw/arm and tell him how glad you are to sit down with him?
I think if you go to the limit in a situation where it *can't* go any further it will help you both.
If he gets pissy, ask him what more you should have done when the kids are watching or he's on his way to work, etc. Just because he doesn't want to wait for baby steps, doesn't mean that he doesn't have to/need to.
I really need to be able to learn how to touch and be touched again, and to feel relaxed and pleasant, I need to be able to build my self esteem and confidence, but ultimately I move too slow for him. He is not interested in taking small steps for me and then relieving himself, I think he is afraid that if he allows that then we will never go back to actually having sex. Because he is so concerned about having his wants/needs taken care of, it pretty much defeats my efforts to take care of what I need. I don't want him to feel rejected, but I also don't want to feel like I am just a piece of flesh that he uses to make himself feel good.
You've set a good personal boundary that you won't be used.
Set a personal boundary for 5-minute "sexy sessions" to accomplish what you want to accomplish. Your husband is invited to participate, but you will be having a sexual break with or without him. His needs are his own and he is responsible for them.
You get to decide how you are touched, how you touch him, and when you're finished. (A nice touch is to thank him when you're finished.) You then have to stick to your guns and not let him push you around during your sexual explorations.
If he decides not to participate because it's not what he wants drag your sexy self off by yourself and enjoy yourself. This is about YOU. You aren't responsible for his feelings. Only yours.
SpinFree, movie and a quiet dinner for one
I'm not very good at the whole boundary thing, when push comes to shove I am a pushover. I also have not been doing a very good job of making progress on my issues that contribute to the ssm - I have not gotten the books I would like to read, much less read them; I haven't had time for any personal improvement and have not had the time or desire for "sexy sessions". My H has made efforts to be patient and kind, but he is only good for a couple of days and then gets frustrated that I haven't come around. I continue to struggle with the conundrum that he wants me to feel desire and be involved in sexual activity, yet he doesn't have the understanding or patience for what it will take for me to get there, so he wants a courtesty act in the meantime - and then complains that I am not involved. I try to explain that this is counter productive for me, but he doesn't seem to understand how that is possible. Unfortunately, we have been doing this for so long that I have now totally lost patience with the courtesy acts even. I am probably just repeating the same complaints over again here, but it sure helps to take a moment to try to organize my thoughts and identify what I am feeling.
I can really identify with what you are talking about. I think that on one level you also have a very good understanding of what is happening in your marriage.
However, let me offer a slightly different perspective.
In addition to really needing sex, I really need to be touched and to be praised by my wife. In the Chapman 5 Lanaguages of Love Book, my primary language of love is touching, and my secondary language of love is words of affirmation.
Touch is a fairly high need for a lot of men. Sometimes in the past I know that I and other men have wanted to be touched by our wives and yet didn't know how to ask or get that and so tried to initiate sex as a way of also getting the touch we need. I am not sure if your husband is the same way or not, but you might explore that. Touch and sex are different.
Those weeks that my wife is traveling on work, or too busy for me, I find that getting a professional theraputic massage once a week helps me cope and feel a lot better and less out of sorts with her. In the book the Passionate Marriage, Schnarch talks about self soothing. I have even taken up some self massage for calf muscles and shoulders to try to self sooth and get a feeling of touch. Again, the point is that your husband's moods you define as his need for sex, could in fact also be related to a lack of "touching." Sue Johnson has a good book out on how important touch is to some people, it is called Hold Me Tight. Reading her book really helped me understand some of my basic needs.
Another thing that you might try is for you to massage your husband on the neck/back/foot, or to try to hold hands with him, if you are not too angry and can handle it. For a while, my wife, when she read in bed and would not talk to me, but at least put her toes against my legs or feet as a sign of affection. That was something I could use in my head to say that she was showing me that she desired and cared for me. It was a limited way of feeling touched by her, which made me feel loved.
At one of the low parts of my marriage, when my wife would not have sex nor would she praise me, I withdrew from her and focused more of my time at work, where by spending more time there; clients and coworkers would praise me for the things I accomplished. It was how I tried to emotionally survive. Oh course it made my wife feel like I was emotionally abandoning her, and made her more likely to reject any sexual initiation I tried.
The point is that in trying to deal with my feelings I fell into a partern of behavior that reinforced a negative spiral. My wife didn't provide the touch I needed or the words of affirmation and so I went elsewhere for that, which mean I spent less quality time with her (one of her primary languages of love.) Because she didn't feel loved by me, she withdrew even further from me and became even angrier at me.
It was a bad spiral.
We finally were able to break that spiral, by my working hard every day to make her feel loved in her languages of love, and by working with a sex therapist to point out to my wife that i was changes and my wife could either change with me or realize that I would divorce her within a year. Ultimately, my wife was able to change with me and together we have been fighting old habits and rebuilding our relationship.
Until she started to change, I felt like a massocist and kept asking myself why bother. Ultimately, I said it was worth the trying just to make sure I could say I tried everything before I divorced her. I wanted to try to make the marriage work and if it couldn't not look back with any regrets. I sense you too are asking yourself if you should try to "please" your husband or give up trying since he doesn't understand/meet your needs.
MWD talks about how at times just one partner can change things. I really believe that one partner can change themselves, but that it really takes both partners to establish new behavior paterns.
Again, as you state below, I think you have things pretty well figured out. Now I would suggest taht you need to push your comfort level and start making changes in your life in the hope that your husband can see the changes, can feel loved and is moved to change with you and meet your needs. Professional sex therapist counseling will help achieve these goals as well.
Good luck!
...I continue to struggle with the conundrum that he wants me to feel desire and be involved in sexual activity, yet he doesn't have the understanding or patience for what it will take for me to get there, so he wants a courtesty act in the meantime - and then complains that I am not involved.
I try to explain that this is counter productive for me, but he doesn't seem to understand how that is possible.
Unfortunately, we have been doing this for so long that I have now totally lost patience with the courtesy acts even...
You might find the following link humorous...(since you would like to change your husband - which you probably cann't directly do)...
On training men
How are you doing out there, F2? Anything new?
Thank you Young at Heart for both of your recent posts. A neutral perspective and humor are always good for me.
SillyOldBear: Thank you for asking how I am doing. I feel like each day brings a challenge in the relationship, but that is nothing new. I am very tired of the issue.
The most recent incident occured because both of us were feeling a bit depressed about our situation and frustrated with the other. It came to a head, we each got angry, verbally sparred and then tried to let it go. Keeping Young At Heart's post above in mind, I spent the evening snuggled up to my husband but then wanted to go to sleep, without making any sexual efforts. My husband felt disappointed by the lack of sexual activity and said so. In the morning I explained that I was very tired of the battle about taking care of his sexual needs, but that I care about his feelings and was trying to be close and affectionate. He thought about it for a minute then asked for a hug and told me he loved me. It felt like a positive moment. I desperately hope that it can be sustained...but I doubt.
.....I explained that I ... was trying to be close and affectionate. He thought about it for a minute then asked for a hug and told me he loved me. It felt like a positive moment. I desperately hope that it can be sustained...but I doubt.
Maybe you should think of what you did (closeness & non argumentative explaination) as a "180."
It was something you did different and it produced a positive result. Write that one down so you will remember it.
Keep trying more "180's" until you have a list of things that "work" for your husband and you.
You are in a "high stakes" sociological study where your marriage and your happiness are the outcome of the game. You need to explore what does and doesn't work and keep track so that you can do more of the things that work for the both of you. This means that you have to actively try things that may not work (which will require courage on your part.)
Congratulations, keep up the good work!
Visualize sucess as opposed to assuming it won't keep happening. Remove the "...I doubt" from your thoughts. Become positive.
One of the very positive things that the sex therapist did with my wife and me was to help us visualize what a happy marriage would include and help push us to take small steps in that direction. Without a counselor, the successful 180's you initiate and repeat need to be your small steps.
P.S. I hope that you thanked your husband for the hug and his understanding. You want to reinforce his positive behavior. Have you figured out what he did? If he is a touch primary language of love guy, then his asking for a hug could have been him asking you to do something to make him feel loved or it could have been his saying that he loved you and was showing his love for you in his primary language of love. If he says non-verbally "I love you" and you answer with a non-verbal touch language "I love you too" you have really communicated with him and made him feel loved. If the two of you can also add verbal "I love you's" at the same time it is even stronger.
If his secondary language of love were verbal affirmation or praise and you then praised him for what he did, he would feel even more loved.
Men are really pretty simple creatures to train once you know their languages of love and as in the other post jokingly says, train them like a dog.
Good luck to you. Keep positive and keep trying.
That IS a positive moment. The thing is, at this stage in the game, a positive moment could be followed by a blowout, and it's easy to get discouraged. But that's normal. Just the fact that you're talking to each other about these things openly and explicitly, without having to yell and fight about it, is positive. It means you both want more than what you're doing right now. Even if you feel like he doesn't understand or that he's not trying as hard as you are, he's trying.
Keep going! What are you doing about your GAL?
Yes, it was a positive moment, but the doubt was reinforced. The next conversation was him saying "what did you say to me this morning?" and ultimately whatever happened the night before was reduced to the fact that he didn't get what he wanted and it was time to make up for it. I do feel discouraged and I feel like it is pointless to even try to share my feelings and perspective with him because he seems to hear my voice but not my words. I feel pretty strongly that counseling would help us,especially a sex therapist, but we live in a small, remote town where counseling choices are limited and he is unwilling to truly participate. In his own way he is trying to help improve the situation, but as is typical in a disagreement, he is not open minded or compassionate to the other side and is mainly interested in preserving his own argument.
I'm going to give you some advice now, because frankly that's what I do even when I'm not asked for advice. You may need to ignore some or all of it.
First, if you're not reading Margali's thread "Hello Hello is there anybody out there?" yet, you should be. Someone there is dealing with a similar situation from the other point of view, right down to the fact that both of you had a nice cuddly moment recently that could have turned sexual but didn't, and it caused hard feelings in both marriages. But she's your opposite; she's the one trying to get more sex from her husband. Might be interesting reading; I know that reading about how the LD spouses here feel has helped me empathize with my wife. This is even more important in a sex-starved marriage, because people tend to try to figure out why their spouses are "doing this to them" or "punishing them this way" and over time, forget that their spouse might have the best intentions and just not know how to fix the marriage.
Next, my advice on counseling is not to wait if you feel like you could benefit from it. The counselor is unlike your husband in that she's not going to be emotionally involved in what's going on, and she's unlike us on this board in that she will really know you and have a conversation with you in real time (plus, you can hope she'll be experienced, whereas we're just a bunch of other people who got fed up with our marriages.) If he won't do couples counseling, go to someone by yourself instead if you think counseling will help. He's in charge of what he does, you're in charge of what you do.
In the interest of full disclosure, I say this as a man who waited. We have adoption preservation family counseling sessions aimed at helping us deal with the high-risk twins we adopted, but we weren't seeing anyone for us. I wanted us to get marriage counseling or see a sex therapist, but my wife kept putting it off. She's been prescribed anti-depressants several times and acknowledges that she suffers from depression, but she had never seen a therapist, psychologist or psychiatrist for it--she just got a prescription from her general practice. I'd been thinking I would go ahead and go to someone on my own now that I have insurance, but she hit rock bottom in a way a few weeks ago and was finally convinced that she needed to go someone individually. Her IC also recommended marriage counseling, but she still says she's not comfortable with that. If things continue, I'll start my own IC until she's willing to go for marriage counseling.
Oops! Gotta go! Just got paged. Back later.
OK, I'm back. Sorry, somebody literally had a stroke.
So . . . now that I'm back, I see you're already reading the other thread and posting good insights, so ignore that.
The other thing I wanted to ask you about was the conversation/argument today. What happened? You said it started with your husband asking whether you remembered what you said last night. To what was he referring there?
Then, you say it came down to him demanding that you "make up for" not having sex last night, I think. Is that correct? What was your response to that?
I will tell you this from the HD point of view: How you decline sex makes a HUGE difference. If you're expressing your frustration with the whole situation when he asks you for sex, the way my wife was, you may be doing things like snapping at him ("Are you serious?!?" or "Do you HAVE to do that?") or even laughing at the idea of sex. It sounds like you don't do those things, but he may still be taking your refusal as a rejection of HIM, rather than declining sex.
It was a very big deal for me when I began to look at my wife's refusals as less personal; more akin to turning down someone who wants you to go to the bar tonight or go to a ball game tomorrow. It's hard for the HD spouse sometimes to remember that sex is something the LD spouse has to do with him, that it does require effort and take time even for someone who feels desire.
It really helped when she began to understand how I felt and refuse in different ways:
"I'm just too tired tonight. How about tomorrow?"
"I love you so much, but I can't do it right now."
"I do love you, and I do want to make love, but not tonight. How about this weekend?"
Notice sometimes she does suggest another time. That lets me know that it's not that she never wants sex with me again, just that this isn't the time. I don't like it, but I don't feel desperate or frightened. The catch is that if you do suggest another time, you're committed to it or he won't let you forget, so sometimes it's better not to do so.
From your description it sounds like he thinks that a "rain check" is implied when you say no. What do YOU think? Are you OK with that? I wouldn't like to be locked into that obligation, even as the HD spouse. If you don't either, have you told him that?
Wow, I'm glad I decided to check out this thread, and saw what SillyOld said about reading stories of the opposite point of view.
And I'm glad I saw the part where Frustrated said she was "tired of the battle." Yes! Yes! I'm "tired of the battle" too. I'm tired of worrying about this. That's why sometimes, I'm tempted to give up and just learn to live with a nonsexual marriage (since almost everything else about my DH is just right for me) OR, if we ever split up, just not ever get into a serious relationship again. You just get tired of the battle. You don't want everything to be such a BFD all the time. You just want to relax and laugh and have fun with the person you married.
Luckily, my DH and I enjoy a lot of the same things, have similar tastes, similar opinions, and a similar sense of humor. Well, that's why I'm still with him. What we've got out of bed is so good that I don't want to give it up (yet) because of our lack of activity in bed.
The other thing I wanted to ask you about was the conversation/argument today. What happened? You said it started with your husband asking whether you remembered what you said last night. To what was he referring there?
He didn't ask whether I remembered what I said, he asked "what did you say" which was so disappointing to me because I took it to mean that he hadn't really heard me.
The catch is that if you do suggest another time, you're committed to it or he won't let you forget, so sometimes it's better not to do so.
This is so true, and honestly, I am careful not to commit to another time because I might not be up to it when the time comes.
Ohhhh. . . I have a bad habit of asking people what they said or I said as a way to get them to repeat it back to me. . . bad old school teacher habit. I can see how that would be frustrating. I had a similar problem with my wife constantly talking about how I didn't listen and telling people how much I didn't listen . . . but ignoring everything I said and feeling free to talk over me.
The only thing that made any difference was to start demanding her attention. If I think she isn't listening, now, I stop talking and ask her if she's listening to me. Often she's not, but she catches herself with a rueful little smile now and refocuses when that happens. It'll take awhile, though.
I am careful not to commit to another time because I might not be up to it when the time comes.
That IS very honest. And it's not a completely unreasonable way to look at it. Have you told him that you feel that way? If so, what was his reaction?
If not, let me suggest that you should tell him, but also that you should choose your words very carefully. He's in a sex-starved, scarcity mindset right now and he's not always going to hear what you say the way you say it. And you're in a harried, pestered state of mind and things might not come out the way you mean them, either. When my wife said things like that to me, I heard something like "I know you want to make love, and I know it hurts you when I reject you, and I know I could soften the blow if I said we would do it tomorrow . . . but sex with you turns me off so much that I just can't stand to promise that, because then tomorrow I'll have no escape and I'll have to have sex with you."
Something like "I'd like to promise to do it another time, but right now, I'm struggling with desire and it scares me to promise something without knowing for sure whether it'll happen or not. I don't want to make promises I can't keep."
Now, all that said, if you read the Sex-Starved Marriage book, you saw references to what MWD calls the "just do it" theory. Basically, she says that many people (more often women, but not always) believe that they should feel desire first and then get stimulation. But many people, especially women, can't do it that way, because they walk around without feeling desire for days, weeks, months or years--but when they relax and accept stimulation, suddenly the desire is there. This was a revelation for my wife, because I'd been complaining for years that she would be wild on the rare occasions when I could get her to make an effort sexually, then go back to asexuality the rest of the time.
She began trying to "just do it." Every once in awhile, when she didn't feel desire, she'd open up to kisses and touching anyway. What we found was that it does work . . . if she feels no desire, but she relaxes and forgets about trying to get aroused, all it takes is some kissing and touching and she's full of desire. The key difference is that she only does this when she wants to do it. I don't try to make her do it, and I don't think it would work if I did.
So if you decide that "just do it" might work for you, give it a try and see. But don't accept your husband trying to guilt you or push you into a sexual encounter you don't want to have; that's going to do the opposite.
The way I introduced "just do it" to my wife (before I'd ever read The Sex-Starved Marriage) was to say "Give me five minutes of your time with an open mind. Set the alarm if you want. At the end of five minutes, if you want me to stop what I'm doing and go take a cold shower, I will." She didn't always accept that challenge (and she doesn't always "just do it" today, either) but every time she did, she found herself unwilling to stop after five minutes.
I actually went thru a phase in the progression of my relationship toward the ssm where I would "just do it", and it was ok, and sometimes I would find myself feeling something that I did not expect. I also tried to accept what my H suggested, that I was depriving myself by not wanting sex as much as he did. Unfortunately, more often than not I found myself feeling very distant, it felt more like a mechanical interaction than an intimate connection with my partner. It felt like he was only interested in getting, not giving, and was focused on the feelings that his orgasm gave him rather than sharing the experience with me. It was more like an "I'll get mine and you can get yours" attitude, which can be ok I guess if both people feel that way, but in a long term committed relationship it didn't feel right to me.
I also consciously tried to "just do it" again after reading the book. I have to be honest that I couldn't really give myself wholeheartedly to it, but I tried. Husband was not aware that I was trying this approach, he just thought that I was doing what I should be doing. He was noticeably happier but not necessarily more attentive, understanding or giving to me.
We have spent many years struggling with this issue. I can honestly say that I have tried very hard to accommodate him and make him happy. I don't think he has ever recognized or appreciated how hard I have tried because what he seems to see is that I have yet to become the sexual person he would like me to be. I think he feels that a healthy sexual relationship simply involves more sex and my definition of a healthy sexual relationship includes feeling respected and cared about while engaging sexually.
....more often than not I found myself feeling very distant, it felt more like a mechanical interaction than an intimate connection with my partner. It felt like he was only interested in getting, not giving,
....I also consciously tried to "just do it" again after reading the book. I have to be honest that I couldn't really give myself wholeheartedly to it, but I tried.
...We have spent many years struggling with this issue. I can honestly say that I have tried very hard to accommodate him and make him happy.
...I don't think he has ever recognized or appreciated how hard I have tried because what he seems to see is that I have yet to become the sexual person he would like me to be.
...I think he feels that a healthy sexual relationship simply involves more sex and my definition of a healthy sexual relationship includes feeling respected and cared about while engaging sexually.
My heart goes out to you and your husband. You sound like the two of you are trapped in a relationship that if you could just change a few things, could blossom again.
I know that I found my wife and me in a negative spiral where she would withdraw from me and then I would focus on work and she would feel more abandoned. It sounds like if your husband could just figure out how to make you feel respected, carred for, and engage your spirit and mind that your relationship could blossom.
In my relationship having a skilled sex therapist and going to a couples marriage weekend course taught be John Gottman and his wife, really helped change the way we related to each other. We are still trying to make more changes, but at least those things got us back to visualizing a happy marriage and jointly working toward that goal.
One of the things that surprised me was how unhappy my wife had been and how much happier she became after we started to take care of each others needs more.
You might need an outside "change agent" to help you get what you feel you need out of the relationship. Good luck to you.
That is so hard.
I can feel the frustration radiating from your written words. It seems like you feel like you're the only one making an effort. I've been there--from the LD point of view--and it's a truly depressing feeling. I started to feel like things would just go on that way forever. I was counting the years left, saying to myself, "Do I have 50 more years of this? Do I want that?"
Did you feel like you could talk to your husband about what you were doing and why? It sounds like you tried to "just do it" without telling him about it. Were you uncomfortable talking about it? Or did he do something that made you think he wouldn't handle it the way you hoped?
Have you thought about what you will do if your husband makes a final decision that he isn't willing to (or doesn't need to) change? Are you willing to leave if you reach a point where you're certain he's never going to change? We don't cheerlead for people to leave marriages here, but there's a paradox: if you've thought about leaving, even wondered about it, there's some chance that you will leave at some point, and often hiding that possibility helps prevent you from working it out so that you no longer need to leave. Conversely, as hard as it is, sitting your spouse down and explaining that you've had thoughts of leaving and why, and explaining that you don't want to leave and that's why you want to make changes, can lead to changes you wouldn't see otherwise.
Nothing changed for me until I admitted that I'd begun to wonder about leaving. I'd been adamant (even to myself) that I would never ever leave no matter what, and that was part of my victim mentality--she'd tricked me into marrying her by acting like she liked sex, and now that she had me "trapped" and I "couldn't" leave her, she was free to taunt me and mock me and keep me celibate for the rest of her life (or at least the rest of mine.) It wasn't until I accepted that staying was my choice and I was responsible for every compromise I made and every outrage I accepted by staying that I was able to confront her with the statement that I would leave if I couldn't find a way to fix our marriage and I wanted her help for real.
Now, if you genuinely know that you aren't going to leave--if you're happy enough despite the sex situation, for instance--then all that doesn't make much difference for you. But you DO sound like someone who's doing all the heavy lifting. He seems to expect, not without reason, that you will make all the compromises and that you agree with him that his libido is right and yours is wrong.
You sound like the two of you are trapped in a relationship that if you could just change a few things, could blossom again.
I totally agree with this suggestion, in fact, this is the thought that motivates me to keep trying. I honestly believe that it is possible to resolve our issues, we just have not figured out the right way to do it yet.
Have I thought about leaving? Yes! However, I adamantly (or stupidly) believe that it is possible to work things out. I know that I love my husband and that he loves me. H used to threaten to leave me, or to have an affair, or even to bring another woman into our lives just for sex. Those were very hurtful threats to me. I felt that he didn't love me enough to try to work with me. Remember that I never wanted to not have sex, I just wasn't comfortable with his attitude and beliefs about sex, and the way that he treated me in regard to sex. These days I believe that if he is unhappy enough with me to leave, then that is what he should do, but he has not made threats in a long time. If anything, we have traded shoes. The disparity in our personalities has caused stress in our relationship that goes beyond our sex life and over time I have lost patience and respect for him and what I see as his undesirable behaviors. I am not planning on leaving, but I also don't want to spend my life battling with him and suffering from the loss of self confidence and self esteem that are a result of the battles. I know deep down that if we separated I would be just fine and he would be the one struggling...but that is not what I want for us. I think he also realizes that his life would not necesarrily be nicer without me and I do believe that he wants our marriage to remain in tact and for both of us to be happy with each other.
You're probably right to think things can be worked out in your marriage. I don't want to suggest that they can't. What I do want to suggest is that if you think about leaving, you tell your husband about those thoughts. I firmly believe that one of the reasons the stay-behind spouses elsewhere on this board get blindsided so "suddenly" is that they feel like they have things settled with their spouses . . . that maybe everyone's not really happy, but there's an unspoken agreement that what they do have is too good to give up.
In reality, the other spouse has been battling down the urge to throw a tantrum and leave for years. At first it was just passing notions and felt like no big deal, then they began thinking of all the reasons not to leave--which led to thinking about ways to get past those obstacles, or beginning to think, "well, I'd have to stay until the kids are raised, so that's ten more years . . . " and then waking up one morning and realizing that the last kid has moved out of the house.
Then one day they panic and decide they've been betraying themselves and they're ready to leave just like that. The stay-behind spouse thinks it all happened suddenly for no reason, but only because their spouse didn't talk to them openly about what they were feeling and what the stakes were. In effect, they didn't know the stakes they were playing for, and then they're left alone--and even if they had a LOT to do with the problems that drove their spouse out of the home, they feel with some justification that they've been sucker-punched without warning out of the blue.
I just want to encourage you to think it over and make sure that you're facing all the possible consequences for everyone and that you've made a real effort to have your husband understand what the consequences of his actions might be. It's not that it's a cure-all, it's just that if you let things like this stay under wraps they fester. It's like having a wound under a bandage. If you take the bandage off, you can see the pus and smell the sepsis, so you pour some peroxide in there and put a new bandage on nice and tight. That covers it up and you feel better for awhile, but if all you do is cover it up, you're going to end up losing the limb if you're lucky and your life if not. Don't let it fester.
... I think he feels that a healthy sexual relationship simply involves more sex and my definition of a healthy sexual relationship includes feeling respected and cared about while engaging sexually.
What specific decisions or actions could your husband choose to do that would make you feel respected and cared about?
I got disconnected there, but what I was getting at, you would like to have your husband make you feel certain feelings, can you list out certain specific things that he could do that would create those feelings in you? So that he could understand exactly how his decisions and actions can connect to your feelings?
If you could list those out, would he be willing to do those actions for you? You know, most HD partners are highly motivated to make lovemaking better. They just have a hard time understanding what the LD partner wants :> If you are telling him you want to feel a certain way, then he may be confused and frustrated because he does not know how to create those feelings. He will need to be told what actions create those feelings in you...?
Good points!
As for the thoughts about leaving, I try to be very honest about about my thoughts and feelings, but I am also careful not to use the possibility of leaving as a threat to be manipulative. The bottom line is that I am not entertaining any thoughts of leaving, I want to find a way to work it out.
As for feeling respected and cared about, my discussions here have made it very clear to me that my H is a physically oriented person and I am more of a psychologically oriented person - no technical terms here, just my own observations - so for my H the fix is simple, more sex. When it comes to him helping me, the touchy-feely stuff is not so well defined. trying4years, I think you are spot on. I ahve tried to explain, but he doesn't get it. I will keep trying to describe what I want in more concrete terms.
I'll add my 2 cents.
My primary language of love is touch and I am HD. My secondary language of love is words of affirmation (praise).
While I mistakenly thought that the biggest problem between my wife and myself was frequency and then quality of sex, I learned that it was really our making each other feel loved and respected.
My wife has learned to make me feel loved through touch and sex. She finds sex easier than touch, which I find frustrating as there are times that I really need to be hugged or touched in a loving way and want that much more than sex.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy frequent sex, but I also deeply need to be touched.
The reason that I bring this up is your comment about it being obvious that the fix for your husband is "more sex." That may be a temporary fix, but there may also be a deeper need for touch that you are not yet aware of.
For my wife after I figured out what her languages of love were (acts of devotion & quality time) I could figure out ways to making her feel loved. I now try to bring her coffee in bed in the morning, make the bed while she is in the shower, fill her car with gasoline each week, do the dishes each night as acts of devotion that say to her "I love you." I also try to spend some time connecting with her in bed while we drink coffee in the morning and at night when we have dinner so she gets the quality time she needs to "feel loved." We also try to go for walks on some weekend days to spend time together talking and walking.
Good luck to you.
I forgot to mention that I would be out of touch for a bit...I went on vacation, and it was just my H & I. I wish I could say that we came home with all of our problems solved, but we didn't. It wasn't horrible either though.
In response to Young At Heart, I would say that my husband's primary languages of love are physically oriented, and I would say that with the exception of sex, I do touch him quite a bit. I would say that it is he who has not yet embraced the idea of "making each other feel loved and respected" He has been unhappy or unfulfilled and fighting to have his own needs met with the general idea that when he is happy then he will automatically make me happy. This is totally understandable, but did not help us get to a better placce.
As it turns out, something about our vacation together clicked with him and he has been trying to be a different person since we got home. I recognize this and would like to embrace it. In the past when he has made efforts at change, I was leary and basically stood at a distance to see what would happen. Inevitably, he would feel that his efforts were for nothing because I was non-responsive and he would give up. This time I would like to be more responsive and positively reinforce his efforts...but I also want to do it at my own pace. I need help though, because, honestly (even if irrationally), I am afraid.
...
As it turns out, something about our vacation together clicked with him and he has been trying to be a different person since we got home. I recognize this and would like to embrace it. In the past when he has made efforts at change, I was leary and basically stood at a distance to see what would happen. Inevitably, he would feel that his efforts were for nothing because I was non-responsive and he would give up. This time I would like to be more responsive and positively reinforce his efforts...but I also want to do it at my own pace. I need help though, because, honestly (even if irrationally), I am afraid.
I would encourage you to have the confidence to strongly reinforce any positive behavior. You are here, you want to make things better, you are putting effort into this, this is an excellent way to make the decision to make things better! If he is starting to make positive changes too he seems to be on board. Help him to be highly skilled at and make a habit of delivering your needs! You will be amazed at what a spouse that has their needs taken care of can and will do.
This can be a 2 steps forward 1 back type progress, so whenever you have a chance to take a step forward, take it!
+1 We are all (to some extent) involved in "conditioning" and creating responses from our spouses by our actions and in action.
Positive and loving feedback for things we like is important. It is important to thank our spouse for what they do right rather than just critisize them for what they do wrong.
...and once again, I was too slow for his patience. I asked him to help me move along in small steps to help me feel comfortable opening up to him, but once he is out of patience the only thing he can think about apparently is having his need met. We have this pattern, he tries to work with me but runs out of patience because I move too slowly for him; I don't want to leave him feeling frustrated/unloved so I tell him that I am not yet at a place where I want to have sex with him or feel comfortable with it but I agree to let him do what he needs to do, then I feel angry and resentful with myself for letting him touch me in a way that I don't feel good about and angry at him for taking advantage of me and not loving me enough to have the patience to work with me. I know that it is not healthy for me and I tell him so. I suspect that it is not a rewarding experience for him either, so why does he continue to repeat the pattern??? Honestly, I can't imagine how he feels connected with me in the slightest bit in a situation when I've told him that I am not comfortable and feeling angry with him but he continues a sexual encounter that does not feel good to either of us. He seems to think that his touch will persuade me to feel excited, but in actuality I just feel angry that he is ignoring what I am telling him about how I feel and what I want.
When it is clear that he is trying to make a change and be patient with me, I admit that I feel leary of him, but I also do try to let it go, I am more affectionate, touchy, close, playfull, etc, but within a couple of days he wants sex and he wants it now and leaves me feeling like those aspects of the relationship don't matter at all.
I don't know how to be more sexual with him when I no longer find his interactions with me appealing at all. I know that we could use the help of a sex therapist but there is not one in the town where we live or anywhere near. I also have trouble focusing on how to improve myself in our situation when we have two busy teenage kids, I work full time, manage our rental property, am the bookkeeper for his business and he constantly needs attention. He thinks self-help and counseling are ridiculous so we can't even work cooperatively on trying something suggested by an outside source. I am feeling beyond frustrated today!
"...so why does he continue to repeat the pattern??? Honestly, I can't imagine how he feels connected with me in the slightest bit in a situation when I've told him that I am not comfortable and feeling angry with him but he continues a sexual encounter that does not feel good to either of us...."
Be careful for what you wish for....
Having been there......he does it because he is desparate deep down inside to feel connected to you, actually to anyone.
He needs, on a primal level, to feel connected with someone else. He needs to feel loved, to feel comforted, to feel desired, and even if he isn't, he still needs those things and you are as good as it gets for him.
It was only after I worked on getting a life and decided my wife's action would determine if we divorced or not, and focused on my being my source of strength and happiness that I stopped engaging in destructive sex with my wife. Ultimately she decided she preferred to stay married and we worked hard to rebuild a relationship that is stronger than it was for many years.
It makes me feel sad and angry to think that throughout my relationship I have tried to work with my partner to help him feel loved and connected - to the point where it had the complete opposite effect for me, instead of loving him more deeply, I love him less (if you can even measure love). Obviously I am still working on it, but it seems like he sabotages my efforts. I know he doesn't mean to...
Do you think there is a way that I could help him understand that I do love him and am making efforts but that a change in approach or perspective on his part would greatly benefit our relationship? I mean, some of you HD posters have managed to make change in your relationship, but it sounds like it really took a turning point in your belief about the situation to truly bring about that change - so how can I assist my partner in coming to that realization that you have had?
I think that you angry, pain and feelings are not uncommon.
My wife also felt very angry toward me during the low point in our marriage. In fact her medical doctor/sex therapist that I got her to see pointed out to her that most older women who are not having medical problems and yet are not having sex with their husbands do so, because of anger. The lady doctor told her why would you want to have sex with someone with whom you are angry.
My wife felt that just because she wasn't meeting my needs and was distancing herself emotionally from me, and my focusing on work(to get some emotional praise and feel good about myself) was a further abandonment of her, rather than a logical response to what she was doing to me and our relationship.
Ultimately, after a lot of introspection, my wife realized that all the things she was angry about me doing to her, were exactly the same kinds of things that she had been doing to me and that as angry as she was, that she had caused the same kind of deep pain and scaring within me that she blamed me for doing to her. This came after I really changed the way I treated her for several months.
That realization helped her forgive me and helped her allow her to work on rebuilding our relationship.
I can understand your pain and your anger. I can also say that at least for me, forgiving my wife and trying to make her feel loved in the ways she needed, even when I wasn't feeling loved by her, was a pivital point in the rebuilding our our relationship. To me, forgiveness of others is a present you ultimately give to yourself.
Your situation may be different.
"Do you think there is a way that I could help him understand that I do love him ...."
In some ways yes, in some ways it will take a long time.
As to understanding that my wife loves me, that has and still is hard for me. The reason is that our Languages of Love (Chapman's Five Languages of Love) are so different.
I now know on a mental level that my wife loves me. It still is interesting when she wants to show me how much she loves me, because it usually involves her cooking a special dinner for me. That act of devotion is her way of screaming at the top of her lungs that she loves me. I need to realize it and thank you and comment on how special it is for her to do such things for me.
In point of fact, I would rather that she massaged my shoulders or spent five minutes rubbing her fingers through the hair on my head than have her cook me a dinner. Touch would make me feel far more loved than any cooked meal.
Even though my wife now understands that to make me feel loved that she needs to touch me and praise me, she still feels that on special occasions that she needs to create quality time and perform acts of devotion to show me how much she loves me.
Now at least I understand what is going on and try to sincerely thank her for her experession of love.
At least now we can recognize that love is different to each of us and try to respect each others need for love and expression of love in different ways.
Again, I would like to praise you for your working on your relationship and not giving up. You should feel good about that.
It makes me feel sad and angry to think that throughout my relationship I have tried to work with my partner to help him feel loved and connected - to the point where it had the complete opposite effect for me, instead of loving him more deeply, I love him less (if you can even measure love). ...
Do you think the interactions with your H could be coined an aversion? If so, a good read for that is on another website which I am not going to mention because it may be against the forum rules? and I want to keep things clean, but if you go google "how to overcome sexual aversion" you will find what I am talking about. They do go through some ideas for you to try, stages of relaxation and meditation which you must practice daily!
I liked the analogy mentioned about if your boss yells at you every time you go to the water cooler, you will find yourself being tense every time you drink water at the cooler. It's not the drinking (sex) that is making you tense. It's your association of the water (sex) and boss's yelling (H's impatient demands) that triggers your reaction.
I have no idea if this is helpful to you in your situation, but it may help you gain understanding. It may give you ideas to try and a plan for yourself to follow to improve yourself if you can't get your husband on board.
Best wishes!
Young At Heart: How did you come to realize that you and your wife were both behaving in a way that hurt each other, that she needed to feel loved and that you needed to treat her differently? It sounds like that was key in changing your relationship. I'm pretty sure that my H will not be wanting to read the books that you read, but...I'm searching for a way to help him consider our problem differently.
Trying4years: I think that it is possible that I have developed an aversion. I have recognized a definite psychological component in my reactions to interactions focused on sex. Thank you for the suggestion, I plan to look into it further.
Young At Heart: How did you come to realize that you and your wife were both behaving in a way that hurt each other, that she needed to feel loved and that you needed to treat her differently? It sounds like that was key in changing your relationship. I'm pretty sure that my H will not be wanting to read the books that you read, but...I'm searching for a way to help him consider our problem differently.
I don't know how to help you get to where you want.
Reading books, helped me understand that I was probably partly to blame for the problems, but I didn't believe that, as it was clearly her fault. Ultimately, I didn't want to explain to our adult children that we were getting a divorce, but I also was not going to allow myself to be emotionally hurt by my wife anymore. The only choice left for me was that I was going to take responsibility for my life, for making changes in my life so that either my wife or other women would find me desirable. My wife could either work on making me happy or in a year, I would divorce her and find someone else. At every point I told her and really meant that I would prefer her to be the woman in my life, but I was going to not be hurt, I was going to find sexual satisfaction with or without her.
At the same time that I decided to change myself, I decided to try to make my wife feel loved in her languages of love.
As things progressed I came to understand that some of the things we argued about were our differences in how we felt loved. In particular my wife use to go nuts when she would work on making me a great dinner and I was late from work. I finally realized that she was showing me her love through her making a fancy dinner, and I was rejecting her offer of love by not being there to accept it.
I can really understand how affairs happen. I decided I would rather divorce her and be honest than have an affair.
I found "how to overcome sexual aversion" and I think it fits my situation. Since it seemed like a good fit, I asked my husband to read it also. Surprisingly, he read it and did not have any negative comments. Other than being very worried about how long it might take to try the recommendations, he seems to be in support of the suggested method for overcoming the aversion. So I have been trying to spend some time each day to work on sexual visualization or activities and to relax, and he has been trying to be patient. So far it seems that as long as I can talk about how I am experiencing progress and talk about plans or potential activities for moving forward then he seems to be reassured (I hope!).
Visualize success and a happy marriage with sex, love, companionship, laughter, and playfulness. Then go make it happen.
Good Luck, it sounds like you are making progress.
Change is hard!
Overall, things are good but there are definitely some difficult moments. We are still working on helping me to feel relaxed about sexual interactions. H is doing a tremendous job in his efforts to be patient and has also been a more involved partner in the home and family arena. History has conditioned me to feel leary of his ability to maintian the role of patient and supportive partner. I find myself falling into old patterns where my actions are more focused on making sure that he gets the attention and relief that he needs, but not focusing much on myself and finding or feeling motiviated by my own sexual self. I know that it will require continued concerted effort to get us past this and it is harder than I envisioned.
Also, when we recently started this renewed effort to change our relationship, I recognized very quickly that we both have forgotten how to be light and playful and enjoy foreplay in our sexual relationship - I'm good for a short while and then don't know what to do; he accustomed himself to go directly for intercourse. In general, we are both affectionate sharing hugs,kisses and ligth touches, but we lost the interactions that lie in-between casual affection and intercourse. In retrospect, it was pretty easy to let it slip away, but it is taking considerable effort to rebuild.
Wow, congratulations. Sounds like things are going well. Remeber that there will be set backs and fights. It will take time to rebuild your relationship. It will happen, but not completely overnight.
As to introducing playfulness into your sex life, that is hard. For me the scars of being hurt and the requirement to expose vulnerability were a battle in becoming playful. It doesn't always work. I wish it could be more natural, but it does get better with time and trust, with healing and forgiveness and above all with renewed mutual love.
Focus on what is going right, don't dispare when things go wrong and count your blessings on you and your spouses rebuilding your marriage. Good luck to you.
One thing you can try is to have some times when you agree ahead of time that you will not do certain things, like intercourse--that you're just going to "play." Sometimes that will lead to nothing--literally, neither of you doing much. If that happens, just snuggle.
Sometimes, it can lead to silly, playful sexual stuff without the pressure of "getting to the intercourse."
Laughing is really important, especially if something goes wrong, or someone does something silly or clumsy. Gotta be able to laugh.
Thank you for the encouragement, I've been having difficulty making progress. In fact, I've slipped backward. I found myself focused on making sure that my H got the attention and/or physical relief that he needs, but found myself not feeling excited or interested in him. He was anxious to keep moving forward and get to the point where he could actually engage in intercourse, and I just felt disappointed that the focus is always on having sex (or getting there). I shared my feelings with him and he said that I just needed to make a decision to do it. Well, making a decision to feel a particular way doesn't sit right with me, shouldn't the feeling come from within, not because I am forcing myself to be a certain way? It seems like I've forced myself to go along and try to accommodate him for so long that it is not surprising I feel resentment towards him and my own feelings are dead. I realize too that I am not happy with many aspects of our relationship which contributes to my lack of desire for him, but he is someone who can separate sex from the rest and so he doesn't understand when I try to explain it to him. I'm having trouble liking him and I'm having trouble focusing on the positives in my relationship and I don't even feel like trying...in addition to having a very difficult time trying to figure out how to want sex when I am not feeling any sort of desire.
....It seems like I've forced myself to go along and try to accommodate him for so long that it is not surprising I feel resentment towards him and my own feelings are dead.
....I realize too that I am not happy with many aspects of our relationship which contributes to my lack of desire for him,....
......I'm having trouble liking him and I'm having trouble focusing on the positives in my relationship and I don't even feel like trying...in addition to having a very difficult time trying to figure out how to want sex when I am not feeling any sort of desire.
Your words could have been written by my wife about a year and a half ago (maybe even just a year ago).
I would suggest conseling with a sex therapist for both you and your husband together. I would suggest that you work on GAL and tranforming or changing yourself so you do things that make you happy. Happiness is contageous.
One thing that I kept repeating to myself was that "I can only change myself." Please start taking responsibility for your happiness. You should warn your husband of this change when it happens. Show him through actions that you can find happiness. You want him to understand (not by threats from you, but from seeing you change yourself) that he could loose you if he chooses not to change himself. He needs to understand that the new you is focused around happiness and he needs to contribute to your happiness if he is to remain part of your life.
Have you looked into the basis of your resentment and disappointment in your relationship? I mean looked deeply into your feelings. One of the things that was said in a marriage workshop I attended was that until I can explain my spouse's reasons for not doing something better than she can, I am not ready to attempt to negotiate a compromise with her on that topic.
It took me a long time to figure out how much I had hurt my wife. It also took her a long time to figure out how much she had hurt me. When she did figure that out, it really hit her hard as she knew exactly the kind of pain and anger I must have felt.
Good luck. Set some New Year's resolutions for yourself on gaining happiness and them make them happen.
I thought that I would add a post script as I was reading another thread on this website and thought that it might also provide some thoughts, as much of it was what I was thinking.
MWD interview on what makes a Happy Marriage
A sex therapist would be a great help to me - I know I need help in maintaining and following through on efforts to change, to push me to work through the issues I am not comfortable with and generally provide neutral guidance. Unfortunately there is not a sex therapist where I live or even one nearby. Seeing one would require $300 airfare or a day and a half travel by car. Maybe some day we can attend a weekend intensive (but I'm doubtful that he would be agreeable to it even if we can come up with the time and money).
As I mentioned before, we were making progress for a couple of weeks and then I found that although I was working at it, the focus became about moving forward for him, getting to the point where we he could actually having sex but I found that I was again going thru the motions for him and that I wasn't feeling the excitement and desire that I wanted. His response was that I would just have to deal with it. I basically shut down, I don't know what to do. He was trying to be patient, but was not really supportive or understanding. I don't know how to communicate to him what I need. I don't want to have a sexless life with him, but I can't stand the pressure to perform any longer, I can't stand him touching me and I can't stand that his response is "you'll just have to get over it". I told him so and he responded that he had been trying to be patient and trying to help me but it didn't seem to make a difference so he was going to accept that I don't want to have sex with him but that I should take care of him when the need gets to the point where he has to have it. I told him that it would certainly become even fewer and farther in between because I have come to hate him and myself for having that kind of a relationship.
He is self employed and works out of town quite a bit. He often tells me that he hopes I will work out my problems while he is gone. I try to explain that my problem is with how the two of us interact. I don't have a problem with the idea of sex in general, I don't have trouble acheiving an O, but I do have a problem with him - with his expectations of me in regard to sex, with the way he treats me as if I am a toy or a tool for him rather than a person whose private space and body should be respected. How do I work on that on my own? I know I need to work on things, but I feel like he needs to help me.
I told him so and he responded that he had been trying to be patient and trying to help me but it didn't seem to make a difference so he was going to accept that I don't want to have sex with him but that I should take care of him when the need gets to the point where he has to have it.
There is the possibility--not certain at this point,though--that you will have to face a choice between accepting this as his best offer or walking away. Would you accept this kind of marriage? You would have to decide.
I wouldn't be willing to live with that, but it took me a long time to work up to the point where I was willing to sit my wife down and tell her that. It's scary, but liberating.
H has been out of town for a couple of weeks for work. I am starting to feel like myself again after being so absorbed by unhappiness and the stress of not getting along. Before H left he asked me to work on myself while he is gone. I got the impression that he was really asking me to work on being ok with sex. I responded that I honestly feel that I am ok with myself (although there is definitely room for improvement), but I am really not ok with him - the way he treats me, the way he touches me and his attitudes about sex. The same old standoff, he is waiting for me to "come around" and I insist that he needs to change too...and he believes that he has tried to change, but it is not in a way that has brought the desired changes in the relationship, etc. etc. While I didn't say it to him, I actually am willing and engaging in an effort to change. Unfortunately changing oneself usually has to be on one's own terms rather than on the way the partner thinks it should be done. I am reading Passionate Marriage and I am anxious to read it all to see the insights it offers because I am hopeful, but so far it is a slow read for me, hard to digest. I also find myself feeling nervous because the book talks about really opening myself up to my partner, but I am no longer comfortable being vulnerable around him (he is aggressive, I am timid; he is demanding, I resentfully give in; he is unappreciative because he beleives "that's the way it should be", etc.). Hopefully the book will also help with that as I progress through the chapters. In the meantime, I would also like to talk with H about the need for both of us to change but don't know how to approach it in a way that leads to productive discussion rather than the same old arguments.
I also feel conflicted by PM as does my wife. There are lots of great insights that Schnarch has.
I believe that if my wife and I had the courage to do some of the things he suggests we would be much closer and happier. It is just that some of them really stretch the limits on what one can handle.
If you and you H do any of the exercises suggested in PM, like hugging till calm, etc. and find them particularly helpful, I (and I am sure others) would like to know the ones you found most helpful or that turned out to be disasters.
Good luck!
Passionate Marriage is proving to be a slow read. I am still working at it though. I also finally got the 5 Love Languages and am finding that much easier to get through. Both books definitely provide food for thought.
Husband has been out of town for a month but expected home soon. I was hoping that I could be in a new frame of mind by the time he returns, but am disappointed to find that I don't think I'll be there. I am worried because part of me is dreading his return. I don't want to fall into old patterns and I don't know how to balance the idea of being loving, forgiving and open, a chance for a new start, with my deep feelings of defensiveness and distrust. And when I say distrust I am not worried about a relationship with another woman, I am worried that he will not treat me with respect and caring for who I am. I know that he would like to come home to open arms and a loving wife, but I'm afraid that I'm not feeling it.
A couple of things that may help.
First as to PM, Schnarch has an audio book on the PM, that you can listen to commuting to and from work that makes it easier to get through it once, so that then digging into the book becomes easier. If you are struggling accept that the audio book might help. I listened to the audio book several times before I had the motivation to dig into the real book deeply. It is a really tough read.
Second, as to 5 Languages, the following websites might help the first is a 2 part interview with the Chapman on a popular radio show.
First of two interviews with Chapman second interview with Chapman outlining his method From personal experience, and it was very hard and difficult to do, I had to change the dynamic in my relationship with my wife, prior to her wanting to invest any time in her changing the way she treated me.
Let me say that again. I had to provide my wife with multiple acts each day of unconditional love in her languages of love, making her feel loved for months, prior to her being willing to change any of her behaviors.
I really think that MWD and her approach is very valuable. One of the things that she says repeatedly is that one partner can be the catalyst for changing and saving a marriage. MWD tells wives in SSM's to "just do it." She understands what it took me a long time to really understand and that is that one person can change themself and that change can create changed marital behavior, which can if focused save a marriage. It doesn't always happen, but it can and does happen frequently enough that people need to understand this important fact rather than just giving up on a marriage. I also want to say from what I have read that it is not universally successful.
Good luck to you. Give yourself a special gift. Try to forgive your husband when he returns long enough to show him love and make him feel loved. I would bet that he also has hopes of a romantic return to your arms as well.
I hope your reunion is everything that you want it to be.
Did you know that some of our DB coach's are experts in intimacy issues? There is an appt. available today with a DB coach that can give you very specific advice on how to 'get in that different frame of mind'using DB techniques that Michele writes and lectures about concerning, Sex Starved Wives and Sex Starved Marriages. I would look forward to talking to you.
I'm feeling like a failure. Husband was gone for 4 months and when he returned home I had no desire to be intimate with him in any way. How horrible is that??? I don't want to end my marriage but I am in a place where I have no sexual desire for him and I don't know how to find it.
You're not a failure, but it might be unrealistic to hope that he could leave a sex-starved marriage completely for four months and yet it would somehow get solved in his absence. You didn't have the other half of the problem with you working to solve it, so you weren't going to solve it. Doesn't mean you can't solve it now, but at some point you would need him working with you.
That's part of the reason you're encouraged to work on yourself, doing 180s and working on what makes your life better for you (especially if he's going to be gone for a long time again.) That isn't necessarily intended to solve an SSM by itself (although it can make a big difference if you commit to it) but it has the advantage of doing a lot of good regardless of whether the SSM ever improves or not.
I do "hugging till calm" from Schnarch without ever having actually explained it to my wife. I just started doing it, and one day she relaxed into it. Ever since, she responds to it with relief, but she's never asked about it and I've never felt the need to give her the clinical explanation of the theory behind it (I do learn.) When it works, it's like taking a power nap . . . it's restful, refreshing.
Did you talk to your husband before he left about what YOU expected to work on while he was gone? If not, that's OK, I'm not beating you up, but if he expected you to do some kind of sex-acceptance exercises for four months (man, that's a long time!) are you perhaps more nervous about dealing with his expectations? Are you afraid he's going to come home expecting his wife to have flipped the Sexual/Asexual switch in his absence? On the one hand, that's not giving him much credit; he should realize that he can't solve a problem in his marriage by leaving and hoping someone else will solve it for him. At some point, if your goal is to save this marriage, you're going to be forced to have a serious talk with this man and explain what you want and need from him. That doesn't have to be the first thing you do, before the work you do for yourself, for instance, but you can't save the marriage by yourself. Don't fall into the trap of accepting that expectation; to the extent that you're working by yourself, you're working on yourself and things for yourself.
I might sound like I'm beating up on him, but I'm really not doing that either. It's just that what he's trying to do is dooming him as much as you. There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
Did you talk to your husband before he left about what YOU expected to work on while he was gone?
I did not talk with my husband about what I expected to work on while he was gone, I felt so broken that I first just needed to work on finding myself under the frustration and depression.
Are you afraid he's going to come home expecting his wife to have flipped the Sexual/Asexual switch in his absence?
Yes. Basically he says that I had 4 months to deal with it and I should be healed. He came home with the intention of trying to be patient and work with me, but ultimately he seems to have no understanding or compassion for my side of the issue - and certainly he does not believe that he is part of the problem in any way.
At some point, if your goal is to save this marriage, you're going to be forced to have a serious talk with this man and explain what you want and need from him.
I agree. We do try to talk about it and we have discussions often, but they feel like battles to me. For my part, I have a hard time knowing anymore what I want of him. I know I would like to stop feeling defensive all the time because it seems like he is constantly badgering me to get it figured out; and I know that I would like to feel some sort of sexual desire before I engage in sexual activity with him, but I don't know what to ask of him to help me find that desire. I wish that he could understand me when I try to explain why I have feelings of hurt and anger and fear and that I don't know how to let them go. I wish we could talk in a constructive way instead of arguing and interrupting each other in our own defense. I've been trying to be a better listener and to stay calm, but I am not always successful.
On the positive side, I did have time and space to work on myself while he was gone. I tried to focus on being more relaxed instead of being worried and anxious about life; I practiced finding joy and appreciation of the little things in life; I tried to practice being calm during provacative phone conversations and not engage in the usual arguments in the usual way; I took the initiative to have the deck replaced after acknowledging that it is important to me but not to him and not likely to get done if left to him; and I agreed to chaperone my son's track team trip to the state meet even though it means leaving town for three days right after H just got home, but I am not doing it to get away from him or hurt his feelings, I am doing it because it is something I really wanted to do; I've made time for reading, both for pleasure and self help (particularly the ssm). I would like to live a balanced life, and it is much harder to maintain when he is physically present wanting me to focus on him, but I think it is an important aspect of being a healthy person in a healthy relationship.
OK, all of that is important. Whether he understands it or not, whether he approves or not, those are all things you needed to do. Good on you for doing them!
In your place, if I couldn't talk to my wife without offending her and I found her expectations totally unrealistic and one-sided, I'd want to bring in people who could help us communicate better without being emotionally involved. I would consider sitting him down and telling him that you're afraid you're headed for marital trouble, maybe divorce, and you want to see a marriage counselor with him.
If he agrees, follow through--don't wait on him, find someone and get started.
If he refuses (and from your description of his communication with you, I doubt you expect him to agree) then it's probably time for you to see an individual counselor (or a marriage counselor if you prefer) by yourself. Keep the door open for him to join you in marriage counseling at any time, but just as you did with your reading and volunteer work and all the rest, spend some time and energy on what you need. I think you seem like you need someone who won't stonewall you and can be your sounding board.
My wife absolutely refused to go to a marriage counselor, but as we worked through things, decided that she wanted to see an individual therapist. That went really well and she has grown to love going to her IC. I didn't feel we had the time to devote to sending me to an IC while she was going to another one, but kept the idea in my mind, and was getting ready to tell her that I was going to start with an IC of my own this summer when she surprised me with the news that she had asked her IC for recommendations of good marriage counselors in the area. That was a shock to me; I thought she was terrified of marriage counseling! Obviously you and your husband aren't in exactly the same spot, but the point is that you don't want to get too bogged down in what he says today he will or won't do. He's capable of changing his mind just like you are. You're doing good things, so keep doing them, and look for chances to apply the principles behind them in other ways.
Wow, I've been away from this forum for nearly a year. Reading back through my thread I can see that I've changed. Things aren't all better, but not horrible either. Many of the issues that I was frustrated with still exist but I think that we have found some middle ground from which to work; I have read some books and tried to take them to heart - working on MWD's GAL and 180's, try to keep in mind the 5LLs; tried to digest Schnarch's differentiation and was inspired (and a little unnerved) by his "Resurrecting Sex". I think H has also been trying to change his ways and I have been trying to be patient and forgiving and appreciate his efforts. We are both very aware that I am lacking the desire for sexual interactions and that I am not yet ready to open up (to being kissed, touched, engaged, etc)and that we have a long way to go in acheiving a healthy sexual relationship, but I have to say that it is very personally rewarding to look back and know that I have undergone some changes.