Hi. this is my first post here. I have been lurking for a while. I guess I finally want to tell my story where it will be understood. Me: Male 40 HD (or possibly normal D) W 34 Married 15 years - no kids We have SSM big time. Over the past 10 years we have had intercourse about twice per year. twice it was 2 years without. Sex without intercourse was about as infrequent. I feel that i got the bait and switch as well. After two years of marriage the frequence of sex had really dropped and continued to go downhill. After the early years of rejection i just backed off. Pretty much all sex has since has been initiated by her. Intercourse is painful for her. She has some medical problems which will cause her serious hip joint pain from most sexual positions. Knowing that it would cause her pain, i tried to be good and understanding and not force the issue. Many times i tried to see if we could do something to change things. I think i've not been the best communicator. It seems that all she heard from me is 'I want more sex' and all i ever got out of our discussions was that it's my fault that i'm feeling bad and upset and that I will need to change to fix that. After feeling blamed this way for so long i stopped trying to talk about it. Over the course of time i was becoming angry and frustrated. I did not know where these feelings were coming from (until i read SSM). Daily i was becoming very short tempered with my wife. I let them build up and build up and did not know where to turn. Even seeing a passionate kiss on tv or a movie wwould get me upset because all i could feel is that i wasn't being loved. I have read the love languages book, and I think for me i need the sex to feel loved...unless the total lack of it is masking my true needs. For her ithink it is acts of service. (sorry for rambling, there's a lot inside and its tough to get out in a coherent manner). Well things built up inside of me to the point where i just could take it any more. I could not stand her, i could not be around her, and i was unable to talk to her. I had to get out of that environment. I've moved into my own apartment now. This was enough to get us to try and communicate again. She did read the SSM as i had asked her. During our communications she also told me (and supposedly had been telling me but i never heard) that intercourse also makes her feel like her guts are being ground apart. As far as she's concerned, SSM doesn't apply to her because she physically can't have sex. She refused to accept my additional posit that she was also LD. In fact i suspect the pill is partially responsible for her LD as i am convinced that oncce she started upon it was around the time the sex started to go away. Additionally, several of the sexual encounters we have had have been after she had not started on the pill for the first 3 days of a cycle. She doesnt' see how empty and hurting I am and does not understand that i need intimacy. it is still 'my problem' and that i need to sort things out. Additionally, I have completely broken her trust by leaving, she has even less desire to even pursue intimacy. I feel completely unloved and empty, which leaves me no energy to put into this relationship. I don't know how to try and fix it, i'm not sure i want to. Maybe there is a way that i can be happy, but i can't see it right now. I feel like i am only hanging on because i am scared to leave completely, and that leaving is so against what i believe (morally not religiously) and what i promised.
