Desire is still not going to be based simply on the fact that hey may work out to keep his body in the shape she might like....it is not as simple as basing it always on just what HE does. Outside influences DO affect people's libidos...maybe not yours, but it DOES affect MANY people's. Just the plain and simple fact that she has now clued us in to the fact that she's helping her mom with her cancer is enough to be a big drain on her energy levels.
So her H could (in your example) work out and keep his body in shape and her libido could still take a nose-dive right now, and it would have NOTHING to do with what he's doing or not doing. Sometimes life just simply interfers. For a woman...desire will never be based just on one, two, or even three things...many things influence our libido....and has already been pointed out to you "desiring" is not a choice we make, we can WANT to desire, but we cannot make ourselves do so.
But doesn't your wife likely view it the same way??
You have set the conditions and now started an endless blame game. Why would we assume that SHE should meet your needs first (unconditionally), while you get to wait and see if she "merits" QT/desire (conditional)?
If she doesn't merit QT, then why should you merit desire? Think about it. She might see your WOA, AOS or QT as PROOF of your desire for her just as you see touching and ML as PROOF of her desire for you. Again I understand it's really hard to see that your love languages actually SHOW the same emotion and desire in different ways. You think that it is "crazy" for her to see AOS for you as desire but maybe that is how she is showing her love and instead of appreciating it, you despise it. I know it would hurt me deeply if my BF did not appreciate my efforts WHATEVER they may be.
Here is a complete guess at Mrs Cemar: For 2 years before and 2 years after marriage you and she love each other and ML almost every day. Each of you thinks that the other loves them unconditionally. Then you and Mrs. have a baby AND Mrs. is diagnosed with Hypothyroid. She, along with MANY other symptoms, physically does not feel up to sex. From her POV, you immediately start moping and pouting about YOUR lack of sex. Here she is PHYSICALLY ILL and the love of her life only seems to care that his life is changed. Did you empathize with her and her changes? She enjoys having a clean house because a dirty house reminds her of her unpleasant childhood. So she does make an effort at keeping the house clean. Rather than understanding why a clean house has such importance to her you view it as freakin' stupid waste of time. Again you denigrate her needs and feelings as unimportant and stupid. You view it as why in the world does she have this idiotic POV when she should be taking care of your needs. IF she does indeed feel that you do not empathize with her feelings and issues, why would she feel desirous of you? As soon as she was ill, you chose to not desire HER as your wife. You only desired her conditionally when she was healthy.
Really I just feel sorry for you and pity you.
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
Cemar is Cemar. If you go back on his posts, you can insert anyone of them from a couple of years back, into today's posts and they would fit right in. Why? Because he hasn't changed and is still waiting for his W to do all the work and that is the primary reason nothing in Cemar's life has or will change in the near future - if ever (regardless of whether he is with his current W or divorces and remarries)
Heywyre
M - 57 H - 65 1st A-bomb - Nov 27/02 2nd A-bomb - Dec 13/06 together 21 years *************************** Insanity is doing something over and over and expecting different results (Albert Einstein)
I think desire is a natural occurence in a relationship but it does have it's ups and downs for us based on all kinds of things. Desire is "based on all kinds of things", in other words, you just made desire CONDITIONAL. THis means you just made meeting your husbands needs CONDITIONAL upon what he does to MERIT the meeting of his needs. I assume then that he ALSO gets to meet your needs CONDITIONALLY, and then you will end up stuck, because he can not meet your needs since you can not meet his. Unless of course you expect that he must meet your needs UNCONDITIONALLY, while you get to meet his conditionally.
You are right! H and I do NOT have a totally UNconditional M. We do meet each others needs according to conditions that we have somehow, probably without even verbalizing, agreed upon through the years. We both have expectations of the other and some unwritten rules, you might say. An example; let's say I have something I want to talk to H about, and I start talking in the middle of a Packer Game, I think H is not going to be very receptive to this convo. I KNOW it is not that he doesn't ever want to talk just that I need to find a better time. Wouldn't this be a "condition" to my QT ? So if I say no sex tonight honey but in the morning, this is a "condition" but it does not mean I am not meeting his needs. Our "conditions" are not based on a childish stance of "you didn't give me what I want so I am not going to give you what you want" Our conditions are, IMHO, an ongoing negotiation according to the circumstances at the time. We both try to meet each others needs & our own through some compromise. Again, why I am here, to get advice on how to keep my desire up to meet his needs. BTW - I would be angry if H tried to talk during a Packer game unless it was a real blow out
Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle. (Amy Bloom)
I thnk that maybe part of the problem us couples have is that for people that really don't feel desire, they confuse desire with love. Can you explain to me how my wife cleaning the house is somehow showing me PHYSICAL DESIRE for me?
Maybe we need to understand how often you need to keep your desire up? If you PHYSICALLY desire your husaband on MOST days, you are doing great. Most of us on here would KILL for that. But if you find that you are going for more than a couple of days and feeling no desire, then your going to have problems. So can you tell us more about the amount of time your NOT desiring him?
As you said, we have created an endless blame game. So lets stop that. No more blame game. THis goes for BOTH spouses. Each spouse will have to meet the others needs irregardless of what the other does. How can this be done? Neither will go first, they will go at the same time.
Your replies to me say it all. You have no willingness for looking inward to yourself and no willingness to try to empathize with someone else's pain.
Both your replies are full of deflection away from you and are back on your wife. Not one empathetic comment about how your wife might feel. No understanding that her withdrawal from you might actually be the only way she thinks she can protect herself from you. You show yourself to be just the way her family was for her growing up. They were not there for her so she had to take care of herself and she was okay. Now you are not there for her so she merely had to go back to what she already knew.
You have never even mentioned here whether you know if your wife feels content with her life and the marriage or not. Does she complain to you about anything?
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
As you said, we have created an endless blame game. So lets stop that. No more blame game. THis goes for BOTH spouses. Each spouse will have to meet the others needs irregardless of what the other does. How can this be done? Neither will go first, they will go at the same time.
Cemar I think you need to say this to your wife.
But what is wrong with going first?
Are you here to get help or just vent frustrations? I think if you let the people here know that you just want to vent that would be OK and we wouldn't get as frustrated with you if we knew you really didn't want advice. Kind of the way we talk about "females" and that when we talk to our H's we don't necessarily want them to solve our problems we just want them to listen.
I am short on time, I will answer your questions later.
Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle. (Amy Bloom)
