Pursuit and Distance

[Accuray]

Hi Frustrated2,

Thanks for dropping by and contributing! These can be difficult topics to discuss for sure. Do you have a thread here?

I’ve read thru your threads and find myself wondering if I am a little like your wife. I have been with my H for 20 years, I love him and want him to feel loved and cared about however I find myself in a place where I do not desire him and I am not comfortable opening myself up to him - kissing him, being touched by him, etc. I know this is because of past difficulties in our relationship but I do not know how to regain (rebuild?) the desire to be intimate and sexually engaged.

Well I assume from your quote that at one point you DID desire him, but you no longer do. Is that correct? If so, I think my W is a bit different in that she would claim to never have desired anyone sexually. Could you see yourself desiring someone else, or do you not desire sex no matter who it's with?

Whereas I was at one point hung up on the sexual aspects of our relationship, I've come to understand that sex really is not the issue for me -- the issue is intimacy, and sexual distance is just a symptom.

Aside from sex, are you comfortable being intimate with your husband? Do you make yourself vulnerable, are you willing to discuss your hopes and fears? Are you willing to be "seen" as it were?

Women are typically emotional pursuers and sexual distancers. My W is a sexual distancer AND an emotional distancer. Do you find that you are the same way?

I feel stuck. I know that H has needs and it is appropriate for him to request sex X times per week and I try to accommodate that but it isn’t helping me to desire him.

From the books I've read, one bit of advice is that people assume that sex should follow desire, but it's been proven that for many people, desire actually follows sex, which is to say that if you just start doing it, you'll find you enjoy it, but that you won't necessarily desire it beforehand. Do you find that's the case? Once you start do you enjoy the experience, or is it bad for you all the way through? My W said to her it's like getting in a cold pool -- it's hard to overcome your resistance to starting, but once you're in it's good.

My biggest frustration right now is that I don’t know what it would take to help me feel that desire and feel comfortable opening up with him. I realize that sharing this with you may or may not provide any insight as to what is going on with your wife however I thought it might be helpful to hear from a different perspective.

Sure, I'm happy to have the discussion, maybe the discussion can help both of us. Are you motivated to try to make it better? If so, what have you tried? Our MC suggested several books to my W as a good starting point, but she refused to read them. Do you have a plan going forward?

If at one point you did have desire for H, do you know what happened to make that desire fade? What did he do or not do?

Are there other men you find sexually desireable? What do they have that H does not?

Is there anything you could put your finger on that H could do that would make a difference? If he lost weight, got in better shape, started dressing better, became more assertive, became more active, became more emotionally attentive, any of that make a difference?

Have you read "The Five Love Languages?" What is your primary LL, and does H speak it?

Thanks!

Accuray

[Crazyville]

Accuray,

Could you expound on "sex really is not the issue for me -- the issue is intimacy, and sexual distance is just a symptom" for me please? Sorry, it's really not to assist you in your sitch, as I think you have a pretty good handle on your things, but rather my wish to understand how men define "intimacy." (Beyond sex, that is.)

[Accuray]

Nice to hear from you CV, I hope things are going okay. I obviously can't speak for all men but I think of intimacy as it is defined in the book "Passionate Marriage". It's the notion of "letting yourself be seen" by your spouse, or allowing yourself to be vulnerable. With regard to fears for instance, you can either divulge them to your spouse or choose to keep them to yourself. If something is bothering you, you can either willfully discuss it, or keep it in.

Passionate Marriage says that once you can choose to be intimate (versus needing to be due to codependence) then you have arrived. The difference is that the codependent person would define themselves by their spouses reaction to them whereas the differentiated person would not.

My W is a very guarded person, she doesn't like to be transparent at all. She will not put herself out there or take chances emotionally. This defines both how we interact and how we ML. It took me quite a while to figure out that it was the macro level distance that was really bothering me and that sex was just a symptom. Before the bomb I misguidedly thought that making the sec better for her would provide the motivation to connect more overall, but in fact focusing on sex just drove her farther away because she does not respond to sex like I do. Obvious mistake to think that your spouse feels and values things the same way you do. That is a mistake I made in many ways. That's why I found the 5 LLs book so helpful.

I have to unfortunately concede that W did not start pursuing longer term once I started distancing, she said she liked it and asked for more distance and wishes I would be happy with that. I am not.

Accuray

[greenblue90]

Hey Accuray I saw you pop up at SLJ.

Was wondering if you were going to post there.

[Crazyville]

Thx, Accuray. I have that book but haven't started reading it yet. I needed a break from the marriage analysis for a while, and just enjoyed dropping into others' posts, and getting out and enjoying life in general. I'll have to take a look into it, though what you're saying is not off from my perspective at all.

I did some web searches on "what is intimacy to men" and it came up with some different things, specifics on the differences between men and women. Like women prefer to lean in and look the other person in the eye when talking, men don't; women like to talk about feelings and personal stuff, men hide their feelings and talk about sports; men focus on physical touch because they have less sensitive "feelers" so they need more touch to compensate; men consider doing things together (going to a movie) intimacy, even if no substantive conversation is had.

I understand this can differ with everyone, but you seem so in-tuned. Plus, you speak more here in a week that my H says in a year (to me, anyway.) When I asked him what intimacy was to him, he said he didn't know. And it didn't bother him that he didn't know, and least based on no follow-up research, no pursuit. And this knowing that lack of intimacy is a big problem for me.

So anyway, I really appreciate your answering. I don't think it's something I can use as a substitute answer for my H, unfortunately. It's really an odd thing how couples match up with such seemingly incompatible relationship differences.

[Accuray]

Hi GB,

Haven't decided yet. Posting helps but if I spread around I probably won't be fair to my "helpers" in that I won't be attentive enough. If I feel I need the perspective I'll do it!

CV, I don't know if I'd read "Passionate Marriage" in your sitch. For me, it was very educational / instructive, but it also painted a vision of how good things can be and that's not something I can attain with my current partner, so in some ways it made things worse for me.

WRT your web research, those are stereotypes like "men are taller than women". MC said that the behaviors you describe are often reversed, and can "change sides" over the course of a long term relationship. You can also have reversal on some attributes and not others. He said it's more useful to say "emotional pursuers like to..." than "women like to..." because it's a more useful perspective. If you reject that, then just call me a woman because I'm the emotional pursuer in our relationship

In terms of how we match up, one thing I read is that we tend to choose people who abuse us in patterns in which we are used to being abused. Our ability to cope in that situation is a "comfortable place", so as odd as it sounds being abused in that way makes us feel ourselves because we know how to deal with it.

i.e. if you're used to having to work very hard to be acknowledged, then dating someone who worships you and is very attentive feels very odd and unnatural, you don't know what you did to deserve it, and you don't know what to do with it. Someone who was doted on as a child may not feel that way at all, for them it may feel natural. We choose to be with people who abuse us in familiar ways.

The other thing that happens is that we change. I admit that I wanted an independent person who would not rely upon me for their happiness when I got married. I chose that. What's happened over the course of our marriage is that I have moved to wanting more engagement, and W has moved to wanting less. We've both moved, it's just that our moves were not in sync.

Accuray

[Frustrated2]

Obvious mistake to think that your spouse feels and values things the same way you do.

I think this must be a common mistake and only obvious in retrospect.

You responded to my earlier post with some questions about how/why I got to where I am, and I think that this type of mistake was a huge part of the troubles in my relationship, my partner expected me to think and behave as he does, but I am not even similar. Additionally, as you referred to Passionate Marriage, I was (still somewhat am) co-dependant in the sense that my self esteem was greatly affected by H's actions and reactions.

The more that I read in books and conversations such as these, the more complex the issue seems. I truly appreciate being able to hear about other experiences and perspectives.

[Accuray]

Me too Frustrated2, I would be happy to read about your sitch as I'm sure it will help inform how I think about things as well.

Accuray

[Frustrated2]

Accuray,
Thank you for your interest in my sitch. I had been away from this site for some time (turns out it was about a year), I faded away from this forum and took some time to read and focus on improving myself instead of feeling like I was just complaining. I came back because I was having a bad day and needed some perspective.

After reading through my old thread, Trying Again, I was happy to find that I am not in the same place that I was a year ago. My relationship is still far from what I would like it to be, I still experience many of the same frustrations, and occassionally the angry and hurt feelings but I can honestly say that I have been working on it.

As the LD partner, I feel that I am in the minority here but I hope that by posting others can understand that the LD partner isn't necessarily being manipulative or mean; there may be others like me who feel hurt or dissapointed or just don't know how to be the partner that the hd partner wants them to be. It sounds like you have a pretty good understanding of this in your own relationship and I sincerely hope you and your wife can find a way to engage in the intimacy you are seeking.

[Accuray]

Frustrated2,

Yes, I know what you mean about feeling that you're always complaining, but that's kind of what this site is for, so people will either pat you on the back, or tell you to stop complaining and take some action.

One question I have for you: Do you feel you're LD "overall", or LD in the context of your marriage? i.e. do you feel your desire would be higher with a different man?

I guess what I'm asking is do you feel your sexuality is a given, or do you feel it's a reflection of your feelings about your husband?

Accuray