As a woman, I find that there's a kind of " If you don't use it you lose it" factor involved.
Saffie:
That actually makes some sense, both in my previous marriage and in my current one. The things you said about cuddled, flowers, child-rearing, etc.are all things that I've heard. My first wife would tell you that she was angry at me because I did not see "being a parent" in exactly the same way that she did. My presence was just a reminder of a past that was no longer valid, in her eyes.
In this relationship sex was never part of the equation in terms of having more children.
I agree that the description of drive issue is really a mismatch. Anectdotally, it seems that the person classified as the HD person is the one that complains. I suggest that the "reversal" you describe is the case where the other partner simply gives up. If not too widely mismatched, communication, openess, and trust are key to resolution. But when one is a no-drive partner and explicit about that, it forces the other, in chess parlance, to either be faced with a stalemate or to resign in the face of certain checkmate.
"But when one is a no-drive partner and explicit about that, it forces the other, in chess parlance, to either be faced with a stalemate or to resign in the face of certain checkmate." -
But is this right? Marriage involves compromise, doesn't it?
....In my M we have gone through some real low periods, (especially through the years of rearing young children - they leave one little time for intimacy and take up much of one's energy. I felt all cuddled out most of the time and couldn't face being cuddled by the time the kids were in bed - what I wanted was SPACE).
...My H .....had no idea about keeping the excitement going for me between periods when he wanted to ML. Now he knows that that needs to be done or I' go cold'.....and that going cold can last for months.
Thank you for sharing in this forum.
I would appreciate it if you could pass along what your husband does to keep the excitement going for you between sessions of ML?
I have heard something similar to the "needs space" comment from my wife in the past. She has told me that at certain times, if she ignores me, it is not that she doesn't love me or value me, it is that at certain times she just needs space and time for herself to unwind and come down from everything that happened to her during the day.
My wife and I are busy professionals and have limited free time.
Based on Chapman's five languages of love, she is also a quality time and acts of devotion person. At times in the past, I need to connect with her and do things around the house (that she didn't want to do) for her to feel loved enough to be sexual with me.
On top of this she has a work-day night-time ritual of reading in bed for half an hour to relax to the point she can go to sleep. After the reading it is lights out and NO talking or she has a hard time going to sleep!
With both of us leaving for work at the same time early in the morning and not getting home until about 7:30 PM, cooking, then eating dinner, and my doing other chores and stuff after dinner, with her going up to start her half-hour read by 9PM and lights out at 9:30 PM; scheduling sex, let alone connecting enough for her to be interested in sex was almost impossible during the week. For decades that left sex to once on the weekends and that wasn't enough for me.
Things have changed recently for the better, but I am trying to avoid backsliding to old habits for both of us.
I now get up first thing in the morning and bring her a cup of coffee. We touch and talk (quality time) while we drink the coffee in the morning in bed together. We talk and connect (quality time) at dinner at night. If I get home early (do a quick gym workout) or don't watch any TV to wind down at night, I can get my chores done early enough to go up to read next to her until it is time to sleep. She finds this as something that make it seem like we are closer...and ocasionally leads to sex during a weekday night! She is finding that sexual release can also help with sleep almost as much as reading!!!!!!!
Scheduling 45 minute to 1.5 hour blocks of time for connecting, foreplay and then sexual intercourse three times a week is pretty challenging! I now much better understand how impossible it was when we had small children and next to impossible prior to our children growing up and leaving home. My heart goes out to married couples with small children.
Again, I would appreciate your insights into how you & your husband learned to how to keep you at the emotional/sexual boiling point between sessions?
Thanks
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
"Conventional wisdom" says that marriage involves compromise.
Unless, of course, it does not.
Although I can give you a series of very plausible medical "reasons" for why my situation developed the way it did, it never has fully or completely explained the situation.
Moreover, with my W there is a psychological pathology that I am dealing with that remains elusive, though it shows up in other areas of our lives and in other relationships not dependent upon sexual intimacy. It looks a lot like an OCD. Compromise, I assert, is something that my W does not do well.
Somehow I've ended up with two different ends of the pendulum swing. My ex-wife still says (and I have no reason to doubt this) that many times what she offered was a 'compromise' between what she really wanted and what she thought I'd accept. Then she would compomise the compromise (unknown to me, of course) and have the accumulated anger of rarely getting what she really 'wanted.'
I actually understand what my ex means because I found myself doing the same thing (trying to find the acceptable compromise) and then finding myself 'shot-down.' Might as well ask for my uncompromised preference and get shot down for that. In my case, I was very, very clear about what I preferred and what my acceptable ranges looked like with regard to sexual intimacy.
They were, ultimately, dismissed.
You asked, previously, why 13 years? Because time passes, life happens, and "changes" become the new, normal routine.
I've written on this in some detail over in the dozen years thread, but long story short: a fairly dramatic drop off in our sex life, I'm diagnosed and then treated for cancer, I finally get very persistent on her 51st birthday (1997, I'm 44 at that time) and she gives me the "no means no" speech as well as the threat of an attempted rape charge, starts six-months of very explicit negotiation over sexual intimacy in our marriage, she finally says no to any more sex or any future commitment to it (April 1998).
About two weeks later her mother suffers a stroke and thus begins my journey into treatment and caretaking of parents. Five and half years later my mother falls critically ill (August 2003). My mom is intensive care for almost a month and just as my mom begins her rehab, my W's mom dies (October 2003). My mom's health physical never returns and she is moved into a nursing home. It takes me a couple of months to process all of my mom's belongings while dealing w/ my W's mother's estate issues in an indirect way.
My mom died in 2009.
In the meantime, life happened and time passed. I knew what my W's decision meant in 1998, though she was dismissive of what I said a couple of months earlier in frustratio over our missing sex life ("if we had wait until you wanted to be sexually intimate, it would never happen!"). But I delayed in an immediate departure when she said no and then, caught up in all the medical drama, could not see myself walking away in the middle of the crisis with her mom. Of course, I was also hopeful she would change her mind and take my request seriously, since my request was about as unambiguous as I could make it.
A question I ask myself is this: would my situation be any different if my W had ALS or MS, or a whole host of other neuro-muscular diseases? Maybe not.
But the difference, even with my wife's various medical situations and reasons, is that I was plain and direct about what I was looking for at the beginning of this relationship in 1986 and I was equally plain, soft spoken, and direct as the sexual intimacy fell apart in 1996 and 1997. (It also took her that long to grasp, for the first time, how I "thought" and processed information to see and relate to the world. But that is another story). She made her decision in full knowledge of what I was requesting even as a "need."
What is has devolved to is courteous housemates where I have more physical capacity to take care of her and its a convenience (for her) to know that I am around and accessible for things other than intimacy.
The Captain
It's time for my evening walk
Last sex: 04/06/1997 Last attempt: 11/11/1997 W Issues "No Means No" Declaration: 11/11/1997 W chooses to terminate sex 05/1998 I gained 60, then lost 85 pounds. Start running again (marathons)
I finally get very persistent on her 51st birthday (1997, I'm 44 at that time) and she gives me the "no means no" speech as well as the threat of an attempted rape charge, starts six-months of very explicit negotiation over sexual intimacy in our marriage, she finally says no to any more sex or any future commitment to it (April 1998).
Did you wife tell you why (apart from the medical issues) she didn't want to be intimate with you anymore? I can understand not wanting to have sex (well I can't understand it, but I can get my head around it) but why no sexual relationship at all? Doesn't she think it's weird to be married and not have sex? She knows that's abnormal right?
V
Never make someone a priority, who makes you an option.
In a word, no. All the conditions she mentioned then were resolved (e.g., I was in the middle of a job search after they closed our office, return to steady income, doing more stuff around the house), so they obviously weren't the reasons.
She has never given a reason other than "I get to say." She never has wanted to talk about it and to her, it must seem perfectly "normal."
Since there was no threat associated with our previous discussions ('if no sex, then....), there has never been any compromise or her part. I had not really thought about this until yesterday, but there are OCD characteristics that keep coming back(she has some sort of viral infection with a high fever and I was home with her and some of what she "insisted" upon yesterday is not at all rational).
Maybe I'm just the only guy that has stuck around....
Her first husband didn't.
Neither did her second.
I realize this discussion has kinda hijacked this thread. So, in answer to the first poster (goalie). You can take it.
I have...for 13 years. If I can, you can. I understand that you don't want to.
Captain
Last sex: 04/06/1997 Last attempt: 11/11/1997 W Issues "No Means No" Declaration: 11/11/1997 W chooses to terminate sex 05/1998 I gained 60, then lost 85 pounds. Start running again (marathons)
I suggest that the "reversal" you describe is the case where the other partner simply gives up.
This wasn't the case in my sitch.
I find this hard to discuss as it's so personal - but my H is a full intercourse guy every 3rd day - apart from in the first flush of our R, that has been pretty constant. Me, well every day would be ok as long as I am treated in the right way.
Quote:
..............communication, openess, and trust are key to resolution.
Yes, yes, yes.....and honesty with ones self.
Saffie me 46 H 46 M in 1986 D20,D18,S16,D13 H's A 01/05 to 07/06 H recommitted to M 07/06 renewed vows 09/06 Going from strength to strength
I would appreciate it if you could pass along what your husband does to keep the excitement going for you between sessions of ML?
I'll try, but it's very personal.
Quote:
I have heard something similar to the "needs space" comment from my wife in the past. She has told me that at certain times, if she ignores me, it is not that she doesn't love me or value me, it is that at certain times she just needs space and time for herself to unwind and come down from everything that happened to her during the day.
I could have written this.
Quote:
On top of this she has a work-day night-time ritual of reading in bed for half an hour to relax to the point she can go to sleep.
Yep, that's me. I let H but in if he wants - after all a book can be put down for a while and then picked up again. He initaites though.
Ok, this gets a bit TMI perhaps, but basically I have realised that although our R is fairly even control wise in every other sphere, as far as sex goes I like being submissive - therefore I don't initiate. My Poor H wasn't getting the green GO light therefore. I had fantasies, (that all involved my H), that I felt too inhibited to talk to him about - sex was little and very vanilla.
So, I decided to get my H to read a blog that contained certain concepts that I liked the idea of. He did that and decided that yep it would suit him.
The all being cuddled out by the kids thing meant I didn't really want much cuddling and foreplay but found I could be aroused quite easily.
What my H does now is ensure that every day there is some sort of intimate contact between us. We don't have to 'O' - infact I am better left 'on the edge' most of the time. It works for us.
The important part though was recognising a need and communicating about it. After directing him to the blog we then re read it together and discussed lots of things. Not all by any means in that blog fitted in with our needs.....but it got us to a point where we could dialogue openly.....and then practice, practice, practice
I am hoped that gradually my H's need to 'O' would increase over time but he is happy with it as it is and just loves his daily 'play time'.
Saffie me 46 H 46 M in 1986 D20,D18,S16,D13 H's A 01/05 to 07/06 H recommitted to M 07/06 renewed vows 09/06 Going from strength to strength
... So, I decided to get my H to read a blog that contained certain concepts that I liked the idea of. He did that and decided that yep it would suit him. ...
Would you be willing to share the blog address, please?
Had a chat with a friend - same situation - says it doesnt bother him - his solution: "my wife can't cut me off. She doesn't know where I'm getting it." Good for him.
Some say divorce first - how come?
Why should I give up half of what I earned for the last 30+ yrs - because she wants to be only a room mate. I do most of the house work as it is while being the sole breadwinner for 3 decades. Screw it. I will start firewalling my finances and start moving on with friend with benefits. When she decides to be married 100% then I will return the same.
One thing I noticed is that men attractiveness increases or perhaps drops less than women as we age. Women are at their peak of sexual attractiveness in the 20's and the "cougar" phenonema is the attempt to recapture that time.
