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Post by cagedtiger on Dec 1, 2016 16:32:59 GMT -5
More good questions, cagedtiger! Did she admit she won't change? My husband thinks the marriage is perfect minus the sex issue, but it absolutely doesn't bother him as much as it bothers me. He claims it does and that he just doesn't bring it up, but I highly doubt that or he would've considered leaving too. He's adamant that there's an "easy fix" here and that this is our one and only problem. It used to be, but as you know, the SM infiltrates into other parts. We still have a pretty good thing (all things considered - I think it could've been a lot worse if it happened with someone else), but it's very damaged by the SM. He says he wants to fix it, doesn't want to lose me, still wants me all the time, etc., but does nothing. I mean, he can spend hours figuring out anything else, but not this. And at the end of the day, doesn't that speak volumes? He does want it to work, but I think without work or struggle or tough stuff. He says he loves me and gets a ton out of it. I can't relate fully.  Obviously I get something or I would've left a long time ago, but it's certainly not fulfilling on a level that I want. Conversation with her hasn't happened yet- this was with my individual therapist. However, every time I've asked her in the last year, "what are you getting out of this marriage?" She's flatly refused to answer the question. The last time I mentioned my therapist asking about this, her only reply was, "I don't think I like your therapist very much." I feel you about about your husband wanting all the things without the work- for my wife, she gets somebody to talk at about her workday, somebody to play with the dogs when she's tired or her head hurts, somebody to pick up after her, and somebody to investigate strange noises in the middle of the night. But she simply doesn't comprehend that I have needs that she's not meeting, and has decided that our marital problems are the result of some "phase" I must be going through. Sound familiar? |
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Post by beachguy on Dec 1, 2016 16:35:27 GMT -5
Ugh, that's really sad, beachguy. What were the reasons for staying? I guess it just gets more difficult as 20, 30, years pass... Why do you think things get so much worse? I guess I can relate on a small scale because the issue at 6-12 months was nothing like it is now, 6 years later. My feelings for him at that time were still very positive, loving and romantic. I wish I understood why I stayed, to the extent I could explain it in a couple sentences. But it went something like this... 1. On our first date, my STBX took me back to her place and fucked my brains out. And unfortunately, that was the woman I later thought I was marrying. What a fool I was... 2. Somewhere between there and my sexless honeymoon things changed. Things went very slowly and gradually downhill until the wedding. And crashed the day after. The day after. Not a year later, not a month later. Now, it's hard to back out of a wedding because your down to twice a week and you'd like 4 times a week. It's very hard to come back from a honeymoon and file for divorce because you didn't get laid. Very Jerry Springer and this was 10 years before Jerry. It's very hard to file a month after the wedding because you didn't get laid last week. Or the week before. About 90 days in I had a looong talk with my father and he convinced me that I wanted a divorce. I left that talk walking on cloud nine because a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. But for some reason I chickened out. I continued to mull it over, and by the 7 month point I had fairly made my mind up because it had been 6 months of once a month sex. And every month reinforced that this was not just some "adjustment to marriage" or some such thing (and I need to mention here that this was her 2nd marriage but my first). Then one night I was sitting at the kitchen table mulling over how to tell her I wanted a divorce when she announced the happy news that she was pregnant. Now... it's really hard to divorce a pregnant wife It's equally hard to divorce a wife who just gave birth. Would it be better after the child is 6 months old? Is it ok now? No? Well, when is the right time to do this? Do you see where this is going? So I stayed for the kids, I guess. And I adjusted to my misery. There can be happiness in misery. The problem is, each time I adjusted to my celibate life I ratcheted down another level. Every time I thought I hit bottom, I found the hole in the basement just got 10 feet deeper. Remember what I said about not extrapolating your misery index over the distant future? Why I stayed 10 years after the kids were gone I'll never understand myself so I sure can't explain it to you.... but I can tell you the last 10 years were the most damaging. Back to your deal, Joy... If my history is right, there have been a total of 4 claimed successes or partial successes here and in the predecessor EP forum. Two are here now. One of those is really too new to claim victory, at this point it is more of a respite until it stands the test of time, and it was an unusual deal... they had 19 good years of sex, followed by only 3 bad years (not your deal at all). The other appears to be at best some sort of compromise, in terms of frequency and real interest (but that is me reading in between the lines although he says almost as much). Maybe a couple other claimed successes but I'm not sure any of them stuck around long enough to say they stood the test of time, however long that needs to be. The important point is that in each of those rare cases, the refuser was female. And I'm not sure if any of them were sexless from the very beginning of the marriage, which I consider a very different deal than something that went bad 5-10-20 years in. As far as I know not one claim of even vague success has been claimed by a female here with a male refuser. Cases of women coming back are extremely rare, looking at maybe 4 even temporary successes out of thousands of people coming through the two forums. But men- unheard of. And if my history is wrong I want to be corrected on that. Guys just don't come back. Your guy was never there. A couple months of sex before the marriage does not count. I'm not sure why but it doesn't. This forum is loaded with stories like mine where the wedding day was toxic for any future sex life. I don't have to understand it, I just know it is so. You want to be 100% sure. You can never be 100% sure of anything. You could go out today and buy one Powerball lottery ticket and be a $100 millionaire tomorrow night. But I would not bet the rest of your life on those odds. If the experience of this and the predecessor forum has any meaning at all, your chances of your H coming around is as close to zero as anything in life. Did he really tell you "he has a huge sex drive"  ? And he did this with a straight face? Are you serious? If it were me I would have had to respond with "you managed to fuck me 5 times last year, what exactly are you doing with this huge sex drive? I'm sorry, to say that to you is simply disrespectful. He may be your best friend but that is what it is, hugely disrespectful. He is hiding a deep dark secret. He may not be gay, but if he isn't, it is surely something very equally unfixable, and something he will never disclose, but I already told you that. |
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Post by bballgirl on Dec 1, 2016 16:45:42 GMT -5
Ugh, that's really sad, beachguy. What were the reasons for staying? I guess it just gets more difficult as 20, 30, years pass... Why do you think things get so much worse? I guess I can relate on a small scale because the issue at 6-12 months was nothing like it is now, 6 years later. My feelings for him at that time were still very positive, loving and romantic. I wish I understood why I stayed, to the extent I could explain it in a couple sentences. But it went something like this... 1. On our first date, my STBX took me back to her place and fucked my brains out. And unfortunately, that was the woman I later thought I was marrying. What a fool I was... 2. Somewhere between there and my sexless honeymoon things changed. Things went very slowly and gradually downhill until the wedding. And crashed the day after. The day after. Not a year later, not a month later. Now, it's hard to back out of a wedding because your down to twice a week and you'd like 4 times a week. It's very hard to come back from a honeymoon and file for divorce because you didn't get laid. Very Jerry Springer and this was 10 years before Jerry. It's very hard to file a month after the wedding because you didn't get laid last week. Or the week before. About 90 days in I had a looong talk with my father and he convinced me that I wanted a divorce. I left that talk walking on cloud nine because a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. But for some reason I chickened out. I continued to mull it over, and by the 7 month point I had fairly made my mind up because it had been 6 months of once a month sex. And every month reinforced that this was not just some "adjustment to marriage" or some such thing (and I need to mention here that this was her 2nd marriage but my first). Then one night I was sitting at the kitchen table mulling over how to tell her I wanted a divorce when she announced the happy news that she was pregnant. Now... it's really hard to divorce a pregnant wife It's equally hard to divorce a wife who just gave birth. Would it be better after the child is 6 months old? Is it ok now? No? Well, when is the right time to do this? Do you see where this is going? So I stayed for the kids, I guess. And I adjusted to my misery. There can be happiness in misery. The problem is, each time I adjusted to my celibate life I ratcheted down another level. Every time I thought I hit bottom, I found the hole in the basement just got 10 feet deeper. Remember what I said about not extrapolating your misery index over the distant future? Why I stayed 10 years after the kids were gone I'll never understand myself so I sure can't explain it to you.... but I can tell you the last 10 years were the most damaging. Back to your deal, Joy... If my history right, there have been a total of 4 claimed successes or partial successes here and in the predecessor EP forum. Two are here now. One of those is really too new to claim victory, at this point it is more of a respite until it stands the test of time, and it was an unusual deal... they had 19 good years of sex, followed by only 3 bad years (not your deal at all). The other appears to be at best some sort of compromise, in terms of frequency and real interest (but that is me reading in between the lines although he says almost as much). Maybe a couple other claimed successes but I'm not sure any of them stuck around long enough to say they stood the test of time, however long that needs to be. The important point is that in each of those rare cases, the refuser was female. And I'm not sure if any of them were sexless from the very beginning of the marriage, which I consider a very different deal than something that went bad 5-10-20 years in. As far as I know not one claim of even vague success has been claimed by a female here with a male refuser. Cases of women coming back are extremely rare, looking at maybe 4 even temporary successes out of thousands of people coming through the two forums. But men- unheard of. And if my history is wrong I want to be corrected on that. Guys just don't come back. Your guy was never there. A couple months of sex before the marriage does not count. I'm not sure why but it doesn't. This forum is loaded with stories like mine where the wedding day was toxic for any future sex life. I don't have to understand it, I just know it is so. You want to be 100% sure. You can never be 100% sure of anything. You could go out today and buy one Powerball lottery ticket and be a $100 millionaire tomorrow night. But I would not bet the rest of your life on those odds. If the experience of this and the predecessor forum has any meaning at all, your chances of your H coming around is as close to zero as anything in life. Did he really tell you "he has a huge sex drive" ? And he did this with a straight face? Are you serious? If it were me I would have had to respond with "you managed to fuck me 5 times last year, what exactly are you doing with this huge sex drive? I'm sorry, to say that to you is simply disrespectful. He may be your best friend but that is what it is, hugely disrespectful. He is hiding a deep dark secret. He may not be gay, but if he isn't, it is surely something very equally unfixable, and something he will never disclose, but I already told you that. [ 100% THIS!! ^^^ |
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Post by beachguy on Dec 1, 2016 16:48:54 GMT -5
He's adamant that there's an "easy fix" here and that this is our one and only problem. If it were easy, and if he wanted to fix it, he would have fixed it 5 years ago. This is the easy fix: you tell him you're horny. He throws you against the wall and fucks your brains out. That's how it's done when it's an easy fix. And I am dead serious about this. There is just so much BS in his story. I'm sorry, Joy, but Occam's Razor says he fucked his way into the marriage and life he wanted, and never had any intention of providing you with the sex life he dangled in front of you while he hooked you. Sounds like my STBX except your guy didn't even make it to the wedding? You're not specific about your early history (which I think is important if you insist on WHY CHASING this) but a good couple of months is pretty damned weak. He may be a great guy in every other way, but in this way he did scam you. And if he had a long history of unsatisfied GFs it suggests he knew himself very well. He wasn't a virgin when he met you. |
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Post by greatcoastal on Dec 1, 2016 16:53:44 GMT -5
Your spouse sounds like a manipulative controller. You, most likely are un-aware of how much YOU give in, YOU compromise, YOU take blame, YOU feel a need to do more, YOU need to justify his actions. All signs of a giver being taken advantage of by a taker. It will continue to carry through into your relationship. Everything from vacations, saving, or investing money, visiting relatives, changing jobs, having friends outside the marriage, religious beliefs, who is responsible for all the daily home chores, inside and out, etc.....
Let me be the first to say it or re-enforce it. Get some legal advice before the two of you invest in real estate, stocks, IRA's 401k's etc....
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Post by callisto on Dec 1, 2016 17:20:19 GMT -5
Thanks, eternaloptimism <3 I am struggling with feeling that we are mismatched. I still have feelings that he is a good match for me. What started out as "perfect" was our friendship plus a very strong physical connection. At this point, we get along well, he gets me, he knows my moods/personality, we have similar humor, views on life, people, etc. It's hard to feel like so much of your connection is so right, yet the other part is so terribly wrong. I feel similar to you Joy, I love my husband, share humour, know each other's moods etc 13 years (SM at least 9) and I am struggling hugely to leave him for I can't imagine getting on in everyday life with anyone half as well as I do with him.. but then I will be confining myself to SM forever.. You have the opportunity to gather what you may from everyone on this site and help to form your own path. I wish you well. |
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Post by thebaffledking on Dec 1, 2016 17:31:07 GMT -5
"Leap and the net shall appear!" One of my favorite reminders of all time!
Your mention of this - "and the closer you get to changing something, the more you cling to that," (or 'plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose' in French) is what I'm battling against now, and have been for a little over a year. The mind is a jacked-up thing......it's a terrible thing to waste, but it can also allow you to waste your life away. I'm in the thick of it......I want out and there's not even need for a key.....just me standing in a wide open doorway for a year......it's a mindboggling place to be, and few can understand it unless they've been there. That's why we congregate here (-:
What am I waiting for?
And now for some Credence Clearwater Revival:
Well, I'm here to tell you now
each and every mother's son
You better learn it fast
you better learn it young
Cause, "Someday" Never Comes
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Post by joy6016 on Dec 1, 2016 17:48:10 GMT -5
You're right, eternaloptimism. I think I would have a better idea of what to look for, and I'd also not rush into anything. I know things have shifted because I'm really evaluating everything. I'm fighting with the part of me that loves him and wants his friendship. My head is definitely spinning!  |
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Post by joy6016 on Dec 1, 2016 17:50:18 GMT -5
That's interesting, cagedtiger. I'm sorry that that's the only response she can give you. It seems like she doesn't want to communicate any sort of emotional response and just shuts down instead, putting it on you and the therapist. It totally sounds familiar on the "without the work" thing. It's like they're totally content to have this convenient friendship. Maybe that would be nice when we're 90 or so, but not now! I feel far too young to be dealing with this type of relationship. |
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Post by joy6016 on Dec 1, 2016 17:55:31 GMT -5
Wow, thank you for the amazing response, beachguy! I'm sorry that your wife deceived you in that way. I can relate in a lot of ways. We slowly went downhill before the wedidng too, literally the NIGHT of our engagement, I felt something shift. He denies it, but I felt it, and the frequency/passion never really seemed the same. Of course, it was on a MUCH smaller scale than it is now. I'm sorry that things have gone as they have for you. I hope you're able to find happiness once this is behind you. You deserve it! As far as my stuff, that's certainly eye-opening. It does seem more like the woman is the refuser and that that would have a bit of a better chance of working out. Still, the odds are terrible. I will never understand why he doesn't seem to want sex either. He also says that he keeps things to himself (which is true), and I guess that includes his desires. But that's not okay in a situation in which I have asked you to PLEASE give me affection and intimacy. It's just not. Our beginning was good. I felt that I had found someone who combined the sexual chemistry AND the emotional component, because I had had each in two different people before, but not really both. I thought I hit the jackpot! Then it slowly but surely decreased. I've been on him from Day 1 of this happening and I've never stopped. I have always been the ONLY one to bring it up and voice concern over it. I have to believe that his exes also had similar complaints. I really think his upbringing could have something to do with it. Or, like you said, there is some big secret there. I don't know. I've asked so many times, but it could be too much for him to say. Yeah, the sex drive things hurts like a punch to the gut. Like really? It makes NO sense to me! It's just something to say, and maybe he's trying to save face and look like a "man." It hurts though. I don't even know what else it could be besides gay or cheating, and I don't think it's either... |
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Post by joy6016 on Dec 1, 2016 17:57:57 GMT -5
Yeah you are right again, beachguy. It sure seems simple to me, especially if the attraction is there. Sadly, I do think he does love me, but I'm not sure he knows what intimacy is, at least sexually. He claims that it was so good in the beginning because I kept things going and he could tell I wanted to do it, and that now, that's not the case.
He said he feeds off other people and he can tell that I'm not into it now. Sigh. He didn't make it to the wedding. I'm chasing this because ugh, there is good about him. I know it's probably not at all clear here, but he's a sweet guy. He'll do anything for you, is sweet, funny, etc. I know that sounds so trivial, but it's hard to imagine him not being around.
I am working through this, because before, I never even thought about the possibility. I'm still making progress. And yes, he is a lot of talk and no action - I'm sure he was that way with the exes too..
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Post by petrushka on Dec 1, 2016 17:59:18 GMT -5
In my early 20s .. I hooked up with this girl who was to become "the love of my life". The intensity was just ... words fail me.
And after 3 years she started to detach, it became harder and harder to get an emotional, never mind sexual response from her.
One night I was lying next to her in my bed (we had separate accomodation) and I was stroking her, and I realized: "I would be more
likely to get a response from a wooden Indian" and "I don't want to live the rest of my life like this". My next thought was to jump
off the (4th floor) balcony head first. Then I started shaking, hard. Which woke her up, and we had it out. Faced with my condition
she admitted that she had started detaching a year ago, but wanted to keep me around as a 'token boyfriend' for status.
.... I told her at that point, that I'd continue to be her friend, but that I did not want her to come sleep over at my flat any more.
The deadline is "now".
Once you have reached the point where you realize that things have moved past the 'line in the sand', once the
last straw has broken the camel's back, there's no point in dragging it out.
Don't get me wrong - I am in favour of working on relationships. I've persisted in a sexless marriage for 14 years now. But, that's because
things have changed considerably.
If, for years, having had several "Talks" there has been no change, there is no change in sight .... what are you waiting for?
The one thing that years of discussions in Experience Project and here have taught all of us is this: typically the 'refuser' or 'rejector' has no interest in change: they are happy with the status quo, their needs are being met. They don't want to put themselves out any further. And when they bestir themselves, it's mostly "reset sex" that lasts for approx. 4-6 weeks and things to back to where they were.
And, what @jim4444 said ..
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Post by joy6016 on Dec 1, 2016 17:59:49 GMT -5
Ugh, it's hard to hear those words, greatcoastal, but I probably need to. You're really right. I never look at him and see a controller - he seems too sweet. But you are right. Takes the air out of me, truly! He has never really been controlling with the other things you've listed - I can pretty freely spend money, choose everything (he never knows or cares!), etc. He is a VERY passive person in general, so it's hard to think of him as controlling. But with this issue, he probably is. |
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Post by joy6016 on Dec 1, 2016 18:01:27 GMT -5
Thank you, callisto. <3 It's very hard, especially when the other person isn't a complete jerk or horrible, and you get along quite well with them. I really wish you well too, and hope that you can find the right answer. I'm certainly struggling with that right now!
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Post by joy6016 on Dec 1, 2016 18:03:51 GMT -5
I love that quote, thebaffledking! The mind is very jacked-up. It can tell you that you feel one way, and the next day? It's like you're a different person. That's where I am now. I feel like I'm so confused and all over the place. I think it's so hard for a lot of us because our spouses aren't awful people. They generally love us, but don't understand the horrible toll that this takes.
I'm glad for us congregating here! I feel very understood and helped on a level that not even a therapist can get, because they've probably never been there. Hopefully not, at least! I love that song too! Why are we waiting? There's always "someday" but it does truly never come. All we have is right now.
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Obviously I get something or I would've left a long time ago, but it's certainly not fulfilling on a level that I want.
? And he did this with a straight face? Are you serious? If it were me I would have had to respond with "you managed to fuck me 5 times last year, what exactly are you doing with this huge sex drive?
