MLC & Alcoholic

[Rose888]

There are parts of your story that sound familiar, and others that are different. The differences might be great enough that my story won't help you at all, but I'll share anyway just in case.

There are two main themes in my story--my husband's depression, which has spun into MLC twice in our marriage, and issues with my libido. He had always wanted a passionate marriage and he keenly felt the lack of feeling loved and desired.

I thought I understood and was improving, but I didn't really get it until this second MLC. Even then, I thought I needed to wait until after he came out of the depression to fix things, because it's hard to feel sexy around a depressed person.

And then he spent an extended amount of time away and came back detached and not sure he wanted to stay married.

All of a sudden, I was super motivated to fix the sex issue. It turns out, I didn't need him to change first. I could change first.

It can be tricky to not pursue while showing you can be in a passionate relationship.

The way I handled it was to never turn down his overtures of physical contact, but to be sensitive to when and where I initiated. In our case, he still slept with his arm around me, and I could initiate sex some nights, but he pulled away if I tried to kiss him during the day. So I kept my hands to myself outside of bed, but if he initiated touch during the day, I was receptive.

Physical touch releases bonding chemicals in the brain, and I wasn't going to prevent him from feeling the effects of those.

In my case, that approach worked well when paired with 180s in other areas and no R talks. At all.

I know it goes against a lot of the advice, and I'm not saying it is what you should do.

But if you think your H is bringing up legit issues in spite of the MLC, you might consider addressing those as you can, even before he snaps out of it.