Thank you so much for taking time to address my situation. I loved your book and I think it’s great that you are so willing to help others through your personal involvement in this message board. Being new to this, I originally posted in the newcomers forum, but after reading more of the posts I realized that this is the more appropriate forum for my situation. My original post yielded a couple of responses from Soupman, and I think that my replies to his questions will be helpful in addressing yours. Therefore I’m including portions of my replies below and expanding upon them as appropriate.
“The Sex-Starved Marriage” made me realize how detrimental "the argument" is to my situation. I've let my wife know how I feel on numerous occasions (verbally), but I don't think that she really understands. No matter how gently I try to approach her about the subject of our sexual relationship, she perceives everything that I say as criticism. I’ve also tried communicating my feelings to her in writing, which worked better from the standpoint that it didn’t result in an argument. However, after reading what I’d written, she didn't wanted to discuss it with me nor did anything seem to change. I know that she loves me, and I honestly think that she does care about how I feel, but not enough to make much of an effort to fix things. I've mentioned counseling to her before, but she won't consider it. I've even considered going for counseling by myself but have been putting it off in hopes that things will get better. I think she has some valid reasons to avoid sex, but I also think that they can be overcome. She's often very tired due to her job, housework, and taking care of the girls. That's why I'm trying to do everything that I can to help her. She's also put on some weight, although really not very much, since having children. She actually looks wonderful still, but she was very thin and athletic growing up so any amount of weight gain affects her self-image greatly. She's also fairly "high-stress" and gets frustrated quite easily, which doesn't help matters.
It's now been about three weeks since I finished reading the book. The strategy that I came up with after reading it is basically this:
1. Communicate with her more about things that she is interested in. Be her best friend and try to be supportive in everything that she does. Never be critical. Compliment her often and genuinely.
2. Do everything possible to help her around the house and with the girls - without her having to ask. Try to make her life easier so that she has time to relax and do the things she wants to do rather than things that she has to do.
3. Never bring up anything that might lead to the "sex argument". Don't initiate anything sexual, at least for a while. Don't pout. Act like everything is wonderful even when I'm really feeling down. This is the hardest part for me because I have trouble disguising the fact that I'm hurting.
It's hard to tell if any of this is working yet - aside from the sex argument we usually get along very well. She hasn't initiated anything yet, but I don't expect to see any drastic results for a while as I've basically tried these things before. My problem in the past has been that after 2 or 3 weeks I can't take it anymore and I say something to her, often starting an argument and setting us back. This time I plan to stick with it, although doing so would be so much easier if I only had some idea of how long it would take to see some positive results.
