Thanks for you kind words on that other post. I find that strength is something we all have within us; it's just a matter of believing in ourselves, which admittedly is not always an easy thing to do.
I must say that I empathize with your situation, I myself have for a large majority of my R with my H been the LD one. He has told me on numerous occasions how extremely important sex is to him and how it is such a vital part of his life. I'll just come right out and say I DIDN'T GET IT, no matter how many times he gently tried to bring it up, I never really got that he was trying to relate to me that his needs weren't being met. I'm not even sure if he understood that that was what was going on, I hope that doesn't sound demeaning to him, but he is just such a mellow, loving, caring, understanding dream guy(I know I really screwed it up) who would NEVER in a million years try to push anything on anyone.
Sex has never been an easy thing for me, embarrassed by my sexuality is probably the best way to describe my issue. When we first started dating we had sooo much sex, all the time, like rabbits as some would say, I had a great time, loved it, loved the intimacy, the closeness, the attraction, for me though, I started out by admitting to him that I had never had an orgasm, which I think may have been a turn-on/challenge to him and after a short while I did fake it, I don't know why I did, it just kind of happened, I think that my motivation was to try to endear him to me at another level, who knows, I suppose there isn't much reason to delve into that weighty subject.
So for about 6 months I kept him believing that I was achieving the same kind of bliss he was each and every time we had sex, of course this led to increasing anxiety on my part and I eventually told him that I had lied and I still hadn't had one. He was hurt, but understanding and very loving, mostly I think it made him really sad that I was missing out on something that was so important to him. We tried and tried and didn't have much success, he'd never been with anyone that had had problems and I'd never been with anyone who really cared/knew enough to try to do anything about it. So we floundered and had no success. Sex became even less desirable for me since it felt more and more like I was failing every time that we had sex and I felt like somehow my inability was hurtful to him (my own projections here). One time after sex, I was crying again and I got really upset and in my own pretty unsophisticated way of communicating my own needs and feelings I told him I NEVER WANTED TO HAVE SEX AGAIN. Wow!!!! He took me on my word and didn't try to approach me sexually for three months, at this point I am starting to feel unloved, undesirable, etc. In another round of impeccable timing I wait until we are at the theater waiting for the show to start and I lean over and whisper in his ear "Are we ever going to have sex again?" I can’t even imagine how this made him feel, but I have since learned that it was excruciatingly painful for him to have me say this. Here I had “asked him to give up something of extreme importance” and he had gotten to the point where he thought he might be okay with it, he loved me so much and just wanted to make me happy. I, of course, didn’t really want to not have a sex life, I just really didn’t know how to deal with how I was feeling and the issues that we were going through. I think this was probably the start of the problems in our relationship. Fast forward six years and I have definitely become a more sex desiring person, but I’ve never gotten any better at being the initiator. I have always waited for him to initiate, of course if he tries to initiate when I’m not really in the mood, too tired, stressed, whatever, then of course I don’t want to have sex. After reading part of SSM, I am beginning to understand that my thinking all along that if I’m not in the mood before sex then I don’t want to have sex. Where Michelle talks about the order of things in sexual encounters not necessarily being linear makes so much sense to me and how I am sexually. I don’t necessarily want it, but if I “give in” and we have sex I would often find myself thinking or saying things like, “Why don’t we do this more often?” or “We need to do this every day!” Of course I still would always wait for him to be the initiator. I think in a lot of ways he could get better about his part in it and do things a little differently, meet me half way as Michelle talks about. Now I worry though that I will never have the chance, I worry that it’s too late to put all of this great knowledge to work. I guess in the end I want to just say that it is possible to go from being the LD spouse who just doesn’t “get it” to being a person who understands the importance and wants to work on improving that area of a relationship. I really don’t know what difference it makes me being a woman and your situation being with a LDH, but I think that there is hope for you. That physical, intimate part of a relationship is so important in maintaining love, respect and trust, it’s just so unfortunate that when things get stressed and time crunched it seems to be the first thing to slip away and then the lack of it just compounds so many things that don’t really have to be problems at all.
