Quote: Mo, I feel your pain. I really do. But do you think going down this line of thought is helping you at this point?
I don't know, but I keep having these thoughts, so I guess I need to deal with them somehow.
Quote: Yes, absolutely, he was withholding. This is clear to me now. I don't think he did it to deliberately hurt me. I guess he was hurting as well.
He feels he is giving more to the marriage, and having sex with me would be one more area where he would be giving in.
Everybody gets hurt in relationships sometimes. Everybody feels like things are not equitable in relationships sometimes. What differs is the way in which people choose to respond to or express these feelings of hurt or inequity. I am simply no longer willing to be married to a man who chooses to withhold sex as a response to marital pressures because given my nature the effect is too traumatic. An estremely timid woman might not be able to handle a yelling husband, an extremely jealous woman might not be able to handle a husband who had an affair, an extremely frugal woman might not be able to handle a man who gambled. Well, I am extremely HD. I guess in someways this is a weakness because I absolutely can't handle having a husband who withholds sex. It's not that I think he is a villain or even a bad person for doing it. I just know that it is very damaging to me because lack of sex can put me in a depression which is every bit as physically real as a broken arm and therefore I have to protect myself. Your mileage may vary.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
