Sitch update...(old poster returning yet again...)

[Young at Heart]

My heart goes out to you. On the one hand, it sounds like you are doing everything I have tried to do and am trying to do and it has not worked. That frightens me deeply that you have been doing these things for year and not yet reached a level of "happiness" that you can live with.

On the other hand, I have made a commitment to myself that things (frequency of sex and touching) are going to get better this year or I am going to end my marriage to the woman that I deeply love. The sex therapist we have has heard this and walked my wife right into that "reality" in a way that my wife cannot avoid that it is now her choice as to if this marriage survives or not.

Last night my wife asked if I would really leave her and I told her yes, that I had not felt loved for a long time and that I am a person who feels loved primarily by sex and touch. If that doesn't happen, then I don't feel loved.

We talked about what we each needed and she asked again if I really needed sex and being touched. I told her that yes I do, that is who I am and I can't change that. She then told me that this is emotionally tearing her apart. I told her that I was sorry for that, but that I really do love her, but I also need to feel loved.

There is another thread where someone said that you need to come to the point where you need to be ready to leave your marriage in order for your spouse to initiate changes.

Since you have read Schnarch and the Passionate Marriage, he talks about marriages that reach a crisis where your integrity (and self-knowledge) requires you to speak up for what you need and must have. He talks about that being a very frightening and difficult discussion with your spouse, but one that you, because of your self-knowledge must for your own sake, make. It also goes to the heart of the "marriage as a crucible" theory where marriage grows people emotionally.

Truth is, I've pretty much concluded there isn't anything I can do to make anything different, it's really up to her at this point. I intend to make it clear in our therapy sessions that I really cannot live this way any more, and we either find another way to be together, or we'll have to learn to live apart.

Again, my heart goes out to you. I hope that your wife will be able to hear you and decides that she is willing to change in order to keep you.

Your comments also make me afraid, as my wife is now struggling with whether or not she is willing to change in order to keep me.

I wish you the best of luck in telling your therapist how you feel and in allowing your wife to understand your basic needs that must be met within the context of a committed marriage.

Good luck!