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#2072138 09/08/10 06:17 PM
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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.

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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.


>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
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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.

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Originally Posted By: Frustrated2
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.


>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
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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.

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Originally Posted By: Frustrated2
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.


>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
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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.


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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.

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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!


>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
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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.


Recovering Sex-Starved Husband.
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