I sometimes make a conscious effort to reverse the pronouns just so people will realize I'm not just talking about women, but some of the specific issues we're talking about are usually not seen the same by a man and a woman, even if they're both the LD or HD partner in their relationships. But yes, the book on SSM talks quite a bit about the special problems a HD woman has because the social expectation is that men are horny (and pigs) while women are overworked, saintly mothers who have to fight their husbands off. And I think there's a "Sex-Starved Wife" book by Michelle Weiner-Davis now, too . . . here it is, in an excerpt NBC put up on the web. Here it is on Amazon-- The Sex-Starved Wife: What do Do When He's Lost Desire I've written here a few times now about the irony of our Sex-Starved Marriage, that my wife's best friend was (is) having the same problem except that she's the HD one and her husband is the LD guy.
Well, as SSMGuy found out (and I did, too, if you go read my original thread) if you bring up divorce without the resolve to do it, then you haven't really given an ultimatum. You only reinforce that you're weak and you'll put up with anything.
If you genuinely will not divorce under any circumstances, it would be better not to bluff. Speaking only for myself, I got to a point where I understood that my wife and I were ruining our marriage and I couldn't live with it. I still hated the thought of divorce just as much; I knew it would be a humiliating, painful process that would never really end because we have children together, and I knew that even if I took the step of leaving and filing, I would have to deal with the fact that I deeply loved my wife. It seemed crazy to contemplate divorcing a woman you love!
I didn't set a date or a deadline; I simply said to her that I hated the thought of divorcing her, I honestly didn't know what I would do with my life after we divorced, but that if she wasn't willing to work and make our marriage work I was willing to do it. I told her that I was asking her to make a real effort with me to save the marriage, and that if she wouldn't wake up and try to turn things around, we were headed inevitably for divorce because I would be the one to file eventually, when I was sure she'd given up.
DanceQueen has probably long forgotten (I had) but she posted this in one of my first threads about my own situation:
Quote:
The number one thing my ex-husband could have done that would have prompted me into changing and fixing my LD problem was if he took a stand on it and refused FOR HIMSELF to be married in a sexless marriage. . . . I am hoping you see a point here - it makes me ANGRY that he would have stayed married to me forever, even though he was unhappy and didn't love me anymore. For all my mistakes, I always loved him and always wanted things to improve with him and I kept trying and trying. But he valued committment much higher than he valued me as his wife, or even his own happiness.
This is skewed! His happiness should have been his own first priority, as it should be to everyone. What he wanted was simple love and physical love from me, but he didnt have the skills and tools necessary to deal with all of my emotional baggage. OK - that is totally understandable - no one is born a mental health professional and can just "fix" a person like me with love. But what happened? Well, as he became more and more unhappy and finally fell out of love with me, suddenly I was now to blame for all of his unhappiness. It was MY FAULT because I didn't want to have sex with him.
Where was his own responsibility to himself for his own happiness? Why was it all on my shoulders? Why would he have put us both through misery for the rest of our lives, by remaining married to me in a loveless, sexless marriage? Why was that "ok" with him?
That's where the road leads when you decide that you'll never leave, you'll just accept misery . . . and if she finally gets tired of it and takes the initiative to leave because you won't, it probably feels like the end of the world.
