Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums THE SEX-STARVED MARRIAGE 38 years & I need physical connection with my wife

Young...that was an AMAZING update...so romantic, too!

DQ

Thank you Cyrena.

Our joint sex therapist at our session last week reminded of the saying that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." She also told us that in her mind, we were on the verge of being "cured as long as we don't backslide." She also said that we should stretch out the time between our sex therapy sessions, unless we run into a problem where she can help.

I really feel loved and it feels so good from how I have felt much of this past 12 months, and many of the years prior to that.

I just hope that my wife feels as loved, which she has said she does.

Last night I told her that I felt really close and bonded to her. She said that she doesn't know what bonding means, but she feels a kind of closeness and comfortableness with me to be herself that she hasn't felt in years.

I will keep my fingers crossed and do all I can to support my wife and make her feel loved. Right now I am doing all the laundry she will allow me to do (she just doesn't trust me to wash & dry her delicates - go figure), while she is out getting a manicure and pedicure. When she gets back, I am going to take my sexy wife out for a movie and dinner.

Thank you DQ.

I am so pleased and so in love again. I just can't keep the smile off my face.

I pray that the feelings don't change. I know I am going to work on keeping them from changing, but I now also have skills to try to protect and save my marriage should we drift apart again and not stay as close.

Maybe now (with time and gentle exploring), I can see if my wife would like me to become an Alpha-male in the bedroom that you have talked about. I don't think that I will try that for quite awhile, but she has surprised me in her changes and attitude about sex and genital touching over this past month. Who knows what the future might bring. I guess I will never say never and see what she likes.

I do know that she really likes it that I spent quite a bit of time reading up on foot reflexology. She liked the foot massage I gave her last night. Our joint sex therapist even scolded me for not having given my wife a foot massage, in the week prior to our therapy session last week. So both women have put me on notice that this is something that I need to do and do often. While not really alpha male behavior, it does seem to be special.

This morning my wife and I lay in bed and talked. I brought her a second cup of coffee so we could stretch out our quality time together. Then to stretch it even further, I asked her if she would advice me on my cleaning out some of the old shirts that might be too big for me with the weight that I have lost.

She has been after me to clean out the closet, so I wanted to do that for her and I didn't want to really stop being close to her this morning. So it was an act of service/devotion to her on my part. So there she was propped up in bed with me, in my boxers, trying on shirt after shirt and her saying "toss it" or "no, that still looks good on you." We now have more room in the bedroom closet for her clothes to slide past the halfway point in the hanging rack.

Thank you for your past support.

signed Young at Heart, with a heart that is singing happiness and feeling loved

Young at Heart - I've just read your thread and I've got tears in my eyes.

This is sooo beautiful.

Well done. Well done. You give me faith in men.

Gorgeous.

Sunhine

Thank you and good luck to you in your journey to find love.

At the moment I feel that I have re-found and been found by the love of my life who I met when I was 18, married when I was 22 and have been deeply in love with for over 38 years (even if I didn't know how to express my love for her in the ways that she needed to feel loved).

Young At Heart:

I have been lurking around here and found your story inspiring.

I dont want to get into my story too much. We've been through 3 Marriage Family Therapists. The last one was willing to help us with sensate focus (sex therapy) and has worked with us on our communication problems (work in progress), but my wife is unwilling at this time to do any of that (sensate focus) at this time.

Anyway, I am based out of the Los Angeles area and was wondering how you found your sex therapist - or if your therapist could recommend someone out here.

Thanks.

First, I focused on what I thought would be best for my wife and myself, which was a board certified sex therapist and not a general marriage counselor. My wife and I loved each other, we just had relationship problems that were focused on sex and so a sex therapist seemed to be the right choice. That narrowed the field a lot.

I then focused on two styles of marriage therapy that are out there and wanted a sex therapist who also did marriage counseling in one of these styles. Then I used the internet and searched for Board certified sex therapists and went to their individual sites and read what they had to say about themselves.

In the beginning, my list had mostly board registered sex therapists who were also either trained in the Gottman Institute methods or were trained in the Sue Johnson (Hold Me Tight) emotionally focused therapy. The reason for my choice of these two styles of training was that they have higher than average success rates in keeping marriages together. You might also see if there are any recommendations that the MWD folks have in the LA area.

Also in my search I found a local woman naturpathic doctor who specialized in women with low libido and who was a board certified sex therapist. When I found her, I made sure that this was the doctor that my wife saw to find out if there were any medical problems. The woman put my wife though a battery of medical tests and blood tests for which I am truly greatful.

This was how I created the list I researched and was read to present to my wife. Luckily for me, the board certified sex therapist and naturpathic doctor that I specializes in women with low libido's made a recommendation of two sex therapists to my wife. My wife got her back up and insisted that we use one of those two. I looked over the two and opted for the lady who had the national reputation, a PHD, and had published all kinds of great articles, some of which I read while checking her out. I didn't get to use my list and so I just got lucky.

My wife and I were doing mostly 90 minute therapy sessions and the rate was about $145/hr or $217 per 90 minute session. It wasn't covered by our insurance, but was worth every penney. We also did a Gottman Institute workshop on the Art and Science of Love, which was a little under $800 for the two of us, but involved a solid 16 hours (two full 8-hr days, Saturday & Sunday) of lectures and exercises, with things to do at home later. My wife has also had some private sex therapy sessions with her natuepathic doctor that were most helpful in helping her with some "body self-image" and "anger at me" issues.

Even though it was expensive, the cost of a divorce and two divorce attorneys would have far overshadowed what we spent, plus I got the woman I loved back (I hope/I think).

Our joint sex therapist/marriage counselor did practice for a while in the general LA area and so I would be willing to ask her for a reference and send you a private mail message through this forum (to protect everyone's privacy), but your private mail option appears to be disabled.

Let me know how you would like me to proceed to get you the information. If you want to establish a one-time only gmail or yahoo.mail account and have me email you the information from a one-time email account, I can do that as well.

Good luck to you and your wife.

Young I hope you keep posting updates. I'm so charmed and thrilled by your last one. It makes my heart warm to hear that some old woulds that have been festering may have a chance to heal up now. I think so many people who have been married for a long time and who have deep old-standing resentments rarely get the chance to find the insight necessary to see how these resentments are not serving them any longer. It seems that sometimes resentment feels comfortable, and the person feeling it may not even realize why it feels comfortable or question it. They are just used to it and they no longer ask themselves if it is still something they feel so much importance about. I see your wife as having a huge chance to change all of that now....baby steps to be sure, but wow, what great progress!

DQ

My hope is to continue to monitor and post. Also I want to track the lives of some folks I have gotten to know and care about, as well as offer advice at times.

I feel like my wife and I are working our way out of the deep forrest of marital problems and seeing the density of the trees thin out as we approach the edge of the forrest. I have great hope now that we will make it. We have been married so long, that for the past few years my wife has not worn her engagement ring as it was nearly worn through and she was afraid of it breaking on the side opposite from the diamond. That bothered me for the past couple of years. I recently suggested buying a new ring for her to wear as a symbol of our commitment to each other. She likes the idea.

As to old wounds, I think that 180's, GAL, and setting firm boundaries are the key to changing a bad relationship. We had probably 20 years of a deteriorating relationship, until I couldn't take it any more. I feel that my decision that no matter how badly I wanted sex with my wife, that I was not going to have sex with her, because of the pain I later felt, was a key. I also feel that GAL and making changes that my wife could not ignore was also important. Finally, letting her know that I was committed to becoming happy with her or without her, but that wanted to be with her was very important. It was five full months without sex, maybe 5 months of my working on GAL & making my wife feel loved in a way she could undertand it along with about two plus months of improvements in communications intimacy, touching and sex. In saying that, none of the progress would not have happened without my wife's deep love for me, her willingness to forgive me, the really great sex therapists who helped us, the authors of the books the we discussed (including MWD's book the SSM) and the support and advice I got on this forum.

While my wife is still angry at the pushing done by our joint sex therapist, I am still amazed by that woman and how she was able to cut through my wife's attempts to avoid issues and focus my wife on hard choices that needed to be made by my wife. My wife's individual sex therapist and naturpathic doctor was also amazing in helping work with my wife to get her to realize her anger, to get her to realize how my wife was doing to me what I had done to my wife, and to point out that my wife had to choose whether she wanted to end up being divorced or not. The Gottman Institute Art and Science of Love weekend was exhausting emotionally and physically, but also gave us so many relationship skills and insights into each other. I guess I am reminded of some foreign language "immersion" courses where people are overwhelmed by a learning experience. That is what this has felt like at times for me and even more so for my wife.

I want to especially thank those who repeatedly told me to slow down and that this would take time, as well as those who offered moral support. I know my wife was pushed to the limit many many times.

I am not going to say that my SSM is cured, but I think it is headed in the right direction. We will see if I can keep my wife feeling loved and she keeps working on making me feel loved. I really didn't think that we would be living in the same house on our 39th wedding anniversay. I now think that we have a good chance of making it to our 50th and maybe beyond if we remain healthy. And while my wife still have some body-self-image issues and sexual inhibitions to work on, they are things that are not "deal killers" in my book, but changes for us to really flourish in our love-life.

Her steps have been slow and then faster and faster as she saw improvements in our relationship. I really feel like she is enjoying how much pleasure she gives me. For many years she said she felt like a sexual failure; that this was the only area of her life where she was a failure. I now think that feeling like she can really sexually satisfy a man has been something that has inspired her to push herself further than the baby steps she was willing to try only in order to save her marriage.

All in all, I feel loved, desired and valued by my wife. I am also proud of the lifestyle changes I have made and my helping to save my marriage. I certainly didn't feel loved when I read in despiration SSM to figue out what the hell was going on and then noted in the back of the bood a reference to this website. It took a lot of courage to register and make my first post, but I am glad that I did. I think that MWD should put the website in big print in several places within the SSM book (foreward, first chapter, last chapter, inside jacket, and index).

Good luck to you in your new marriage.

I tried to send you a private message, but that didn't work.

Here's my one-time email account:
seeking.answers81@gmail.com

Thank you sir for your very detailed response. I await your further recommendations on a recommended therapist in the LA area.