Quote: Tonight was better, because by the time he got home, I had calmed down a lot and was able to sit and talk with him without the hurt emotions from last night. I just told him calmy that I cannot and will not live like this for my entire life and that it has to change. He agreed that we need to go to a different counselor, a sex therapist. . .
and he let me read some of the book to him!!!!! He wasn't as excited about it as I was, but I could tell that certain parts of the book reached him. I could also tell that he was relieved it wasn't another book, bashing him for being LD. I feel a lot better now, but I also know from our history, that the cycle will repeat.
That sounds very positive. Now look at ways to avoid the cycle repeating.
1 do not let your H off the hook with regards to what he has agreed. Book that counsellor and get him to go with you. You have to make it plain that your M depends on him holding to his word.
2 do not have constant R talks. Let the time you have together be enjoyable and fun.
3 think about how things normally go. If you behave differently it will break the normal cycle.
Quote: Anyway, so that is where it is at. Believe me, I am frustrated, sad, horribly ashamed, embarassed, and just completely depressed that at seven months our marriage is in trouble. That is why I am here. I know we need help, and soon, because I don't know if I have it in me to feel this worthless and alone for the rest of my life.
You should not feel this way. We often hear people saying that you have to work at marriage. Yet some people seem to think that if you have to work at it there is something wrong with you and/or your partner. The fact is that you are striving to make a difficult relationship problem work out for you both. That is something to be proud of. You can do it!! In the end the lengths you have to go to will make you stronger and improve your relationship skills no end. If you can sort out this problem together your marriage will benefit in many other ways.
The book you mentioned and the "6 inches" reference is so ironic to me, or any HD wife with a ND or LD Husband. I would LOVE to do that, and yet that is just not my case. Hopefully it help yours.
That is why Michele Book rocks, because is the only one I know that deal with the reverse situation. Even though I still agree that the emotional connection in a woman is VERY important. Unfortunately in my case I need both, the Physical and the Emotional and I am not getting anything on one and very little on the other.
I know it must be frustrating to read those books that so clearly point out the importance of sex and to be desired, not just put up with, so is not just you saying it, but experts. How sad that with all that backup we still get spouses that will just say "so?". Michele's book says something like "you can be right and uterly miserable"
I posted somewhere else here that if you are like most HD spouses, you have already explain yourself to death, talk until you are blue in the face, bought books to back you up, the works; and still the spouse does not seem to understand. My point is not to get discourage or angrier after all that "irrefutable information" that you presented did squat to help your situation.Believe me, I am writting advice that I have trouble following myself. Sometimes people hear what the want to hear. Sometimes you have to back up a bit, which is my next step.
I am changing my tune. I am out to be aloof, if I can manage it. no impolite or mean or anything like that, but a change of attitute. I started yesterday . An example, yesterday, I stayed late at work, which I only do when I have a project and my H knows ahead of time about it, but never just a message on the answering machine on the same day. When I got home, my H was all over me (I was soooo surprised)then he asked me to make him coffee, since he was working on a project in our home office, instead of saying yes, I said no, politely, no anger, just no. I got all sorts of "bribes" so i would do it, things that I like him to do to me , like kisses in the neck and a little good old fashion butt grabbing. After a while of us giggling about it, I did make his coffee, I thought this is what positive reinforcement do. Hopefully I will get more attention by being less available to him.
The reason why gave you this example is that I am learning that in my H case, and maybe in your W too, they may be "situation learners" instead of learning by reading or listening to you, maybe they have to fill it, or at least to feel what will happend when their spouse is ready to start taking the love away too.
I hope this keeps on working, because I am liking the results already.
I LOVE my H's six inches (well, seven, but who's counting? )! I wish that I could love it more often!
I have tried being more aloof with my husband and once I went SIX WEEKS without so much as mentioning sex and definitely no initiation. It didn't phase him one bit. I think he actually was RELIEVED that I didn't ask anymore. And we didn't fight as much either. Well, until I finally lost it one night and started ranting and raving. Needless to say, he was more that a little confused by my "sudden" anger.
We DO have so much to be grateful for and proud of. We do have a lot going for us in our lives and our marriage. I especially seem to have been blessed lately. I just started the job of my DREAMS, where not only do I get to do something I enjoy, but I get to make a lot of money at it. We have a beautiful, brand new home, and we have healthy families and friends. That is the crappy part about this desire disparity. When it really gets to me, it taints the other wonderful things that we have together. I get so mad that he could do this to me/us, and I know that I can't OWN the problem, but it's so hard not to take it personally. Sex IS personal, and there is not a darn thing I can do about that.
I am glad that is willing to go to counseling again, and I am going to make him stick to it. We both agreed that the last counselor was ineffective, and he says that he wants to work on this and that he realizes that it is not fair to me. So, I am hopeful and trying to be optimistic.
I am interested to see if your approach of being aloof works in either a postive or negative way. I suspect that most HD spouses that visit this board have tried everything, including the "being distant" approach. I know that in my case, the relationship deteriorates over time and at the end of a few months we are not even speaking, lines get drawn and before long a few more months of a miserable existence go by. At the end of 6 months or so, the situation becomes intolerable and we are even further away from being able to rekindle any kind of affection or passion in our relationship. I suspect, however, that this approach may be more effective when the wife is HD and the husband is LD.
I wonder if anybody has had either positive or negative experiences with this approach and whether it is more effective when trying to affect changes in LD Husbands compared to LD Wives? I would expect that this approach on its own would only draw attention to the situation rather than be any kind of "remedy" in its own right. If this approach is successful in drawing attention to the situation, I wonder if there were any additional approaches that resulted in a longer term solution to our dilema.
Anyway, best of luck MSM - let us know how this turns out!
I'm going to say somethings here that I have never said on this board before. A little about me first though. I loved my husband, he was my heart. For 13 years I researched communication, expressed my feelings of rejection to him in ways that would not be hurtful to him and I never got anything except dismissed. He was a superb husband by day. At night he turned his back on me. It was as if he were saying, "I love you but not enough to have sex with you." There aren't words to describe the damage that does to your soul and heart...to be rejected by the person who has vowed to love and protect you.
I kept my situation a secret. I would hear friends talk about their husband's pawing at them all the time and would think them foolish for not wanting to be wanted. There were times I wanted to ask my mother what she would do, what I should do. I never said a word because of the humiliation of knowing you are not wanted by your husband.
Since my divorce I have told my mother of the rejection, the times he would kick my feet away from him in the middle of the night. The times he would allow me to come over to his side of the bed to snuggle but only for a limited amount of time. My mother told me I should have my ass beat for allowing a man to do such harm to me.
I have often wondered what I would tell a daughter of mine is she came to me with the same problem. I am 51 years old and I have learned something that should have been evident to me from the very beginning. My husband did not love me. It is as plain and as simple as that. It is human nature to desire the person you love. It is human nature to be able to face even the most emotionally painful wounds if it means being with the one you love. If you are in a relationship with a person who is fully aware of your pain but choosing to ignore it then you are in a relationship with someone who does not love you. I do not want to hurt you anymore than you are already hurt. If you were my daughter, based on what I have learned from years of experiencing it, I would tell you to hire yourself a lawyer and get out before you let this man do more damage than is already done.
You love your husband. If he came to you and told you that an action of yours was causing him soul shattering pain you would not hesitate to change those behaviors. That is the measure of someone's love for you. If you make a reasonable request and you get dismissed you are not loved. Your husband has severe problems. They are problems that he will probably never face. He has already proven to you that his feelings for you are not strong enough to motivate him to face the problems.
You have two options. Stay stuck in a marriage that is more painful than it is joyful. A marriage that is so painful that it spills over into every area of your life. You will have to come to terms with the idea that you will share you life with a close friend, not a lover but a close friend who cares about you but just doesn't care enough. No amount of talking you do, no amount of therapy you participate, no matter how aloof or how angry you become is ever going to make a difference because the simple truth is, his weaknesses outweigh the degree of love he feels for you.
Option number two...get out now while you are still young. Heal your broken heart and broken dreams and then find yourself someone who can love you as you deserve to be loved. Someone who will allow you the joy of feeling wanted and desired. Honey, there is very, very little hope of your husband ever being that person. I'm sorry but keep reading this forum....you will find very few success stories. People in your situation either have to learn to live with it or get out of it.
I think what you should be asking yourself is...why am I so willing to have someone who is supposed to love me treat me this way? Where, along the line did I not learn that I deserve the love and respect for my feelings from my husband? It would break my heart to know my 24 year old daughter was suffering in the marriage that you are. Cathy
I am bawling my eyes out right now. Your post hurts in a way that only the bitter truth can. I DO believe that my husband loves me, but I believe it is a selfish love, and perhaps an immature one.
There ARE things that my husband has brought to my attention. I tend to talk too fast and I get really excited about things and interrupt people. I am really working on that, because I WANT to be a good and polite listener. I would never have really noticed until he brought it up. Also, I am a clutter bug. I am the type that walks into the house and will drop my purse, coat, and keys, scattered around. And when I cook, I don't put things away or wash dishes as I go, I just COOK. It drives him CRAZY. So, I try my darndest, especially in our new home, to maintain a neat and orderly house. But at my heart and soul, I am still cluttery, and I am still a fast talker who sometimes isn't so polite and interrupts people. It doesn't mean that I don't love my husband, I just am who I am.
My point, I guess, is that he knew those things about me before he married me. Just as I knew that he wasn't into sex. I didn't go into this marriage as some people do, where the LD spouse manages to keep up the pretense. I guess I kind of feel that I cannot divorce someone for being who they are. I guess I hoped that counseling would help, but I married him KNOWING THAT HE HADN'T CHANGED BEFORE.
The part that cuts like a knife, though, is when you speak of the isolation that you feel. I only have one friend that I feel understands this and whom I trust enough to keep it in confidence. Most of my friends are still either single or just dating, and so don't have a marriage to compare it to. Also, this is so personal, and as you said, humiliating to admit to. And I COULD NEVER tell my mom, even though we are very close. Well, we aren't as close lately, because this is a MAJOR deal for me and it seems weird to keep something this big from her. I know that when you marry, you are supposed to distance from your family a bit, and have private issues within the marriage, but I never thought I would have to hide misery like this. My mother would be horrified if she knew what I put up with. As you know, when trying to avoid sex, the LD spouse can say/do very hurtful things. The other awful thing is that my mother never has liked my husband. From day one, she thought he was controlling and lacked passion. She felt that he knew I was a great catch and would hang on to me for that reason. I know it sounds really conceited, and I don't feel this way, but a lot of my friends and family seem to think that I married "beneath" me. I guess this COULD be a potential part of my husband's problems, because you could definitely say that I am the more ambitious, dynamic, and successful one. People will meet me and then meet my husband, and you can see the puzzlement. I think it was a case of opposites attract. My husband is my more steady side. I tend to be very emotional (have you noticed) and I often act on those emotions. He, on the other hand, tends to be very logical. I am cluttered and at times disorganized, while he is militaristic in how he organizes everything from his closet to our bills. Anyway, I married him for good reasons, despite the bad, and those reasons haven't changed. My point in this rambling paragraph is that I know I would get a huge fat "I told you so," from my mother. Not that that should keep me in an unhappy marriage, but I would also feel like one colossal failure for walking away now.
But the pain is nearly unbearable sometimes. Take tonight. It is our four year anniversary from when we started dating and our seven month wedding anniversary. My husband was so cute and bought me a card and an ornament for our tree (even though we weren't supposed to do gifts because of Christmas and our first mortgage payment). We then went to dinner and drove around to look at Christmas lights. It was a VERY positive evening, with no negativity, and definitely no sex talk.
We returned home and I expected to make love on such an occasion (and it's been awhile). My mom had called to talk to me about my grandmother who is in a rehabilitation center, recoving from a major stroke. We talked for twenty minutes and by the time I was off the phone at 9:30, he had already fallen asleep. I know from experience that if I wake him up, he will be incredibly angry and mean, so I just let him sleep. So, I got online to see if there was anything new on the board, and got your message.
Cathy, I just don't know what to do. I wish that there was something I could take or something he could/would do. I am so SAD right now. I want that wonderful during the day husband to stick around at night. I want a whole marriage, but I want it with HIM. I don't want the humiliation and financial ruin of a divorce. At 24, I have worked SO HARD to get where I am financially. Owning our home is a dream come true for me. And the bottom line is, that he IS MY HEART. He is my best friend. He is my life. I just don't know how I can justify walking away from that yet. Please don't call me a chicken or feel that I am weak. I just know that a divorce is a forever decision. I always can walk away, but it is much harder to come back.
Meanwhile, I do need to do some serious work on me and why I am so confident and able in other areas of my life, and yet, I let him treat me this way and end up so sad.
NW, I read Cathy's post and yours with great pain and sorrow for those of us who have gone through such painful experiences.
Nothing is more painful that loving your spouse that rejects you. Some of what you wrote Newlywed could have been wrote by me. Unfortunately, both of my marriages have had sexual problems. The first when I was younger as I said in earlier posts, was a disaster for me. Cathy said:
Quote: "I love you but not enough to have sex with you." There aren't words to describe the damage that does to your soul and heart...to be rejected by the person who has vowed to love and protect you.
My first h showered me with attention, gifts, took me anywhere I wanted to go before our marriage. After our marriage is when the hands off policy started. It was so very puzzling and hurtful to me. I could not imagine why he had suddenly become so uninterested in sex. He was charming, still would go anywhere/take me anywhere, do anything for me except have sex with me.
His constant rejection ate away at all of the love and affection I had for him. I felt like a total failure and kept wondering what I was doing wrong. Like Cathy I didn't tell anyone. I had grown up listening to my mother and aunt talking about their "cornfed" country boy husbands and I knew what was going on in my house wasn't anything like that.
To me making love is sharing of yourself with that one special person. It is blending yourself into that person and having them blend in with you. God intended for us to become one with our spouse. I try to realize that not everyone expresses love in the same fashion but to me making love with the person I love is the ultimate "I love you."
My ex H did not want me to leave but when I finally got up the courage to leave I have never been sorry. Sorry yes that the situation happened in the first place. Very sorry that that kind of hurt, dispair, and shattered dreams happened but not sorry that I got out of a situation that would not have improved with time and would not have changed. My ex is a very nice person - he still is. But I did not get married to just have a friend.
The day I left him, March 29, 1979 at 10 mintues to 2:00 PM I told him that he had not really been my husband, my friend or my lover. I did not say those things to be cruel but it was the unvarnished truth. Was he being my husband when he pushed my hands away, when he turned his head from me when I tried to kiss him, when he said that I was a "nympho"?
A friend doesn't intentionally inflict pain and he did not mind if he hurt me with his rejection of me sexually.
It goes without saying he was not my lover.
Yes it was painful to know that the one that I had chosen to be my husband, lover, and friend really only wanted a "mother". Someone to cook for him, fuss over him, "tuck" him in bed (yes I was that stupid! he wanted to be tucked in like a child but wanted no part of me sexually).
In my current situation as I have said in earlier posts, the LD comes from illness/medication. It is still hard to not have the wonderful sex life that we had before but since reading the SSM book it has helped. We have talked about it in detail and because he does know that we had always had a great sex life he is a little more sypathetic to my problem.
For awhile he was all caught up in his own problem which I share because I love him with all my heart. He does not chose to be LD - it is a unpleaseant side effect. I do appreciate the fact that he is making strides to please me - it lets me know that he still loves me and wants to please me. It is not a perfect situation but I am working to improve it.
I agree with Cathy that you have the two options. The first option to stay could be very grim for you as time goes on. Your spouse while he may be just darling in some ways (and I am sure he is) your basic drives and needs are way off kilter of each other. I believe that the longer you stay the deeper your resentment will be.
You have a different way of showing love and affection. To you the natural course is to make love - his is to fall asleep to avoid you. I made that decision in 1979 that I would not go through life feeling as sad, lonely, and rejected as I did each and every day when I was married to him. He could have given me the moon if he could have but all I wanted was him and that he could not and would not give to me.
The second option is to leave. You are light years ahead of the game from where I was. I was a 20 year old who had never really worked. (he wanted me to stay home and just be his mommy/wife.) I was like you - driven, ambitious, talkative, messy (I had to chuckle at that!!!) and I escaped my gilded cage.
I went to work in advertising and was successful at it. I met my future H who was the sexiest guy in the world who though my ex was an idiot for not wanting ME.
We married three years later and have 3 beautiful children. While we have not had a bed of roses of a marriage I can truely say I love him with all of my heart and I know that he loves me.
Don't cheat yourself of a wonderful life with someone who will appreciate all of you - not just part of you. When I look back on both of my marriages even with the problems that illness has brought I have never regreted leaving my ex. He just brought such bad feelings to me.
You husband is not doing this to be mean to you. Neither did my ex. It is just their wants and desires are radically different from yours. You are not being mean to him for wanting a robust sexual relationship. He can not give you want you want because he doesn't know how and can't see why it is so important.
NW seek counseling for yourself. I wish I had. I needed it. It really did a number on me and had I not had strong moral convictions I probably would have become the town hooche just to prove I was desireable.
Don't cheat yourself trying to change someone else.
Your story is inspirational. Thank you for sharing it. I am sorry that you are having some similar problems now, but as you said, it makes a huge difference when a) you know the cause and b)they are willing to work on it.
It is scary to me that people keep telling me that this isn't going to work out and that I should probably leave. First of all, let me make it clear how thankful I am for your posts. They make me feel validated and I know they were written with care for me in mind. I guess I came to this site looking for a solution, but the one that people keep giving me is not one that I want to hear. Unfortunately, the more I read other peoples' stories, especially those of you that escaped a LD marriage, only to find love with a similar HD spouse, the more I wonder just how much I am cheating myself. And as much as I would hurt if this marriage dissolved, and as much as people around me would be shocked and probably some a little hurt, too, I know that waiting could potentially hurt more people.
Is there anything wrong with my being embarassed to leave a marriage at seven months? I mean, I know this sounds bad, but won't people see me as a quitter? Won't I be the bad guy? That doesn't seem fair, but at the same time, I am not about to go around telling everyone my story. Won't people think that I am flighty and indecisive. I mean, married seven months? Just one year ago, I was planning a wedding and gushing to everyone about how WONDERFUL my FH was. Aren't people going to think that I am nutso?
I think that I am going to at least give counseling a try. I am not the type of person that can walk away from even a bad situation until I have exhausted all means of making it good. I think if I walked away now, I would regret it for years to come, always feeling like I failed myself, my husband, and our marriage.
In the meantime, please keep your thoughts, advice, and similar experiences coming. It truly helps to know what others have been through/are going through, and that people care. Bless those of you that are trying to help me through this rough time. I appreciate it more than you can know.
I know that you feel confused, hurt, scared, embarrassed, angry, frustrated and probably a million other feelings you can't even name.
It is a huge step to contemplate making. I did not take divorce lightly either. The last thing I wanted was a divorce. I did not want to hurt my ex either. I did not want people to know WHY we were seperated. I did tell his grandmother immediately. His mother had abandoned them and his father was dead so his grandparents were my only inlaws. Thank God she understood and said, "Baby, you really didn't have a husband at all!" God bless her. I loved her dearly. She and I remained close until she passed away 16 years later!
My ex and I had been married only 18 months when I left. To tell you the truth I wanted to bolt out the door way earlier than that. The self doubt that his rejection led to was so hard to take.
What was even harder to take was after I left he started sleeping around with everyone and anyone - yet he rejected me. I remember one day about 1 month after I left he was trying to explain himself to me and actually told me that to sleep with me would make me dirty like his mother and that he had masturbated EVERYDAY in the bathroom!
I can not even discribe the blow that piece of information was. He could have kept that to himself to his dying day. All I could say is why? Why when he had a wife lying right beside him that wanted to have sex with him? The feeling of inadaquicy, the hurt and sorrow, and the absolute rage at him.
I know it is hard to contemplate the disappoint you feel others will feel if you leave your marriage. My brother was very distressed when I left my ex. My ex and my brother were very close (my brother is an only son so there were no other brothers for him!) My brother had married just 2 1/2 months after we had and he and his wife STILL after 26 years of marriage are all wrapped up in each other. Anyway, one day he was grumbling about my leaving and I told him, "You sleep with him then. I'm not subjecting myself to that misery anymore."
I am not saying to broadcast your person details of the marriage. For a long time I never said anything except to my mother and my aunt and her daughters who were like older sisters to me. The world in general did not know why I had left the "catch of the town - such a nice boy, a hard worker, gave her everything, yada yada". About a year and a half after our divorce (we were on extremely friendly terms by the way. We even spent holiday's with each other's families) I was talking to one of his friend's wife who oddly enough did not like my ex at all which was unusual because most people found him just too darling for words. He said that he turned her stomach with all of his sleeping around with everything that walked and hated his nickname of "cockhound".
I know it was kind of mean of me but I cracked up laughing. I laughed until my sides hurt. She was looking at me so puzzled as to why I found that funny. I told her that he was as dead in bed in our marriage and that is why I left the great cockhound. A few months later I was at a Bar B Que at his apartment. As I said we remained very friendly with each other - not ugly screaming or hatefulness. His friend started ribbing me and him saying I missed the great cockhound in bed blah blah blah and my ex certainly hadn't told his friends why I left so they are just ribbing away.
This I did not take kindly to. I looked directly at my ex and said, "Unless you care for me to tell your friends exactly why I left you - you had best button that up. It won't be good for your cockhound image". He shut up quickly. I know that was mean but hey - I was only 21 years old!
Don't let what others might think sway your decisions. What you are going through is intensly personal and something that is not talked about very much. It is generally the man chasing the woman and the woman refusing -well that is the general view anyway but it is not your reality. Others are not there to feel how you feel when he turns his back on you and refused to make love to you.
What would your advice be to someone in your shoes? Remember if most people knew your situation they would understand. Other people are not living your life - that piece of real estate belongs only to you and to your husband. Only you know how much you can take and what kind of life you want to have.
You are still very young. No one should have their hopes and dreams shattered. I know my ex did not do these things out of a maliciousness but all the same he broke my dreams. I truly forgive him for most of all of it and hope that he found happiness. The only thing that left me still annoyed with him even after almost 25 years is that he took my dreams away from me.
I will pray for you and keep you in my thoughts. I know that it must seem like it is "too much too many" at this point. My oldest son used to say that when I would ask him to clean his room, "It's too much, it's too many, I'm too little".
You have more strength than you know. Keep your chin up. Don't be ugly and spiteful to him. It serves no purpose and will only make you feel worse. But there are boundries for your own preservation of your heart and mind that you should not let be trampled on.
Thank you for your kind words and for keeping me in your prayers. I especially liked your phrase, "It is too much, too many, I am too little." How adorable that your son said that, and how strange how it parallels the mess in my life.
I realize that making my decisions based on what others might or might not think is ridiculous. It would cause a short buzz, but they would soon have other drama to mull over. And I don't put myself THAT highly on most people's lists that they would lose any sleep over it.
I guess I am most concerned with how I would feel afterwards. And I DO feel so little right now, and very lost, much like a little kid. I definitely know the mess needs cleaning, but it is such a mountain of a mess, that I truly do not know where to begin.
My heart is glad for how you stood up to your husband. Did the Old Cockhound ever get remarried? Do you keep in contact to this day?
