QUOTE ____________________________________________________________ Last night, she finally gave me an ultimatem: She wanted me to ask myself this question: If we could never have sex again, would I still love her and want to be her husband? If I answered yes, she MIGHT stay, if I answered no, she would leave and move the kids out of state. She asked me to think of it as if she had been in a major accident and was now paralyzed from the neck down. Would I still love her? ____________________________________________________________
Oh man, that is the same question my LD fiancee asked me several months ago in one of our MANY arguments about sex - isn't it ridiculous? As others have posted, there is quite a difference between choosing to meet your needs and being physically unable to do so. If my fiancee were to suffer in a terrible accident and was unable to meet my sexual needs, I would continue to love her and deal with it. However, if she was perfectly healthy and admitted to me that she will never meet my sexual needs or even try to do so, then I would be out the door. At any rate, this question really bothers me. It seems like just another way of depicting the HD partner as a sex crazed maniac who cares nothing else about the relationship than sex. It really is frustrating - your relationship starts with great sex, loads of intimacy, etc. However, when this seemingly all of a sudden disappears from your relationship (in my case as soon as I moved in with my fiancee) and you pursue the same levels of intimacy and sex that you previously had with the SAME person, suddenly all you care about is sex!
It seems like the real question to ask yourself is - can you continue to live like this for the rest of your life? You have perfectly valid concerns in your marriage, and your wife is minimizing and dismissing these concerns. If she has no desire to work on this, does not want to go to MC, and simply says that you must accept her the way she is, then you have to decide whether it is worth it to continue your marriage.
This is easy for me to say because I am not even married yet, and have no children. I love my fiancee, but the HD/LD issue has not been adequately addressed by her which has led to MAJOR problems in other areas of our relationship. We start with a couples counselor (MC) tomorrow night, which is really the last ditch effort for me. At some point maybe you just have to say enough is enough.
THe first thing every man on here gets told is that they should do things for their wives (meeet their needs) and expect NOTHING in return. Is this not "Unconditional". And yet the women is allowed to have excuses for NOT meeting their mans need for sex. Is this not "Conditional". It seems to me that you can not have it BOTH ways. Either ALL needs must be unconditional or they are all conditional. And from the christian readings I have been doing, they tend to say that we should meet our spouses needs UNCONDTIONALLY.
Now in the example of this case, the women is saying that she can not have sex with a man that does not love her unconditonally. She is telling him that his interaction with her must be UNCONDITIONAL while her interaction with him is CONDITIONAL. WTF?
I hope you have put off marying this girl, maybe forever. You are staring at the #1 reason for divorce and you have not even been to the alter. I saw a list of the reasons for divorce and I believe that 3 of the top 5 were related to sex. #1 is an affair (which is directly or indirectly related to sex), #2 was lack of sex, and in the top five was also loss of looks (which again is related to sex).
I've gotta mostly agree with CeMar on this one. CULTURALLY, these days it seems that the onus is mainly put on the man. "Give her flowers," "Tell her she's beautiful," "Help more around the house," "Do something romantic, for no apparent reason," etc. It's always assumed if there's an intimacy problem, it's because the man is being an inconsiderate, lazy schmuck in one way or another.
Dr. Laura writes a book addressed to the woman's half of the equation, and she largely gets crucified for it. And she even wrote it from the perspective of "this is what my experience has been of what makes women happy!"
Quote: As far as someone desiring sex unconditionally, can you see how absolutely crazy that is?
Not necessarily. By all rights I should NOT desire my wife, and yet I do. Some nights I feel BAD about even trying to initiate with her, afterall, why would I want to have sex with someone that does not want it FROM me. And yet why do I keep trying, it because of the freaking testosterone!! I crave physical touch, it can not in any way be turned off. When I first came on this board there was a guy that was trying to find a drug, ANY drug that would kill his desire. I can REALLY sympathize with him. As for the wax and wane with desire, if I do, I sure as heck have not noticed it. To not desire sex, that is something I have not experienced in the last 35 years! I can put it out of my mind temporarily, but to actually diminish it, that has not happended yet. If it did, then maybe I would actually be compatible with my wife. Then all the littl things in life that seem to be the FOCUS of her life would actually be something more to me then just the little things in life.
Latest Update: When I posted this topic yesterday, I had just gotten the voice mail from my wife saying she was done and leaving. Luckily I finally got a hold of her on her cell phone in the afternoon and we talked for a long time. Ultimately I got her to come home. That doesn't mean the situation is over. Far from it.. But it at least means that she'll be in the same house and that keeps stability for the kids and gives us a chance to improve things.
Last night I had a lengthy discussion with a church leader that had been keeping up with our craziness. He said a few interesting things I thought I would share. First, my wife is going through a very unstable time. There are a lot of things she is having to mentally deal with and her past is so crazy that this is no surprise. Something somewhere must have happened that is really bad and she knows that if she goes to any counseling that this could resurface and that would just be too painful for her to deal with. It is far easier for her to repress and maintain than to deal with whatever it is. So the prospect of going to any kind of counseling is immediately nixed.
Next, This is a time I must come to grips with exactly how much I do love my wife. With all that she is mentally dealing with and without help, could mean that if I do really love my wife and want to keep my marriage intact I must love her completely.. unconditionally. Excepting that that means for a while, I may not get anything in return. I need to see this as though my wife had been raped. If something like that happened, I could not realistically expect my wife to bounce back and meet my sexual needs right away. She would need to heal and recover and who knows how long that could take. Even though the "incident" whatever it may be happened before we were married, and I don't know what it is, it is effecting her in the same way. So do I love me wife enough to go through this, understanding that may not get my needs taken care of. He thought this was not a problem that would take months to solve, it could take years.
So first, I must demonstrate that I do love her unconditionally. Even if there is no sex, I must prove that I love her anyway and that my love is not dependant on that. THEN, only then she will gain enough trust to possibly begin opening herself up to me. But she will not do it if she thinks that I am in the relationship only for sexual gain, which is why she posed the question originally.
This is not going to be easy. But I promised my wife that I would love her forever and now it is time for me to keep that promise. Then hopefully someday she'll be able to return that love for me...
CeMar, Boy, can I equate!!! I am in the same boat in all of this. One of the biggest issues is just what you said.. "I crave physical touch, it can not in any way be turned off." That is exactly how I am!!! That has been one of the biggest problems for me. And when my wife goes for 5 years without being able to touch me....ever... even in small ways.. while I am very attracted to her.. creates a torture situation for me. That craving has lead me to do some stupid things, it has made me make some very stupid choices. It's part of the reason my wife is poing the question that she is, as she doesn't feel I am capable of living a life away from it..
Has she experienced sexual abuse of some kind? If so, then I commend your approach to help her work through these things--provided, of course, that that is her intention.. to work through her issues.
If that is not her intention--and I'd directly ask that question if I were you--then I see you heading down the same path that you've been trodding for the last umpteen years. Yesterday was nothing more than a test to see who's really in control, kwim?
I would sit her down and tell her that in order for your marriage to truly be able to move forward that you will both be attending counseling. There is nothing 'unconditional' in that stance, if anything that is showing her how deeply you love and value her and your M.
Then make the appt and follow thru with it. Your marriage is in deep doo doo and I would take drastic measures to salvage it right away.
To answer your original question: If my spouse was choosing to not meet my physical needs, I would assume that they had no love for me or value for our marriage and I would begin making arrangements for myself. She is comparing apples to oranges and she knows it.
Quote: she doesn't feel I am capable of living a life away from it..
What if that's true?
When are you going to tell her that she's right?
Why are you ashamed that this might be true? It's human nature after all. You need to set some boundaries with her, the first one being that you will not live without intimate touch in your life and the second one being that you will not tolerate false claims of abandonment--the next time she does that, she should expect that her things will be on the lawn.
You are being a pushover and allowing her to make you feel ashamed of needing touch. You are not an ogre because you need this. It's who you are.
