Pat yourself on the back,... or better yet, ask H for a massage to reward you for your hard work. I am convinced there is no "endpoint" where you are back where you were before you suddenly lost your interest in sex. You are looking forward to a "new place" and I want to also.
My sitch is I'm 52, with 53 yo W, three D's, 2nd D deceased 16 months ago at 20. She was W's pride and joy, my fishing buddy and beautiful friend. Prior to her loss, W and I had been doing the sexual slippy-slide (SSS ?) apart over the previous 5 years. As I pushed my W, the less desirous of us, she said she wanted more affection, less frequent sex. I did what I thought would work, back rubs, ... hand holding, hugs and kisses, ... with some occasional pushing, which I regret. No forced sex, ... just stronger suggestions than usually fits my personality. The less we loved, ... the less we loved, ... not an unusual pattern. My D's death stopped us both in our tracks, ... not unusual. A little like having an ice storm on top of a blizzard.
In hopes of finding a way back to a warmer loving life, I found Michele's site and book, SSM. I ordered it, read it cover to cover over about a week and wanted to share it with my W. I put a note with it, saying that I thought this was a wonderful book about us, that helped me to understand our differences. I asked her to read it. She's an avid reader, ... but she said that "It was too late."
She has since told me to find a girlfriend, but not to let my daughter find out, ... I know that will not work! It breaks my promises to her, ... and to me!
I do need to think and regroup my view. Today is better, ... because I still love her, and want to understand her. But she has let our M go altogether.
So, ... help me if you can. I know when I am affectionate and aroused, but my W believes she never is, nor wants to be again. I want to keep our M, ... and won't leave, but hope to have W change her heart while I will stay in the house. Because I love her so, I want to understand the sense of never wanting sex that she feels. In any event I want to understand her well enough to stay, and not be angry any more than I can help.
I'm so smitten, I look at her current pictures on my PC, smiling, with her full head of salt and pepper hair, same as I. What I love best is her smile, ... and I know I don't bring that back to her often, as things are now. Looks as beautiful to me now as the day she first grabbed my heart. That, is something I need to manage. Not sure a 180 to "thinking she is ugly" will work, if you understand my meaning.
At times she seems to be "running the other way", ... sort of a WAW to abstinence, ... but she does not leave the M, or the house.
So, ... help me if you can, to understand the thought that goes with thinking you never care to have sex again, ... For me it is a sort of sentence we pronounce upon ourselves, unwillingly. And it seems to sad. She seems to want to believe she won't want sex again, in order to keep life simpler, less involved.
So I will re-read SSM's last chapter,... and hope it does not apply to us. Even more, ... I believe that there are insights in SSM that my W would love, and understand, ... if she would simply read it.
I am curious how others have gotten a reluctant S to read SSM. It is such a fair representation of human sexuality, ... but comes with my endorsement, by my recommendation, and so my W suspects there is an ulterior motive.
Thank you, Jen SG
I guess the only way to stop divorce is to stop marriage.
--Will Rogers
