Remember me? We exchanged posts here for awhile after I had discovered the book and was on my way to marital bliss. We seemed to be moving in the same direction at about the same speed....
After three months of putting this book into practice, it seems my H and I are on the verge of taking the same turn you have...I was wondering if you (and any other HD person) would be willing to talk through some questions I have...I am befuddled...
I know you are at an all time low in terms of how you feel about your marriage, but if you'd be willing to help me out, I sure would appreciate it.
Hi, Corri. I do remember you, and yes, query away.
I may have some answers. We have been working through this, and some unexpected answers to seemingly impossible issues have come up. I will post progress in a (unfortunately) long post later. In the mean time, fire away.
-NOPkins-
I will ferret out an affair at any opportunity.
-An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. -An infidel will remain unreachable so long as their sense of entitlement exceeds their ability to reason.
I will condense our progress for the sake of space...
Welp, we broke from the gate, fast and hard. For two months, our marriage was what it had been when we were dating...lots of sex, good conversations, laughing...and God, no stress.
In late May, our lives took a turn. In short, my H was promoted at work to the job he has been waiting for all his professional life...due to that, I was able to quit my job and start my own freelancing business. We talked long hours about our decisions, and we both felt really good about what we decided.
I knew his new position was going to create a whole new realm of stress for him, and I cautioned him many times that he would have to remain communicative...with me and those with whom he works. Verbal communication has never been one of his strong points, and I know when he gets stressed, it becomes even less so.
In June, our sex frequency began to slip. Mostly because he was dead tired from making this professional transition. I could see and feel him withdrawing into himself. I decided I would give him his space, try not to make demands on him, because I knew what he was facing at work.
Hindsite is 20-20, right? I suppose if I had to do it all over, I would have made the supreme effort of initiating sex as much as I possibly could. But I decided to let him determine the pace...
He took it as though I was withdrawing. Okay, that's NOT how I meant it...I thought he needed space...but what he needed was more physical contact for reassurance. Okay, I can deal. I thought I'd start again and do two-week challenge again.
But he seems to have changed....he has started complaining again, listing out for me his expectations, waiting for me to take the initiative, expecting back-rubs, foot-messages...he's looking for the old Porn tapes....and I think to myself, Oh God...
I don't enjoy Porn. Never have, never will. Period.
My immediate reaction was to fire back at him...but I've held my tongue because this path is worn very deep with us. And it gets us to the big Nowhere. Now I'm sitting trying to figure out what it is he wants from me. He's obviously having a hard time verbalizing it....hence his complaints. Thrown into all this is the stress of his new job. There are stresses for me as well, having started my own freelance business...and I think to myself, wow...what did we do to ourselves?
I am sorely tempted to fall into a grand ole pity party for myself...because I feel so unappreciated...I thought I had made a tremendous leap for him, for us, and now it seems like he is throwing it back in my face, saying that was good enough then, but it isn't good enough now....
However, I am proud to say that I am not venturing down the road of self-pity. There is an answer here, I know it.
I think that quantity of sex at first was what he needed because he was starved (and to be honest, so was I...I just didn't know it. And, it was good, too.)
But now, I think we are moving into the quality part of it. That's cool. I think maybe where we're hitting a cross-roads is the definition of what quality is??????
He does not realize right now how physcially agressive he is being...I feel like he wants to turn our bedroom into a Romper Room...the sheer physicalness he is seeking, the amount of passion he wants...I'm sure is his stress seeking an outlet. At least that is the way it feels. I feel completely overwhelmed by him...almost like I'm a passenger rather than a participant. I'm not up on level 10, though, and it seems he is angry at me because I'm not.
Now I feel like I'm standing in the remains of a tornado, wondering where the hell that blew in from?
Can you help me put this in perspective? What am I dealing with here? I am CLUELESS.
After a long talk on Tuesday, Here is how we have decided to proceed.
I will place no sexual pressure on her to be anything, with no minimum standards, other than reasonable frequency, so that she can finally figure out what she really likes or not. The pressure has been a source of confusion for her. I can believe that. As it turns out, she really does like sex, but as far as knowing what she really likes or not, she is probably at an inexperienced level. Please don't point your fingers at me. I certainly never tried to hold her back from figuring out what she wanted. That was caused by her misinterpretation of my motivations.
After the third round of explaining to her that her wanting me was not not to be defined as her being some wild woman sexually, I think she finally got it. This issue has been a sore spot in the past, and I thought we were already past it, but I guess not.
In a suprise turn of events, she says that she likes my playful hugs, nibbles, and other affections with sexual overtones. I had stopped doing any of that. She wants that back.
As for the gifts and self image issue, according to her, it is still a self image issue. We discussed that for a while. I have no idea what to do about anyone's self image. The woman caused car accidents when she was younger, just walking down the street. I am very serious. Even then, she thought she was too much something or not enough of something else. I can't fix that, even though I applied all the standard arguments.
It will take a while for me to get over the pain of starvation. It will take her a while to get over trying to live up to unrealistic expectations. It will take patience and time for both of us. That means that I have to be willing to wait longer for all this to hopefully settle. As of today, I think I can handle that. I don't know how I will feel about it next week.
My attraction to her is improving, although it took a nasty blow.
In my interpretation of the whole issue, I don't think my logic was flawed, although my approach might have been. It is entirely possible, however, that even having the discussion could have caused her to walk away, rendering all the argument academic anyway.
I did and still do, love her.
I never mentioned the D word.
I will give additional details as I have time or if requested.
For what it is worth, and for reasons I simply have no explanation for, the last two nights have given me, by far, the most intense orgasms of my life. Yes, girls, it does vary greatly for the guys too :-) There is no special emotional state. I am no more "pent up" than I have been in the past. I wouldn't really have noticed if the orgasms could have been plotted as a point inside the normal range. These things redefined the entire scale....
-NOPkins-
I will ferret out an affair at any opportunity.
-An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. -An infidel will remain unreachable so long as their sense of entitlement exceeds their ability to reason.
We do it, sometimes often, sometimes not much, my choice.
I am tired of asking or initiating. All encounters have to be planned in advance, and should preferably occur before 8:00pm.
We do the basically the same thing every time. I ask, we do, she pops, I pop, all alright. Average elapsed time - 20 minutes. So far (probably forever), not much in the way of exploration or experimentation.
Those of you that have followed my previous posts know that I like sex a lot, just not on an installment plan.
I find I am asking less and less. Maybe that was her original plan. If so, she wins. I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to discuss it with her. Beating a dead horse and all that, or monkey in this case, to death...
So, I am out of ideas and ready to just forget it and move on. All this started becoming a serious issue in 1991 when much business travel interrupted the "routine". Having a routine is nothing new. I was already very tired of it then.
To be perfectly honest, I knew way back that she was inhibited, I thought I could fix it. I was wrong. Great sex before marriage, but not after. I did the "right thing" and stuck it out. I had my own large list of unseemlies as well, so I had no claim to perfection.
Well, I can't fix it, and there is no unihibited woman just waiting to get out. I sure as hell don't want to toss all the effort and hard work, property and money to start over. I want to learn to live with it, but I doubt I can do that. If I didn't love her, it would be easy to live with.
I am trying to learn "numb" as a way of life regarding our relationship. I want to be kind and do some things with her that she enjoys, but not get so entangled with the relationship that the "obsession" of trying to fix the relationship doesn't creep back in. Numb seems like a good way to be right now - I am really tired of trying.
I am considered quite the expert in my work, one of the top people in my field. I have never had a problem that I couldn't engineer a solution to, except this one :-)
Oh well...
I hope everyone is well, and that you folks are making progress with your spouses.
-NOPkins-
I will ferret out an affair at any opportunity.
-An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. -An infidel will remain unreachable so long as their sense of entitlement exceeds their ability to reason.
I am right there with you brother. Exactly like my situation. Except that I refuse to take "numb" as a way of life. Do you really "love" your wife enough to accept the unilateral removal of passion from your life? I, for one, hope you don't. If you are fortunately enough to live into old age, "numbness" is a decision you will regret....I guarantee it.
The case could be made that numb is a good way to get used to a different level of pain. It works for stitches.
I think the real issue is realization that this may be as good as it gets. In all honesty, it isn't bad. Frequent sex and a happy wife isn't a bad situation to come home to. It could be and has been, much worse.
If her attitude was malicious, then I would have cause for concern. I don't think it is. The problem is that I just can't seem to wrap my mind around the idea of permanence. Our relationship could have been so much more.
Still, the fact remains that our relationship isn't bad, and only one of us is moderately unsatisfied with it. I don't know how I can ask her to be something that she isn't, and probably is incapable of becoming.
If I had it to do over, I wouldn't have gone down this road 28+ years ago, but I do love her, and for a large part of our relationship, we have been mostly happy. I really think I am pushing the edge of stability to ask for more.
As for removal of passion, that won't happen. What I hope to do is learn how to channel it in directions that are less troublesome.
I thought for a long time that her motivations were suspect. I really don't think they are, and likely never were. She finds a routine very managable and enjoyable. Maybe it is because the rest of her life is highly variable that she finds a routine stabiliziing. I wish the routine could have been washing the car on Saturday instead of sexual routine. As I have said previously, routine based sex is about as attractive to me as eating monkey brains.
It seems to me that I need to find a place of appreciation for how far we have come, and make some effort to maintain the status quo. Let's face it, trying to find a replacement part that will fit exactly, is unlikely in the extreme. People aren't perfect. I am sure she is living with unrealized potential due to my shortcomings as well.
Even with the logic applied, it still pisses me off, but I do realize that I need to get past it. My life, nor hers, will never be perfect. You can hope for more, but once you have the basics, anything more is just icing. Obsessing on the icing, from my vantage point, appears to be a huge waste of resources.
I appreciate your opinion, MP, but I think I will have to take "numb" over pain at least for a little while until some of the injury heals.
-NOPkins-
I will ferret out an affair at any opportunity.
-An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. -An infidel will remain unreachable so long as their sense of entitlement exceeds their ability to reason.
Yeah, when you put it like that it does not sound too intolerable. I just don't like the sound of the word numb. It is pretty close to how I think I am going to have to end up if I want to stay married....and I don't like it. Maybe my expectations are too high, but I want my life to be full of all kinds of passion (not just sexual, although I want that to be part of it too), I want to be with someone who DESIRES intimacy with me as much as I desire it with her. Marriage just doesn't seem to be worth the price without passionate intimacy.
Could you give me some examples of what wouldn't seem routine to you? Is it her lack of enthusiasm, or lack of experimentation that has you down? If she showed 'desire' during the 'routine,' would you still see it as routine?
Routine is just that - the same thing everytime. I could give details, but that seems somehow inappropriate :-)
Nope, I still want from her what I wanted many, many moons ago and have previously expressed in this forum. She is incapable of giving it. I really don't think any parlor tricks or a different color of icing is going to change the flavor of this cake. I wish it would, I wish you could, but alas, our sex life is like M&M's, you can have multi-colors, but they all taste the same...
Also, the willingness thing seems to be sliding a bit, but that is probably due to lack of interest on my part. I don't think she can blame me for any of inhibition/lack of passion/performance anxiety/whatever it is that bothers her. We tried the "place the fault on me" game, but that withered from a lack of truth.
So, at least the bed sharing and frequency issues are currently solved. Nothing short of a hormonal miracle is going to solve the rest of the dilemma. It isn't her fault either, it is just the way it is. That is her personality, a personality that I really like for the most part.
The real solution is for me to learn to live with lowered, but realistic expectations.
I can precisely describe what I am wanting from her. That is why I know she can't give it. My mistake was in thinking I could "fix" her. I had previous relationships where the sex was near perfect, but other areas suffered, so I have a referent point (multiple ones actually) to judge by.
My post wasn't really intended as a cry for help, rather for commiseration purposes and possible archival in the event someone else happens along with similar issues.
I do very much appreciate the reply.
-NOPkins-
I will ferret out an affair at any opportunity.
-An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. -An infidel will remain unreachable so long as their sense of entitlement exceeds their ability to reason.
