I agree with LG about "marrying the wrong person." I think that almost any marriage can be happy if both people choose to be kind and loving to the other and try to meet the other person's emotional needs; in other words, if they truly live the vows they made at their wedding to love, honor, and cherish (assuming they had a religious ceremony). I'm sure that Michele and other marriage counselors, who are fairly successful in saving marriages, have seen some marriages that would appear to be beyond saving turn around and become strong, loving, happy marriages.
I'm not a believer in soulmates, that there is one and only one person in this world who is right for you; and if you can only find that right person, everything will be wonderful. I've seen too many people leave marriages to marry their "soulmates" only to have that second marriage end in divorce.
What has turned things around for us is that I finally realized how hurt and rejected my husband felt when I'd turn him down. I honestly didn't see it as rejecting him (besides, from listening to married friends, I thought it was the norm). Like some of the wives Michele mentions in her book, I saw sex for him as "scratching an itch" and didn't realize that it was an emotional (and physical) need for closeness and intimacy and one of the ways that he showed me he loved me.
What has turned things around for me was the realization after reading TSSM and some of the posts here from you and the other men in SSMs that I was hurting my husband, that he felt I didn't care about him or love him. If I came up to him and hugged him or asked for a hug, and he told me that he was too tired or too busy or that his arms were sore, etc, etc, etc, I would have been hurt and felt that he didn't love me. Yet, I didn't see that I was doing that to him.
Have you ever told your wife how you feel? Michele has some great suggestions in her book (I believe they're in the second half) showing the steps to take. Despite other issues in our marriage, if my husband had told me (without being accusing) how he felt, I would have listened and things would have changed between us.
There is also a "nuts and bolts" aspect to sex, otherwise known as technique, that came into play with us. A lot of times, I would have ML with him except that it's kind of messy (sleeping on a wet spot, having to get up and go to the bathroom to avoid bladder infections, waking up because of a tickling sensation on my inner thigh from leaking fluid, worrying about "leakage" later in the day if we did it in the morning or at lunch, etc.).
I would happily have given him a hand job except that he, like every other man I knew, was used to the straight up and down motion with lots of friction that you guys probably use on yourselves. I'd find myself praying silently "please come, please come, my arm's about to fall off, please come, etc.) and then I'd start silently counting until he'd be finished. This is going to sound strange, but try taking a good-sized cucumber, put oil on it, set it in front of you and anchor it somehow, set a timer to 5 minutes (of however long it usually takes), and start stroking hard and fast up and down using your arm muscles up to at least your elbow until the timer goes off (I don't think you want to do this in front of anybody else though).
Then, there's oral sex. Again, my husband, like the men I knew before him, expected or knew only the "thrust in and out" movement, which left me with a sore jaw. Again, you can use a good-sized cucumber to get an idea. Only this time, peel most of the cucumber (leave enough peel at one end so that you can hold onto it easily). Again, set the timer, and then push and pull the cucumber in and out of your mouth without leaving any teeth marks on it (that's why it'd be better to peel it so that you can see the teeth marks).
But, this is where a really good book on techniques can help. The absolute best one I've ever found (and my husband would agree) for women on making love to men is by Lou Paget, How to Be a Great Lover: Girlfriend-to-Girlfriend Totally Explicit Techniques that Will Blow His Mind (she's also written a book for men called How to Give Her Absolute Pleasure). The chapter for women on hand jobs is especially great (and there's one technique that she named after the male friend who taught it to her, Ode to Bryan, that works much better than I ever expected and uses a motion using only hands and wrists that I could do for hours except my husband can only stand it for a few minutes). This isn't one of those books that simply give lots of positions (and as she points out, there really are only 6 basic positions). She covers kissing, manual sex, oral sex, positions, etc. She provides explicit, detailed, step-by-step directions with very tasteful drawings, especially in the chapter on hand jobs. The book is written in a very friendly (like talking with a good friend) and tasteful manner but is explicit (and uses the proper names for body parts). Just read the glowing reviews at amazon.com .
I'm not sure how you would give such a book to your wife. I bought a copy myself because of a recommendation and then later bought a copy of the book for men for my husband simply because we wanted to make ML better.
Michelle (who was lucky enough to live in England as a child for several years when her AF dad was stationed there and hopes to return someday, but who doesn't miss cardinal spiders)
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. Will Rogers
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. C. S. Lewis
