I totally sympathize with you. Most guys can not go on a starvation diet forever, we are just not built that way and sooner or later we are going to fall off the wagon. I can not help in my case think that my wife has been somehwat selfish for not even being willing to try to address the situation and/or consider a compromise, but I know there are a lot of factors at play and she can not help loosing her sex drive.
I would assume that your wife loves you and cares about you, but this is not entirely clear from your posts. In my case, I know my wife loves me and does care about me. I believe that a change in her hormones is the root cause of her dysfunction. However, in some way that I don't understand, she seems to be afraid of being further rejected or afraid of being considered to be an inadequate wife which causes her to set up barriers that prohibit a meaningful dialogue and resolution to the situation.
You and I seem to be in a similar circle of frustration that overwhelms us at times. How can we not dwell on our situation and feel anger, frustration, confusion and guilt all at the same time?
For what it is worth, I have taken your approach of trying to put no pressure on my wife for months on end, only to "fall of the wagon" and start the cycle over again. I see recent signs that this may turn around after years of trying. I think that a break through may have occured when she slightly opened the door about sex and I reassured her that I didn't believe she could help her lack of sex drive and that I felt that she probably would like to have one. We actually had a good open and supportive discussion and the forum was right. For the last two weeks she has been a little more open on the subject and we did have sex a week or so ago. I think that it is important to nurture this situation and be very very supportive to her in all aspects of her life. I am not expecting any miracles, but any sustained improvement in this area will be a positive foothold to build on.
Perhaps if you are patient, your opportunity to have a meaningful and supportive discussion will present itself and you will be ready to find a way to keep the door open for further improvement. I wish there were other approaches that I could recommend, but the alternatives appeared to be more negative than I would felt comfortable purusing (usually involving some threat of loss of the relationship).
Sooner, I generally think you are on the right track for now and hopefully your opportunity to have a meaningful discussion will present itself.
Thanks for your support and understanding. I've been following your threads as well and I wanted to let you know that your "Food for Thought" post was helpful and gave me a lot to think about.
My wife stated last night that she feels like we're not even friends. I don't understand that because I think that we're great friends - just not when it comes to the intimacy issue. That's apparently all she sees. Doesn't she understand that if she would only do something to try and address that issue there would no longer be any threat of an argument over it? We can go a month getting along wonderfully, with no mention of sex whatsoever, and when the subject of sex does come up I find out that none of my efforts to be a friend over the past month have even been noticed. She has a lot of stress at work right now and I've concentrated on being supportive, just listening, and not offering advice or trying to fix her problems. On the rare occasion that we've gone to bed together, I've just laid there with her and talked, without laying a hand on her. She knows that I'll do anything she ever asks of me without complaining one bit, and I do a lot of things for her that she doesn't ask for. How can I be any better friend? It seems to me that the only way I can be the friend she wants is if I can lose all desire to be intimate with her - and I can't do that!
I don't feel like she's a friend to me - my friends care about me and hurt with me when I'm hurting. But if it weren't for the impact that it has on her, my wife couldn't care less that I'm hurting. I'm tempted to say "Fine, if you won't even consider working on our intimacy issues until we become better friends, then consider me nothing but a roommate from now on". I'm tempted to move into another bedroom so she'll never have to go to bed afraid that I might touch her. I may even take a week of vacation and just go somewhere nice by myself. I've let her know that I'd love to take her places so that we can spend some time together without the kids, but what's the point if she can't even have fun because she's so afraid that I might want to have sex with her. I'm just so sick of hoping things will get better only to find that I'm still doing everything wrong! For her to care enough about me to work on what's bothering me, everything in her life must first be perfect. But it never will be, and I can't do anything to change that. If I do everything possible to make her life perfect, she'll still have problems at work, get mad at the girls, not get enough sleep, not feel good about half the time, etc. Sometimes I feel like just giving up.
Guess I'd better get back to work. I apologize for ranting.
Thanks lowrob. At the moment, I feel completely hopeless, but your post helps me to see that there actually may be some hope if I can learn how to stop shooting myself in the foot. Like you, I do believe that my wife loves me and cares about me - it just doesn't feel like it sometimes.
Sorry to hear your latest update. Nevermind, just pick yourself up and go again. Anyway here's my 2 cents.
"she feels like we're not even friends" "I don't feel like she's a friend to me "
Sounds to me like you have to work real hard (even harder than what you have been doing) at having fun again as a couple, without the intimacy issue in the way (for now) of course. Tough one this, since you do sound like you have been trying.
"I'm tempted to move into another bedroom so she'll never have to go to bed afraid that I might touch her. "
You know this is going to just take you further away from each other. My guess is you probably just said this in frustration, right? (I hope.)
"I may even take a week of vacation and just go somewhere nice by myself. I've let her know that I'd love to take her places so that we can spend some time together without the kids, but what's the point if she can't even have fun because she's so afraid that I might want to have sex with her. "
She might not be having fun for other reasons. You mentioned once that she feels guilty spending her free time away from the kids because her work takes her away from them. This doesn't combine well with romance does it.
"I'm just so sick of hoping things will get better only to find that I'm still doing everything wrong! "
Hang in there, Sooner.
"! For her to care enough about me to work on what's bothering me, everything in her life must first be perfect. But it never will be, and I can't do anything to change that."
Maybe you can. Do you know what will make her life "perfect" It has something that will make life good for her and not something which you think will be good for her. You mentioned once that you were working towards making it possible for her to be a stay-at-home mum so she can spend more time with the kids. How is that coming along. Maybe a real big change in her life will make a better impact than all the other things you have been trying. Maybe quitting that stressful job of hers and spending more time with the kids will free her to concentrate on other areas important to both of you. This is not easy but its just a thought.
Quoting Corri: I can't tell you the last time he called a sitter for us to go out on a date. Now, can I do that just as easily as he can? Of course. But it's the effort that counts with me...that speaks to me. Not necessarily the date itself.
Have you read the Five Love Languages? Its a powerful book of simple concepts. It sounds to me like your husband is not speaking your love language which is "quality time". Try to read it together as you did with SSM. It will be good.
Have you told him how you felt about this issue. Sometimes keeping quiet and thinking "But he should know" doesn't help because he can't read your mind.
Gosh, its equally frustrating to be on the other side of the fence isn't it especially if you're trying but feel like your H is not trying to understand you. I totally agree with you that there has to be giving on both sides to solve a problem.
Thanks for your post. Don't have much time to respond as I'm headed out to catch a plane, but thought I'd try to quickly answer a couple of your questions
You're right that my comment about moving into another bedroom was just out of frustration, as was my comment about taking a vacation by myself. I really wish that we could afford for my wife to stop working - I think that would help a lot by relieving her of that stress and letting her spend more time with the girls. Unfortunately it's not an option at the moment - the payments on our house and her new Expedition pretty much rule that out. But I'm hoping that it will be possible within a couple of years.
Gotta run - just wanted to let you know that I appreciate your input.
Hi Sooner, I promised you a post a while back about what I've been doing to be happy and satisfied with my H and my marriage without needing him to change. (I'm hoping the computer gremlins are asleep since this is the cursed post....shhhhhh.)
1. I've been focusing my attention on myself rather than my H. Am I loving enough? Am I making loving choices in how I think about him and respond to him? I want him to think of me when he thinks of who brings out the best in him, who he feels best being around.
2. When I start to think about what I might like to be different about him, I bring out a big portion of humility I keep stored nearby. If I'm going to be working on "improving" someone, I have enough to keep myself busy with just me.
3. Gratitude. It is truly an amazing honor, luxury, gift...pick your word...to have someone to share your life with. I'm not going to do or think anything which trashes that gift.
4. Assume the best, not the worst, about my spouse. Give him the benefit of the doubt when he does something or doesn't do something I think he ought. I'd want him to do the same for me.
5. Make the decision to love unconditionally.
6. Reminding myself that when I'm too focused on myself and my "needs," I usually feel pretty bad. When I change my focus to others, I feel much better. The good feelings seem to last longer under those circumstances than the good feeling I get having my "needs" met. It really takes some conscious effort on my part though to remember that when I'm feeling bad.
Thank you so much - I'm glad that we finally got to see the cursed post. You have some great suggestions that I will certainly try to implement.
I'm reading the Five Love Languages right now - I think I'm through Chapter 9 - and something that I read today while flying home gave me an idea that I thought I'd throw out here for comment. I'm fairly sure that my wife's love language is "acts of service". I've tried at various times in the past to do things for her that I thought she would appreciate, but I think that maybe I haven't picked the things that really help her to feel loved. Also, I mentioned the other day that she surprised me by saying that she didn't even feel like we were friends anymore. Therefore in order for her to feel loved, and to feel like I'm her friend, I thought this might help. On a piece of paper, I'd write the following:
1. List five things that I could do on a regular basis which would help you to feel that I love you.
2. List three ways that I could be a better friend.
3. List three things that the two of us could do together which you would consider to be really fun.
Those are a little rough still - I can probably come up with a better way to word them - but I'm sure you get the idea. I'd ask her to take some time and think about her answers because I'm going to do my best to follow through on them. And of course she could always add more later - I just threw out some numbers to give her something to shoot for. My thinking is that if I actually knew the things that would help her to feel loved and to feel that I'm her friend, I could do a lot better job of "filling her love tank" than I can by guessing.
Please let me know if I'm onto something here and if anyone can think of any better way to go about this.
