And that is why I am between a rock and a hard place. If I try to explain what is turning me off then I get blamed for manipulating him. But if I don't explain how I am feeling then nothing gets better.
BUT, H gets to say what he wants to me and I am supposed to accept it. Last night he told me that he wants his "sexy wife" back. His definition of sexy is wearing mini skirts and tight shirts and no underwear . I am trying to age gracefully. I am also raising two daughters that I am trying to instill a strong sense of self. My teeny-tiny miniskirt days are over BUT I still think I am sexy anyways AND I bet there are a lot of men out there that would see me as very attractive the way I am.
Maybe he thinks that because I am not interested in sex with him, I am not interested in sex at all. Maybe I'm not as LD as I thought?
So is he telling you you aren't sexy to him? Is he wanting YOU to turn him on? (Of course, now I'm asking you what HE's thinking...DUH!) It just sounds like you both want each other to be different or rather the same as before. It's common ground to be on. Not great common ground to be on, but at least something you can talk about. Talk about how you've both changed. It's an intimate conversation. Might lead to desire for physical intimacy. (I'm going to go take my own advice now. )
Quote: And that is why I am between a rock and a hard place. If I try to explain what is turning me off then I get blamed for manipulating him. But if I don't explain how I am feeling then nothing gets better.
I guess it would suck to be LD. IHJ once told me I was lucky that I was never LD. Maybe that's true but it limits my ability to understand my H's point of view. There are many men to whom I am not attracted. I've had the experience of not being attracted to a man and then becoming more attracted, but I've never had the opposite experience. Sometimes my H doesn't look so generally "hot" to me but I can and do easily get over that feeling by just thinking about the particular things about him that do turn me on. I think a lot of HD people are this way. For instance, Hairdog wrote about how his wife has an unappealingly pendulous belly but he is still attracted to her pretty eyes and her breasts. Have you ever tried just thinking about a particular part of your H's anatomy that turns you on, like my personal favorite the bicep? Or maybe you could just think about some particular thing you'd really like to do sexually and then somehow work your H into the fantasy.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Quote: I've had the experience of not being attracted to a man and then becoming more attracted, but I've never had the opposite experience.
It is so interesting to find out the HD point of view. I have been sexually attracted to people before and then as I got to know them I've realized I don't really want to have sex with them. It could be something in their personality or some other thing that has lessened the desire. Once I was really attracted to my boss (Yikes!) and there was a spark between us, but as I got to know him better (aside from the fact he was my boss) I realized I just didn't want to get involved and the attraction disappeared.
I will have to give a lot of thought into finding something about H that turns me on. It's been such a long time that I have looked at him sexually that I can't right off think of something particular to him.
Quote: I will have to give a lot of thought into finding something about H that turns me on. It's been such a long time that I have looked at him sexually that I can't right off think of something particular to him.
This makes me really sad for both you and your H. I understand what it means to be sexually repulsed by someone. I use Rush Limbaugh as my personal example. I just don't understand the process that renders someone who was previously Mick Jagger into Rush Limbaugh. Sometimes I'm afraid that there's something about me that would eventually render a man LD. Do you sometimes worry that you might find yourself losing sexual interest again if you were to become involved with another man?
Once again I must caution you that I am perhaps not the greatest person to be offering advice. I frequently wonder if it wouldn't just be easier to find someone who was HD and attracted to me but I struggle on.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
It sounds to me that perhaps your H doesn't really understand that what he used to do (those little things) do actually meet a viable "need" of yours. Every single one of us has individual needs and those needs are probably not identicle to the ones our chosen SO has. The trick is getting them to understand our "needs" as a requirement they need to fulfill in order to let us know we are loved/wanted.
What would you say his fundamental needs are? They may not be obvious to you...so put some thought into it. Perhaps he's even told you what his are. How well do you feel he thinks you fulfill those needs? Chances are if he doesn't feel fulfilled he's stopped trying to fulfill your needs too. It's a vicious cycle.
She stated she has an active fantasy life...it's him she doesn't desire. It's not her testosterone level...she does have a SD, just not towards him. This could be a case of two people not meeting each others' needs so her SD has plummented towards him.
When I ask him what he really wants his basic answer is "I want you to want me". I am so confused all the time. In six years what I have been able to decipher that H needs is sex and his dinner ready at night. Sounds really silly. He has expressed to me in the past that he wants an "Traditional Marriage" where he comes home at night to his wife cooking dinner and kids running to him. So maybe the Sex is part of that paradymn. Maybe for him it is just part of a traditional marriage and that when you married it was a given?
You know what makes a man confident? A women that sexually desires him! Whan a man KNOWs that is wife does not desire him, his confidence will take a MAJOR backslide. You have to remember that for many men, the point of thier lives is to be needed by their wives, but when they have a wife that does not need/desire them, their world falls apart.
Someting else that happens is that men who know they are not desired end up AVOIDING conflict, since they feel they must appeal even more to their wives. They try to avoid the boat rocking, when they should be boat rocking.
Quote: Maybe for him it is just part of a traditional marriage and that when you married it was a given?
I think this is true for most HD folk. Regular sex with someone we love is one of the top reasons we want to be married. I guess we sort of assume that our spouse somehow agreed to meet our sexual needs because we agreed to not have sex with anyone else when we married them.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
. I am trying to age gracefully. I am also raising two daughters that I am trying to instill a strong sense of self. My teeny-tiny miniskirt days are over BUT I still think I am sexy anyways AND I bet there are a lot of men out there that would see me as very attractive the way I am.
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