NW, I read Cathy's post and yours with great pain and sorrow for those of us who have gone through such painful experiences.
Nothing is more painful that loving your spouse that rejects you. Some of what you wrote Newlywed could have been wrote by me. Unfortunately, both of my marriages have had sexual problems. The first when I was younger as I said in earlier posts, was a disaster for me. Cathy said:
Quote: "I love you but not enough to have sex with you." There aren't words to describe the damage that does to your soul and heart...to be rejected by the person who has vowed to love and protect you.
My first h showered me with attention, gifts, took me anywhere I wanted to go before our marriage. After our marriage is when the hands off policy started. It was so very puzzling and hurtful to me. I could not imagine why he had suddenly become so uninterested in sex. He was charming, still would go anywhere/take me anywhere, do anything for me except have sex with me.
His constant rejection ate away at all of the love and affection I had for him. I felt like a total failure and kept wondering what I was doing wrong. Like Cathy I didn't tell anyone. I had grown up listening to my mother and aunt talking about their "cornfed" country boy husbands and I knew what was going on in my house wasn't anything like that.
To me making love is sharing of yourself with that one special person. It is blending yourself into that person and having them blend in with you. God intended for us to become one with our spouse. I try to realize that not everyone expresses love in the same fashion but to me making love with the person I love is the ultimate "I love you."
My ex H did not want me to leave but when I finally got up the courage to leave I have never been sorry. Sorry yes that the situation happened in the first place. Very sorry that that kind of hurt, dispair, and shattered dreams happened but not sorry that I got out of a situation that would not have improved with time and would not have changed. My ex is a very nice person - he still is. But I did not get married to just have a friend.
The day I left him, March 29, 1979 at 10 mintues to 2:00 PM I told him that he had not really been my husband, my friend or my lover. I did not say those things to be cruel but it was the unvarnished truth. Was he being my husband when he pushed my hands away, when he turned his head from me when I tried to kiss him, when he said that I was a "nympho"?
A friend doesn't intentionally inflict pain and he did not mind if he hurt me with his rejection of me sexually.
It goes without saying he was not my lover.
Yes it was painful to know that the one that I had chosen to be my husband, lover, and friend really only wanted a "mother". Someone to cook for him, fuss over him, "tuck" him in bed (yes I was that stupid! he wanted to be tucked in like a child but wanted no part of me sexually).
In my current situation as I have said in earlier posts, the LD comes from illness/medication. It is still hard to not have the wonderful sex life that we had before but since reading the SSM book it has helped. We have talked about it in detail and because he does know that we had always had a great sex life he is a little more sypathetic to my problem.
For awhile he was all caught up in his own problem which I share because I love him with all my heart. He does not chose to be LD - it is a unpleaseant side effect. I do appreciate the fact that he is making strides to please me - it lets me know that he still loves me and wants to please me. It is not a perfect situation but I am working to improve it.
I agree with Cathy that you have the two options. The first option to stay could be very grim for you as time goes on. Your spouse while he may be just darling in some ways (and I am sure he is) your basic drives and needs are way off kilter of each other. I believe that the longer you stay the deeper your resentment will be.
You have a different way of showing love and affection. To you the natural course is to make love - his is to fall asleep to avoid you. I made that decision in 1979 that I would not go through life feeling as sad, lonely, and rejected as I did each and every day when I was married to him. He could have given me the moon if he could have but all I wanted was him and that he could not and would not give to me.
The second option is to leave. You are light years ahead of the game from where I was. I was a 20 year old who had never really worked. (he wanted me to stay home and just be his mommy/wife.) I was like you - driven, ambitious, talkative, messy (I had to chuckle at that!!!) and I escaped my gilded cage.
I went to work in advertising and was successful at it. I met my future H who was the sexiest guy in the world who though my ex was an idiot for not wanting ME.
We married three years later and have 3 beautiful children. While we have not had a bed of roses of a marriage I can truely say I love him with all of my heart and I know that he loves me.
Don't cheat yourself of a wonderful life with someone who will appreciate all of you - not just part of you. When I look back on both of my marriages even with the problems that illness has brought I have never regreted leaving my ex. He just brought such bad feelings to me.
You husband is not doing this to be mean to you. Neither did my ex. It is just their wants and desires are radically different from yours. You are not being mean to him for wanting a robust sexual relationship. He can not give you want you want because he doesn't know how and can't see why it is so important.
NW seek counseling for yourself. I wish I had. I needed it. It really did a number on me and had I not had strong moral convictions I probably would have become the town hooche just to prove I was desireable.
Don't cheat yourself trying to change someone else.
