Waiting More Than a Dozen Years

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

This is my first post.

Let me apologize for this being relatively long.

This is my second marriage. I've been married 17 years, as of next month.

Let me premise what I write with this thought: I have always believed that a woman has the absolute right to decide and control if, when, and with whom she will be sexually intimate. I can't remember when or how that thought became part of who I am, but as a young adolescent and adult male, if a girl or woman did not want to be sexually involved with me, I thought that was her choice. So, my wife has the absolute right to make this choice, and she has.

Now, she has been married twice; once right out of high school when she was in college (he eventually left her for someone else) and the second time to someone that was at least as strong-willed as she was (and "controlling"). As things went badly in her second marriage, she was sleeping with her first husband, in part for revenge. I did not know her during any of this time and this is all stuff I learned early on when we started dating. In fact, her first husband kept showing up from time to time early in our relationship before she decided, without me forcing the issue, that she really needed to be done with that relationship. She was already divorced from her second husband when we met and she wasn’t going back to him, either. If it wasn’t for the fact that the two of them had a daughter together, she would not have had any contact with him. According to her, I was completely opposite of her second husband. I was so laid-back I was almost horizontal. Actually, she said I was much like her dad in temperament (whom had died a number of years before she and I met).

My first marriage had ended because my wife had an affair with a college student seven years younger than we were. We had a son nearly three years old when she started her affair with this student. A year later, the affair was revealed and she wanted to go off and live with him. Though I wanted to see if we could work things out, she divorced me and eventually married him. She would tell you that I re-emerged from that “as the person I first fell in love with” and developed into a wonderful father. She has told me that I was the best lover she has ever had. But after our son was born, our sex life just “went away” and then so did she. At the time, I felt used and little more than a sperm and name donor for “legitimacy.” After a relationship of 11 years and a marriage of 7 years, I gave myself nearly two years to heal from the pain of the affair before I was even willing to consider being available.

My current wife was the custodial parent of her daughter. I had joint custody of my son with my first wife. We managed to blend our families fairly well but there were issues and differences of opinions about how to deal with specific child raising issues. Our sex life and intimacy were good through the first several years of our relationship, but one of the greatest challenges in our discussions was about my first wife (who I would not verbally trash). As much as it all hurt, I my first wife’s choices as just being who she really was and that meant not being married to me any longer. It took my second wife 10 years from the time we met before she finally understood how I felt and viewed my relationship with my first wife, so that's not much of a point of contention any longer. I don't harbor not have I held such strong feelings about or towards her previous husbands. I was not there.


Six years after meeting, and well after we were both divorced, we got married. Our sex life had definitely slipped from the first couple of years after we met but it went in fits and spurts and it had its moments. I was more vocal about it than in my first marriage. Part of the off-times was her being angry with me about something but there was more than that, though I just couldn't put my finger on it.

So, here I am on the cusp of our 17th wedding anniversary.

As I type this, we are approaching 12 years and 3 months since the last time I had ANY sexual intimacy. And it is not of my choice. At the 10-year mark of this relationship and 4 years into the marriage, we were down to sexual intimacy about once every 6-8 months. Not that I did not try; more often she would brush me aside. Eleven years after we met and four-and-a half years into our marriage I was diagnosed with cancer. Now there was a mortality wake up call. But I was lucky and I was aware enough of my body that I caught it early and was successfully treated. But two months after my diagnosis, she surprised me one morning by initiating our last lovemaking session. Initiating sexual intimacy was something she had not done in at least two years and it was a pleasant and refreshing surprise. Whether she was feeling sorry for me or just wanted to be close to me are thoughts I’ve entertained from time to time and that is now in the distant past.

Then the lovemaking and all sexual play stopped, at least on her part with me. That was 12 years and 3 months ago. Oh, I tried to get her interested, and even on her birthday (seven months later) became a bit more persistent when she got the most upset with me that I've ever seen. "NO MEANS NO! NOT yes, NOT maybe, but NO! Isn't that what we teach our children?" Well, she was right, but celibacy in our marriage was not something I expected, asked for, or even bargained for. I already had one sexless marriage, why would I want another one? But I was not willing to let this slip away silently like it felt like in my first marriage.

That was not the end of it, as we "negotiated" the sexual terms of our marriage. We had rules to follow in this negotiation and there were three possible conditions to the negotiation. One of us could either accept the offer of the other (which would end the negotiation with agreement). We could decline but give a counter-offer for consideration. We could go back and forth on offer and counter-offer, but as long there was that give and take on these, we agreed that the negotiation was still open. The last option was the "no" and no counter-offer. By agreement, this too would end the negotiation and the matter would be considered closed (not necessarily acceptable, but closed to further discussion). Only the person who declined the offer with no counter-offer could re-open the issue since, as noted above, "no means no." After 8 months of back and forth (and still no sexual intimacy) she finally said that she was not willing to be sexually intimate with me nor was she willing to make any commitment to any future intimacy with me. There was never any reason why, just that it was her choice. That meant that I was not to make any further attempts at sex with her, anything suggestive in any form or fashion, and although she was not happy about the fact it placed the responsibility of initiation of anything sexual squarely upon her, she was not willing to have me initiate with her constantly turning me down. No more lingerie, no more romantic evenings or weekends for the two of us.

I knew in the moment that she said that, two things happened. First, it relieved the immediate pressure on the issue of sexual intimacy from a level of conflict between the two of us. And second, though I hoped she would change her mind some time into the future, it probably could mean the complete end of our sex life (which it has). Recently, my wife was chiding a friend of ours over her appearance of sexual overtures to get attention and possibly become involved with some other guy (and this women is married). The woman retorted "you used sex to get a husband!," a statement that my wife did not refute.

Now, there is something I have not shared. At the outset of our relationship I made two promises and later made a third. First, I promised that I would maintain the fidelity of our relationship (I think she was afraid that my first wife would suddenly have a change of heart and would drop back into my life, in part because she had done the same thing to her second husband). The second promise was that if I broke the first promise, that I would not hide it and we would deal with it directly. It turns out that these two promises were very contentious, not because I would not accept them and make them (I did with little hesitancy) but because I would not set or require similar promises from her. As I pointed out, requiring a promise does not provide a guarantee of anything as what really matters is the integrity of the person you are dealing with. "You either choose to be with me or you choose to not be with me. In either case, it is your choice and I have no power to make you choose otherwise if I really believe in your having the right to choose." We went around on that for more than four weeks at the beginning of the relationship, and even then it probably took two or three months to calm whatever was going on for her around that.

The third promise, which came about later as I was frustrated about some of the things (including the lack of sex) that were occurring was to promise to not threaten to leave as a way of dealing with things. The marriage counselor we were seeing suggested that it did not help if the overt or inherent threat was that I was going to leave and I kept vocalizing that.

I have kept the first and the third promises. The second one is not needed unless I break the first one.

We get along and I still care for her, but we are more friendly housemates with a legally recognized arrangement than anything else. We certainly are not intimate lovers. We no longer sleep together at home (I make it too hot for her to sleep comfortably) and when we travel we sleep together only when we have to. When we travel, we may enjoy sharing being there together but there are no special moments of intimacy like there once was. I recognize that I still hold love and compassion for her, but I am also beginning to question, as I have off-and-on, is this all there is? This is what my life has devolved to but it is not the life of my dreams. The love of my dreams has proved elusive. I realize that I've made so many concessions for the sake of peace and a degree of tranquility that I have lost any sense of joy of romance that I once sought and had long ago. I’m more a butler. I serve her coffee in bed while she shops QVC or HSN before we go to work on weekdays, or where she lounges on weekends.

An incident the other day had me think about something I have not in a very long time: the thought of just walking away. No warning, no threats. Just walking away, particularly when I’m told, in so many words, that I can’t be angry or display anger.

Thanks for listening.

[Bagheera]

Greetings Earl Grey;

You are certainly NOT alone in your situation, and in feeling like you have let your wife paint you into a very unmasculine corner from which you see no escape. What you are experiencing is commonly called the Nice Guy Syndrome, which has the following symptoms (that I am shamelessly cutting and pasting from another site because I think the lists will speak to you):

Who is a nice guy?

• He is the relative who lets his wife run the show.
• He is the friend who will do anything for anybody, but whose own life seems to be in shambles.
• He is the guy who frustrates his wife because he is so afraid of conflict that nothing ever gets resolved.
• He is the boss who tells one person what they want to hear, then reverses himself to please someone else.
• He is the man who lets people walk all over him because he doesn't want to rock the boat.
• He is the dependable guy at work who will never say "no," but would never tell anyone if they were imposing on him.
• He is the man whose life seems so under control, until BOOM, one day he does something to destroy it all.

In general, nice guys share the following characteristics:

• Nice guys seek the approval of others.
• Nice guys try to hide their perceived flaws and mistakes.
• Nice guys put other people's needs and wants before their own.
• Nice guys sacrifice their personal power and often play the role of a victim.
• Nice guys tend to be disconnected from other men and from their own masculine energy.
• Nice guys co-create relationships that are less than satisfying.
• Nice guys create situations in which they do not have very much good sex.
• Nice guys frequently fail to live up their full potential.

In particular, you last paragraph:

An incident the other day had me think about something I have not in a very long time: the thought of just walking away. No warning, no threats. Just walking away, particularly when I’m told, in so many words, that I can’t be angry or display anger.

Made me think of the last item in the first list above: "He is the man whose life seems so under control, until BOOM, one day he does something to destroy it all."

My strongest recommendation to you would be to go out, TODAY and get a copy of the book No More Mr. Nice Guy by Dr. Robert Glover (it is also available in audio format if you prefer), and go through the chapters and exercises therein slowly and methodically. If you are going to achieve happiness in your life, it will require making some positive and rather revolutionary changes to YOURSELF, for *YOUR* own benefit. You need to work on YOU for a change, feel good about doing so, and stop trying to placate and please *her*.

You are really not as trapped as you feel that you are, and the journey to rediscovery and revitalize yourself as YOUR OWN MAN is one of the most worthwhile and rewarding journeys you will ever take. I can't tell you whether or not your wife will be there with you at the end of that journey...she may not be, but either way YOU will happier and more confident in YOURSELF as a man, and will be able to make your own life what you want it to be.

Alright -- I'm starting to sound like a commercial, so I'll stop here for now. Just know that there other men here who have had to make similar journeys, and have done so successfully: SillyOldBear, Strong&Alive, myself, as well as others. It CAN be done, and in such a way that enhances and improves your marriage greatly.

-- Bagheera

[DanceQueen]

Tea...wow, your story is amazing, long, and sad. I hope what Bagheera is saying will help you. I'm just chiming in to let you know we are reading and hope we can help.

DQ

[LG nm12]

Hi Tea,

Glad you found us!

I agree with Bagheera that NMMNG will be illuminating. One of the most important steps in my journey has been the exploration of why I *chose* to live in a sex-starved marriage for so long. I didn't realize how much work I had to do on myself (and still do!)

This is no easy road, but a very important one!

Welcome.

Lucky

[Strong&Alive]

This is my first post.

Let me apologize for this being relatively long.

This is my second marriage. I've been married 17 years, as of next month.

Let me premise what I write with this thought: I have always believed that a woman has the absolute right to decide and control if, when, and with whom she will be sexually intimate. I can't remember when or how that thought became part of who I am, but as a young adolescent and adult male, if a girl or woman did not want to be sexually involved with me, I thought that was her choice. So, my wife has the absolute right to make this choice, and she has.

Now, she has been married twice; once right out of high school when she was in college (he eventually left her for someone else) and the second time to someone that was at least as strong-willed as she was (and "controlling"). As things went badly in her second marriage, she was sleeping with her first husband, in part for revenge. I did not know her during any of this time and this is all stuff I learned early on when we started dating. In fact, her first husband kept showing up from time to time early in our relationship before she decided, without me forcing the issue, that she really needed to be done with that relationship. She was already divorced from her second husband when we met and she wasn’t going back to him, either. If it wasn’t for the fact that the two of them had a daughter together, she would not have had any contact with him. According to her, I was completely opposite of her second husband. I was so laid-back I was almost horizontal. Actually, she said I was much like her dad in temperament (whom had died a number of years before she and I met).

My first marriage had ended because my wife had an affair with a college student seven years younger than we were. We had a son nearly three years old when she started her affair with this student. A year later, the affair was revealed and she wanted to go off and live with him. Though I wanted to see if we could work things out, she divorced me and eventually married him. She would tell you that I re-emerged from that “as the person I first fell in love with” and developed into a wonderful father. She has told me that I was the best lover she has ever had. But after our son was born, our sex life just “went away” and then so did she. At the time, I felt used and little more than a sperm and name donor for “legitimacy.” After a relationship of 11 years and a marriage of 7 years, I gave myself nearly two years to heal from the pain of the affair before I was even willing to consider being available.

My current wife was the custodial parent of her daughter. I had joint custody of my son with my first wife. We managed to blend our families fairly well but there were issues and differences of opinions about how to deal with specific child raising issues. Our sex life and intimacy were good through the first several years of our relationship, but one of the greatest challenges in our discussions was about my first wife (who I would not verbally trash). As much as it all hurt, I my first wife’s choices as just being who she really was and that meant not being married to me any longer. It took my second wife 10 years from the time we met before she finally understood how I felt and viewed my relationship with my first wife, so that's not much of a point of contention any longer. I don't harbor not have I held such strong feelings about or towards her previous husbands. I was not there.

Six years after meeting, and well after we were both divorced, we got married. Our sex life had definitely slipped from the first couple of years after we met but it went in fits and spurts and it had its moments. I was more vocal about it than in my first marriage. Part of the off-times was her being angry with me about something but there was more than that, though I just couldn't put my finger on it.

So, here I am on the cusp of our 17th wedding anniversary.

As I type this, we are approaching 12 years and 3 months since the last time I had ANY sexual intimacy. And it is not of my choice. At the 10-year mark of this relationship and 4 years into the marriage, we were down to sexual intimacy about once every 6-8 months. Not that I did not try; more often she would brush me aside. Eleven years after we met and four-and-a half years into our marriage I was diagnosed with cancer. Now there was a mortality wake up call. But I was lucky and I was aware enough of my body that I caught it early and was successfully treated. But two months after my diagnosis, she surprised me one morning by initiating our last lovemaking session. Initiating sexual intimacy was something she had not done in at least two years and it was a pleasant and refreshing surprise. Whether she was feeling sorry for me or just wanted to be close to me are thoughts I’ve entertained from time to time and that is now in the distant past.

Then the lovemaking and all sexual play stopped, at least on her part with me. That was 12 years and 3 months ago. Oh, I tried to get her interested, and even on her birthday (seven months later) became a bit more persistent when she got the most upset with me that I've ever seen. "NO MEANS NO! NOT yes, NOT maybe, but NO! Isn't that what we teach our children?" Well, she was right, but celibacy in our marriage was not something I expected, asked for, or even bargained for. I already had one sexless marriage, why would I want another one? But I was not willing to let this slip away silently like it felt like in my first marriage.

That was not the end of it, as we "negotiated" the sexual terms of our marriage. We had rules to follow in this negotiation and there were three possible conditions to the negotiation. One of us could either accept the offer of the other (which would end the negotiation with agreement). We could decline but give a counter-offer for consideration. We could go back and forth on offer and counter-offer, but as long there was that give and take on these, we agreed that the negotiation was still open. The last option was the "no" and no counter-offer. By agreement, this too would end the negotiation and the matter would be considered closed (not necessarily acceptable, but closed to further discussion). Only the person who declined the offer with no counter-offer could re-open the issue since, as noted above, "no means no." After 8 months of back and forth (and still no sexual intimacy) she finally said that she was not willing to be sexually intimate with me nor was she willing to make any commitment to any future intimacy with me. There was never any reason why, just that it was her choice. That meant that I was not to make any further attempts at sex with her, anything suggestive in any form or fashion, and although she was not happy about the fact it placed the responsibility of initiation of anything sexual squarely upon her, she was not willing to have me initiate with her constantly turning me down. No more lingerie, no more romantic evenings or weekends for the two of us.

I knew in the moment that she said that, two things happened. First, it relieved the immediate pressure on the issue of sexual intimacy from a level of conflict between the two of us. And second, though I hoped she would change her mind some time into the future, it probably could mean the complete end of our sex life (which it has). Recently, my wife was chiding a friend of ours over her appearance of sexual overtures to get attention and possibly become involved with some other guy (and this women is married). The woman retorted "you used sex to get a husband!," a statement that my wife did not refute.

Now, there is something I have not shared. At the outset of our relationship I made two promises and later made a third. First, I promised that I would maintain the fidelity of our relationship (I think she was afraid that my first wife would suddenly have a change of heart and would drop back into my life, in part because she had done the same thing to her second husband). The second promise was that if I broke the first promise, that I would not hide it and we would deal with it directly. It turns out that these two promises were very contentious, not because I would not accept them and make them (I did with little hesitancy) but because I would not set or require similar promises from her. As I pointed out, requiring a promise does not provide a guarantee of anything as what really matters is the integrity of the person you are dealing with. "You either choose to be with me or you choose to not be with me. In either case, it is your choice and I have no power to make you choose otherwise if I really believe in your having the right to choose." We went around on that for more than four weeks at the beginning of the relationship, and even then it probably took two or three months to calm whatever was going on for her around that.

The third promise, which came about later as I was frustrated about some of the things (including the lack of sex) that were occurring was to promise to not threaten to leave as a way of dealing with things. The marriage counselor we were seeing suggested that it did not help if the overt or inherent threat was that I was going to leave and I kept vocalizing that.

I have kept the first and the third promises. The second one is not needed unless I break the first one.

We get along and I still care for her, but we are more friendly housemates with a legally recognized arrangement than anything else. We certainly are not intimate lovers. We no longer sleep together at home (I make it too hot for her to sleep comfortably) and when we travel we sleep together only when we have to. When we travel, we may enjoy sharing being there together but there are no special moments of intimacy like there once was. I recognize that I still hold love and compassion for her, but I am also beginning to question, as I have off-and-on, is this all there is? This is what my life has devolved to but it is not the life of my dreams. The love of my dreams has proved elusive. I realize that I've made so many concessions for the sake of peace and a degree of tranquility that I have lost any sense of joy of romance that I once sought and had long ago. I’m more a butler. I serve her coffee in bed while she shops QVC or HSN before we go to work on weekdays, or where she lounges on weekends.

An incident the other day had me think about something I have not in a very long time: the thought of just walking away. No warning, no threats. Just walking away, particularly when I’m told, in so many words, that I can’t be angry or display anger.

Thanks for listening.

Earl,

I second everything Bagheera has said and urge you to follow his suggestions.

On the face of it your story is one of a SSM. But the real issues are the ones I've underlined, and go very much deeper into your psyche and core beliefs about Life, Women and Sex.

In summary: Why have you been allowing your wife to dictate the kind of life and marriage you should have, instead of the one you wanted? Why did you give her that power?

If your life were a car, I would liken your predicament to one of having handed over the keys to your wife many hundreds of kilometres back when she insisted on taking a particular route to a particular (dry and arid) destination, when instead you should have thought very seriously about kicking her out of your car altogether i.e. divorce.

You may very well still have to do that, but it can wait a little while longer. The most important thing for you now is to discover the answers to the questions you are already asking yourself.

Get the no more mr nice guy book and start delving into yourself.

S&A

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

--Bagheera:

Sorry for not replying sooner. I had a wireless router going wacky on me and had to put it out of it's misery.

I laughed a bit when I saw the bullet points. Why? Because I am "the nicest and most pleasant person" people have ever met. Or at least that is what they've told me.

I am aware that the nature of my being is composed of several parts that all look the same from the outside. I know the difference in the moment when no one else does. There is the "nice guy" that uses the nice guy image to be, for lack of a better word, conniving and using that "nice guy" image as a blunt instrument to be right and righteous about himself. Being right, however, also means that it makes someone wrong and it has a fairly predictable outcome. That way of being ussually is characterized by this question (as a defense): "how can you do this to me when I'm such a nice guy?" Although there are portions of my life that look like that, they do not dominate the actions or timeline.

There is the "nice guy" that I am more familiar with as a coping and even survival mode....that by being "nice" we can avoid most of the unpleasantries. That, for me, is a learned behavior from my childhood. It isn't far from who I really am and yet that way of being is based upon the following premise, perception, or words: "something is wrong!"

As a coping mechanism, this has been remarkably successful in my life, in getting me through many unpleasant times or pre-empting them in the first place. I know where that comes from, I know my history, I know how that plays out for me. And while that looks successful to most people on the outside, I know the difference in that I know when I'm dealing with the "something is wrong!" internal monologue.

The third way of being is one of actively choosing, in the moment, who we are going to be and how that is going to look "in the world." I've found that many people, if not most people, have little self-awareness on this issue or that they or others are making choices every single moment and that their future is the past played out over and over again. I know, for example, I've trained a good number of people, including my wife, to see me in a certain way. So, a good portion of this is me remembering that I chosen to do all of this and that the outcome, though not predictable, is the result of choices made in the moment.

Nobody does anything that is fundamentally uncharacteristic of who they really are (or at least not for long). And "being nice" is not uncharacterisitic of who I am when I look at the stories told about me as a child, when I did not have sufficient language to relate to the world on the basis of my past experience or memories. There was no "always" and as a child, as for most children, I was living in the moment, not past nor present. I've never really lost that ability to live in the moment. So those memories are not mine, but the story of memories from others about my inherent nature in life.

So, if I'm that aware of my own being, why am I here? Well, to use something that I don't like using, I never 'expected' to be here in this situation. I never imagined that given the option for no sex and my outright stated desire for what I wanted our sex life to look like that my wife would take the option of no sex knowing what I was asking for.

So one of the things I say about myself is that I create the situations for people to "safely" be who they really are. This is certainly true for my children and they have a real appreciation of it (how did you figure this stuff out?).


I would not liken myself as being "painted into a corner." The metaphor I would use is that I've been in this canyon that I thought I'd emerge from by now and the longer and farther I go, the more it looks like a box canyon. It certainly isn't the outcome that I would have and it is one area in my life where the reality is very different from the dream. My vocalizing it, putting it into words and how it occurs for me is but one step to create a different outcome.

I'd like to say more, but I've got to go to work and tell someone something they want to hear rather than the way things are...just kidding. More later.

[Bagheera]

Thanks for the reply, Earl -- it takes courage to face your own shortcomings and demons, even on an annonymous bulletin board. I have a couple of points to bring up with you today, while you're mulling this Nice Guy Syndrome stuff over.

Firstly, there is nothing wrong with be "nice" per se: we aren't saying that you should now become a jerk or an ass. The problem lies in the fact that Nice Guys are "nice" for the wrong reasons...reasons that shoot them in the foot time and time again. Nice Guys are "nice" in order to gain the approval and validation of others, rather than seeking approval and validation within themselves. Nice Guys do things for other people with an unspoken, 'covert contract' in mind: they feel that by doing things for others, those others are then "obligated" to return the favor and do something for the Nice Guy. Invariably, those others often fail to deliver on their end of this unspoken bargain, and the Nice Guy ends up angry and frustrated. Nonetheless, the usual reaction to this outcome is for the Nice Guy to do *more of the same* -- continue to serve that other person, perhaps even step it up a notch -- and somehow hope for a different result....and he ends up even more angry and frustrated.

Thus, an important part of the growth process away from being a Nice Guy, is to (a) stop seeking the approval of others, to become a self-confident and self-contained man, and (b) to learn how to GIVE to others without expectation and without unspoken contracts...to take responsibility for your own happiness back into your own masculine hands, and to stop handing that responsibility over to others (who will invariably let you down).

Seocndly, this is a forum for those struggling with a Sex-Starved Marriage, and you came here seeking advice about the total lack of a sexual relationship within your marriage. So what's with all of this Nice Guy stuff instead? There IS a solid connection here, and it boils down to this: women are sexually atttracted to masculinity in the same way that men are attracted to femininity --> and Nice Guys are decidedly UN-masculine and therfore NOT sexually attractive. Have you ever watched a female friend of yours, whom you were interested in but who showed no interest in you beyond platonic friendship, go weak at the knees and fall for some cocky "Bad Boy," who you *knew* was a jerk and who would treat her badly? And afterwards, when she got her heart broken, she'd come cry on your shoulder until the next Bad Boy caught her eye? And meanwhile, you're left sitting there wondering "Why not ME?! I'd treat you like a queen!" The truth is: the man the feminists cried out for on paper for the last 50+ years is not a man they would actually want to sleep with --> he's nice, sensitive, and caring, but he isn't a MAN...he isn't SEXY.

Thanks to the feminist movement and the shift in the marriage paradyne away from the strong man as Head of Household and towards more egalitarian, androgenous couples, women these days often feel like they are stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to men. On the one hand, they can choose a Bad Boy, who has a great deal of attractive masculine-energy and is fantastic in bed, but who is, at the same time, an unreliable cad when it comes to fidelity, long-term relationships, and providing for a family. On the other hand, they can choose a Nice Guy, who lacks the masculine-energy and pure male sexiness of the Bad Boy, and who will therefore lead to a lifetime of lukewarm to crappy sex for her, but who will, at the same time, be extremely reliable, able to commit to the long haul, and be a good father and provider for a family. Most women end up having a few Bad Boy flings in their youth, sow their "wild oats," and eventually "settle" for a unsexy Nice Guy when they are ready to raise a family.

What we will be encouraging you to do here, Earl, is to work on and improve yourself to the point where you can adopt the *best* traits of each of these male archetypes --> to become the INTEGRATED MAN: full of self-confidence and self-generated masculine energy, and therefore sexy and attractive to women, while at the same time, continuing to be a reliable man of his word, a good father, provider, and *leader* of the family. The process or journey toward becoming an integrated man is long, and requires and investment of time and energy on your part, but it WELL worth the effort.

-- B.

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

I think I can say with self-awareness that seeking approval hardly fits who I am.

But I also note that for men I know that act like jerks, it works for them, as an attention getter at least for awhile before that, too, gets old.

The work I've done concerning myself all my life can be summarized by my ongoing awareness and separation about what is happeneing and what I say about it.

If you read this carefully, you can probably see where I present the facts (what is happening) separate that from what I'm feeling about it. What I am feeling about something is just that, a feeling. And in a moment I'll have another and then another, until I don't any longer. But the feelings are just something I say about the situation, it is not the situation itself. But the story I tell is both fact and it is written so that you can get a sense of what I'm experiencing.

What is true, as in factual, is that for my wife this matter is closed and settled. There is nothing more for us to discuss, nothing more to negotiate, nothing more to choose. She made her choice and she's stuck to it and continues to do so. No means no, not yes, not maybe.

There are other factors that complicate the issue that have a physical reality. I hadn't shared them yet.

Obviously, there is a disconnect because for one of us we are going to lose on this. One of us is going to have to give up or give in. "Having sex" just to keep us from going our separate ways does not seem all like a winning situation to me.

So, let me add some of the things that make this even more complex. First, the physical stuff.

My current wife is almost 7 years older than I am and when we met I was 32 and she was 39. And if 39 is the year of a woman's sexual peak, well I think we proved that. But what is also true was that we when our relationship lasted beyond a few months there was a question of more children considering her age. I was always surprised that we lasted another day much less another month because it seemed to be so much "work." (Although I had considered a second child with my first wife, we never got to that. And in this relationship, I simply would not have predicted anything lasting.) So the idea of having a child with her with so much struggle just did not appeal to me and I said so.

The other thing was that at 39 she was not yet menopausal, but that would come a couple of years later with all the hot flashes and everything that goes with that. By the time we were married, six years into our relationship, she was clearly into menopause and those symptoms kept getting worse. The hot flashes, the mood swings, the erratic and sometimes uncontrollable bleeding. We survived the first year of marriage but almost did not survive the first months in a new house a little more than a year after we married. By that time the sexual disconnect was getting pretty serious and I was being vocal about it. And it was swinging back and forth between very intense sexual periods to long periods of nothing but rejection.


By late 1996 and early 1997 we were down to one sexual encounter about every 9 months. But the effects of menopause were getting worse. It was April 6, 1997 that she surprised me. I did not know it at the time, but that was going to be the last time (11 years into our relationship and almost 5 years into our marriage).

In the meantime, she had gotten angry with me over my persistent sexual advances and we started the 8-month negotiation that eventually resulted in my wife telling me that she was no longer willing to commit to ANY sexual intimacy with me then or in the future. That was July 1998 and I sensed what that meant. About that time I started a new job.

I thought she would reconsider after a period of time. She would not and has not.

In the spring of 1999, my wife developed an auto-immune reaction of some kind that resulted in hives and other effects like worsening asthma. Clothes, skin on skin contact made her break out. Not very conducive for close physical contact when you can't even sweat on each other. But we were already two years into our non-sexual phase when this occurred. Although greatly reduced from 10 years ago, she still has these auto-immune reactions which are merly managed. The simple act of taking a shower, or sitting or laying in one position for more than a little while will trigger an outbreak of hives at the point of contact.

Finally, 7 years after we were married, the insurance company decided that it was time to approve the hysterectomy that had been recommended by her doctor. That happened in the summer of 1999.

Now I've read quite a bit about what can happen to women, their hormones and, that for about a third of the women, their sex drives go completely to zero after a a hysterectomy. Although she had chosen not to be sexual with me before the operation, that operation also plays into it.

That's the medical/physical side of this. I cannot say how much of what I'm experiencing is directly associated with the physical/medical issues.

I have considered that my way of being is what has given us the space to survive without this blowing apart. But I will also note this about my love relationships: either I attract and women for whom hormone issues are or become a real problem and I'm beating the odds at expeiencing this or it is far more common than most people would admit.

The first love of my life was when I was in high school (she was 16 and I was 17) and into my second year of college. We tried to carry off and expand a long-distant relationship from two different schools both in high school and in college. We never had intercourse. Oh, we got quite close and she knew what I wanted. But beyond a certain point she got tentative and beyond that she just "went away." She would back away from me for awahile and then come back. As strongly as we said we felt for each other, there was something just off about all of that. We said, at the time, it was meant to be, we would find a way and eventually parted. Our paths occasionally crossed and I knew she got married and divorced. I had not heard from her for a long time when I received an email and an apology. She said she should have told me that she had discovered her strongest loving feelings were for women, not men, and that since the last time our paths had crossed, she had been in a long-term relationship with another woman.

"Thats what that was" was my immediate reaction. Whatever the source, whatever the cause, it was a huge risk for her to find me and to apologize not knowing how that might turn out (and knowing how I felt about her so many years ago). My message to her was "it's who you are and I'm glad you are happy."

With my ex-wife, I clearly recognized alot of the Debra and Tom story. And my ex-wife has gone back and forth on whether waiting (to get better to use her words) would have been better for us and our relationship. But she made the choices she did and lives with the consequences.

My ex-wife shows a different response to hormones than the first love of my life. About the time my current wife and I were sexually intimate for the very last time, my ex-wife apologized to me. It was obvious to her that her complaints about me as a father were completely unfounded. As a husband and a lover, she still maintains that she had no real complaints. To quote what she said in front of a gathering of about 125 friends of mine "you have become the person I fell in love with when we first met." Her single-mindedness about being mom above all else and then the anger that engendered because I would not feel the same way about our son as she did (looks very much like Tom and Debra from the first chapter) was something she did not expect, either. Our sex life went from absolutely wonderful (two or three lovemaking sessions per week where a "session" might include making love two, three, or four times until we were totally spent) from the time we met to three days before our son was born. It went from that to virtually nothing in a span of two days when she went into labor. It literally went from 16 times per month to 16 times over a apan of 3 and an half years. I did not expect that. Neither did she.

But after she left me, divorced me, remarried and had her second child, the sort of thoughts, feelings and views that she had about her marriage after our son was born were returning and this time being directed at her current husband. There must have been an OMG moment somewhere that triggered her apology because hormone imbalance and the treatment regime they put her on apparently had her realize that it was not me. What she had done and was thinking in that haze was probably a "lightbulb" moment. But it was also a bell that could not be unrung. "If only we had known" was the phrase she used. I reminded her that we had some sense of it and she did not like being told that much of it had to do with her and the biochemistry of motherhood. Besides, would she hae taken medication to rebalance the hormones given the fact that she was breastfeeding?

She was more intent in having the experience of motherhood than in the experience of family and parenting together as a loving couple. And for that, she apologized. I've called it my greatest failure in life. My son, who is now 28, has become more curious about what went on. I talk with him about it when he asks questions but remind him that my side of the story may not match up with his mom's. The unfortunate thing, I tell him, was that he never got to see a time and how we interacted before he was born and just how incredibly in love we seemed to be.

I will also note that my ex-wife displays this pregnancy/walk away pattern. It turned out that there was another time when she did the same thing. She revealed this to me about the same time she apologized: Although I did not know it at the time when we met, she had gotten pregnant before we met (and not by the guy she had been engaged to) and then gotten an abortion. All I knew was that she and her fiance had broken up before we met and, according to her parents, I was "nicer" to her and took better care of her than he did. I knew nothing of the pregnancy or the circumstances (apparently he, her parents, nor anyone else knew either because I later discovered that he was faced with the same question I was: "what happened?"). When she revealed that to me, I asked her why she never told me, particularly at the beginning. She said that she wasn't willing to risk losing me if I reacted badly to the knowledge and later it just didn't seem important enough to mention (besides the guy that got her pregnant was an acquaintance of mine).

But it makes sense to me, she got pregnant, was pregnant for about 4 months before having an abortion and then had whatever combined guilt, loss, and hormone effects that she took out on her fiance. Then she did something similar to me seven years later. Then she was on the same path to do the same thing in her second marriage. Of course, there are lots of psychological implications.

But I am beginning to feel victimized by these women and their hormones. And while a certain level of "nice guy" might play into it, dealing with the biology can be pretty frustrating. So, I am looking for the path to follow and the next steps with the recognition that hormones and chemistry are playing a very powerful role here.

Have a good 4th of July.


My handle, "tea, Earl Grey, hot" is from Star Trek, TNG. Those that know the show and know the line, know that it is associated with the character Captain Piccard.

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Let me add another point that I haven't really focused on. The only bullet point that "rings true" are these:

[*]Nice guys put other people's needs and wants before their own.
[*]Nice guys sacrifice their personal power and often play the role of a victim.

The second part of the second bullet does not match up, however. Maybe only recently have I felt "victimized."

This marriage is so very different from my first one. Where the first one felt like a partnership right up to the birth of our son, this one has been a battle since day one. Being in a relationship should never be this much work and this much of a fight. It's not been compromise, its been me being in a continual state of conceding.

And what I learned from the outset was that it was ultimately better to "give in" than to "stick to my guns." And what have I given up? Well, the tangible things are things like my music (she doesn't like it and so my music and my very nice stereo system are put away), my mountain climbing and hiking, my skiing (I became an accomplished snow skier between marriages), most of my photography.

It's even reflected in the furnishings in the house. There is hardly anything in this house that I've supplied or picked out to reflect my sense of style. I had not noticed that until several months ago. The closets are full of her stuff and with the exception of one bedroom that I've used as an office, I am living in a house that I pay for and live in but hardly have furnished. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I object to the furniture, I've just had very little say over it and if I were to walk out today, there would barely be anything of "mine" to take with me.

It was not like that for me before and I think it's more than a nice guy syndrome. In her employment, there is no question who the boss is (she sometimes complains about "being in-charge"), but the dominance is subtle. Not a tyrant by any measure, but she is going to get her way (or life is going to be miserable). And that is my perception at home as well. Only recently, she asked why I just gave up on something and I told he that with her I always gave up, that's nothing new and she's known that from day one.

The incident that she threw back in my face the other day about "my anger" being threatening occurred 21 years ago and it was over my exhaustion of rarely, if ever, "winning" or at least having my point of view really matter. I took the relatively few possessions I had at her condo and threw them out the door so I would not have to keep going in and out the front door. I was putting them in my car and leaving not just for a business trip, but forever. (I was going to California for business and then was going to Lake Tahoe to ski. It was the skiing that was the point of contention. I ended up not skiing and making up. Point is, I gave up something I wanted to do to "keep the peace."). It was an incident that I had forgotten. How different would my life have been?

I amy be the perfect person because I've been so tolerant. However, I am reaching a point where I ask "Is this all there is?"

As I said, from her POV, this question is not even open to discussion.

[Walking]

Hi Earl

So, given you understand that where you are in your life are a reflection of the choices you've made ... how come

Where the first one felt like a partnership right up to the birth of our son, this one has been a battle since day one. Being in a relationship should never be this much work and this much of a fight. It's not been compromise, its been me being in a continual state of conceding.

.. you stayed in this relationship? If it's been a battle since day one - why have you invested so many years of your life in it?

I look forward to your reflections.

V