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Post by saarinista on May 8, 2020 23:11:28 GMT -5
baza I've been cracking at it and realized a long time ago the sex is dead in my marriage. My dilemma is what to do now. I'm thinking. This forum has helped me realize I'm not crazy or alone, and that I don't have to do anything, though I probably should at some point. We've ready had talks, I've outsourced once (yeah, I still remember how to do it!) but actually divorcing and moving is a huge step. I care for my husband and he me. We just never were really compatible sexually, but it happens. I'd prefer just to have an open marriage ATM but with the pandemic I can't even outsource. Heck, I can barely IN-source! 🙄😁🤦♀️ Time will tell. Well Sister @saaranista , here's another observation also based on 10 plus years of experience here. If you've been a member here for at least 2 years and are still in your ILIASM deal, the chances are quite high that you'll be staying in your deal indefinitely. There have been a couple of outliers to this ( Sisters tamara68 and pointbreakgirl ) who went beyond 2 years here but eventually got out, but they are somewhat rare. I'm not in the business of predicting my future any longer. I'm not in the business of doing anything except breathing, job hunting (now, in an economic depression) and walking/jogging to keep myself above water mentally. I am nearly 60. I have been out of the workforce for years caretaking parents, dithering, feeling like shit about myself/not deserving of anything and looking for reasons why I am on this planet. I have no children or siblings and never will. I'm not sure what to do now that everything is different and I'm old. Yeah, I look okay, but 60 is 60. I'll never have the dream. It's too late. So. I keep hoping. I try as hard as I can. If I don't get the fairytale I won't be the only one. But I can only do so much without a job or a place to go without putting us in financial stress. My husband is decent to me, and a good man. He is my whole family. So for now, I am not barreling out the door. I'm too tired. I am grateful for the insights and support I receive here.
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Post by saarinista on May 8, 2020 23:14:12 GMT -5
You guys, the longer I'm here, the more convinced I am that by the time a marriage has been sexless for years, the more hopeless it is to make it a real marriage again. You either go without, get it from an AP, or get a divorce and try again or not. It sucks, but them's the facts. 😡😡 To quote Sportin' Life, in Porgy and Bess, "it ain't necessarily so." I must demur, as I know of a goodly number that have changed after years of sexlessness and refusal. One of the best examples I can give is the writer of the blog, Forgiven Wife. I think your cases got started earlier in the sexual shutdown than most folks on this forum. After years of nothing? 10 years in my case? Pretty hard to rejuvenate.
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Post by Handy on May 9, 2020 0:31:13 GMT -5
CSL One of the best examples I can give is the writer of the blog, Forgiven Wife.
From reading a little on "Forgiven Wife" I sense the wife was the one that did most of the work where the SM was mostly caused by her. I didn't see too many husbands saying he turned his wife around to be more sexual.
So yes, a SM can be turned to the positive if the low sexed partner sees a benefit in increasing the marital / sexual/ intimate connections. The higher drive partner doesn't usually posses the skills to bring back what is missing in the marriage.
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Post by worksforme2 on May 9, 2020 4:41:08 GMT -5
CSL One of the best examples I can give is the writer of the blog, Forgiven Wife.From reading a little on "Forgiven Wife" I sense the wife was the one that did most of the work where the SM was mostly caused by her. I didn't see too many husbands saying he turned his wife around to be more sexual. So yes, a SM can be turned to the positive if the low sexed partner sees a benefit in increasing the marital / sexual/ intimate connections. The higher drive partner doesn't usually posses the skills to bring back what is missing in the marriage. Based on all the reading I have done, the histories I have seen here and at other sites, mostly prior to my exit from a SM, I don't come away thinking turning around a SM involves a "skill set". It isn't a matter of someone possessing some sort of "talent". No amount of talent or skillset will bring someone to the table if they are adamant about being somewhere else when it comes to intimacy. If the refusing partner has zero interest and no motivation to do anything different, then thinking or believing there is a formula or algorithm, potion or pattern of behavior one can adopt that will bring about the desired change is simply in my mind, "pissing into the wind".
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Post by baza on May 9, 2020 6:33:16 GMT -5
My observations, over the time I've been reading the old EP/ILIASM site and this one, run pretty much parallel to what Brother worksforme2 suggests in his post just above. Whereas each ILIASM deal is unique in its' own way due to what the individual spouses bring (and don't bring) to the table, the end results are not very unique at all. In fact the end results are depressingly similar for the most part, irrespective of what methodology has been applied in trying to force an ILIASM deal into a 180 turnaround.
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Post by Handy on May 9, 2020 8:25:28 GMT -5
Worjksforme2 If the refusing partner has zero interest and no motivation to do anything different, then thinking or believing there is a formula or algorithm, potion or pattern of behavior one can adopt that will bring about the desired change is simply in my mind, "pissing into the wind".
I agree with, "pissing into the wind". I also like to group it with a sign "Bang head here" I see in offices where I did some work.
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Post by csl on May 9, 2020 11:10:48 GMT -5
To quote Sportin' Life, in Porgy and Bess, "it ain't necessarily so." I must demur, as I know of a goodly number that have changed after years of sexlessness and refusal. One of the best examples I can give is the writer of the blog, Forgiven Wife. I think your cases got started earlier in the sexual shutdown than most folks on this forum. After years of nothing? 10 years in my case? Pretty hard to rejuvenate. Hard? Yes. Impossible? No. But like the old joke* says, "It has to be willing to change." But as Baza noted, when you reach ILIASM, the odds are that you're circling the drain. Baza has also noted, in the past, there the subset that I come from have a couple of motivators... * How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? One, but it ....
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Post by csl on May 9, 2020 11:33:09 GMT -5
CSL One of the best examples I can give is the writer of the blog, Forgiven Wife.From reading a little on "Forgiven Wife" I sense the wife was the one that did most of the work where the SM was mostly caused by her. I didn't see too many husbands saying he turned his wife around to be more sexual. So yes, a SM can be turned to the positive if the low sexed partner sees a benefit in increasing the marital / sexual/ intimate connections. The higher drive partner doesn't usually posses the skills to bring back what is missing in the marriage. And this would be the hammer hitting the nail smack on the head. Yes, FW DID do the work to change, which goes to my reply to saaranista. After 2 decades of gatekeeping and refusal, FW had an epiphany. However, her epiphany was rooted in two prerequisites that make my subcultural group unique. Another that I did not mention above would be the woman who does the Intimacy in Marriage blog. Her history is that she destroyed her first marriage by refusal, but she determined that if she got a second chance, she wouldn't make that mistake again. She does have her second marriage, and both her marriage and blog are thriving. As I've mentioned, I'm of the Judeo-Christian subculture that takes its faith seriously, and one of the tenets of this subset is that God created sex and that He said "It is good." Yes, Christianity has screwed it up royally, but I don't think any more than the rest of the world. But given the presumption that sex within marriage is right, a refuser who takes his/her faith seriously has to engage in some Olympic-grade mental gymnastics in order to rationalize their refusal. I'm not saying that there aren't ways of do so, but it does take a massive effort of separate sex from faith, for us. As Baza has noted before, self-autonomy is not seen as a feature in faith-based marriages, so there is that fillip. How one uses the fillip, to salvage or savage the marriage, is up to the refuser. But it is a fillip, nonetheless.
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Post by Handy on May 9, 2020 13:38:43 GMT -5
CSL, if you leave religion and as you say faith, out of the picture and replace those two items with "what makes relationships work" on a sociological level (common sense - what works in real life), where does that leave the common person?
I used to believe a lot of biblical stories but now some do not make all that much sense when compared to how things work on a sociological or physics level.
Back to the potential of a turn around, to0o0 many people are past the point of expecting a turn around but don't have a good plan to make a divorce relative pain free.
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Post by saarinista on May 9, 2020 13:58:49 GMT -5
Handy let me tell you something. Your wife isn't a refuser because of anything that inadequate about YOU. She's a refuser because she's a refuser, and frankly, she sounds like a real jerk. We all can be jerks, but when is the last time she did anything nice for you of any sort?
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Post by saarinista on May 9, 2020 14:04:31 GMT -5
CSL, if you leave religion and as you say faith, out of the picture and replace those two items with "what makes relationships work" on a sociological level (common sense - what works in real life), where does that leave the common person? I used to believe a lot of biblical stories but now some do not make all that much sense when compared to how things work on a sociological or physics level. Back to the potential of a turn around, to0o0 many people are past the point of expecting a turn around but don't have a good plan to make a divorce relative pain free. Divorce isn't pain-free. But neither is staying. It's a matter of picking the best choice. We're all long past the point of PERFECT choices. Perfect choices are only made by starry-eyed 23- year olds walking down the aisle in silk satin gowns and tuxedos at their first marriages. That ship sailed and ain't coming back.
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Post by worksforme2 on May 9, 2020 14:22:30 GMT -5
Back to the potential of a turn around, to0o0 many people are past the point of expecting a turn around but don't have a good plan to make a divorce relative pain free. Divorce isn't pain-free. But neither is staying. It's a matter of picking the best choice. Perhaps in some cases it isn't picking the best choice, it is sometimes picking what you think is the least worst of the choices.
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Post by csl on May 9, 2020 16:08:42 GMT -5
CSL, if you leave religion and as you say faith, out of the picture and replace those two items with "what makes relationships work" on a sociological level (common sense - what works in real life), where does that leave the common person? I used to believe a lot of biblical stories but now some do not make all that much sense when compared to how things work on a sociological or physics level. Back to the potential of a turn around, to0o0 many people are past the point of expecting a turn around but don't have a good plan to make a divorce relative pain free. Leaving out religion/faith? You leave out the third party. In a faith-based model, the marriage is a trinity, and guess who (if both parties are playing with a straight deck) is supposed to be the (you should excuse the expression) boss? As in, who supposedly set up the rules of the game? In a marriage without the third party, it's just a two-handed game, and as we all know, the one with the least investment in the marriage controls the shots. Or maybe it's the one who loves themselves the most. Either way, one or the other makes the rules up as they go along, whereas in a three-handed game, the rules supposedly have been codified. So where does that leave the "common person"? Wishing, hoping and praying that the cards aren't stacked against them.
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Post by Handy on May 9, 2020 17:30:00 GMT -5
Saarinista asked: ..... when is the last time she did anything nice for you of any sort?
A long time ago she bought me a pair of shoes I didn't want because they were $175. Being a tall person, lots of clothing/ shoe items do not fit well so I go for what seems to work. Since than I found similar shoes on eBay for under $60 I like because of the $175 shoes she insisted on me buying.
Saarinista, I don' expect much from people so I rarely plan on anything in return except what I get because of public exchanges, like medical services. I can truly say I have had excellent medical care recently. Of course it has all been expensive and my insurance company has found ways to not pay some bills.
It took mr a long time to come to realize my W is a taker and not a giver, let alone me expecting anything good from her. I gave up expecting almost anything from my W. In this life there "takers" people that like to "exchange niceties" and "givers" when it comes to relationships.
A book I have describes Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders. Buyers are involved in the relationship and invest in it through the good and bad times. They work to keep things going smoothly. Renters are in relationships as long as it has some value to them and they are willing to put some effort into the relationship. Freeloaders take as long as someone is willing to give.
My W doesn't do anything that requires work or takes time to learn. She is good to the cats and dogs but anything else seems too hard for her to do. This has lead to me acting independent. My W calls me a typical stubborn old man. I have learned to consider her remarks similar to water rolling off of a duck's back.
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Post by Handy on May 9, 2020 17:46:21 GMT -5
oops, double post
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