Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums THE SEX-STARVED MARRIAGE Honeypot?

Lassie,
Good advice.
I have been thinking about this all day long. I do realize that I am a huge part of the problem.

At the same time, the reason I give him the hawkeye (no not literally but I am certainly scrutinizing his behavior) is because I have been at this for SO long. I am past the point of wanting to be kind and patient. I have no patience left. It is time for him to you-know-what or get off the pot.

I have been continuing to push him because I am stuck in this marriage, as long as I decide to keep my wedding vows. As a Catholic, I would not be able to remarry if I divorce him.

Also I love him like there is no tomorrow. Do I love him enough to accept him as is, and stop pushing? Ah, the million dollar question!
He is sexually passive and I am not attracted to this. So for me to accept him as is means to essentially give up on what I find sexually attractive. This, as you know, is a much bigger thing than just "accepting him" sounds like. It is giving up a part of myself--the BIGGEST part of myself in order to stay married to him.

He has no clue of the significance of this for me and how difficult it is to make that decision.

However, to return to your original point: Yes, I have been pondering all day how I am going to find it in myself to back off permanently. Since I have been at this so long, I already know what the results will be. He will not step up to the plate, Lass.
So for me to back off means that I am giving up.

It's hard to give up and say, Well I will have frequent sex but no desire or passion. I will have satisfying sex that feels wonderful but I will have to drive the entire procedure, for the rest of my life.

See, I have been at this long enough to have seen what the END is.
My situation is not going to get much better than it currently is, and I am not entirely satisfied. Some might say that I need to chill out and be happy, and they might be right. Still, my feelings INSIDE me are that this is fine..okay...but not quite what I envisioned when setting down the Road to Recovery.

This may sound 'down' but I am quite happy today. Trying to find it in myself to let go and accept that I have reached the end of the road and though it is not the destination I thought I'd arrive at, it is still a pretty nice place. Just that all the men are sexually passive here. LOL

Catch ya later.
HP

Wow! I can really relate to this post, HP. Everytime I get to the place you seem to be at today, I have this little nagging thought that intrudes. Tell me if it sounds at all familiar. The thought is that if I try to convince myself that I can be happy with things as they are and repress my "need" to be desired, I will only be able to maintain this pose in the absence of any sign of desire from a man other than my husband. As soon as that happens my faux contentment will fly out the window. Therefore, in order to keep myself happy in my cozy little "take care of the missus but show little desire" marriage, I will have to avoid any situation in which I might sense desire from another man. Guess I need to make a trip to Burkas 'R' Us .

HP,

I subscribe to an esoteric "thought of the day". Here is today -
___________________________________________________________

Expectations are the lock that keeps us in our self-built prisons. Free of expectations the prison vanishes. A well known line in an old Kris Kristofferson song says it well:

"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose."

___________________________________________________________


The tendency to "monitor" and "control" seems to maintain the very behavior that we would like to get rid of. I also need to think about how my monitoring controls me. For example, I know that I box myself in when I carefully measure my responses to H rather than just express my true feelings.

I know that you have expressed your feelings to H that you would like him to demonstrate more desire. I feel the same about my H - I have expressed this sentiment too. Is it possible that your H's signs are just more subtle? Does your careful observation of the situation actually cause you to miss key signals from your H? In other words - if you let go would you free yourself and him? (As usual, I need to do this too. I need to say my piece and do so with honesty and caring but then I need to let go). Like you, my faith is very important to me so I am not going anywhere. That leaves me to "figure it out" with H.

I think sometimes I tend to think on these things and get them all worked out in my head then I dump all my thoughts on H and he has no idea what to do with the plethora of thoughts and information. He really just wants to work, come home and hang with the wife and kids and not have these heavy discussions all the time.

Random thoughts a la Karen

Ah, JJ, our paths are indeed converging.

I wrote a post a while ago but had to close up shop due to the fact that someone was knocking on my door. It is history now, but the gist of it was "Can I really do this?"
meaning, accept that I will have good, frequent sex but with a sexually passive man. I don't think that the HD men or the LD wives of the board can relate to this one, in my opinion. It is really a mind screw to be at this destination. Not a "I'm so depressed, I can't go on" at ALL, but just a wtf feeling is settling down upon me like a gentle cloudy mist. I cannot believe that this is my fate, and yet it obviously is for as long as I stay married to him. And since I aint going anywhere, I suppose is forever! What a shock and surprise to discover that I can't PM him towards aggression or assertiveness.

However, I do realize that continuing to push him will make things even worse than they were when we started this. He is eventually going to go running for Shutdown Mode. Corri is right about this.

My biggest worry/fear right now is that I am wondering and desperately hoping that my love will stay strong, despite the fact that I will constantly be struggling to reconcile the fact that I am sexually not turned on by passive men, but that I must shove this to the back so that we can continue to have frequent easy sex or ALL of my love will fade. Weird.

I feel a sense of finality closing in on me. Maybe this IS acceptance and I don't even know it. All I know is that I am sick to death of the fight that gets me nowhere, anyway.

I have little thoughts that get my mind all riled up, also. I read a book about testosterone and I could NOT (and still can't) wrap my mind around why this chemical would not have the same effect on MY husband that it has on the rest of the world's population of men. That is something that will have to be forgotten before acceptance truly occurs. There are lots of things, actually. But I am committed to working on the process of doing that.

Before, I was committed to working on turning him from sexually passive to sexually aggressive. In short, I wanted to turn him back into a man. I want to go back to being the woman of the relationship.
This is not going to happen and it has taken me a long time to come to this realization. I don't give up easily. Especially on things as important to me as him and my marriage and sex life.

But I can honestly say that this is the first time in many years that I have faced the fact that I will likely have to be--for the rest of my life--the sexual aggressor. Prior to this, I've been willing to adopt that role temporarily but not permanently.

He's come a loooong way. He does not resemble whatsoever the fcuked up guy he was when we started this. We are happy and intimate with each other. There has been an unspoken war going on, as I try to force him to be psychologically on top and he resists with all his might.

It's time for me to wave the white flag and accept the progress we have made. I hope God gives me the strength I need to continue to be the aggressor; otherwise, we're doomed!

Honeypot

P.S. H has his noggin lump doctors appt today. Keep him in your thoughts. Incidentally he will not be mentioning the T test and that may be a good thing. When it came back normal-to-high, I'd probably have had a meltdown.

P.P.S. Never mind on the above paragraph. He just called and said that his job is so busy today that he is cancelling the appt. I am livid. This is the second time that he has cancelled the appt re: his head. wtf is the matter with some people.

Reading your responses makes me feel better about my own issues. I also am discouraged by the W's lack of desire and am contemplating just accepting the way it is rather than try to change her. Is pushing a change like this too much to ask? I have a gut feeling that like you, I can have more but it's not what I really want. But where do you balance your own needs with keeping the R intact?

HP.

What is it with the gloom and doom?

The FACT is that you don't know what your husband is thinking about an event that has yet to occur.

If he does drop back to minimum mode, then you can address it. You haven't really lost anything, nor are you going to (except maybe some control - a good thing).

I bet that your husband really is HIGH DRIVE, he just needs a bit of room to figure out where he is in the relationship. I will tell you this, it is NOT where you think he is.

I think that you should examine why your reaction to abdicating a bit of control back to your husband is bothering you so much.

All the best,
-NOPkins-

NOP,
I don't think that my husband will drop back to minimum mode. I truly believe those days are behind us and have communicated that to him, also. That is not my fear at all.

My fear is more: Will I be able to keep the love alive between us, considering the fact that my LL is Physical Touch (specifically sex) and I have a passive partner in this regard?

Is the fact that he will acquiesce and do whatever I ask of him enough?

I am laughing at your description of him being high drive. Nope. Not true.

I do agree with you, though, that his place in this relationship is not where I think it is. I can...sense...that there is more growth that he will do. I sense it of myself, as well.

Btw, I almost had him sold on the schedule thing...he SAID he was willing to try it but when the rubber hit the road he put the brakes on with this statement: "Schedules are made to be broken."
That right there told me that he is not willing to commit to this process, so I dropped it with kindness and no histrionics at all. In fact, I have not mentioned it again. We've ML every day since, anyway. Every one of those times was accidental sex. He did not come to bed with the intention of ML to me. It did not sound good to him at all. But after I draped my naked body on him, he changed his mind.
This MO might work for an HD male but I can tell you that it does not work, on a permanent basis, for an HD female. At some point, I will have to FEEL his desire for me and have the majority (not minority) of our encounters be intentional.

If this does not happen, I will probably fall out of love with him and our marriage will be in name only.
This is what scares me.

Honey

NOP,

I think HP and I would love to be able to accept your POV with confidence. Please tell us what you would do if your sexual desires required not just a loving and willing partner, but a sexually aggressive partner? What if your fantasies were primarily along the lines of

"Mrs.NOP looks at me with a glazed, longing in her eyes. I can sense the animal heat and arousal engulfing her. She places her hands firmly on my shoulders and pins me down on the bed. Consumed with desire, she kisses me fiercely, barely restraining herself from biting my lip. With one quick move she unzips my jeans to discover that my desire has followed apace with her own. A momentary appreciative glance and a murmurred "beautiful" is her last cogent thought before she releases her ego to the primitive forces pulsing within and between us. We don't simply "make love". We let love make us as it has made and remade all creatures since the amoeba ceased to reign."

*Note to self* Don't read SSM forum while at work