I don't see a lot of posts from the LD spouses on here. I think it is because they aren't the ones as eager to seek a solution. But they must need support too! And I would be eager to get the opinion of one willing to talk.
Any LDs out there? I promise that we won't be mean. But I have some questions that us HDs just can't answer!
Like, What goes through your mind when your spouse asks for sex?
What goes through your mind when you know you've hurt your spouse?
Do you think about sex a lot?
Do you find other ways to satisfy the urges that you DO have?
I guess you could call me a LD spouse, or at least LOWER D.
I've replied to some other threads on this forum but no one seemed too interested. I find it frustrating to hear that the LD partner MUST feel equal desire. Willingness is not enough! I especially hear this from CeMar. It makes me angry. When I had sex with my X, I did it out of love for him. To hear it dismissed as inferior is infuriating.
Some background: I thought when my X announced he was leaving his family for a woman that he had known for 10 days that he was having a midlife crisis. And thought that for 3 years until I read on this board. I finally understood what our problem was. You see, he had not articulated it as clearly as you have to your H. I knew he had dissatisfactions with our marriage but I had NO IDEA that the sexual part was the deal breaker. Not even in MC that we went to in the months before we separated did he voice this to me. So it was like a light bulb going on to read here.
I wish he could have told me instead of you folks!
We had sex on a regular basis, a couple of times a week. He wanted me to initiate. I usually didn't. He wanted CONSTANT touching and affection from me during the day. It felt onerous and smothering to me. His way of touching me was sometimes irritating. I *would* spontaneously hug him, tell him things I loved about him, but his feeling was often, "You're just saying that." I felt that nothing I did was EVER enough. He felt like a bottomless pit of need.
In short, it was like in the Woody Allen movie with the therapist asks each how often they had sex. Woody said, almost never, two or three times a week, and Annie said, all the time, two or three times a week.
So my X left. I was devastated. I really did love him dearly and have trained myself not to after years of separation. It is all too sad.
I think you offer up really interesting perspective, and I hope you keep posting. Even though you might not get a direct response, people do read... keep posting.
Newlywed:
I'm an LDer. I'll take a shot at answering your questions.
What goes through your mind when your spouse asks for sex?
Depends on how we've been interacting outside of the bedroom prior to being asked. If there has been good give and take between us, and my needs are in relative good order, then when he asks for sex, then I can be game.
What goes through your mind when you know you've hurt your spouse?
Probably pretty much the same things as yours when you know you've hurt your spouse in some way.
Do you think about sex a lot?
Nope. Not usually.
Do you find other ways to satisfy the urges that you DO have?
LOL! No, not usually... I have, though. I don't experience 'urges' the way you do, so this is almost like asking an apple what it feels like to be an orange...
A place where I think many HDrs get off track is in thinking something is 'wrong' with their spouse, and projecting that onto them. Then the LDr interprets these critical actions and words into a belief that there is in fact something wrong with them, they begin to doubt the authenticity of the love their partner claims to have for them, and they curl up in such a ball of failure, they don't even want to try.
When really what I think is going on is that LDs speak greek, HDs speak French, neither realizes they aren't speaking the same language, and they both wonder why in the hell they can't communicate.
So you either need to learn enough greek to teach your husband some french, or vice versa.
I'm a LD spouse, my H left right after Labor day and Sex has always been issue. I din't ralize how big an issue until I read SSM. I was date raped and didn't realize until I went to C 3 weeks ago that it had made me view sex as a tool. Sex was just that. I don't think about sex, rarely need to satisfy myself. What went through my mind when H asked for it. It wasn't spontaneous. If a kiss didn't mean sex, I might have been more open to sex. A woman needs to be romanced. A pop on the ass as affection doesn't count (not to me anyway). If you go through the same routine before sex, then this is a turn off. It means sex is inevitable. My husband always did the same things before sex which was always when I was ready for sleep or upon waking on Sat morns. Predictablility is not a turn on. Romance me for the heck of it and every once in a while romance me for sex. You'll probably see an increase in her desire to please you if you respect her. Another one of my sex issues was my H wanted to go toooooo long. He wanted to enjoy the few times he got it way tooo much. Don't know if that is a problem for many people, but......
I vent on here, but I really don't try to make anyone mad, so I apologize for that. My situation sounds similar but worse then yours, my wife now has NO DESIRE AT ALL. She was always "WILLING" to have sex, she just was never really into having sex. Unless both spouses are masters at handling this kind of situation, then problems will very likely arise. Read the following websites on a "Willingness to Desire" ans "Sexual Aversion". It becomes very hard to create a marriage where the LD spouse can actually meet the HD spouses EMOTIONAL need for sexual fulfillment with out actually getting into "Sexual aversion". Willingness to Desire and Sexual Aversion
As you can see, the greater the difference in sexual desire between the spouses, the WORSE the marriage will be, except for those rare few that have actually got 2 spouses that realize the problem and actually find a workable solution. I personally feel that virtually ALL marriages that end in divorce have this as one of their problems. The problem I see happening is that many LD spouses see sex and touching as physical needs where as the HD spouses see this as an emotional need, and that spells trouble.
I know that in my marraige, my wife started as a high desire person, then fell to a LD/ND person. When making love, it is like the difference between night and day. The MOST important part of making love, particularly for the men, is that it IS NOT about us getting pleasure, but rather the high we achieve by GIVING pleasure to our wives. It is our way of giving love, but when it is apparent that the person receiving our love is only there to "PLEASE" us, then it becomes REJECTION of us PERSONALLY. I have been reading the book from B. DeAngelis about what men want women to know about men. I really recommend this book, but I would warn LD women before they read this book that it might upset them a bit. It is very clear from this book that virtually all emotional needs for men flow through 6 inches of his body. Reject a mans sexual advances, YOU REJECT HIM PERSONALLY. Don't initiate sex with him, YOU REJECT HIM PERSONALLY. Don't like to be real freindly to those 6 inches, YOU REJECT HIM PERSONLLY. Hate to say it, but the joke about men thinking with their penis is not to far from the truth.
Carlotta, I am not asking my wife to have eqaul desire, I am just asking for her to have ENOUGH desire. From what I have read from other HD males, VERY few men ever find a solution to this. We can be the greatest husbands ever, and it still is not enough to actually bring our wives back to being sexual partners like they USED to be.
Wow, thanks for posting, you guys. I'll bet that took real courage, especially with all of us HDers bumming around.
Believe me, I know that there is nothing "wrong" with my husband. I just think that he could make some attempts to meet me halfway. And I also know there are only about a zillion things that I could do better.
I think that this is a sad situation for BOTH parties. I am glad that we can help each other. Not all HD spouses are as able to communicate to their LD spouses as "easily" as I can, so perhaps you can even learn a bit from me and the rest of us HDers.
All I am looking for is some insight. It is a completely different language that my husband and I speak. I feel as if I have bought a few translators and am making a real effort to get to know the culture and the people, but the language is still a mystery. I think my husband is still sratching his head and wondering how he ended up in this foreign land.
Apology accepted, CeMar. I can understand how frustrating it would be to have had the kind of relationship you did with your wife and then have it end.
To me, the HD vs LD situation is really one of the Chaser and the Hunted. For me, desire mostly comes from the thrill of the chase. In a new relationship (and I had many pre-marriage) I felt desire until I knew the relationship was secure. Then it fell off. My X was always there, never let me chase him. One relationship I had before marriage was with a man who was LD. I definitely would have been after him if the relationship had continued! Thinking back on that rel. I can understand some of my X's frustration.
To me, desire has nothing to do with love at all. Desire has to do with lust, which has nothing to do with knowing a person. You could feel desire for a stranger on the bus. So it came as a shock to me to realize (all these years later) that my X thought I didn't love him because I didn't desire him.
To me, it's like this: I love socializing with groups of people. The X hated it. So we didn't do it. I would have loved to have had him enjoy that part of life with him. He hated it, it made him anxious. So we didn't socialize with groups that way. But I never felt consequently that my X didn't love me because he didn't like doing something I loved to do.
Carlotta, The difference is that you can socialize with people without your husband and it is socially and morally acceptable. It is not acceptable for your husband to get his need met with other people.
Your statement about lust and desire intrigued me. I don't understand the connection between "knowing" someone and desire. If you found them desirable at one time, physically or emotionally, then what specifically changes that? Are you saying that familiarity breeds contempt? Like, seeing someone burp, for instance, takes the mystique and sexiness out of the picture for you?
I have to tell you that I find this type of thinking so strange and foreign to me! I think my H is beautiful and sexy. The fact that he is human might affect my desire in that I probably will not find him sexy at the exact moment that he burps, but overall it doesn't affect it. 10 minutes later when he is looking fine and gives me a nice smile, I have completely forgotten anything that might have seemed "gross" at the time. Furthermore, do you think this is a fair way to approach romantic relationships? That the instant that person becomes human, it's all over? I'm not sure it is. I choose to focus on my H's positive and sexy traits, rather than go down the road of the reasons why he can be unattractive to me--and there are a lot of those, believe me!
I don't know if this is what you were getting at, so could you clarify it for me?
Carlotta, The difference is that you can socialize with people without your husband and it is socially and morally acceptable. It is not acceptable for your husband to get his need met with other people.
Your statement about lust and desire intrigued me. I don't understand the connection between "knowing" someone and desire. If you found them desirable at one time, physically or emotionally, then what specifically changes that? Are you saying that familiarity breeds contempt? Like, seeing someone burp, for instance, takes the mystique and sexiness out of the picture for you?
I have to tell you that I find this type of thinking so strange and foreign to me! I think my H is beautiful and sexy. The fact that he is human might affect my desire in that I probably will not find him sexy at the exact moment that he burps, but overall it doesn't affect it. 10 minutes later when he is looking fine and gives me a nice smile, I have completely forgotten anything that might have seemed "gross" at the time. Furthermore, do you think this is a fair way to approach romantic relationships? That the instant that person becomes human, it's all over? I'm not sure it is. I choose to focus on my H's positive and sexy traits, rather than go down the road of the reasons why he can be unattractive to me--and there are a lot of those, believe me!
I don't know if this is what you were getting at, so could you clarify it for me?
