You got a taste of what I was getting at...making it more personal for her. But I still haven't done a good job explaining what I mean. I'll try again. Please let me know how you interpret what I'm saying so I can see if I've done a better job this time.
Please keep in mind that I'm just trying to suggest another way for you to look at this for both yourself and as a way to approach your wife. It may not fit for you at all, but just be willing to give it some open thought.
The message you've been posting here says "I don't feel loved by my W because my W won't have sex with me. She won't meet my needs." What I'm saying is maybe you don't feel loved because your love for your W is taking a hit.
You talk about receiving love through sex. In order to feel loved, you need to experience that love through physical touch. I totally agree that for you love=physical touch. But I'm suggesting that your love for your wife grows from having sex. Not because she is meeting your needs, but because sex itself nurtures your love for her. One reason you don't feel loved BY your wife is because your own love FOR your wife is struggling. It is nurtured and refreshed through sex and you haven't had sex. It's struggling to survive. This struggle is painful and frustrating!
Loving someone is an incredible feeling! We often think it is being loved that is so incredible, and it is. But I think we tend to underestimate how important it is to us and how wonderful it is to love someone. Think about how amazing you feel when you are first in love! That amazing feeling comes as much or more from loving as from being loved!
When we start to feel our love for someone fade, the pain can easily get transformed into "I don't feel loved by you!" But what if the pain is really coming from "I feel my love fading for you"?
I'm not saying that you don't love your wife. But consider the possibility that, because you haven't had sex, your love for her is starting to fade a little and that is what is causing you to feel anger, pain, and frustration. You're losing the incredible gift of loving someone so deeply! The pain of losing that feeling of deeply loving another is making you feel unloved.
Quote: Some how I must learn her language and then I must tell her that if she wishes to love me, it must be in a physical way, and it must be DAILY(but not always sex). I can see where many LD women get turned off by this cause it literally seems like their men are little boys waiting to receieve candy. When your starved for LOVE, how can you avoid this?
She doesn't need sex to feel love for you. It's YOUR love we're trying to get nurtured here not hers. Think of it this way, you may not be the one starved for love. She is. She just doesn't know it.
I fell back in love with my H NOT because he suddenly started meeting my needs. I fell back in love with him because I started nurturing my feelings of love FOR him. I stopped focusing on what I thought I needed to feel loved and started focusing on what I needed to do to feel more loving. It seems counterintuitive, but it works.
So if you need sex to feel more loving, you still need your W's cooperation. Let her know that you want to fall back in love with her and you fall back in love with her every time you have sex with her. Tell her this gently and lovingly. Then give her time to think about what you said. Maybe she isn't into touchy, feely stuff because she's given up on it and doesn't believe it is possible anymore. You'd be letting her know it is possible.
While you're waiting for it to sink in with her, do other things to nurture your loving feelings for your W. Stop doing things that feed into your feelings of resentment and anger. What you spend time on and feed will be what grows. Make yourself focus on what you really like about your wife. Notice what she does right and let her know. Look at her. Smile at her. Express appreciation. These are just suggestions. You're doing them for yourself and to nurture the loving part of you. You're not doing them for her benefit. She will benefit, but that's not the point.
This isn't some magic pill that will turn everything around instantly. She needs to want you to be in love with her. This is where all those changes you're trying to make may help. It's also the reason why you don't want to hurt her back right now. She is unintentionally hurting you. You would be intentionally hurting her. That won't help your cause.
She'll then need to figure out how to get started when the physical desire is not there initially. I agree with Corri, the emotional desire at this point can be very powerful.
Is that any clearer or did I totally muck the waters up? I'll be happy to try again if you need me to.
Corri: When I read that chapter, I don't think I found a single word that I disagreed with. That chapter PERFECTLY describes my marriage and my feelings. I hope that I can get my wife to read the book and take it seriously. She is still in that "It's only sex" mode.
I have thought about counseling, and I might even try it through my church. Real marriage counseling might be to expensive since I am trying to pay off some big bills.
Quote: I hear many HDers say that, "with the exception of my sex life, I have a great marriage." I think that is bull pucky.
Low sex marriages ONLY work when BOTH spouses are LD, if one is HD, then the sex must be good and frequent.
Quote: You are no longer dependent on your spouse to change or take care of your unhappiness. You take that power away from them
I have never really understood how to do this, and I know that many experts recomend this. I am pretty happy with other things in my life, I am VERY unhappy with the fact that my LOVER is DEAD. It seems to me that my happiness is entierly dependant upon my wife since the hapiness I want comes from being with a lover. Now unless I cheat on my wife, there is no way to replace this form of happiness. I already have hobbies, and I already work out to make myself even fitter. The sad thing about working out is that I know that I know that I am making myself look better for my wife and if that does not work out, then I am making myself ready for a NEW person in my life. And even worse yet, when men work out, they produce MORE testosterone, which only makes the HD/LD problem WORSE!! This is not like other aspects of marriage where there are substitutes for things that are missing. I am missing physical touch from the one and only person that can morally give it to me. There IS no substitute for this, and I am reminded of this 24 hours a day. Interestingly, my wife and I were talking about how some other people we know suffer from depression, and my wife made the comment that she thought I might suffer from depression to some degree. I do get depressed on occasion for short times, and I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT CAUSES IT. Everytime I see other couples, especially middle aged couples, that are sharing some form of intimacy, I get down because I wish I was the guy in those relationships. Heck, I have other couples sharing more forms of intimacy in my own house, which immediately makes me very quiet. Then my wife will see this and ask me what is wrong. Then to avoid making a big scene, I will always answer nothing. One, of these times when we have a party at our house and some other couple starts touching, and then I get depressed, and then my wife asks what is wrong, I wonder if I should shout out in front of everyone, "Look, hon, other women actually TOUCH their freakin husbands, they actually sit by them, they actually KISS them, what the hell is wrong with you!" When will LD wives ever realize that the way they treat their husbands actually CAUSES the withdrawel into cave mode. Now I know why so many HD men want to take drugs to KILL their desire, that has to be better then withdrawing into our caves.
You are no longer dependent on your spouse to change or take care of your unhappiness. You take that power away from them
I have never really understood how to do this, and I know that many experts recomend this. I am pretty happy with other things in my life, I am VERY unhappy with the fact that my LOVER is DEAD. It seems to me that my happiness is entierly dependant upon my wife since the hapiness I want comes from being with a lover. Now unless I cheat on my wife, there is no way to replace this form of happiness.
Hm. Let me see if I can explain this in a way that might make sense to you.
When you make your wife soley responsible for your physcial happiness, you are thrusting upon her an enormous amount of power over your life. She may not WANT the power you assign to her, so in essence, you have made this a power play because you have set yourself up as 'the victim.' Because you freely choose to leave yourself stuck between a 'rock and a hard place,' you have also created a no win situation for your wife. In every instance of your interactions together, you are set up in 'either-or' situations. You are attempting to control your wife's behaviors, attitudes, actions, thoughts and feelings because of the enormous expectation you have laid at her feet. It is emotional blackmail. In order for you to achieve the kind of marriage you so deeply desire, your spouse must give all of these things to you WILLINGLY, not because you expect it.
Because you do not 'trust' her to do so on her own, you attempt to 'control' her through your feelings of anger, hurt and detachment.
Let me state clearly that there is nothing wrong with the things you crave for your marriage. They are what we all strive for. However, if your wife is unwilling or unable to hear you and find the courage to work on your marriage together, YOU have a decision to make. You are not stuck in your marriage because of God, religion or country. You are stuck because you are scared of the unknown. That is human, that is natural, that is understandable.
But you are hoping and praying that your wife is going to 'let you off the hook' from having to make some very difficult decisions or taking some very serious actions by changing into the woman YOU want her to be for YOU.
When you freely accept the person she is, now, today, for what she is, and understand that you cannot control her any more than you can control the man on the moon, is the day you will begin acting and deciding things for your own best interests. It may make you very sad, and it may hurt very deeply, but until the day you are willing to own your own thoughts, feelings and actions and not pawn them off on her, the two of you will never be able to freely love one another.
I don't think God ever intended anyone to stay in a loveless marriage. But do not blame God or your wife if you choose to stay in an unhappy marriage. The very fact that you ARE unwilling to leave your marriage could be the one thing your are NOT doing that will help her reach new understanding.
Own your life. It is yours and no one elses. Do whatever it is you need to do to try and communicate clearly with your wife. If she cannot or will not hear you, then examine your options and make some choices. There are no guarentees in life and this is probably the toughest road you will ever travel.
If none of this is making sense to you, then try this link that Jiji found on another thread: Last Resort Tactic
But whatever it is you do, stop waiting for your wife. It will trap you in continual limbo.
I have no doubt that if I can not get things changed, that in the long run I will reach the point of the last resort tactic. Unfortunately, that point is at least 11-15 years away, when my kids leave home. I want my children to have everything they need from a live at home father, even if this means sacrificing my life for years to come. I know that if I left, their finances would definitely not be the same. Once they are gone, then I may have a very difficult decision to face. It definitely goes against my moral upbringing. I have ALWAYS believed as the bible says, till death do you part. I will feel like a failure, since God really commands us men to meet our wifes needs, and thus she will meet our needs. In fact God commands us to love our wives with AGAPE love, so even if the love is not returned, we are to be happy. He certainly does not make it easy to divorce, that is for sure. If I did not have kids, I am sure that I would have already left her. But, since they are here, my life is NOT my own. In 15 years it will be my own!
For the past month I have been focused on my wife - not sexually - but being as attentive and loving and caring as possible. I was interested to see if she would develop any more desire in our relationship and, if not, was at least more caring and loving in a non sexual way. Perhaps some long-term compromise could then be worked out.
To my surprise, the opposite effect occured. Instead of her becoming closer and more caring, she become less caring and more distant. I didn't say anything about this for the past month and kept on being as cheerful and attentive as possible, despite being given an even colder shoulder the more I tried.
At the end of the month long trial it became aparent that my wife was really wanting me to be less attentive and less cheerful and she would snap at the slightest hint of anything that could be displeasing to her, although I would never take the bait. I finally asked her if I had being doing something to annoy her over the past few weeks and she let it slip out that she was concerned that if she was to show any interest in me or any approval of me at all, that she would feel obliged to have a physical relationship despite having no sexual interest in any way. She indicated that although she loves me dearly, she has no desire for any sexual contact with anyone and that she feels inadequate that she has no desire. She indicted that she will only have sex on the rarest of occasions and only because she feels extremely guilty. She feels less guilty and better about herself if she has a reason, any reason, to be angry/disappointed/disatisified with me. Since I have not recently given her any opportunity to find a reason to be angry, she indicated that she has put up a wall in the hopes that I will somehow slip up and then be justified in feeling less guilty about our absence of physical contact. She also indicated that she is concerned that it is not natural for a 40's male to have no sexual contact and that I could stray in our relationship. She went on to say that she would not really blame me if I did stray. However, having said that she is not at all willing to have any kind of physical relationship unless she feels totally guilty and that she must reluctantly succumb.
Based on the past 10 years of virtually no sexual activity and never making any headway at all in this area, it would appear that there is no possible compromise. We will never have any sexual relationship, end of story. I will either have to accept this reality, continue on in a totally frustrated and depressed stated or find recretion with someone else.
When I was younger, I often scorned men who would cheat on their wives thinking that they must be terrible people deep in side. After having lived through the past 10 years of a sexless union, I don't see any solution other than cheating on my wife or leaving her - funny isn't it.
Anyway, to close the loop on this post, I don't really believe that compromise is possible in my case and I wonder if this is true over the long haul if your spouse has no desire.
I have heard guys call in to Dr. Laura that are literally at their wits end. Many times they are crying, they just want a wife that can be physical with them in any way, not just sexually. Every time I have heard one of these guys, Dr. Laura pulls no punches, she flat out tells them that they have a tough decision to make on divorce. She basically says that women that don't like to touch and be intimate with their spouses, really never can be changed.
It's interesting that your w feels guilty about what she is doing. She knows she is doing something wrong and making you unhappy. Some LD spouses do not really seem to understand this. It seems like she might be willing to do something to make things better? Why not suggest going to counselling together.
Quote: If I did not have kids, I am sure that I would have already left her. But, since they are here, my life is NOT my own. In 15 years it will be my own!
cemar,
I understand your thoughts on this but want you to know that your life will never be fully your own...even when your children are grown and have children of their own what you choose to do with your life will stiff have an effect on them. My parents d'd when I was 24 (6 years ago) and I still ache over it as I know they do too.
I know that doesn't offer you any solution for the current sit but had to say it anyway (seems I like to battle you even though I agree with 95% of what you have to say.)
