Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums THE SEX-STARVED MARRIAGE e-mail convo between my wife and i

Eric I have to agree with the others. She is trying to tell you why she doesn't want to have sex with you, and you are ignoring her and choosing to feel rejected based on your own feelings, NOT on what she truly feels or wants. In the post you quoted her as saying:

"You’re supposed to stop acting like it’s another “job” for me. Something I “have” to do to make you happy. You act like that is the only thing I can do to make you feel like I care about you and that I love you. It isn’t. You act like if I don’t, then I’m a horrible person. It doesn’t exactly turn me on to know that’s the only way you won’t complain about our relationship. That shouldn’t be the only thing that makes you happy, makes you feel like I care, or gets you to not complain. It should be something that is appreciated for what you get, not something you complain about not getting enough. It drives me MAD to think the only way you think I love you is that if we have sex. It makes it feel like work. I’m sure this is just going to piss you off, but it’s the way I feel and it makes me not want it at all."

And also she said:

“will baby love me?” is NOT a proper way to proposition me. It’s like saying, “if you don’t do this, I will think you hate me” which completely turns me OFF. You don’t seem to understand."

You are turning her off completely, and then you are blaming her for being turned off. You must look at what she is truly saying in order to understand it, and stop looking through your usual filter. Your filter seems to believe "if she loves me, she will have unbridled lust for me, and if she doesn't, she doesn't really love me". But that just isn't true for many women. Women can have their lust totally turned off for their man, even while she still loves him very much. His attitude about sex can easily turn her on or off, and your attitude is clearly turning her off. It isn't about her love for you. Its about your attitude about sex. You want to believe that loving you will automatically create lust within her and while that does hold true for many men, it doesn't always hold true for women. Men and women experience desire and lust differently on different levels, and get turned on or off by different things. You need to stop assuming that her love for her will turn her on, and instead believe her when she's telling you that your attitude is turning her off.

When she said "is baby gonna love me" is turning her off when you say it, you need to just believe her and stop being insulted. OK so it hurts your ego a bit to hear that your approach isn't working, but don't make that her fault. Just accept that it isn't working and get ready to fix it. She is also saying she is bored with the sex. Again, that's gotta hurt your ego, but don't you want to fix this? If you do, then take it on the chin like a champ and get to work on changing that.

Start by focusing on yourself and not on "what's wrong with her". Read the book No More Mr. Nice Guy. Try to find out what types of men (in movies or books she reads or whatever) have turned her on in the past or currently turn her on, and study what it is about them that she likes. Obviously "is baby gonna love me" to her sounds wimpy and like begging.

A clue for you: women are nearly always turned off by a man who begs for sex. Instead, most women are turned on by a man who knows he is sexy and knows he is good in bed, and by a man who behaves as if he's going to rock her world.

In your case, I don't recommend any type of strong approach just yet. However, if you could for now focus on some touching and kissing that does NOT lead to sex, it might start things. For instance, get a kiss from her, put your hands on her hips, and after the kiss when she's about to pull away because she thinks the kiss is over, pull her gently but firmly by her hips toward you and give her another kiss, a slightly longer one. Then let her go, and say nothing. Act like its no big deal. The point is NOT to try to coerce her into bed or make her turned on. The point is for you to plant one good kiss on her without any expecations of sex, just one sexy kiss for its own sake.

Stick around. You can learn a few things here if you are willing to change your attitude. Right now you are convinced it is all her fault, but you are wrong.

My ex-h used to think that just because he wanted to have sex, that should be all it took to get me to want to have sex, too. He didn't realize that it was going to take more than his desire for me to make me feel desire. It was going to take a huge change in his attitude about himself and about sex before I'd desire him. He never "got it", hence, my EX-h.

DQ

Okay, I'm going to be the contrarian here.

First, before I go there, you are playing a very dangerous game if this conversation was going on an email/messaging system on computers supplied by your employer. And if this was also going on during the time your employer was paying you to do something else, you might find your asses out on the street really fast. You might have something else to worry about other than the health of your sex life. You will find that if you are using your employer's system, you have NO RIGHT or expectation of privacy and the law is very clear on this point.

So, if I were you, if for no other reason than self-preservation, knock this off.

I'm lead to believe that this is a verbatim transcript and you've got it. While it may be important to present exactly what was said, you might wish to consider that somewhere else on the system, someone else has this also.

Consider this words of wisdom for both of you.

Words are very important in this and you are in a no-win position right now, particularly with respect to what you've both said. She does not want you to put words in her mouth and that is something that you should respect but you should also insist on reciprocation.

Now the issues I see:

First, she has a body image problem AND she wants you to be a mind-reader so that you know just what is going on for her and act accordingly. Here’s the bad news: absolutely nothing you say and do can make that situation better and everything you say and do (including what you don’t do that you were supposed to know what to do, will make that worse. Look at the beginning of the transcript and it’s all right there. Whatever your reasons for wanting a picture of her, she tells you right there in black and white about her image problem.

You told her that you loved looking at her and her body, right? And look at the response you got. She completely dismissed it. There is the part about what you should know (mindreading) there, too. Here’s the point: she has this view of her body and because she has it, everyone else must also. After all, she’s spent a lot of time training you and everyone else to see the defects that she sees. When you tell her that you love her and looking at her, well you are obviously lying to her, right? I suggest that is the way she sees it.

Another important point (and true throughout) is about making the other person “wrong” so that we can be “right.” I’ve been accused of that a few times myself. There is a difference between being correct and accurate on something and “making someone else wrong” on the facts, so that you can be right. You do have to distinguish between the facts and you (or her interpretation of the facts). When you have something written down, it’s a lot harder to dispute what someone said.

Let me give a reversed example (and this may be going on for you). The section on the wheels is confusing even though I’ve read it a couple of times. The take I get is that she is more excited by new wheels than she is by you. This is where you could make her wrong…the next time she wants sex, send her to the wheels that got her so excited. It makes you right, her wrong and denies her intimacy.

And that brings us to the sex.

She states that you are lucky you get any at all and that she does it to make YOU happy.

WRONG ANSWER.

Now, as to whether your sex life is boring, she clearly states it is and so do you but each of you disagrees whether and to what extent you’ve attempted to address this. Now I am reading between the lines a bit to say that she “knows” that if compared to other people/other couples, things might not look too good (that plays into the self-image in case you have not figured that out). One of you is going to have to break this cycle and this power play. It’s really a matter of which one will and then whether the other is committed enough to create something new and different. We each have our limits. I have mine and I know what they are, I’m not so certain that either of you do.

So, she has told you what turns her off. The simple thing (though it’s obviously not so simple since you haven’t been willing to do this) is to stop complaining. That, BTW, is her “complaint.” Remove the source of her complaint. And I don’t mean stop complaining as retaliation to her. Consider that she has made a request and that you are going to honor it.

Now, what does that mean for you? It means that you are going to have to be willing be in a marriage with the distinct possibility that it becomes nonsexual. Given the complaints about your sex life, you are not willing to do that. However, you could set a definite time limit of 3 months, 6 months, or even 1 year that you have a definite “end time.” You will have to be sincere about this and if you can’t do this then don’t even attempt it.

But if you are game, you could look at it this way: If my complaints about the lack of sex are the source of my lack of sex, what happens to my sex life if I remove that source? As far as your wife is concerned, you could tell her that you’ve considered what she had to say about your complaining and the you are going to make all efforts NOT to complain, no matter what, for the next (pick a time period of at least 3 months) and that if she finds you complaining, ask her to remind you that you were not going to complain. She might be “suspicious” but ask her for that “buy-in.” If she asks why, wouldn’t the appropriate answer be that she told you that your complaints turn her off and bore her and that the last thing that you would seek to do?

A word about “boring.” Some things we like being predictable and being repeatable (we don’t call them boring). For example, we like knowing that our place of abode is our place of abode that we are not sharing with random people or having that shift from one geographic location to another.

Then, and this is the tough part, no matter what don’t complain, don’t get angry, don’t get frustrated. Know that you set a definite time period with a measurable outcome for you (e.g., no complaints about sex for 6 months).

Now, the trickier part, that same time, place, etc. for your sex-life is part of the complaint that has left neither of you satisfied. So, the next ‘standard” scheduled time where you would normally (boringly) have sex (where she thought it was her job to do so): don’t.

Don’t initiate, be somewhere else, do something else and just let the time pass. That does not mean that you should not show some modicum of affection. Just know that you aren’t initiating anything. Don’t be dramatic about it, just let it pass like it was any other time. It sounds almost like you guys “schedule” this so don’t even do that. And then be committed to do nothing more than watching watch happens. You are the video camera on the wall, recording and observing, but not giving a play-by-play monologue about what is or is not happening.

What do you do if you don’t initiate this next go-round and she does? Consider telling her no. Hopefully, you’ve never told her it was her job to have sex with you (if you have, it’s real hard to walk that back). Assuming that you haven’t told her that it was her job, in telling her “no” it is time to tell her that it is no longer and never was her “job” to have sex with you. But since she sees it that way (and she did tell you that she sees it that way), it is no longer her job to do that or to do something that she finds boring. More importantly, you going to stop doing stuff that she has declared as boring. (You’ve already made that offer in stopping sex altogether, she’s just afraid of what that “means.”) And if she responds with the question, “then whose job is it?” the answer is that she is the only one that sees it as a job and one that she does not want. You don’t see it “as a job,” but if she insists on seeing it that way, that business she was employed by “went out of business” and she is now” jobless.”

That probably won’t play well, but don’t make it out to be a complaint and remind her that that those are the words she used to describe having sex with you. Be matter of fact about it and not angry.

What if several weeks or even months pass by and there is no sex? If you aren’t complaining and she’s not inquiring into why there is no sex, I think you have your answer.

But if she does inquire as to why no sex? How about not be being boring? How about it isn’t her job to have sex with you? How about eliminating her complaint about your complaining?

Know that with her image issues this could be very threatening (your not initiating is seen as proof you don’t love her anymore, or worse). But it could also be very freeing to her that can play out a couple of ways (“Good, I don’t have to have sex anymore.” Or “now I get to do what I want to do.”)

As the HD male you are in a no-win situation. Whatever you do, don’t threaten to leave, don’t have an affair or threaten one, don’t beg for sex.

If things get worse rather than better, you have your data and answer. The next step you take beyond that will come from soon enough.

Eric --

I am pretty certain that when you first started dating your wife, you didn't think she "owed" you affection, sex, or anything else. When she touched you or had sex with you, you assumed that she was doing so because she wanted to – because she enjoyed it. And I am pretty certain you believed that’s how it should be: you wanted her to touch you and have sex with you only because she wanted to – because it gave her enjoyment -- not because she felt she “owed” it to you.

Marriage does not seem to have changed things for your wife. It seems she still touches you and has sex with you exactly as much as she wants to, i.e. exactly as much as she feels will be enjoyable for her. The problem is that she doesn’t desire you as much as she used to. She doesn’t want to have sex with you because she’s not enjoying it. I know that is a hurtful and wounding thing to think about it, but it’s critical to accept it AND NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY if you want to improve things.

Why doesn’t your wife enjoy having sex with you more? In the email exchange you posted, she gave three reasons: (1) life has gotten busier and more complicated; (2) the sex has gotten boring; and (3) you complain about sex so much that it’s begun to feel like a job for her, like something she has to do for you rather than for her own enjoyment.

Try to put aside for a moment all your thoughts about whether her reasons are sensible, accurate, fair, etc. Those are her reasons. That is what she is thinking and feeling. If you ignore her reasons, reject them, disparage them, argue about them, try to talk her out of them, etc., you will not improve you sex life one iota. You cannot convince your wife that her reasons for not enjoying sex with you are wrong or incorrect. If she says, “You always complain about how often we have sex,” which is something she says over and over again in her emails, it’s not like you can make her enjoy sex with you again by somenow proving to her that you don’t actually complain about how often you have sex. That’s obvious, isn’t it? So don’t bother trying to refute her reasons for how she feels.

The truth is, although marriage does not seem to have changed things for your wife, it does seem to have changed things for you. You now believe that she does “owe” you affection and sex. You think it’s “unfair” that she doesn’t “give” you more of these things. But marriage doesn’t change sex from something people do for their own enjoyment into something they “owe” each other.

A wise person on another board once wrote, “The universe of things your wife owes you can be divided into those things a court would order her to give you if you got divorced, and those things that she doesn’t actually owe you. The question isn’t whether your wife owes you more affection and sex. The question is whether you owe it yourself to be with someone who is more affectionate and sexual with you.”

Your wife is who she is, she feels how she feels, and she has her own reasons for being and feeling that way. She’s entitled to her feelings and her reasons. But she’s not entitled to have you in her life no matter how she behaves towards you. You need to stop trying to get your wife to be who you want her to be and to do what you want her to do. Entirely. Leave her alone. Your job is to be the person who want to be. I assume part of who you want to be is a sexually attractive man. Make sure you are being who you want to be. If that isn’t a person who your wife enjoys having sex with, then you have to choose whether to stay or leave.