I have tried explaining things to the wife, and admittedly, not very well to her, and she also throws up the defensive walls once anything starts getting related to sex. I still have more rocks to turn over in my quest for a solution, so I have not completely given up.
And yes, Carlotta, I think of divorce more and more. If it were just me and the wife, I would have no problem leaving her. I can not love a person in the long run if the do not DESIRE me like I DESIRE them. Without DESIRE, why be married? But then I come back to reality that I have 3 boys from 14 down to 8. They are completely innocent in this situation, would it be fair to them for MOM and DAD to split. We do not have an unhappy home, just an unhappy marriage. If I were to leave, it definitely would make things hard on them. Do I have the right to do that to my children? If divorce were to happen, I want the blame to be were it belongs, on MOM. So I go back and forth a lot on this, and I decide that my own happiness is not as important as the happiness of my children, I am still willing to give up my life for them. I am not alone in this, I know couples that already know that their marriages are over and they are just staying around until the children move out (they openly admit to this). I just keep telling myself to stay until the youngest is old enough that the impact won't be so bad. Sad thing is that I am checking out all the women I meet, especially at the rec center I go to. And among the 35+ woman, the selection of single woman is VERY BAD. What are the chances of meeting a middle age woman that is in good shape, is cute, and LOVES sex. Yea, these woman grow on trees! Let's face it, most women that are divorced at this age are very likely LD, since most marriages with problems have at least one spouse with very LD.
But hey, if I meet a cute 35+ woman in good shape that loves a good roll in the hay, I'm OUTA HERE!
Wow. Been a while since I could make it back here. :-D
I'd just like to go back and signal my agreement that it's easier for someone to blame marital problems on a MLC than on lack of sex drive. I don't know anybody going through a MLC, and nobody personally except myself in a SSM, so I don't know how frequent it is, but yeah, it seems like it would be much easier. /-:
I am turning in revolution
these are the scars that silence carved
on me
What I'm about to say might hurt, so strap on your body armor.
You said:
"If divorce were to happen, I want the blame to be were it belongs, on MOM."
CeMar, the way I see it, this attitude of yours is at the root of your problem, your stuckness. You are in a MARRIAGE and you need to learn to negotiate. You have not.
You admit that you have not aired this issue adequately with your wife:
"I have tried explaining things to the wife, and admittedly, not very well to her, and she also throws up the defensive walls once anything starts getting related to sex. I still have more rocks to turn over in my quest for a solution, so I have not completely given up."
This being a marriage of two people, it follows that if you divorce the blame will be equally shared.
And I am willing to bet big money that one reason your W feels no desire for you is that she KNOWS you are afraid of her, she knows she can bully you when you voice your dissatisfaction with your sex life, and she therefore does not think of you as a MAN.
You know that I am a W whose X was afraid to air the truth. He was a little boy in our marriage, afraid to confront, afraid to negotiate. In my view, the failure of our marriage needs to be equally shared: him for not talking and me for not listening to his frightened whispers.
There is a lesson in every difficult situation we face in life. That's why the situation is difficult -- we don't have the skills to handle it. The skill it seems to me that YOU need to develop is standing up to your wife, standing up for your own needs. You can do all the complaining and whining you want to here on the boards, but it is going to absolutely no good because you are not telling the only person who needs to hear it. I don't see anything ever changing in your situation until YOU change.
My wife is VERY sure of herself and can talk circles around me. She intimidates a lot of people, myself included. However, I have made it a resolution this year to speak my mind with her at all times, even if it causes my divorce! I have a lot of work to get up to speed on this.
Now about the negotiate part. I see this a lot. How do you negotiate DESIRE? My wife has NO desire. We have sex maybe once a month, and she does not give ANY affection. So how do I get the following conditions met:
I want sex 3 times a week. I want her to initiate sex at least once a week. I want her to flirt every day. I want her to perform oral sex at least twice a month and like it. I want her to kiss and hug me MANY times a day. I want her to cuddle in and out of bed.
What I have listed above is not some utltimate goal, this is what I consider the MINIMUM to save my marriage, I would actually want even MORE then this. But to achieve this, really would be much easier if she had desire. In fact without desire, I can not imagine how she can ever come close to meeting my needs. So How Do You Negotiate DESIRE? How Can we restore Desire?
You DON'T negotiate desire. But if you stand up to her, learn not to be her whipped puppy, tell you what your minimum needs are, and tell her that she either has to meet them or you are filing for divorce, I think you might both be surprised to see her attitude towards you change.
Your wife is reading bodice rippers full of take-charge men. This is what turns her on, presumably. Romance novels full of shy, sensitive guys who tiptoe around bullying women either do not exist or are not her thing.
I am convinced that nothing in your situation will change until you tell her in no uncertain terms what you need and that if you don't get it, you are leaving. No amount of complaining here is going to change a thing, except maybe to give you the courage to stand up to her.
You have a HD - LD mismatch in your marriage. But beneath this unbalance there is a deeper unbalance: she holds power over you in an unhealthy way. She has gained the power to tell you what you can legitimately feel and what is silly for you to feel. Some might say that the unbalance stems from the sexual dynamic. I think it's the other way around: she lacks desire for you because she sees you as a scared rabbit.
I am so happy to hear about your New Year's resolution to speak your mind with her at all times. If you are diligent about this every day, I think you will find your voice and take back your power.
And if you do tell her that you are leaving unless she meets your needs better and you get no response or a lukewarm response, then you know that she really isn't interested in being married to you. Then you can leave honorably.
But once she finally HEARS that you mean business, you might have to spell out explicitly (as you did in your list above) what you need. She is not going to know based on a vague complaint that you feel a lack of affection and passion. Been there, done that. She needs lurid detail.
I believe she will only desire a man whom she feels can stand up to her and intimidate HER as easily as she intimidates others.
Unfortuanately, the effect of a wife losing desire for the husband is that he loses his confidence. Men want Admiration and Desire more then anything else in the world. It's the catch-22 here. Women wants a man that is confident to desire him while man get confidence from being desired by his woman. Tough circle to break out of. But hey, I am trying to make me as happy and as confident as I can. It is very hard when my emotions are so directly tied to her DESIRE for me. I think this is what Dr. Laura means when she says that men rely upon their women for their own emotions.
I think Dr. Laura is a bitt off the mark on this. Most men do not get their confidence from their spouses. If they do, then they need to re-examine why that is true.
I very much want to be desired by my wife, but I am not dependent on her to provide me with some basic emotional element. If need be, I can find that somewhere else. I am also old enough to realize that love is a choice, therefore, there s more than just one ideal mate for me out there.
Want I want and need from her is ackowledgement that our marriage serves its design purpose, and that is NOT for her to feel all warm and secure while I am falling apart.
Find something that you do well. There you will find at least a seed of confidence to draw from.
Over the years I have learned how to do quite a few things really well. While my relationship is as screwed up as anyones, I hav e never doubted my abilities, or lacked confidence it trying a different approach. I did run out of ideas a few times in working to repair my relationship, but I damn sure am not afraid to try.
Sometimes radical treatment is the only way to rid a body of cancer. Sometimes a more gentle aproach is required, but it absolutely requires treatment in some form or another, otherwise death results.
I think a relationship is much the same way. You can ignore signs and symptoms for a while, but ultimately, you have to DO SOMETHING.
-NOPkins-
I will ferret out an affair at any opportunity.
-An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. -An infidel will remain unreachable so long as their sense of entitlement exceeds their ability to reason.
I have to agree with Nopkins: not all men are the same. Not all men need to be desired and admired by their wives to feel confident. I know of too many cases to the contrary.
CeMar, I think that if you saw a little improvement in your situation (rather than a complete fulfillment of your list of requirements: sex 3 times per week, etc) you might find your confidence and happiness increasing incrementally. IOW, you might find that it is possible to compromise with your wife.
If she feels that it is an all-or-nothing proposition, she might feel like it is an impossible goal. That's where the negotiation and compromise comes in.
But I agree that there seems to have been no compromise so far -- your wife is setting the entire agenda.
Hi CeMar, I am new to this board and only started reading SSM yesterday. I hear what you say, my goals are the same as yours. My W is a strong woman with no desire. I feel your pain but I agree to a large extent with Carlotta regarding being more man-like. In the book it says if what you are doing is not working then do something else. I believe that this is a very important message and I'll give you an example to illustrate it. My wife is a worrier about money in particular. She used to get mad at me for not paying bills on time (I used to wait for the red one before paying). Eventually I got fed up with the constant nagging and told her "you pay the bills then". That was a big mistake. She is now in charge of the finances and hence most of the decisions. In her eyes I was relegated to the bottom of the pecking order just above the hamster but below the children and cats. Recently my bank started an online facility for paying bills and I logged on to it. You can schedule bills to be paid in advance so I gave it a try. I watched the mail and when a bill arrived I grabbed it and scheduled it to be paid just before the due date. When W asked me have I seen the phone/gas/electricity bill I just said "I paid it online because it saves the cost of postage" W is not great on computers so has no interest in the online bank so I now have complete visibility of the bank balance and all resonsibility for paying bills without having to bother with mailing checks etc. Guess what? I now feel like the man of the house and she has largely forgotten about home finance and is now saving for a vacation in Florida! OK, this hasn't translated into sex yet but the atmosphere is definitely better. Try taking back some responsibility you have lost and see if it makes a difference. I hope this helps, David
I believe that I have to start very small and work up to my goals. Do you believe that a ND spouse can achieve the results I want somewhere down the road. I believe that I have already lowered my needs TREMENDOUSLY to even this list. My goals are for her to be HALF the women she once was. My true DESIRED goals are about twice what I have listed, but that probably will never happen. Honestly, what can a HD guy expect when negotiating with a ND spouse?
