You're only hurting yourself. She's not "hurting" you. I don't think you grasp that despite your protestations of the contrary.
That's not fair.
I don't focus on the hurt.
I hurt.
Staying in my chair for a few extra minutes because I have an erection I can't explain when another group is trying to start their meeting doesn't make me less anxious, and it isn't a result of me not thinking about sex, which I'm not.
Maybe "hurt" is the wrong word for you then, but I do feel alone, I do feel tense, I do feel unwanted, call it what you want just to get to the root; I don't feel good and I can't wish it away. If you can, that's great, and I'd love advice on how you do it and maybe I can even be celibate AND enjoy it (I know it sounds sarcastic, but wow, if I didn't ever want sex again it would actually be a good thing, particularly since she can't have kids and neither of us want kids).
Saying not to hurt doesn't work-----------it's like telling someone to eat broccoli. Sure, it's good for them, but if they don't like it and it tastes terrible they're not going to want to do it just because they should. You can't make someone like food and NO it's not wrong to want sex, and in fact it's to the contrary.
But when you say it's not a problem for our marriage, that's where I draw the line. I'm not happy and you say "just forget about it because it's that simple." If I wasn't meeting a need for my wife, say not spending any time with her or not helping with the house or the bills or the dogs, that would be a problem and you'd call me a jerk. And I'd be a jerk for not for not doing those things, but for not doing them once I knew I should have been doing them.
So when you ask again if I've ever asked what her expectations are, I have to again remind how much I changed explicitly because of asking her what she wanted-----she wanted more time, she wanted a car, she wanted to move out of my studio, she wanted me to take care of the lawn on my own, she wanted me to let her sleep past noon on weekends, etc. I adapted to all of those things BECAUSE I talked to her about what her expectations were and what she wanted. Some of it was hard to swallow. But I did it. Because I love her, not because I expect sex out of her if that's what you think. If it helps, the sex didn't disappear until she kinda ran out of things to ask me to change to make her happy, and, again, now when I ask her she says there's nothing she wants me to change, she's happy and it makes things worse the more I ask----she TELLS me not to ask because she says she will tell me if there's something she needs, which I believe because I've seen it.
Why did your wife leave you? After 3 years, I'm moving on. Judge me if you think that makes me a bad person, but you just said people have to realize people are different and have different needs. I am the person who wouldn’t stay in a relationship with someone who left me in between the Olympics.
But then again, we're not talking about me telling my wife anymore about my needs. I already said that. What I need help with is dealing with the hurt of FEELING rejected--------even if that's not what she's meaning to do, which I frankly know she isn't meaning to do, I still FEEL that pain.
You stopped hurting because your wife left you for longer than I've known my wife. I don't think that's healthy for either one of us, and yes, I think there's a better solution for me to DEAL with this occasional but real and emotionally harmful pain than for her to leave me for x years.
For example, I'm not afraid of much at all. I like performing in front of an audience, live. I go on TV a lot. I'm social. I race cars. I travel with a backpack with no reservations. I conquer MY fears. But I've never dealt with anything like this and I can't simply "conquer" it by pretending I can simply stop thinking about it altogether and become celibate before I feel bad about it again.
