I am a starved husband. I have tried just about everything to get my wife to help me out and get an understanding to this. The main problem I have with her is she is extreemly lazy and refuses to do anything around the house with out being asked various times this includes all house hold chores. I have a problem with letting my house become filthy or not having a home cooked dinner for my kids so over the last 4 years of our marriage I have done a majority at least 80-90 percent of all house hold chores along with being ignored and turned away when I seek affection.
After reading the Sex Starved Marriage I noticed some things I was doing wrong such as play groping if I was recieving a hug and such. I have since stopped this. I can not get her to read anything she hates it. So this book can not help her untill she becomes receptive to its usefullness. She is under the impression that I have a problem and not her. we have sex less than 15 times a year and it is on her schedual when she feels like allowing me to and its always a are u done yet situation. Prioir to our marriage we had an active sex life that was great and mentally fullfilling instead of degrading. she says I need to learn to seduce her. How on earth can I do this when I cant get her to help with the kids, the chores, or admit that she needs to help work on this marriage. I have no interest in trying to learn to seduce her when I have no time to do it and she is non responsive to any affective given to her to start with.
(Add in) I almost forgot our scheduals are so very different also When I am working out of the home my schedual is early to work and home by 3pm she doesnt get home till after work at 9pm some nights. I believe she also has a poor body image based on her own mind not of my making. I believe and tell her everyday how beautifull she is.
Please give any suggestions you may have I am at my witts end and tired of feeling put down and turned into a monk.
You say you've read the Sex Starved Marriage book. That's a great first step. Did you understand your part in your marriage by reading the book? By that I mean, you have your part in this, too. You have mentioned that you step up and do things where your wife doesn't (cleaning, cooking, etc). Do you realize that if you step up to the extent that you are resentful, that this is actually YOUR problem, not hers? You cannot "help" and be resentful at the same time. You either choose to do these chores because you want to for your family, or you set boundaries and negotiate with her. You are also saying that she works too, and that she doesn't get home until 9:00 pm. I'm not "taking her side" or anything, but that's an awfully late work day. I feel horrible for her!
Also if she has straight up told you that you need to learn to seduce her, that is your clue that you aren't going about this the right way if you want a happy sex life. Regardless of your feeling that you are pulling all the weight, your resentment is going to keep you held back from any true intimacy.
So...do you want to be right? Or do you want to be happy?
One thing I've learned through all this is if you want things to change, you're going to have to be the one to initiate it. What did you do when you were first dating that made her want sex? Maybe try re-creating those feelings again.
M-43 W-40 2D - 9 and 5
Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet a new life.
I do not have much time to post these days, but I see very clearly the situation in which you currently find yourself and, if you are describing it accurately, a lack of sex is just a small part of a much bigger and more serious problem.
Quote:
I am a starved husband. I have tried just about everything to get my wife to help me out and get an understanding to this. The main problem I have with her is she is extreemly lazy and refuses to do anything around the house with out being asked various times this includes all house hold chores. I have a problem with letting my house become filthy or not having a home cooked dinner for my kids so over the last 4 years of our marriage I have done a majority at least 80-90 percent of all house hold chores along with being ignored and turned away when I seek affection.
After reading the Sex Starved Marriage I noticed some things I was doing wrong such as play groping if I was recieving a hug and such. I have since stopped this. I can not get her to read anything she hates it. So this book can not help her untill she becomes receptive to its usefullness. She is under the impression that I have a problem and not her. we have sex less than 15 times a year and it is on her schedual when she feels like allowing me to and its always a are u done yet situation. Prioir to our marriage we had an active sex life that was great and mentally fullfilling instead of degrading. she says I need to learn to seduce her. How on earth can I do this when I cant get her to help with the kids, the chores, or admit that she needs to help work on this marriage. I have no interest in trying to learn to seduce her when I have no time to do it and she is non responsive to any affective given to her to start with.
(Add in) I almost forgot our scheduals are so very different also When I am working out of the home my schedual is early to work and home by 3pm she doesnt get home till after work at 9pm some nights. I believe she also has a poor body image based on her own mind not of my making. I believe and tell her everyday how beautifull she is.
Please give any suggestions you may have I am at my wits end and tired of feeling put down and turned into a monk.
For the moment I am going to keep my points short and direct:
(1) Get a new Poster name - "starved husband" may be accurate from your point of view - but it betrays your very impoverished thinking about sex and life generally, and which has got you into this mess to start with. Give yourself a new name that corresponds to the kind of Man you most want to be? I couldn't be more serious about this.
(2) Read this thread by SillyOldBear, a Poster from last year, who had very similar complaints to yours:
(3) Then read it again; take your time, and get and read the books I referred to in my posts.
(4) I can tell you straight away that you are going to have to start thinking of your "sex starved marriage" from a very different perspective indeed. To quote from one of my posts to SillyOldBear:
Quote:
Do things [i.e. for your wife/ around the house] because (i) you objectively should, (ii) you truly want to irrespective of reward [in particularly the unspoken expectation of sex], with (iii) a polite but firm "No" to the rest [learning to have and assert boundaries]. Reading between the lines, there is much more to your marriage than a lack of sex: you have become enmeshed in a constant year-after-year succession of doing things and sacrificing things all to please her, in a vain struggle for her "approval" i.e. sex. Read no more mr nice guy by dr robert glover and then the way of the superior man by david deida. If you want to make any real and lasting progress at all, you will have to "reset" your whole perspective on life, women and sex. You do not, as you have so far programmed yourself, "need" sex to function as a man. Nor is there any entitlement to sex as such, but there are essential differences between men and women - how they interact verbally, emotionally, physically, what they perceive as attractive in each other - that can be learned and tapped into.
(4) Then read Bagheera's thread on "The Four Phases of SSM Recovery":
(5) There is a lot more I could say e.g. about your wife and her very poor attitude to sex. But that can wait for now. The beginning of this process has to be with You, You starting to realise all the ways in which you have let yourself and your life take a back seat while you constantly chase around the house after the children and the housework. You need to get Yourself back. It can be done, believe me. Once You are back, then you can start looking at pushing your wife into making changes as well.
(6) When you've read through everything I've suggested, post up some more thoughts, and I'll be back.
Congratulations on taking the important first step of accepting there is a problem in your life, and posting here. You'll get a lot of help from both the Men and Women here.
S&A
"A man can be destroyed but not defeated" - from The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway.
Which I take to mean that every man has within him a spirit of relentlessness and optimism. Its already there; he just has to cultivate it.
Thank you for youe insight. Her Schedual does change weekly and she may have two nights a week till 9 and be on call the rest of the week after two thirty. It is not that I step up to do it for my family, It is that she is a self proffesed lazy person. I am a little overburdended most times with every thing from work, home, and trying to finish my degree. I can ask for assistance but do not recieve it. I am guessing I am not making my points of view known to her or she just really doesnt care about it.
Resentment is invovled to a degree but I do try and show her how much I care for her in various ways from messages after a long day to coking her favorite meals. Usually she doesnt eat them or acknowledge the effort it takes to do things for her not knowing if it going to be accepted.
To answer your question. yes I believe I deserve happiness I am just having trouble understanding the selfishness of some people.
This is a great idea, I will try and figure out what may trigger any type of responce from her. I am guessing this problem will take alot of scientific approach to get her to submitt to being a member of the family and not just a mother that is living in the house with out joining in the majority family chores or offering affection that a mother should.
I will take your message and use it as a home work assignment to focus on me for a while. I guess I have let myself be overburdened by my life. I can see that I am not the same man I used to be and would like to regain the way I was. Of course this will be no easy feat. In the 6 years since I left the Corps I have gained weight and started to grow into the man I never thought I would be at 30. I will start on this quest of changing my life and repost as nessarry thank you for the information.
Hello sh Have you sat down and had a very direct talk with your wife, explaining how unhappy you are?
Another book that i've found very helpful (and recommended by Michelle) : Passionate Marriage: sex, love and intimacy in emotionally committed relationships, by David Schnarch. He is a sex therapist AND marriage counselor, because he firmly believes that you have to take care of the ENTIRE relationship when there is a problem with sex, not only the sexual part.
I am the 'LD' spouse in our R - and i am also aware that i can only work on me and not on H (who also hates books and refuses to read them, also refuses to see a counselor together). i am struck by the chasm in our communication - partly (I think) because of our very different male/female way of relating to each other.
I would also recommend reading Michelle's Divorce Remedy book - the steps described in it are 'lifesavers' for marriage. In particular the 'Get a Life' recommendation comes to my mind after reading your sitch. Check all that out here on the forum.
Me49-WAW H46 T25 S17D14S10 Sep.jan08,PA,back Apr08,H PA Dec08,end09 New Thread
