I have been reading the posts on this board for some time and I am trying to figure out if a HD spouse can really love a ND Spouse - particularly a ND spouse that firmly believes that it is perfectly acceptable to be ND. Where the HD spouse should merely accept the LD for what they are - ie leave them alone physically and carry on with a normal loving, caring and fully sharing relationship in every other way. I have been given this strong message from my ND spouse and she is totally resentful that I would want her to be anything other than what she is - just accept and be happy. Is this really possible and if so how do you get to that happy place?
I think the reason it is hard to accept an ND spouse is that they are deep down usually unable to accept a HD spouse. If she were really accepting of your HD and her own LD, then I think she wouldn't care if you were to have sex with someone else as long as you were able to remain loving towards her. I don't know if you've read PM, but I think this is what a lot of the examples in the book point to. If you want sex one evening and she doesn't want sex, why would she care if you went out to a bar and got it from someone else? If you or I or any HD person were to be as bold as the woman in the book who did this, we would see just how accepting of our HD nature our LD spouses really are and also just how truly disinterested they are in sex and how unimportant they actually judge it to be.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
And if they're anything like my LDW, you would find that they are NOT accepting of our HD. But sex, though not important enough to do with you, is WAY too important for you to do with someone else.
I don't believe my spouse resents that I have desire (I would be more a "normal" desire spouse than HD). Anyway, I believe she resents that I can not fully accept her ND state - and as hard as I try, I really do feel empty without any physical contact.
Her discussion goes along these lines and which I have grown to accept respresent her unchangeable point of view: "If you have touch needs, you should participate on your own - I really don't want to have to be involved anymore. Why can you not understand me and just leave me alone physically? Why do I have to change? Why should I feel like I'm broken and need to be fixed? You'r the one with a problem because you can't accept my current state. You just don't get it - I don't want to have sex anymore. I can't help it. In those occassions we are intimate, it is merely because I am trying to please you and you should love me all the more for making this effort for you".
My question is - is it possible, as a normal desire spouse, to truly accept your ND spouse though the remainder of your marriage? What can the normal desire spouse do to drastically reduce the emphasis that you tend to place on the absence of intimacy in your life? Can you intellectually deal with this issue in a truly happy and accepting way or are the base instincts too difficult to overcome? Am I destined to be unhappy for the balance of this relationship?
Quote: My question is - is it possible, as a normal desire spouse, to truly accept your ND spouse though the remainder of your marriage?
Bag of worms...1st: you have to answer that for yourself. Take responsibility for yourself. 2nd: defining yourself as "normal" and your W as ND (no drive), is prejudicial and accusatory, and, no wonder she feels like you think she's broken. I used to do this with my W, so, you just have to work through this. The terms HD and LD are relative in nature: I have a higher drive than my W. She has a lower drive than I. I've actually never liked the ND label, but I suppose it exists.
Don't expect any immediate answers, monk. You will have to do some work if you want to hang around here. And, you will find, that your W will have to do some work, too. If she is not willing to do any work at all, that kind of helps you with your decision. One major question both of you must deal with is, what is the level of your commitment to each other?
Quote: If you have touch needs, you should participate on your own - I really don't want to have to be involved anymore.
It’s not a question of whether or not you need touch, I do. Why are you unwilling to give it?
Quote: Why can you not understand me and just leave me alone physically?
I do understand that you don’t need physical intimacy. Why do you not understand that I do?
Quote: Why do I have to change?
You don’t have to change. I just believe that the whole purpose of M, beyond procreation, is to have intimate partners who love, care for and value each other enough that they truly want to behave in a manner to bring happiness and contentment to the other.
Quote: Why should I feel like I'm broken and need to be fixed?
Who said that you were broken? Who said that you needed to be fixed? I said that I need more physical intimacy. Inasmuch as you are my W, I would hope that you would want to provide that intimacy, but it’s entirely your choice. My desires in no way indicate that there is anything wrong with you.
Quote: You'r the one with a problem because you can't accept my current state. You just don't get it - I don't want to have sex anymore. I can't help it.
But I do accept your current state. I do get it; I understand that you don’t want to have sex anymore. But I do want to continue to have sex. Not just sex, but sex with you. Sex is an important component of M and I need it in order to feel like we’re more than just roommates. And I want us to be more than just roommates.
Quote: In those occassions we are intimate, it is merely because I am trying to please you and you should love me all the more for making this effort for you
I very much appreciate your efforts to please me. Maybe I haven’t been expressing that enough. When we ML it creates an EC within me that radiates throughout my whole being. If I haven’t adequately communicated that to you, I’ve been horribly remiss.
Now for your questions.
Quote: is it possible, as a normal desire spouse, to truly accept your ND spouse though the remainder of your marriage?
Obviously, the answer is yes. Sex is important, but there are a number of us here who have gone for years without it. It can be done.
Quote: What can the normal desire spouse do to drastically reduce the emphasis that you tend to place on the absence of intimacy in your life?
In my particular case, sex is all that’s missing. We kiss, we cuddle, we hold hands. We constantly show our love for each other in other ways just as you would with a parent, a sibling, or a child. I just try to concentrate on those. I use those as evidence that W isn’t intentionally trying to cause me this pain.
Quote: Can you intellectually deal with this issue in a truly happy and accepting way or are the base instincts too difficult to overcome?
Happiness is an on again, off again thing for me. I can go for long periods accepting things as they are and appreciating what I have, but then I get blindsided by the emptiness and despair. During those times I really struggle to believe that W cares about me at all. I toy with thoughts of D or an A. I think all kinds of dark thoughts. If you’ve read some of my other posts, you know that at one point I even thought that maybe it would be better if W just died during surgery. But those times pass and I get myself back into the accepting and appreciating mode.
And finally,
Quote: Am I destined to be unhappy for the balance of this relationship?
This is a rhetorical question, right? You don’t honestly think any of us can answer that one for you, do you?
Quote: Mojo and Wilde My question is - is it possible, as a normal desire spouse, to truly accept your ND spouse though the remainder of your marriage? What can the normal desire spouse do to drastically reduce the emphasis that you tend to place on the absence of intimacy in your life? Can you intellectually deal with this issue in a truly happy and accepting way or are the base instincts too difficult to overcome? Am I destined to be unhappy for the balance of this relationship?
monk
[caution: rookie advisor]
Only YOU know whether you can be happy this way or not. No one else can answer these questions. You're here though, and that says something about the importance of this issue to you.
First I would look inward and try and figure out if you are doing/not doing something to kill her desire. It could be neediness, appearance, guilt, lack of attention, mistrust, etc...
This is the hardest part. Ask your wife and be willing to accept a brutally honest answer from her. If you act defensive, it will hurt when you attempt to reopen the dialogue later on. If she won't or can't tell you why, you have to try and figure it out yourself. Look deep and don't kid yourself. What clues has she given you about dissatisfaction within your marriage?
In the end, I think you are the only one that can answer that question for yourself. You have to decide what is important to you, you have to decide if you can live with that lack of intimacy.
If you do stay, I believe it's a matter of attitude. Can you somehow keep yourself cheerful, find ways of comforting yourself, so that you don't constantly feel empty? How would she feel if you 'did your own thing', if you scheduled your days, nights even without her?
Lots of the guys here talk about hobbies they take up to keep busy...I know myself if I'm practicing and performing, I don't tend to think about the lack of intimacy so much (and in all honesty, playing good chamber music - another thing I don't get to do enough of - is almost as good as good sex!!!).
Quote: My question is - is it possible, as a normal desire spouse, to truly accept your ND spouse though the remainder of your marriage? What can the normal desire spouse do to drastically reduce the emphasis that you tend to place on the absence of intimacy in your life? Can you intellectually deal with this issue in a truly happy and accepting way or are the base instincts too difficult to overcome? Am I destined to be unhappy for the balance of this relationship?
I asked myself this question many times over the years. I tried to find ways in which I could answer "yes" because I wanted it to be possible. Finally, I had to admit that for me it wasn't possible. My last attempt to try to adjust and ignore my own drives sent me into what I realize now was a profound depression. I realized that although I could probably hold out a few more years in a SSM, I was almost certainly going to be a WAW as soon as my kids left home. This board, SSM and PM gave me hope for my marriage because they gave me hope that by changing myself I could increase the passion in my marriage. I truly believe that for me there was nothing that would have resigned me to my former situation. I could continue loving my LDH, but I couldn't deny or repress my HD nature without damaging my mental health. I felt as I neared midlife that I might have to give up my marriage in order to have any chance of quality of life as I aged in much the same way that many people realize that they have to quit drinking or smoking. But that's me. Perhaps you're made of sturdier stuff. I wish you happiness in whatever form you can find it.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Wildebube, I have had pretty much the identicle dialogue that you have outlined above and share your observation about going through waves of happiness/darkness over time.
Our relationship is otherwise strong, we have no monetary concerns, kids are at college etc but our sex life diminished, then ended with the change in her hormones. Without getting into the whole HRT or herbal solutions situation, nothing works and she has given up on a "medical" change to her status. I don't blame her in anyway for her situation, but I just find it difficult to live day in day out in a happy state. I would like to find ways for ME to cope better on an ongoing basis. I do not have any expectation that my wife can provide physical intimacy apart from what would be considered a close brother/sister type relationship. So, in other words, I could be truly happy (and I believe she would also be truly happy) with our relationship if I did not become unglued with the absence of pysical intimacy.
