I have been married for close to six years now. There is a ten year age separation between us. Our anniversary is on June 30th. We have been together for seven and half years. We did all the right things for the most part. I asked her father for her hand in marriage. We did not have sexual intercourse until our wedding night. We did do other things. Our first year of marriage started out like most married couples. Sex was at least twice a week. The second year things started to slow down and the years after that, sex slowed down even worse. During our third year, we welcomed a baby boy. I must admit, I did have a little post pardom depression. After six weeks, I want to resume our sex life. W did not. I learned that it takes a long time before the mother is ready for any kind of sex.
We had decided that W would quit working and finish her college degree. I got lucky and found a better job that paid more to help support our family. When W started college, the marriage issues seemed to have stared. I want to say that some of them were my fault. I knew that I was wrong with what I had contributed to our marriage problems.
The first one was that I had gotten jealous of her talking to her ex-boyfriend. I did all the wrong things and checked up on her. W did not like that at all. We had a talk about it. She asked me if I wanted her to stop talking to her ex. Deep down, I knew that there was nothing going on. I told W that it would be unfair for me to ask her to stop talking to him. I should be able to trust her with associating with other men. I thought that that was the end of it. It would come back later.
My second problem was again jealousy. This time it was professor. It was not as bad as the last one. But no execuses. You would think that I had learned my lesson from the first time.
My biggest issue through out our marriage is sex. It has been over a year now since we last had sex. I, like a lot of males, want sex more often than W. It is a way for me to feel closer to my W. To feel wanted and needed. We had a lot of arguments about the sex issue. She didn’t want. She was happy with just having sex to reproduce a child.
About May of 2006, things got really bad. W came to a point that she wanted to divorce. She was unhappy. She felt that she had changed so much since college. She felt that we could not connect anymore. I remember that night of when she said that our marriage was over and that having sex with me made her cringe. I was devastated. I could not believe what was going on. She gave me thirty days. Til this day, I have no idea what was suppose to happen after the thirty days. I slept on our couch for a month wondering what would become of us. I am not much of a religious man but, I prayed every night for God to help us save our family and marriage. Thirty days passed, nothing happened. No one move out.
I had bought DB and DM books for me to read. I went dark on W and did not bring anything relationship related to W. I started to look at myself more and think about what I was doing wrong in our marriage. I went to personal counseling sessions for about several months after her bomb. I learned that I was not really listening to my W when she would tell me what bothered her. I kept taking what she said and tried to fix her, in her eyes. Part of that is true. I was also trying to understand where she was coming from. I read a lot of the forums and other help sites to give me some help in understanding what was happening to me. I did learn a lot.
We went on our annual family vacation to a beach in July of ‘06. We have gone to this beach every summer for that last five years. We had a really great time. We had such a great time that we went a second time a few weeks later. W and I were getting along almost like the days of old. She even allowed me to touch her to put sun block on her. I had been afraid to touch her for fear of rejection from her.
When we got home, we found out that our sister in law was pregnant. W got all excited and wanted to get pregnant too. She thought about for a couple days and decided that she didn’t want to right now. This is a reoccurring theme for her. Throughout the past year, she would mention the baby issue two more times. It is almost like she feels that nothing is wrong when, deep down, there are a lot of issues. In the past year, I have never brought up any relationship issues. I have always left it up to her. I think her issue right now is the trust issue. I also think that since she is a teacher, she has seen children from broken homes are going through and did not want for us to go through that. So, I know that in her way, she is trying. She could have walked out last year if she really wanted to. Right now we are living like roommates.
Let me sum this up a little. My stitch is getting too long. We have a marriage where both parents are very involved with our son. We do all the chores pretty much 50/50. Sometimes I may do more, sometimes she does. Neither one of us smoke, no drugs, no physical abuse from either party. We talk everyday about work, school and family. We both aree on how to raise our son. We are both great parents. W and do go out to eather dinner together, just the two of us. I think what really bothers me the most is the no physical contact between the two of us. I really look at our marriage was always a trial and error. All I want is for W to love me for who I am and for what I am not. That is all.
I have suffered through low self esteem, rejection and not being wanted. I have had my W tell me that she didn’t want me. Yet through it all, I stayed. I stayed because we took those vows of marriage. I am not done yet fighting for our marriage. So I sign on and off with Miawip, which means Marriage Is A Work In Progess. Thank you all for reading my stitch.
