Putting it back together, but SSM issues linger

[labug]

Accuray,

On someone else's thread you asked me to comment here if I had any other thoughts about your sitch. I've been thinking about it, and thinking about it and thinking about it. I haven't read your complete thread but enough to know that it seems that your W and I have similarities.

First, I have never been sexually abused but was raised by a controlling mother who was physically abusive and believed that children were to be seen and not heard. I was to have no feelings about anything other than what she allowed me to feel.

My H was in a sex starved marriage. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy sex but that it was difficult to get "in the mood." There were alot of inside-my-head roadblocks that I had to hurdle to get to that place of being able to just relax and enjoy. Sometimes a couple of glasses of wine helped. I was conditioned that sex was bad, anything done for pleasure was not acceptable and I felt that I was never good enough and had a huge fear of rejection. These were not things that my H made me feel, these are just things that were in my head. I have told my IC that it always seemed there were 3 of us in the marital bed, me, H and my mother.

I wanted to be sexy, provocative, hot but couldn't reconcile that with the good girl I was supposed to be.

We never really talked about all this. Sad, huh? I tried to convince my self that it really wasn't that important but it was very important to him. I sent him the message that if he really loved me he would not push me to have sex. He never forced but he would be very frustrated and sometimes angry.

I did often believe that the only reason he would touch me, hug me, kiss me was because he wanted sex. I would rebuff those overtures. I love my H, I just wasn't able to show it in the way he needed.

But what happened between us is not as important as what was going on in my head. Through counseling that I have been able to face all these anxieties and begin to believe that we are meant to be sexual beings and to enjoy sex. That having sex does not make me "bad." If your W is not able or willing to do that work, I'm not sure what you can do that will make your sitch acceptable to you.

I hope this might provide some insight.

Now, I have a request. Could you read my sitch and give some input? You posted on NLW's thread re How to Save your Marriage Without Talking About It and men feeling shame around not being a good provider. I have that book and will have to go back and re-read it. I think that may be at the heart of our problem and I don't know if it can be fixed.

Anyway, thanks.