Quote: Empowerment, for me, came in the form of knowledge, understanding and ultimately, self-change. It had very little to do with my H, in fact. The dynamics in our relationship changed forever when I stopped being angry. I was truly able to communicate to him how much pain I was in only when I killed the anger. When I got a grip and stopped blaming him, it became clear that it was nobody’s fault. We were simply in marriage’s natural crucible. However, my years of pain had brought me to the point where I was truthfully able to tell him that I was going down the road of irrevocable change, and if our sexual relationship did not improve, I could not predict which would be the more painful of the two options (sex starved marriage vs end of marriage) for me. He understood that I was not trying to control or threaten, but merely being honest. We sat down and talked about a frequency that was acceptable to us both.
Yes and amen. This is *exactly* what happened in our relationship. NOP has written about Michelle telling him that he had to address his anger. And I have written where this issue became almost a *daily* topic. It was not going to go away. As we moved further into it, NOP managed to strike a note of firm resolve mixed with love and the knowledge that one way or another, he could not continue in our relationship as is. This was not presented in anger, but almost with a sense of grief.
Not always pleasant. Not always peaceful.
But somewhere amid the battle, I think the focus began to switch from fighting *against* each other and toward fighting *for* a marriage that we both could enjoy.
Quote: I can tell you that the LD spouse in my marriage no longer controls the frequency or type of sexual contact. In fact, no one controls anything or anyone. It is not about power. I am still the HD in our marriage, but it feels very different to me now.
This is our experience as well. NOP didn't become LD, I didn't become HD - the reality is, drive levels became a non-issue.
