I'm not like most other men my age. I'm very affectionate towards my wife and make sure she feels loved at all times. I'm sure if anyone were to ask her, she would say she has never felt unloved. Maybe that has made her too confident, that the love will never go away, so she doesn't have to put any effort into the relationship. The funny thing is, no matter what is going on, it has no impact on her sex drive...it is still exceptionally low.
If she were here, would she say something like this?
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I'm not like most other women my age. I'm very affectionate towards my husband and make sure he feels loved at all times. I'm sure if anyone were to ask him, he would say he has never felt unloved. . . . I even took naked pictures of myself for him to have when he couldn't have me! How many women woudl do that? The funny thing is, no matter what is going on, it has no impact on his sex drive... he never stops pestering me to give him sex no matter what.
If she doesn't understand that you feel unloved (and I'll bet you $100 she doesn't) then it's probably dangerous for you to assume she's happy, right?
I haven't been quite where you are, but I remember being a newlywed trying to figure out why I couldn't interest my wife in sex. We dated for four years before we got married (we met in college) and honestly, we were having problems with sex before we got married. But I couldn't imagine life without her, and after all, we were living in separate places--for the last six months before we got married, she was at home student teaching and I was at school 200 miles away. There wasn't much chance of sex, especially since when we did get to visit, I usually had to drive to her parents' house, which is not a sexy place no matter what they show in the movies, kids.
I actually brought up the issue of sex before we got married. I told her I wanted to be married to her for 50 years, but I wanted to be making love in that 50th year. She told me she thought things would be better when we had our own place to live and "all the pressure of school and the wedding are over" (yes, we were dumb kids) but she couldn't promise me anything. I thought it over and decided that was good enough.
Now I'm 8 years into a sex-starved marriage with three kids. I'm not sure what I think of that early conversation. Maybe I should have left her, but I've had a good marriage, really. When you're not getting any, you think making love is more important than anything else. It's very important, but there are other things too.
You, however, sound deeply unhappy. Give her the SSM book and tell her you NEED her to read it. It's important to you, even if it doesn't make sense. Show her this thread, too. Anything to wake her up before you have ten more years' worth of frustration and anger, because let me tell you, my anger is KILLING my attempt to be rational and fix my SSM. It's just about impossible to be reasonable when you've got a catalog of a thousand things your spouse has done wrong over the years playing in your head--and it's that much worse for her, too, if you wait, because she probably has no idea how you feel (even though you told her--it's not fair, but it's real) and when you do get through to her, she's going to feel shocked and guilty. If the book and this forum had been around when I was in my first year of marriage, I really think I'd be in a different marriage today.
