I am a sex-starved wife. There...now I've come "out of the closet"... I have never shared this with anyone outside of my marriage. As all of you from this forum know, the deep feelings of rejection, sadness and self doubt caused by a SSM have enormous impact on every aspect of one's life, only I never quite put it all into perspective like that until recently.
I was approaching my 45 BD and suddenly felt strong pangs of MLC setting in. The depression and hopelessness tied to my long-term SSM were driving me to obsession over an exit strategy, feeling very selfish all the while that I would be willing to "throw it all away" primarily over sex. And then I found an article on CNN, titled "Help for Sex-Starved Wives". In it, Michele was interviewed about her new book, The Sex-Starved Wife, and that was the turning point for me. WOW! Suddenly validated, I was so relieved to hear someone else put into words exactly what I was feeling.
That is also how I found this board. I have been lurking here for a while, absorbing the wisdom and R techniques shared here...and sharing everyone's R highs and lows. I feel like you're all my new-found friends. After all, we share something in common that's so deeply personal. I am also very curious about what you have to say and any advice you have about my situation, since it follows a different pattern from the typical HDH/LDW scenario usually discussed here. I have only seen one LDH come forward and zero HDW's in recent history.
H and I both read The Sex-Starved Marriage and the book did have a profound impact on him. He has gone from not caring/"it is what it is" type of thinking to demonstrating affection and giving me "permission" to initiate ML...with enough warning for him to take a pill, that is. My concern is that he seems to be content now with this as a "solution". While it is a vast improvement from before, I still have much higher expectations for marriage and intimacy.
Examples: He doesn't seem to experience, from my observation, the intense feeling of connection and love described by the other men here during/after ML. In fact, before the book, he was perfectly content with platonic, "family" love in our marriage. Is this only experienced by HD men?
He shows no reaction to visual stimuli, i.e. me in a hot outfit, lingerie, or nothing at all.
He has no desire for me physically. He desires to please me, but as a woman, it's just not the same as him desiring me. He has no urge to explore my body, as some here have described with their wives. This makes his touches rather mechanical. WWW + XXX + YYY = O (Then we can ZZZZ)
Although he knows his testosterone levels are below normal, he makes excuses not to take the medication.
He's quick on the trigger...premature-E...and he views that as his normal. He doesn't care about working on it, which makes give and take during ML an impossible phenomenon if we want a mutually satisfactory conclusion.
He complained that sex in our R had become boring. I agree, but always attributed it to his need for efficiency, perhaps a way to compensate for the pre-E . And I can't touch him during ML in any way that might be stimulating or he will lose it.
Other than reading SSM, he's shown no other inclination to research ways to bring some passion to our M. I guess I would like for him to demonstrate his sincerity to change and show some leadership here. I would be thrilled if something new was his idea.
I'm sure there is more...I could go on and on, but this is already a really long first post.
Thanks for reading, and I welcome any suggestions for ideas to get my H off his stump. And if there are any LD men out there lurking who could share some insight, please follow me "out of the closet"!
Silverado
P.S. Did I mention H is a VERY GOOD MAN? And he is very open, and for that I am grateful. I just want to gather some ideas from others, both for him and for me.
