Sex-Starved Husband. Will Work For Sex.

[Strong&Alive]

SillyOldBear,

The title of your thread says it all - you have an impoverished way of thinking about sex and ultimately yourself.

I know exactly where you're coming from, having myself done and felt many of the things you've described.

But you have to change your way of thinking about life itself, not just sex. I'm going to give you a few quick pointers.

"But for me, this is like a kid on Christmas morning with all the presents opened; it was great, but I know it's going to be a long time before it happens again, and I'm going to be rejected many times between now and then."

This is not just a metaphor, is it? You really need to stop thinking of yourself as kid and sex as a reward for being "good" - that almost inevitably affects your vibes and your actions. You are not a kid and your wife is not your mother. Its not an attractive sexual dynamic. Think about it.

"I feel hurt by her rejection, and I know I'm angry and irritable."

Been there, done that. It doesn't work. You need to cultivate an inner masculine strength, sense of purpose, and calm. That's what women find desirable, not being "pestered".

"My (irrational?) fear is that she'll decide she likes the new asexual eunuch/husband version of me and I'll be an even bigger disappointment to her if I decide not to be this sexless guy anymore."

A combination of fear and a desperate need for her approval. Not masculine, not attractive and not sexy.

"We've both gained a LOT of weight since we met. Stressful jobs, kids--all the excuses. I find her irresistible."

Why? I mean no disrespect to your wife, but why? Have a good think about that one.

"She finds me resistible. I lost over 100 pounds two years ago, but it made no lasting difference in our sex life and I gained it back."

So you only do things - even very important and positive things that you should be doing for yourself anyway - because you think you'll be rewarded with sex from her - is that the kind of man you wanted to be? If it isn't, then you need to start thinking about the kind of man you want to be - entirely distinct from your wife's perceived approval, desire for you or indeed anyone else's opinion of you. Cut yourself free from the tangle of constantly thinking about what she thinks of you - sexually, it gets you nowhere (as you must already realise), it holds you down from fulfilling your life's potential, and it also crowds out the psychic space between you and your wife, the spiritual garden as it were, in which a healthy kind of sexual attraction would grow.

"Our house is a wreck. We bought a 100-year-old money pit thinking we'd take our time and restore it--and then we took on the twins, and we were just trying to survive."

Your (and her) choice. Be responsible for your choices (or the fact that you let her choose). There is no golden rule written anywhere that says your life has to be (i) easy, (ii) full of sex, or even (iii) at least fair. You do however have complete freedom of choice in how you emotionally and physically respond to life - but you have clearly relinquished that power.

"Recently I completed a nursery for the baby and two new bathrooms are coming, but our bedroom is a disaster and constantly cluttered. I know that's not romantic, but I don't know what she wants me to do about it when she has four other rooms plus the outdoors she wants me to handle first. When I finished the nursery, framed, wired, insulated, glazed, drywalled, paneled, doored, floored, trimmed and painted by myself, her comment was "I didn't think you'd be able to do it."

You could take an Executive Decision to at least tidy the bedroom next. That would spell out to her that (i) certain things are important to you, and that (ii) you act accordingly. There's no need to do this in a chauvinist way - just "Honey, I think you and I need some calm and private space amidst all that we have going on here." A separate point is that you have a wife that appears to fundamentally disrespect you and is profoundly ungrateful - and that's ignoring the lack of sex altogether.

"She's struggled with depression. She won't see a therapist, but whenever sex comes up, depression comes out. She has medication from her general practitioner, which I find wacky. I wish she'd see a doctor who specializes in the brain if she thinks there's a problem in the brain."

This may or may not be the case. It may be a deliberate excuse, or it may be the best way she can rationalise what is "wrong" with her. Guess what - its not your job to fix her or "make" her happy. That's her job. So stop trying to fix her and focus on rebuilding yourself mentally and physically.

"The best example I can think of is the year she gave me one of those silly "I Owe You" sex coupon books you get in gag stores for Christmas. I guess she thought it was a funny joke to give her sex-starved husband a book of promises about sex, but I took her seriously. At that time we hadn't had sex for about six months. I brought it to her, and the first thing she did was go through the book--which she hadn't read before giving it to me--and tell me which pages she wasn't going to do . . . sex in the backyard, a couple of others.
Well, OK, not much in the spirit, but fair enough, especially since our backyard fence is chain link. Over the next two years, I brought that book to her dozens of times. I tried to use the coupons for sex, for a shower together, for a backrub . . . . eventually, out of sheer desperation, I tried every one.

In the end I burned the damn thing. I don't really know why she gave it to me. She couldn't bring herself to honor one single coupon out of that stupid gag gift. I don't know whether she intended to honor it when she gave it to me, but I can't fathom why she would:

1. Give me such a gift, knowing how depressed I already was by her constant rejection, if she was going to treat it as a joke, or
2. Give me such a gift, intending to let me use it to spark sex between us, and then be so disgusted by me that she couldn't even bring herself to give me a backrub."

Apart from pointing out that "sheer desperation" is pointless (and on a spiritual level quite unnecessary) I don't really know what to think of this at this stage. It raises some interesting possibilities as to what your wife wants or expects with regard to sex.

"I have never cheated and will never cheat. I don't want a divorce. I don't want another woman. I want to make love to my wife. I love her and I promised her my whole life, and I will give it to her.
That said, it kills me that she's set this Catch-22 trap for me. I can't have sex with any other woman because I loved her so much that I was eager to stand up and forswear all other women forever."

Start taking control of your own thoughts and your power. Show me any man that mentally has resigned himself to his marriage for ever and ever and ever...no matter what his wife says or does, and I will show you a man that thinks and acts as if he doesn't deserve a good marriage and a good sex-life, and that is constantly trying to "please" his wife while simmering inwardly with resentment and anger. Oh, and I will also show you his wife, who senses he is weak, will put up with just about anything, and treats him as a doormat. Forget the fairy-tales - this is real life. I am not advocating divorce, but what I am saying is that this whole self-denying "I will never divorce you" vibe is fearful, weak and therefore unattractive. The day my own life started its long process of turning around was the day I started seriously contemplating life after divorce - the kind of man that I would need and want to be. Well...that day I started attempting to be that man, and despite fallbacks and pits, kept at it (and continue doing so) and my marriage has definitely improved as a result. You must change your mindset. You are no-one's prisoner. This marriage is your choice, not your prison. You can leave if you choose, if your wife continues to disrespect and ignore your feelings, and you will at some point have to make that clear.

"I get to be the good father to our kids, and I get to be the good handyman who restores her dream house for her, and I get to drive the junk car so she can drive the car she wants. These are all things I WANT to do, but I can't help but notice that it seems like it only matters that I want to do them because she wants me to do them too. I never wanted to be her roommate."

If you don't mind me saying so, that was quite a rant. You must be honest with yourself. Do things because (i) you objectively should, (ii) you truly want to irrespective of reward, with (iii) a polite but firm "No" to the rest. Reading between the lines, there is much more to your marriage than a lack of sex: you have become enmeshed in a constant year-after-year succession of doing things and sacrificing things all to please her, in a vain struggle for her "approval" i.e. sex. Read no more mr nice guy by dr robert glover and then the way of the superior man by david deida. If you want to make any real and lasting progress at all, you will have to "reset" your whole perspective on life, women and sex. You do not, as you have so far programmed yourself, "need" sex to function as a man. Nor is there any entitlement to sex as such, but there are essential differences between men and women - how they interact verbally, emotionally, physically, what they perceive as attractive in each other - that can be learned and tapped into.

I suggest you also read my lengthy posts to Tyguy, Tired Of Pain, and Near The End and put together your own plan of what you want to do. I would be happy to help further when I have time.

If you've had the initiative to come here, you already have within you what it takes to sort all this out.

Be grateful for the opportunity of exciting changes that you've been given by this situation.

All the best,

SA