What I am going to tell you may be pretty extreme. I can't speak for all men here. And some people might throw stones at me and say that I am the one with problems. But either way, I want you to know I understand EXACTLY how your H feels. Let me start with this one fact:
*MY WAW'S INABILITY TO UNDERSTAND MY SEXUAL NEEDS WAS WHY I FELT I COULDN'T BE MARRIED TO HER.*
I don't know how I could have made it more clear to her. I told her that while she would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever how important sex from her was to me, it was so important that if she would at least TRY it would mean so much to me. It was almost all I wanted. NOT just having sex...but for her to try to learn more about how much it meant to me, why, make me feel safe for having my needs, teaming up with me to meet them and strategizing on resisting temptation.
I couldn't reach her. I tried explaining it was like feeding the dogs. The dogs need to be fed every day. You don't stop feeding them because you don't feel like it, you've had a long day, etc. I told her I was devastated, IN ABOUT AS MUCH PAIN AS RIGHT AFTER BD, when she for whatever reasons rejected and neglected me.
Now, in the beginning I tried finding ways to reattract her, reason with her, beg/plead. I tried to see an IC. I turned to porn more and more to try to minimize my dependence on her. I tried to drown myself into hobbies so I didn't have time to feel the pain in my heart. Finally, I tried being controlling to get what I wanted, forcing her.
I cannot blame any of this on her. It was truly terrible behavior that I will stop forever.
But I will say that I would never want to be with a woman that didn't acknowledge that men are different than women, and that sex works really differently for men, which means even when they don't understand why it's impacting us the way it does, they they are dealing with powerful forces they don't understand, so as part of the M they will be on a lifelong quest to bridge that mysterious gap and maintain that as the priority level it is.
So why now I am posting this to you? This isn't some wise thread where I'm perfectly balanced and have this well thought out. This is just me STILL feeling the need to be understood, and hoping that it gives you a clue as to his point of view.
"Our sex life started out great, at least for the first few years..." You realize to him he felt awesome because he actually thought YOU UNDERSTOOD how important sex was to him and that you LOVED him enough to make him a priority. This also PROVES to him in his mind that YOU KNOW WHAT HE NEEDS BECAUSE YOU GAVE IT TO HIM!!!
"there was lack of desire on my part...no he is not really re-writting history" You will never understood how much you have hurt him. There is no emotional pain that I can compare it to.
"H believes the desire was not there because I did not love him" For you to "lack the desire" to attend to a deep emotional need of his that without leads him to feel devastated beyond expression...after you showed him (in his mind) that you showed him early on that you understood what he needed and knew how to get it to him...how else would he interpret this?
"His way of dealing with it was to just ask for more sex, which did not help" HIS WAY OF DEALING WITH IT WAS TO LEAVE BECAUSE HE COULDN'T TAKE ANYMORE. My goodness. He asked for more sex because his heart was bleeding and he felt like his life way being destroyed being stuck in a M with a woman that was starving him of the nourishment he needed to be whole. The ONLY need he couldn't take care of himself or get somewhere else. The ONLY need that important to him. And while he's bleeding, you're doing your own thing because you're not feeling it, maybe reading the occasional magazine article about it, but pretty much convinced that it is HIS fault for not making you FEEL more like being close to him, and HIS problem that it's importance is so overinflated. After all, it's not that big of a deal to YOU, so he must have problems. Maybe because the way his mommy treated him...better talk to your girlfriends and diagnose him while he falls into depression and withdraws into a shell of a man.
Back to the here and now. This seems pretty harsh, one sided, or unfair. I am not here to justify all the reasons you felt your lack of desire, nor to hear all the bad things your H did to you as time went on. I am here quite simply to give you a snapshot of how your H likely feels. Don't like this point of view? Then let your husband go and have a chance to find someone that will love him as a verb, not just as a feeling.
But maybe you can rethink how you look at this aspect of your R. My guess is that if you could somehow change this part of you there would not only be no D, there would be a happy lifelong M with a devoted H.
Me:38 XW:38 T:11 years M:8 years Kids: S14, D11, D7 BD/Move out day: 6/17/14, D final Dec 15
