HD and LP- Thanks for your input regarding pulling the "divorce card" and respect.
Well, I had a very productive weekend. When my H got back from being away for two days Friday night I was in a fairly foul mood. He confronted me about it and I told him I was p*ssed off about his behavior Wednesday morning. He got angry and said it was juvenile of me to wait so long to confront him about it. I agreed. He said he gave me the look of "disdain" when I was eating because I "should know" that he doesn't like the sound of crunchy food. My response was along the lines of "Okay, I'll add it to my list of the other 500 things that cause you to be irritable.". He retreated into his emotional "man den" and instead of trying to lure him out and resolve the issue/fight like I usually would, I just thought "F*ck it. I'm sick of taking all the responsibility for this relationship." and didn't do/say anything. A few minutes later my H said "Why don't you make a pot of coffee and we'll discuss things.".
So we had a very long productive conversation. Here are some highlights:
1) We discussed his and my issues regarding his comments about my physical appearance. It went kind of like this:
Mojo: "I know what I look like. I am a collection of attractive and unattractive features like most people. However, I would like to believe that the sum of these features is attractive and I would like to be with a man who felt the same.
H: "Well there are women who have all the same features as you who would be sexier because they would be more confident.
Mojo: "Aaaargh...have you ever considered that any lack of confidence that I display might have something to do with the constant rejection I receive from you. I mean if you look at me and don't have any sexual feelings then by definition I am not sexy in your book whatever the objective reality of my appeal might be.
H: Well, maybe I resent being cast in the role of the man who makes women (note the plural) feel unsexy due to his lack of sex drive.
2) We discussed the fact that I have the tendency to regard his cranky behavior as a pre-emptive strike against sex. I told him that the frequency of sex was an issue but the unreliability of sex and the unresponsiveness to my requests made the frequency issue worse. I said "It's like you are dependent on somebody else to feed you and you aren't getting enough food. The fact that you don't know when you might be fed next and the lack of ability to affect the frequency with which you are fed makes it worse.". To which my H said sarcastically "Have you ever considered feeding yourself more often." to which I replied, honestly "Masturbation is the opposite of helpful for me because when I masturbate I fantasize and the fantasy doesn't go away. It's as though MB is just the way I warm up for the real thing.".
3) The discussion went on for quite a while and we touched on a number of topics but we kept on talking until we reached a mutual resolution. We discussed the fact that we both preferred that my H was the aggressor sexually and the difficulties surrounding that due to our drive disparities. In regards to our drive disparities my H at one point said "It's (sex)just not that important to me.". This was kind of an "a-ha" moment for me because the look on his face when he said this was sort of revealing. My thought was "If he could figure out why he is motivated to believe that sex isn't important then he could figure out why he has LD.". What I said was "Well, sex is important to me and you are in a relationship with me and therefore if you want to make our relationship a priority you need to make sex a priority.". He then said something about just being tired of stressed a lot of the time to which I replied "I don't think you can honestly say that I pressure you for sex at times when you are obviously stressed for obvious reasons. However, if you are choosing not to have sex with me and obviously engaging in other activities that take the same sort of energy then I am going to see that as a clear sign that you aren't making our relationship a priority.".
We also discussed the way the problem was compounded by lack of adequate communication. We decided that this was a huge issue for both of us and the agreement we finally came to took this into account. I definitely got the feeling that I wasn't coercing my H into this agreement. He acted like he was very motivated to come to an agreement, probably because he could sense that I wasn't in any way trying to manipulate or control the negotiations because instead of operating under my olden days mindset of "What can I do to get more sex in this relationship?", I was operating under my new mindset which is more along the lines of "What are you going to do to convince me that I shouldn't leave this relationship due to the lack of sex?". I don't quite understand it myself but I think the discussion felt different to me than previous discussions on the topic because by finally getting to the place where I was really willing to leave if I had to, I changed my perspective in a major way. It was as though I used to be improving things by just making myself into a tougher and tougher punching bag and now I actually have some muscle to flex in the relationship.
The agreement we came to was that my H will initiate sex every Wednesday and once every weekend. If anything interferes with his ability to meet this commitment he has to communicate with me directly about it. I think this is a good agreement because it will relieve much of my frustration but also take some pressure off my H. He can opt out but in order to do so he needs to "own" his reasons for opting out. Since he has to communicate with me if he isn't going to be able to "step up to the plate" I won't have to deal with the frustration of wondering whether or not I'm going to get laid. The best thing about this agreement, IMO, is that it takes the problem one step outside of the realm of sex. If my H doesn't stick to this agreement, if he doesn't initiate sex OR communicate clearly about why he won't be initiating sex then it is clear that the problem with our relationship is a basic lack of communication and accountability not a disparity in sex drive. Therefore, I will feel absolutely justified in divorcing him if he violates this agreement. However, I really am quite optimistic. Once we ironed out this agreement my H said "I am absolutely willing to commit to that.".
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
