I posted this in the newcomers forum yesterday, but upon reading some of the posts I've decided that this forum is more appropriate. I'm hoping that I can get some advice and support from people who have been in my shoes. I happened upon the first chapter of "The Sex-Starved Marriage" online, and it described my marriage situation so well that I ran out and bought the book right away. I finished reading it within two days and I'm now trying to apply some of the things that I've learned from the book.
I'm 34 years old and my wife is 37. We've been married for 6 years and have two beautiful daughters, ages 5 and 2. We're both attractive professionals with good jobs, a nice home, and generally speaking, a very good life. We dated for 3 years prior to getting married and we were very much in love with each other. Our sex life was great and she made me feel like the most special person in the world. She seemed to love sex, kissing, cuddling, romance, etc. just as much as I did. Three months after getting married my wife got pregnant. We hadn't planned it, but once the initial shock wore off I think we were both ready to be parents. After our daughter was born, our sex life dwindled away pretty rapidly. Soon to follow was everything else even remotely romantic. We still said "I love you" and would occasionally hold hands if at a movie, etc., but that was about it. Everything else completely stopped - kissing, cuddling of any kind - basically anything that involved touching each other. This bothered me a lot, but I knew that it was not unusual after the birth of a child. However, our lack of intimacy eventually became extreme. I think we probably went at least a year without sex during this period. I let my wife know how unhappy this made me, which led to an argument and made things worse. This cycle continued until we decided to have our second child. Unfortunately - from my standpoint anyway - we had sex twice and she was pregnant again. Throughout the pregnancy my wife was sick almost daily, which prevented us from having any kind of a sex life. After the birth of our second daughter the drought continued. From the time of our daughter's conception we went more than two years without sex. Finally last August we had sex and it appeared that things were improving. Since then (it's now March) we've probably had sex 5 or 6 times - the last of which was a month ago. But the sex we've had has lacked passion - no foreplay, no kissing, etc. And in between our infrequent sexual encounters there has been no romance or touching of any kind.
I love my wife so much and we actually get along extremely well with the exception of our issues concerning sex and intimacy. I don't think she understands that my concerns are not primarily about sex, but about my desire to be close to her. Although I miss sex terribly, it hurts me even more that she hasn't kissed me romantically in years. When I've let her know how that makes me feel, she acts like I'm being ridiculous and that there's no way she could possibly bring herself to kiss me. I honestly don't want her to kiss me or have sex with me when she doesn't want to - I just want her to want me again. I'm miserable with the way things have been. I'm trying very hard right now to be the perfect husband, but I can only go so long without some positive reinforcement before I get depressed and eventually say something to her, which always starts the argument again and makes things worse. Any advice would be much appreciated. I realize I've gone on for a long time here, but I'd be glad to give additional details if they would be helpful.
I don't think you can do much better for advice than to read Michele's book "The Sex-Starved Marriage", and also get your wife to read it! Read the threads here - especially StarvingInFlorida - they tell a true story. I've been where you are, and I've been married a lot longer (24 years this June!). Trust me, it can get a lot better. The main thing is, your wife must be willing to read the book with an open mind. Once she's read it, there's a very good chance she will be more open to the fact that there is a problem in your marriage - if one partner has a problem, they both do. The book is packed with good advice.
Thanks for the advice. Before I bought the book, I asked my wife to read the first chapter (which I'd printed out) and she did. She seemed open to reading the book but as of yet she hasn't touched it. Any tips on how I could get her to read it without coming across as insistant? I'm dying for her to read it, and I think you're right that it will help things enormously if she would, but I've been afraid to bring it up since I'm trying very hard not to do anything to start the "sex argument". Any advice would be appreciated.
Best thing at this point would probably be to work on the things you can do to practice the stuff in the book. Show her you care, and that you can focus on her, and her needs. Find out what she really wants, whether it's help doing the dishes, or whatever, and do those things for her. And don't mention the book. When she sees your efforts, I bet it'll motivate her to read it - especially since she's already read the first chapter.
Sooner, I'm glad you found your way here and that Tim is responding to you. His advice is, as usual, great.
Your situation is the primary reason I wrote The Sex-Starved Marriage. I truly believe that good marriages are based on mutual caretaking and that sex should be a consideration just like anything else in marriage. Plus, you write so eloquently about your real feelings when your wife rejects you. So my question to you is this.
I know you tell her how difficult it is when she rejects your advances, but do you go into detail about not feeling wanted, about wanting to be close to her, about the hurt and devastation you feel inside? And instead of telling her, have you written a letter? Sometimes that helps. Plus, if it's true, you might tell her that you have had thoughts about leaving, other women...whatever...and that you truly want to stay married and be monogamous. She needs to understand how her flat out rejections are impacting on your marriage.
Beyond that, you should go through the book and figure out strategies you haven't yet tried. The book can help you do that.
Hang in there, keep working on it. As Tim said, things can get better. Michele
Thank you so much for taking time to address my situation. I loved your book and I think it’s great that you are so willing to help others through your personal involvement in this message board. Being new to this, I originally posted in the newcomers forum, but after reading more of the posts I realized that this is the more appropriate forum for my situation. My original post yielded a couple of responses from Soupman, and I think that my replies to his questions will be helpful in addressing yours. Therefore I’m including portions of my replies below and expanding upon them as appropriate.
“The Sex-Starved Marriage” made me realize how detrimental "the argument" is to my situation. I've let my wife know how I feel on numerous occasions (verbally), but I don't think that she really understands. No matter how gently I try to approach her about the subject of our sexual relationship, she perceives everything that I say as criticism. I’ve also tried communicating my feelings to her in writing, which worked better from the standpoint that it didn’t result in an argument. However, after reading what I’d written, she didn't wanted to discuss it with me nor did anything seem to change. I know that she loves me, and I honestly think that she does care about how I feel, but not enough to make much of an effort to fix things. I've mentioned counseling to her before, but she won't consider it. I've even considered going for counseling by myself but have been putting it off in hopes that things will get better. I think she has some valid reasons to avoid sex, but I also think that they can be overcome. She's often very tired due to her job, housework, and taking care of the girls. That's why I'm trying to do everything that I can to help her. She's also put on some weight, although really not very much, since having children. She actually looks wonderful still, but she was very thin and athletic growing up so any amount of weight gain affects her self-image greatly. She's also fairly "high-stress" and gets frustrated quite easily, which doesn't help matters.
It's now been about three weeks since I finished reading the book. The strategy that I came up with after reading it is basically this:
1. Communicate with her more about things that she is interested in. Be her best friend and try to be supportive in everything that she does. Never be critical. Compliment her often and genuinely.
2. Do everything possible to help her around the house and with the girls - without her having to ask. Try to make her life easier so that she has time to relax and do the things she wants to do rather than things that she has to do.
3. Never bring up anything that might lead to the "sex argument". Don't initiate anything sexual, at least for a while. Don't pout. Act like everything is wonderful even when I'm really feeling down. This is the hardest part for me because I have trouble disguising the fact that I'm hurting.
It's hard to tell if any of this is working yet - aside from the sex argument we usually get along very well. She hasn't initiated anything yet, but I don't expect to see any drastic results for a while as I've basically tried these things before. My problem in the past has been that after 2 or 3 weeks I can't take it anymore and I say something to her, often starting an argument and setting us back. This time I plan to stick with it, although doing so would be so much easier if I only had some idea of how long it would take to see some positive results.
Sooner, Your plan sounds good and if it is different from things you've done in the past, you certainly should give it a try and stick with it for a while. You sound like a really nice guy and I do wonder whether you've ever gotten to the point of getting angry at her, not poutiing, just really getting angry and being less available to her emotionally. I know this sounds different from what you're doing and I think you really should stick with your plan for now because it is the better first choice. But if she doesn't respond, it might mean that she feels that she can take you and all that you do for granted. So start with your plan but ask yourself whether you've ever really pulled back emotionally for a while. That's hard to do, I know. Just a thought. Michele
For the moment I’m sticking to my plan, but I don’t know how long I can hold out – the hurt builds up inside of me a little bit more every day and I’m afraid that I’ll eventually explode. Every night I go to bed, just hoping that my wife will at least reach over and touch me, only to fall asleep feeling very alone. Sometimes I purposely stay up until after she’s asleep, because it makes me feel “less lonely” to sit by myself and read the paper, work on the computer, etc. than to lie in bed and be ignored by someone that I love and desire so much. I can’t complain that my wife is resisting my advances because I’ve stopped making any – is this the right thing to do? On one hand, I feel like if I never touch her or act interested in romance, maybe she’ll miss the attention and begin initiating things. On the other hand I’m afraid that by doing this she’ll think I’m happy with the way things are. I don’t want to “guilt” her into doing something that she doesn’t want to do, but I want to make sure she knows there’s a problem.
I’m curious what you mean by pulling back emotionally for a while. At times I’ve been tempted to sort of give her the cold shoulder. But I’ve been afraid that doing so would make things worse since one of the reasons she’s given for our lack of intimacy is that she “just doesn’t feel close to me”. This took me by surprise because we get along very well with the exception of the times we’ve had the sex argument. We’re obviously not close on an intimate level, but I believe that as friends we’re much closer now than we were before getting married, at which time we had a great sexual relationship. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
One final question that’s been driving me crazy. It hurts me so much that my wife hasn’t kissed me romantically in years. Sometimes it makes me feel like I must be the most repulsive person alive. We used to make out frequently and it's not as if I've changed drastically since that time. I haven’t been disfigured in any way, gotten fat, lost my hair or my teeth, etc. and I practice very good hygiene. Are there any “typical” reasons why a person would completely lose interest in kissing their spouse? Is it common? I’m just curious if you can shed any light on this issue. Thanks.
Hi Sooner, I'm in the process of writing an entry for my thread so I wasn't planning on posting anything yet, but I felt that I wanted to let you know that you aren't alone, and maybe even make you feel a little bit better. My wife and I have marital problems that I need to address on other forums and the title of my thread is probably going to be something like '4+ years and no end in sight' ! Yes, it's been over 4 years and there has been no intimacy of any kind. No touching, no holding hands, no kissing, and obviously no sex. In fact, the people standing next to me on New Years Eve received a hug and she turned away from me. I'm still hanging in there, most days by a very thin thread. More when I finish and post my opening thread. I just wanted you to know that you're not alone and my heart goes out to you. Peace my friend.
Thanks for your response. It's nice to know that I'm not alone. I'm very sorry to hear about your situation and I hope that the people participating in this message board can provide some support and help you find some solutions. I'll keep an eye out for your post and will certainly pass along anything that works for me. Good luck.
