My partner and I do not live together, by choice. We do spend the majority of the week together.
We reunited 5 weeks ago after about a 5 month break from which neither of us expected a recovery. It is surprising, good, healthy and much better than our past attempts at relationship.
However, we have struggled with sex from the beginning (3.5 yrs) and we went away together this weekend...and there was no sex or attempts at such. Still.
There has been progress...increase in touch, in real kisses, in eye contact and strong expressions of love. I did my best to express these things back and to stay open and loving despite my profound disappointment.
Tonight, when she went home, I just felt sad and I know that the only people in the world who will get this are my HD DB friends.
If our LD partners only knew the depth of our despair-that it isn't about getting off, about power or control or winning but a deep-seated need for connection and acknowledgment that we have truly emotionally touched our partners, I think they'd see us (and sex) in a whole new light.
I'm just sad. I'm trying to be patient, as I've tried to be for years. I feel more hope (and foolish for it) than I ever have. But this weekend set me back.
I need words of encouragement to remain patient, to focus on the positive. I am DEEPLY loved by her. Of this I have no doubt. But I'm afraid.
If our LD partners only knew the depth of our despair-that it isn't about getting off, about power or control or winning but a deep-seated need for connection and acknowledgment that we have truly emotionally touched our partners, I think they'd see us (and sex) in a whole new light.
Hi Kelly. I am a ld partner and I appreciate what you are saying. Thanks to you as well as other hd partners sharing on this site, I have come to believe what you are saying to be true. In my situation, my partner said things to me (such as "I just like sex") and treated me in a way that made me feel that the act of sex was more important than anything. I felt used and like he didn't really care about me/my feelings, just that he had sex. I am still struggling to heal from the fighting and I am still struggling to find some sort of balance between our differences. If I could ask anything of my partner, it would be for patience, compassion and acceptance that we are different people; and I would ask for support and (gentle) encouragement.
I hope that you and your partner are continuing to make progress and that you are no longer feeling sad.
Keep a positive perspective on life, it is about the only way to get through it.
A book that really helped me understand that being HD was not a crime was the book by Sue Johnson, Hold Me Tight. It made me feel like my needs were actually not that far from normal.
A book that helped me better understand my LD partner was Kliger & Nedelman book, Still Sexy After All These Years. It made my wife feel like she was not that far from normal.
Both books gave us something to reflect on.
Good luck
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
Yes. I think the LD spouse/partner often gets the "I just like sex" answer and I think that feels superficial. Frankly I think there are men and women whom that is true for-it is more superficial. However, I maintain, if it was just about 'getting off' we could handle that on our own.
Men, especially, can be reluctant to tell you what sex means to them emotionally, plus, let's face it, many of them are just clumsy communicators (sorry guys). They don't necessarily know what they feel. They just feel good, but I do think for most (not all) decent men, it is way more than just physical.
We are still stuck/frozen but we are communicating and she IS trying. I'm just tired of bringing it up.
Didn't you/don't you get tired of feeling like you are doing all of the work (all the reading, all the thinking, all of the proactive stuff)? Perhaps you aren't. But resentment builds up, I think, when we perceive that our partners know we are hurting and still won't pick up the book or do their own real work (light the candles and try...). It is understandable to feel like they aren't serious.
I have Hold Me Tight. I'm about to get started. But I resent it.
Oh, yes (I know you weren't addressing me, but . . . oh, yes.)
The reality is that most people can give themselves orgasms quickly and efficiently through masturbation--if that were all the HD partner wanted, (s)he could easily cut the LD partner out of the equation. But you're right, that would be unsatisfying because it's not really what the HD partner is after, even if they often aren't completely sure what they are after.
And yes, it does often feel like you shouldn't be the one doing all the work. However, often the HD partner feels like he/she's doing all the work because he/she doesn't see the effort the LD partner is making. Remember that someone who is trying but doesn't know what to do often looks like he's not trying. And, it really does happen sometimes that you put in the work and work on getting a life and learn to self-soothe and be independent and suddenly the LD spouse feels the need to come along and see what you're doing and why. My wife has made a huge change in her effort to meet me halfway in the last year or so, but it took some time with me doing it all on my own before that appealed to her.
Just a quick note on "our partners know we are hurting."
We think they know. They think they know. How could they not know? They TELL us that yes, they understand. But if they seem unconcerned about it, although it's possible that they're just sociopaths who need remedial empathy training, it's more likely that (and this sounds impossible) they DON'T get it.
I told my wife for years that I was unhappy with our sex life, that I hated it, that I was angry at her and resentful and I hated that. She always said she understood, but she did nothing about it and truthfully neither did I. Then I got her to read the first chapter of Sex-Starved Marriage, and I told her that I had changed from my previous stand ("I'm deeply unhappy but I would never, ever leave you, so now that I've reassured you that you have no reason to change, please work very hard and make deep, gut-wrenching changes to your whole outlook on life") to a radically different position: "I still don't want to leave you, but I'm miserable, and I'm angry and resentful all the time, and I think we're heading for divorce in the next year or two if you won't help me fix our marriage."
When she really, truly, "got it" and understood what she had put me through, she wept in my arms. It was NOTHING like her previous almost-dismissive hand-waving "Yes, of course I understand and I want you to be happy" throwaways. And her attitude has been different ever since.
Silly Old Bear, your wife is a lucky woman to have a man as committed and introspective as you.
If you could not have even managed to get your wife to read the first chapter, do you think you would have stayed? If she kept saying "yes, I'm going to do this for you" but never did it, would you?
I fell for empty promises again that are never backed with actions. How do you know when it is time to leave, even when you both love each other deeply?
You don't know how you will handle the crisis until the crisis comes, but . . . I think that if she had not made big changes, I would have left. Coming here made me come to understand that she and I both had a part to play in creating our sex-starved marriage, and I had not done everything I could do about it. I thought long and hard about whether I was really going to leave, and I decided I was. Saying it to her was the scariest thing I've ever done (no hyperbole there--I thought long and hard about whether I'd done something scarier, too) because I knew that I could no longer lie to myself once I'd given her that ultimatum.
Whether I would have tied it specifically to whether or not she read that first chapter . . . . I don't know. If she'd refused, or if she'd promised to read it and didn't, that probably would have led to divorce if she'd stuck to her guns. But if she'd read it and it hadn't had such a dramatic effect, that wouldn't be so clear. That would just be one more thing that didn't work.
I can't stress enough how long I thought my wife didn't care and how wrong I was all that time. She didn't understand, she was as afraid as I was to commit to changing, she was confused, she was hurt, she felt guilt and shame, but she cared.
