Hi everyone. I’m a little out of practice, but I thought I’d attempt to describe my situation and see if anyone has any ideas of what I could possibly do to make things better. I’ll warn you – this post is long as I have a tendency to present every detail that could possibly have anything to do with my situation. I have a seriously sex-starved marriage. I started posting on this site in March of 2003 and my situation hasn’t changed significantly since then. There’s a fair amount of detail in my previous posts, links to which are provided in the first post of this thread. To summarize, my wife and I started dating nearly 13 years ago and we’ve been married for 9 years. We have two beautiful daughters who are 8 and 5. We both have good jobs and we don’t have any financial problems. We’re both attractive, well educated, and have good personalities. We get along quite well with each other except that there is absolutely no “romantic component” to our relationship, which obviously bothers me but doesn’t seem to bother my wife.
When we were dating, my wife made me feel like the most desirable man in the world. We used to kiss passionately, she was constantly “hanging” on me, we had a great sexual relationship, etc. My friends used to comment about how obviously in love with me she was. Our romantic problems seemed to begin around the time we got married, or shortly thereafter as she got pregnant 3 months later. While we were not planning to have children so soon, we were both excited about it once the initial shock wore off, and we both love being parents. I realize that it probably would have been better for our relationship to have had some more time with just each other, but since we can’t change that now (which I don’t think we would if we could), I’ll just say that having children sooner than we were planning to is by no means a lingering point of contention.
My wife is a beautiful, intelligent woman who has always been great at anything she’s ever done. She was athletic and slim growing up so it bothers her that she’s a little bit heavier than she’d like to be, but she’s not fat by any means. She just seems to think that she should have the same body now that she had in her early 20’s. I realize that her perception of her own body is a big deal, but to me she is more beautiful than ever and I actually prefer her to be a bit more filled out. Back when I was posting before, she had some issues with her job that were making her quite unhappy, however she now has a job that she really likes – so that really isn’t an issue anymore. In my opinion, she stretches herself way too thin doing the typical “Supermom” things, like volunteering for things at our girls’ school, being a girl scout leader, etc., but she’s not likely to give those things up as she wants to be the best mom she can be. I think it’s great that she does those things, I just think she’d be much less stressed if she could learn to say no every now and then (to someone besides me). I’m as certain as I can possibly be that she’s not having an affair and that she was not abused or molested as a child. I’m a nice looking guy, a good father and a loving husband, very easy-going, and I’m about as nice of a person as you’ll ever meet. Not to say I’m perfect by any means, but I think most women would consider me to be a pretty good catch.
For quite a few years now we’ve had sex extremely infrequently, I’d say around an average of 4 times a year. And on those occasions, I wouldn’t describe it as “making love” as it’s been purely “mechanical”, lacking any kind of passion. It’s always been in our bed, in the dark, under the covers, with no sexy lingerie, advance planning, or dialogue of any kind. It’s always in the missionary position as she isn’t open to trying anything else, with no kissing and no foreplay except for the couple of minutes that she lets my hands roam all over her body before we have intercourse. She hardly touches me – and never anywhere that could possibly be considered provocative. All of that is basically opposite of what sex was like before we were married, and as a result, my performance has become less and less “stellar”. I’ve never had any kind of emotional problems or sexual performance problems before, but I’ve developed some now as my wife’s routine doesn’t make me feel the least bit desirable. I know that what I’ve just described probably sounds terrible, but what concerns me even more is that my wife absolutely refuses to kiss me any more, beyond the kind of kiss you’d give your grandma. I’ve always loved making out and I consider kissing to be quite passionate even by itself, not to mention a vital part of making love. While making out was a regular thing before we were married, I could count on one hand the number of times we’ve kissed passionately since being married (and I probably wouldn’t need most of the fingers on that one hand).
What it kind of seems like to me is that before we were married, my wife considered romance to be an exciting and necessary part of our relationship. But the moment we got married, it became something that she “had” to do and she’s rebelling against that. My wife doesn’t like anyone to tell her what to do. I didn’t change when we got married – I’ve never tried to force my wife to do anything and, with the exception of a few heated “sex arguments” I’m still the nice guy that I always was (I know, probably my greatest fault).
I know there’s no magic solution to my problems, but I could use some help coming up with some way to get through to my wife and restore some romance to our marriage. I have my doubts that anything will help having been through all of this before, but please don’t let that stop anyone from making suggestions as I’ve hit a brick wall. I know that some of you will probably say – forget it and get a divorce, but that’s not an option I’m considering at this point. I love my little girls and don’t want to be separated from them. It might be different if I was a woman, but as a man I’d have little chance of getting custody. Plus, I really want my girls to grow up in a house with both of their parents. While I know that the current situation isn’t good for them as far as modeling a loving relationship between parents, it’s not as if my wife and I are fighting all the time. As I said before, we get along just fine the vast majority of the time and I doubt anyone has any idea that we're having problems. I end up holding all of my feelings about this inside out of necessity as whenever I try to talk to my wife about the subject of romance I end up regretting it.
Sorry this was so long. I could go on all day but I’ll quit for now and see if anyone has any ideas. If anyone has any thoughts that they’d rather not put out on the message board, please feel free to e-mail me at sooner1992@hotmail.com.
