Intimacy

[simonmoore1986]

Me and my wife have been married nearly 3 years and have no children. We have no real money worries, iam serving soilder currently in kenya for 6 months.

Before we got married my wife suggested be stop having sex before we got married to make it nicer, i agreed, but then comes the wedding night and my wife just wanted to sleep. It took a week to have our first bit of marital sex.

Since then i would recieve it regualry once a month, well not sex but some kind iof sexual favour, which is what it felt like, not that she wanted to put because it seemed that she thought that would be best. In these years she has spontaniously engaged sex once in the middle of the night. Normally while trying to have start sex she complains of not being ready for penertration but refuses all types of foreplay. which makes things difficult. Even when she says she is ready she complains it hurts, (i apoplogise for being graphic but) she feels wet enough and arroused enough. (also iam not average in size) We never had this problem before we were married and i have had only had a couple of commets on problem with my girth. So during and after it only seems like see is not interested in me. When i try to bring the subject up she just ends up crying and we leave the subject, i have asked her to see a doctor when it has come to arguing after i have become very frustrated, she agrees but then never follows through.

I love my wife very much and have considered being abstinent for the sake of our marriage, allthough i know a hard life, espically as i have a very high sex drive and it has not diminished with time, but i love my wife enough to try, and have been. She is not unaffectionate but any real type of physical emtions are a no go. Even hugging and kissing has become difficult.

Iam not nearly at the end of my six months in kenya and dreading the return back to the current marrige more so for the reason that my wife has finally come round to the ideas of children. I wanted them when we first got married she didnt. but know with our current intamicy issues i dont even feel it is fair for her to ask me to have sex just for kids. Espically the way i feel currently, hurt rejected, worhtless.

Iam at a real cross roads where i dont know what i should do, if my wife wont see a doctor or talk to her husband i cant believe she would ever see a therapist. I dont know if i need to call it quits, i dont know if she need the kids to feel complete. In short iam lost.

[belkin2]

You guys need help from a therapist. Not easy and will take time, but hopefully it can get you somewhere positive.

I don't blame you for not wanting to start trying to have children until this is resolved. As rewarding and wonderful it is to have kids, life gets very challenging. Speaking from my own experience do everything you can to start that phase from a healthy place in your marriage. Deal with it now or the road to healing later may be worse if not completely impossible.

I don't know how to convince her to go, but I don't see any other way. Maybe try to get her to do some individual counseling first?

[syz]

I would definitely read passionate marriage by David Schnarch which can give you insight into some of this stuff. But you are going to need more than a book. I'd get a good therapist especially one recommended by his group that doesn't spend endless hours looking at reasons the low desire partner is broken but actually works towards ending the gridlock.

 

I think the crying is actually a way to put you off...of convincing you she can't take anymore when really she is trying to get the pressure off from being confronted. I'm not saying the tears aren't real and that she isn't upset but it works in gets back into the role of supporting her rather than confronting her. I think that specific tactic is used with men sometimes surrounding issues that women might find more typically upsetting and where men are afraid and have been trained not to push like with issues around sexuality. (I'm trying to choose my words carefully here should it sound like I'm bashing your wife or being hard on women in generalizing here. I am a woman and lesbian just to be clear)

 

But I've encountered the low desire partner who found every excuse under the sun.. and all those excuses weren't the issue at all. It didn't cause tears but it definitely caused our demise. And nothing ever changed no matter how much we talked about it. In fact she finally came up with the brilliant solution of taking sex off the table completely so the pressure would be off. She meant only HER which was the unstated part of that bargain. Of course this isn't a viable option when the other partner has self respect and isn't sexually lazy. I basically said I had no choice but to agree or leave and so I left. Shortly after that I slept with someone else and then she made a pass at me. I turned her down. And the reason I tell you that part is because the psychology of it is messed up. She didn't want to want me because it is too vulnerable but when I was no longer really available it was fine to make a move.

 

I understand that people have issues surrounding sex that are complicated but I'm not very tolerant at this point in my life of people who keep others on hold in the hopes of change which never comes because they have no real pressing reason to address their issue.. in fact they are comfortable like that and would rather have you be the uncomfortable party. I don't think affairs are the answer it's a lot more mess and compromise to one's integrity that isn't worth it. But I also don't think it is fair to assume a spouse's continued marital fidelity or life commitment when one is no longer offering the thing that open relationships and free markets make impossible to monopolize.

 

I wish you the best of luck.

Edited August 3, 2012 by syz