Quote: I have told him before that I feel like he has left me.
I like that. It really describes how I feel - that there's a wall, that I can only get so close before being pushed away. For me, as a HD person, it's important to keep cuddling and keep spending time together even though we haven't had sex for over 6 years and rarely in the last 18 years. But even with this conscious effort to stay as close as we can without sex, we only get as close as we can without sex. It does feel like she left me 18 years ago.
Quote: She intellectually understands that it is not abnormal for me to have a sex drive, but feels it is somehow degrading for her to have to partake in any sexual activity at all because she has no interest.
We seem to be mainly HD people here - perhaps HDs are the people who feel the need to talk about the issue the most? At any rate, even as a HD, when my wife said something like this, it made sense to me. Imagine what it would be like if you had no desire at all, no response, and someone wanted to have sex with your body anyway. Yuck!
On the other hand, I hate it when having sex becomes an all-or-nothing test of whether we can do it. The last time we had such a test was 6 years ago. We tried it and it didn't work. That seemed to settle the issue for her. I had to become very insistent to reopen the issue this year. We're talking about the issue again now, and she's trying psychotherapy (yet again...). I'm hoping we can figure out something constructive to do before the door closes again...
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.
I'm a believer in real science based on real statistics, and I'm fed up with the kind of anecdotal expert opinion cited above. Some people may end their marriages believing that that is a scientifically based opinion, but it can't possibly be. Clearly, there must be at least one example of such a woman who has changed. There must be categories of women who have some particular problem that can be solved (e.g. a simple problem in the relationship that the husband is blind to but which is overwhelming for the wife). There are women who have started liking to touch when they stopped being angry. There must be other women whose problem could be solved if we knew how, but science and therapy are not that far along. There may well be a category of women who have a problem that can not be solved (imagine a woman with no nerve endings...). Let's assume that there are many reasons that a woman may not like to be touched and be intimate, that different approaches may be needed based on the underlying reasons, and that we may not know the reasons or the appropriate response. Then we could start to design a scientific study that would give answers to the above question. Those studies probably exist, but there's no way on earth that the answer would be the simple, global statement given above. Just read a bunch of research papers on this kind of topic, and that becomes clear.
I was 38 before we found out that I am gluten intolerant, and I was sick all the time since at least my early teens (my memory before then is hazy, but I was at least a behavior problem through elementary school). Doctors felt that if they could not quickly find a physical cause, it must be psychological, so they sent me out for years of useless and expensive therapy. Turns out all I need to do is avoid eating wheat and I'm fine.
Experts create convenient categories for problems they can't solve, it makes them feel better. If a doctor can't find a physical cause, that means it must be psychological (it doesn't mean that there's a simple physical cause the doctor didn't look for). If a doctor doesn't know how to help women feel good about touching, it's not curable (it doesn't mean that the doctor doesn't know how to help).
I'm one of those guys who is at his wits end a lot of the time. But there is love in our marriage even if there is no sex, and my wife *has* been learning to enjoy cuddling and being close and talking even if it has not led to sex. For a few years, I tried to go along with my wife's model of a loving but sexless marriage. I just can't do it.
Quote: Let's take this statement of yours. Let's reframe "pathetic sense of duty" to "She's doing this as an act of love. She is doing this for me. She wants to do something for me because she loves me even though she struggles with a lack of desire for sex."
Interesting. That might be really helpful, because she knows that I can sense when she is not into it, and that I really don't want to "do it to her". But if we have to have perfect sex to have sex at all, if she feels like she has failed unless she is completely turned on, we never get past the impasse.
But how would you say, "honey, let's try having sex regardless, I'll get off even if you don't, and that's OK." It doesn't sound terribly romantic, and it wouldn't exactly be a turn-on. I can see how to say afterwards that I appreciated it as an act of love, but to ask for that kind of act of love ahead of time, regardless of how it feels for her...I can't think of how to frame that.
Welcome, jonathan to the club no one wants to be a member of. I hope you stick around and share some more of your insight with us...I enjoyed your posts.
There are more HDs on here than LDs, but the LDs' views are SO HELPFUL. We love them almost as much as we love our frigid spouses!
Quote: Welcome, jonathan to the club no one wants to be a member of. I hope you stick around and share some more of your insight with us...I enjoyed your posts.
