The problem is you have a situation where if you have sex you win and if you don't she wins. Nobody likes to lose. The only way to break this pattern is to take away her "victory". Look at Hairdog. He imposed a moratorium on physical affection because he needed to take back control and not let his W dictate his mood. She seems to have responded by being more attracted to him.
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i have tried it a thousand times, and it just doesn't feel right. then i get all these mixed signals from her: she calls me honey,and is affectionate but there is no end result
What you need to do IMHO (and I am in no way suggesting it is an easy thing) is to stop looking for an end result. Be a cat, not a dog. A dog sees master come in and bounds up wagging his tail looking expectantly at master pleading "pay attention to me!!!". A cat comes and goes at his discretion. When he wants affection, he'll come up and give it but if someone walks in the room, he may just look over with an "I too busy laying in the sun to bother with you" attitude. When you expect the end result, you keep score. She feels you keeping score and then even her attempts to be affectionate feel like they have an undercurrent of pressure associated with them.
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there just isn't enough sex in my life to just shrug her refusal away and just say, ok no problem. and telling her that i was going to be great won't do anything.
It isn't what is said, it is the attitude. Nobody says it isn't a problem. What I am saying is that showing hurt and resentment is not working and will most likely never work. You say there isn't enough sex in your life, right? Are you prepared to get grudging, duty sex once a month for the rest of your M? You are protecting a bad situation for fear of making it worse. What if someone suggested that you have to go 6 months without sex but after that the sex life will be much better than the once a month duty sex? Unless I had six months to live, I'd call that a bargain. I'm not suggesting that is what needs to be done. I am suggesting that you need to shake up the power structure of your M a bit before things could change.
Gone the carvings and those who left their mark. Gone the kings and queens, now only the rats hold sway.
Sadly I am still much better at the theory than the practice but I am getting better. The bottom line is if you want good sex then you need to stoke the attraction. Be confident. Be someone she wants to hang around. You know, be the man she fell in love with. Act like anywhere you are is the place to be. Don't be over the top. Don't fake it because women have a highly honed BS meter. Instead, do the things necessary to really feel this way. Find a purpose and pursue it. Let her come along for the ride but do not let her be your only purpose.
Gone the carvings and those who left their mark. Gone the kings and queens, now only the rats hold sway.
Read NMMNG. I was absolutely floored by it. I read Dieda also and it did have an impact also but NMMNG was life changing.
I can definetely tell you that you'll feel much better even without getting sex. I haven't been laid in almost 3 1/2 years. Last night was the first time I was rejected and I didn't feel bad afterwards. I had been carrying a grudge my entire married life for it. I can even look back and figure out that I definitely drew that condition to myself.
But this morning she really tried hard to cuddle up and give me some affection. I can still feel the little shudder of uncomfortability in her body (not exactly sure why its there) but she tries. And it feels good that she is trying not out of guilt but because she wants to try.
It is going to take you time to change but you might as well start now. You'll be much happier.
3 and a half years?! how do you stand it?!people have been telling me that maybe i do too much, and that it seems that i am being taken advantage of. i say that this may be part of the problem, but not all of it. i know it is mainly her personality, that not giving herself to me when she doesn't want to is her way of controlling me-through the bedroom. she knows that even when she says no, i will be mad but will get over it and i'll still do the laundry, talk to her, cook, etc.
i'll tell you what i have been doing: taking baltoman's advice, and being a cat. i have stopped being lovey-dove, and think that i will be getting some results. i haven't been complimenting her, or telling her that i love her, just being distant, but there, talkative but doing my own thing, not being around her 24/7, not even touching her! her period should come this week, and that's when i am guaranteeing that she will open up and ask me what's going on, that i seem distant and unattending.
Except cats behave like cats because that's just how they are. You are behaving like a cat because you want to see how she'll react. The word for that is "manipulation." You are behaving a certain way to achieve an outcome that is still entirely dependent on her.
The whole being a woman and not wanting sex thing is so complicated it's even too hard for women to figure out. Now Cozy I will tell you that I post as the HD partner, but I do have my moments when the roles get reversed - I'm just telling you that so you don't dismiss me as "just another LD woman". Yesterday afternoon I was thinking about sex, I was thinking about getting into bed with my H that evening and snuggling up and getting some action. That evening we went to bed and he snuggled up and I just all of a sudden came over all LD. Now you probably don't want to go into my 2/3 year history on this board but suffice to say that it will amaze others here to know that H continued quite persistently. Somehow something was holding me back - I don't really know what. I just knew I wasn't in the mood and didn't really want to get in the mood - I mean I knew that there was a switch I could flick and it would get me in the mood. A switch only I have access to. H was certainly pressing every other possible switch - LOL. But there is a switch somewhere in my MIND that only I can press.
Your W surely has the exact same switch. She might not even know that she does, but she does. Which is why you can't press it. And why you have to listen to Balto and Hairdog and others here who do have some inkling about creating enough distance between what you do and what your W does to let her have some space in which to make a decision to flick that switch. It is a little bit like trying to tame a wild creature - you don't move towards it, you just stay calm and stay still and hope that it moves towards you.
I figured out later why I was LD. I think it was because my H has quit drinking (yay!) and since he has quit drinking he is finding it hard to relax enough to get to sleep. He's pretty much admitted that sex helps. I must have been getting the vibe that the sex was more about him than it was about us. Anyway he ended up getting a BJ and some sleep - LOL.
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
i understand what you are saying, and i have been playing the cat, keeping somewhat of a distance, not being so attentive, or complimentary, not even touching her, only giving her a kiss hello and goodby, not hovering all over her, not cuddling her in bed, going to sleep earlier/later than her, keeping up the small talk as she does, not really being deep or romantic--acting like a roommate, a friend, a person to speak to.
my question is what to say when this week she gets her period and becomes all lovey-dovey, and wants to cuddle with me, and wants me to massage her, and wants to know why i haven't been so tentitive to her for some time? what is an appropriate response, because i have said them all to her in the past whenever i got like this, and that just showed that i had a hidden agenda, and then she goes into battle mode, and now i have a fight on my hands where i feel and look like the bad guy. what can be said that will show her how i feel without starting a war? she is going to ask, i can feel her feeling left out, that i am not being close to her as i always am.
i know that there's a switch,but i just don't know why it can't be touched? i also know that giving your husband a bj is just as good as anything else, and that it shows him that even though you are not in the mood, that you are still understanding and caring and giving to his needs, and that's all i am asking (a massage until climax would be just as nice in lue of a bj as well.)that use to happen and sometimes it would go further. now she has just shut the door on all of these little intimate moments.
i really don't like acting like i just don't care about her, or that i have no feelings for her, or that i just look away from her not allowing myself to grab and make-out with her, or tell her how beautiful and sexy and what a milf she is. this just isn't me. i also know that i have to start training myself not to be so submissive and attentive. that's what she means about me being like the other husbands: stop acting so loving, and romantic, and mushy--stop hanging all over her and let her come to me--like a few others have said on this blog.
it's just too hard right now, but i know that i have to train myself to be something i am not, and i have already started.
