About giving your W the book. There are some parts of it that I do not know if they would appeal to a ld feminist. Have a good read through it first from this point of view. There are parts where it talks about differences between men and women that your W might not accept. If you want a third party opinion you might be better to ask her to see a counsellor with you. What is she like about counselling? She might go if you presented it as being more your problem.
Jiji: I have tried counseling before. The problem is the unknown factor: the counselor. The last one we had concluded that we had a lot on our plate and that we were a fine couple and that I just needed to be more patient. She did not go deeply into our problems...it became more of a chat session about what we did that week. I don't know that I'm willing to put out the bucks for, essentially, yet another reason to be "patient" with her. As for her not taking kindly to certain parts of the book, I guess that's up to her...maybe it will at least stimulate conversation about the subject.
I am new to the group. Let me use this opportunity to say hi to everyone. It is great to know that there are so many of you who are, or have been, in the same boat as me.
My wife has very low sex drive. What hairdog has said struck a cord in me. We have been married for 14 years. The last time we really have good sex was before we got married. Since about 7 years ago, things have been going down-hill much quicker. We changed from having sex once a week, to once a month, to once a year, and then to nothing 4 years ago. Because I am a man and I have sexual needs. All these years, I secretly went on Internet to visit pron sites just to get a temporary relief. Recently, in the name of openness, I revealed to her that I went on Internet to look at pron pictures. She got very upset and threatened to cancel our Internet subscription. Of course that is not going to work. Nonetheless, I complied and I have not looked at those sites since then.
I guess my question to you, hairdog, is: how did you recognize your problem and begin to deal with it. She is now blaming me for all the problems we are having and she has little desire to change. What would it take for her to recognize her problem? I know I am responsible too and have been taking the actions to change. The fact that I had the courage to be opened up to her, after bottling it up for all this year, is to hope for a better relationship. Recently I came very closed to having an affair. That scared me a lot but I don’t know how much longer I can hang on. It has been very painful and I need all the help I can get!
Hey Ebox. I have to leave in about 10 minutes, but your question deserves more time. In short, How did I recognize the problem? Well, I realized we weren't having sex very often. I became a little obsessive and started keeping a private journal with all my grievances, and recorded when we had sex. 7 times in 2001. 5 in 2002. Twice this year. That's easy enough. Now, how have I begun to deal with it? Well, lots of reading. Get the SSM book. Maybe share it with your wife (I haven't done this yet...but it's a goal in 2004). ANother thing I did was get on anti-depressants. They've helped me be a little more relaxed about it. I plan to stay with my wife because we have a daughter who really needs us together. However, I would say that I'm definitely vulnerable to having an affair. I miss the touch and the feeling of being loved that comes from physical intimacy. I may end up getting that elsewhere.
As for the pron...I don't personally have a problem with that. My wife says it objectifies women...which it does, but sometimes you need a little visual to get off...and if she's not going to get you off, then do what you need to do for yourself.
Hi Hairdog. I don't know if I can help or not but I thought I'd tell you some things that *might* have worked with me before a drastic move of him leaving. The reason I say might is that I was already starting to change inside on my own and that may be necessary for anything to happen. Some things that really made a difference was H telling me how rejected he felt, how he would curl up in a ball in bed and cry silently. He only told me that after he left. Yes he had told me before that it upset him but I never understood to what degree. Another thing that might have helped was going to a sex therapy weekend workshop, something like that might have helped open the "inner door" for me. I think having books for her to read is a good idea like you are doing. Also, the biggest thing was finding out that by losing the sexual intimacy, over time, you can lose the passion and love. That's what happened to H. He felt rejected for years, started shutting down his own passions and his feelings for me started to change. I WISH he had told me this early enough for me to realize it was change or die, but he said he didn't really know it until too late. Another big problem was I was very sexual inside of me but had denied it for years, how could I just suddenly start being a sexual person. It would have been too hard to deal with the questions from him or even face myself. There was too much of a juxtaposition. So, I think if you are to get her to open up, it needs to be with lots of loving acceptance and time. So, I don't know if any of this helps
This is an email from H last night when he found out the truth. This has been an ongoing discovery for him over the last few weeks and there is sorrow on both our parts that I didn't "wake up" earlier.
Quote: I guess all in all this is very confusing for me. You say you were really one way, when you actually said very clearly that you were the opposite. In fact, you were very expressive in the fact that you did NOT like being vocal, and you HATED sex scenes in movies, and you HATED sexual passages in books, and you always became very, very agitated if anything overtly sexual was on tv, or in a movie, or in music.
There would have been no way possible for me to ever believe otherwise. Never in a million years would I have ever believed any of this...you could have told me the sun was made of cheese and I would have had an easier time accepting that.
I don't know if there are any similarities with your wife or not. Good luck.
