38 years & I need physical connection with my wife

[Young at Heart]

This past weekend was wonderful, and disheartening.

My wife and I ran away for a weekend at a fancy hotel to go to a museum, shopping and play tourist. Friday night we went out an had martini's and appetizers for dinner. That night we snuggled and talked when we went to bed. I felt close to her.

Saturday morning, I gave her a 30-minute foot massage (I have been studying some reflexology books) followed by a 20-minute lower leg and thigh massage. Then she pulled me onto her and we made love slowly and wonderfully. She climaxed and so did it. It has been years since we made love in the morning. She never use to want to have sex when it was light outside for fear that I would see her body. It was always at night, with the lights out. We then eventually got up and had a late brunch before going off to a museum and having a fun day that included lots of shopping for things for both her and me. We went to a fancy french restaurant for dinner and snuggled and hugged when we went to bed.

Sunday morning, I gave her a back massage. I then asked her to give me a back massage, as it was part of our sex therapy homework. She reluctantly gave me a short back massage. She told me she really didn't like to massage me and asked me to get a professional massage. In fact she insisted that I get a professional massage within the next two weeks.

Sunday night however, was a bit bitter. I have always felt that when she gets too close to me emotionally, that she needs to do something that creates distance. Last night she was moody and when we talked I almost felt that she was trying to pull back and/or was overwhelmed.

She asked me in an amazed kind of way if I would really leave her, like I said I would to our therapist. I told her that yes, as I need to feel loved and the primary way that I feel loved is through sex and being touched. I told her that is just who I am, it is me. When I said that, it had been over five months since I felt loved, even though I knew she loved me. She asked me to elaborate on when it was that we stopped making love. I told her last August and gave her when it was exactly in a way that she knew I understood the day. She asked me what had changed last summer in our love making, as she didn't remember any change. I then explained the specific things I remembered about how our sex-life deteriorated quickly last summer.

She then asked me if being emotionally close wasn't important to me, was it just sex that I needed. I explained to her that I need to have sex and be touched because I want to feel emotionally bonded to her, which were the words I used with the sex therapist. To me what I really want in my relationship with my wife is to feel emotionally bonded to her and that sex and touch are the primary means for accomplishing that. I started to tell her about the book Hold Me Tight, by Sue Johnson, but my wife cut me off.

I told my wife that I was trying to communicate my love to her in the ways that she could hear and understand and that until I had read Chapman's the Five Languages of Love, that I have been clueless as to how she needed to have love expressed to her. I also told her that I need her to tell me that she loves me in my languages of love. She asked me if I hadn't heard her ask me to love her earlier in our marriage. She demanded to know if I had just ignored her pleas. I said that if I had heard her asking me to love her, I hadn't understood what she needed.

She then blew up and said to me how could I put her through over fifteen years of pain, just because I didn't know how to tell her I loved her in the ways she needed. She said that not understanding was no reason to have hurt her. In my best couples communications skills, I decided not to be defensive, not to point out that she had also hurt me over those years. Instead, I just said that I was sorry, but I just didn't know.

She then asked how I could learn things through books instead of learning though talking to her. I explained that I didn't know why and was sorry, but at least now I understood how to show her that I loved her in a way that she could hear me. She told me that the past few months, she really felt much more connected to me emotionally because of the things I had done for her around the house (acts of service/devotion) and the time I had devoted to talking to her about what she was doing and how she felt (quality time). She told me that she has to feel emotionally close to me in order for their to be sex between us. She also told me that she needs to feel emotionally close to me in order for her to talk to me like this. She said a few months ago, she could have never spoken to me like this.

She also told me that she is feeling like her soul is being ripped appart. She really has self-image body issues and that it is very hard for her to touch me or have sex with me. I told her that I appreciated her recent actions as they had made me feel loved for the first time in many many months and that I did feel loved.

I sense that she has recognized that I have changed and am changing how I interact with her and that I have made a commitment to myself to find happiness. She also knows that my commitment to myself could result in my leaving her. She is struggling to figure out if she is willing to change to remain part of my life or if she will refuse to change and have me leave her. Part of her actions I see as wanting to test me to see if I will leave and part of them are trying to verify what she already knows to make sure she doesn't have some option on not changing. The actions may also be testing herself to see what she really wants.

I am reminded of the four-stages of SSM recovery where (1) each partner must work on getting a life and changing themselves, (2) committing to learning how to make their partner happy and feel loved, (3) committing to their relationship and committing to improving it and (4) then working as a team to implement the changes needed to improve the marriage.

I feel that my wife is struggling with her willingness to embrace change in order to save our marriage. I see huge steps at change, but also a reluctance to change. I also see her trying to bring up reasons why she can't change and why she doesn't need to change.

I now understand that her changing so that she can again provide me with the touching and sex that I need will be very difficult for her and require her to face some things she really would rather avoid. I just pray that she will be able to do that and that I will be able to support her in a way that helps her.

Last night she would not hug me or allow me to hug her. This morning, I got up early to go on a business trip that will keep me away from home for a couple of nights. I brought her coffee for her to dink in bed this morning. Before I left this morning, she got up and came over to kissed me goodbye.

I hope that she will kiss me and hug me when I return. To try to stack the odds in my favor, a florist will be deliverying Valentine's Day flowers at work for her this morning.