Maybe I've finally found a place to at least commiserate. You will think I am making this up but I'm not. My wife and I met her first weekend at college. It was my second year and she was only my second girlfriend. I was 18 from having skipped a grade in elementary school -- head smart, people stupid and parents apparently wanted it that way. I asked them. Religious upbringing. Dutiful firstborn. Married a firstborn.
Married 2 months after she graduated. Get along great with finances, religion, child-raising. 3 biggest problems -- libido, energy level, emotional range. I'm high on all, she's low on all.
Married as virgins. Dozens of letters during courtship about what we wanted to do, etc. Heavy petting, sharing a bed at college, but that's where it stopped. I'm 6'1, she was 5'2, 130 lb when we met. Sex was painful for her at first no matter how gentle I was. She's just really small.
By year 2, I was in counselling by myself to try to cope. The 2 week honeymoon wasn't even really consummated until day 13. Should have known then. She refused counselling, tested for low thyroid (low end of normal), wouldn't consider testosterone. She sees it as an issue, but not one worth dealing with, just one to feel lousy about herself about.
Wife was about 160 when we married, is 240 now (at 5'1)
Kids came in year 7 -- lost first baby to fatal birth defect that we found out 2 weeks before delivery. Child #2, a boy, a year and a half later. Son spendt first 10 days in ICU with lung problems and I would die like #1. He didn't, he's just lived with asthma for the last 6 years. 3 months after his birth, wife diagnosed with Cancer -- hodgkins lymphoma -- treated with chemo, radiation. Child #3, a girl, 4 years later, 3 months after that wife diagnosed with breast cancer. Double mastectomy, chemo, radiation.
9 months later, lump in liver. Hysterectomy, ovaries removed, estrogen suppressors, experimental radiation. Can't even think of bariatric surgery or testosterone. She and I are both 38.
Now for my grief: I love my wife. She is a great cook, she homeschools my son and is a natural mother. But she is the lousiest excuse for a spouse of life partner. We are completely role reversed. I am the talker, work-it-out, share emotions one. She is the ignore-a-problem, sleep-it-away one.
On top of that, what woman cares so little she gains 100 lbs? How can a woman not know that intimacy is a part of marriage? How can 100's of letters about sex during courtship turn into nothing afterward and no desire to figure out why or how? Now I have to feel a monster in my own eyes for thinking about sex with everything else going on in her life. In spite of my religious upbringing the only action I get every 3 weeks or so is grabbing S&M videos off newsgroups and mentally working out my bitterness. Again in spite of religion, I'm thinking of telling my children when the time comes to try before you buy. What a mess.
No one knows the real me. I go to work as an engineer, smile in Church, cope with the medical bills, kiss my wife goodbye and say "I love you" in the morning, but she knows I'm miserable almost all the time and we're little more than roommates. I've begged her to tell me if any of her needs are unmet -- she swears I meet them all. Wish she could even just be the person I dated. Even without sex, our physical relationship was bettter than we've ever had in marriage.
We've been to "Engaged Encounter" and pre-marriage counselling with 2 different pastors before marriage. We've spent 12 weeks taking the class "His Needs, Her Needs". I've read the "Birth Order Book", "Getting the Love you Want" and have a shelf full of 50 other books I've skimmed. I've begged at least 10 pastors (none of them mine so as not to embarrass my wife) for advice on how to cope and the best they could come up with was to pray a lot, take cold showers, and suffer through it -- not really bad advice, what could they say?
PS -- the only way I have coped this long is 1/2 a pill of Celexa (a prozac derivative) a day -- it lowers my libido enough and raises my contentment level enough to at least keep things together for the kids. The price I pay is in much lighter sleep -- did I mention my wife snores like a lumberjack and I have to wear ear plugs just to be able to share a bed? I highly recommend the Celexa anyway, it was a God-send.
I haven't seen a lot of hope in the posts I've skimmed. Lots of HD's desperately trying to cope with their LDs and be decent, moral, loving folks. Can some LD tell me why I shouldn't think you are just messed up humans? Can't you see the pain you cause?
Sign me Coping, Trying, but Empty Thanks for the Listen
